I’m curious if theres a way to create a type of “bones” setup in this app? For example, I have a character who needs to flex his bicep. If I could attach his arm to a bones system, i could rotate the bones and his arm would bend. 3ds max has this feature but I’m looking for something more 2D oriented. Thank you for any suggestions!
Unfortunately not yet.
There have been work on a bone system for Synfig but it’s not finished and I’m not sure when we can have it.
Yes, the bones are not ready. But you can use stickman template - morevnaproject.org/tag/stickman/
Here’s short explanation how to use it:
First, you need to know how to control it.
Download and unpack example that I have attached (kach.zip).
kach.zip (755 KB)
Open .sif file provided inside.
You’ll see a character.
Now go to the Groups Panel (wiki.synfig.org/wiki/Groups_Panel).
Don’t confuse with Layers Panel!
You will see 2 groups - “skeleton” and “stretches”. You will need
“skeleton” one. Double-click on it.
You will see lots of green dots appearing on the canvas.
Try to move them. You will see that character’s parts are moving with them.
That’s how you manipulate stickman.
The black lines on top of the characters are used to show character
structure. You can safely remove them, but it’s better to hide them.
To do that go to Child panel, unroll the “ValueBase Nodes” list and
find “stickman-amount” parameter. Set it’s value to zero.
This example shows stickman usage for cutout animation - each part of
stickman is an image, cut part of original character. But for
high-quality animation each part of stickman should be constructed of
vector regions and outlines. See attached file - “person.zip”.
person.zip (67 KB)
When you change character pose the parts can split apart and there’s a
gaps appear. Our workflow is to animate character first with stickman
and after that we’re manually fixing gaps, by deforming the shape of
each part (it’s easy to do, because they are vector ones).
OK. Now I’ll explain stickman creation a little.
When you want to create your own stickman for your own character you
should have a draft image of our character.
Open stickman template (empty one, downloaded form our site).
Import your character draft image into that file.
Now place stickman on top of the image file in the same pose.
Next, click on the gray shape of the stickman corresponding to his
body. And start creating layers representing his body. The layers will
be created on top of the body gray shape and will be tied to stickman,
because you clicked the gray shape at the first step. If you will not
click the gray shape it will not be selected and the created layers
will not be tied to stickman.
After you created a body, click on the character’s arm and create arm
part layers there. And so on for every part.
Remember: it’s critically important to click on the corresponding part
when you plan to add something to it! Otherwise the thing that you
have added will not be tied to stickman or will be tied to the wrong
“bone”.
I hope that will help you started.
Sorry for the messy explanations, but I’m a little in hurry.
Good luck!
K.