Synfig 0.62.01 Released

Finally the new version of Synfig is out. After six months of working with the Synfig Team we are proud to announce the new version release. We are so happy with it because finally the windows stability has been achieved and more people will enojoy the usage of Synfig Studio.

For the rest of news, follow the full story here:

http://synfig.org/en/news/releases/89-release-06201

Good animating!

Synfig: New Release Schedule

It is time for a new Synfig release! There have been some improvements that have been included in the development branch of synfig code. Although some of the improvements are very interesting, this time we have decided to just release a minor change so the release number will be 0.62.01.

Those are the main changes from 0.62.00 version:

• Improved stability for Windows version using now (optionally) a single thread render system.
• New Tool “Transform” which replace Normal Tool. Unified rotate – translate- scale tool.
• New standard GTK cursors for Scale, Rotate, Mirror, Smooth Move, Text, Rectangle and Star tools.
• Some improvements in SVG import module
• Add ffmpeg video codec and bitrate support at render time
• New Italian translation
• New icons for layers and parameters
• Some bug fixing

The schedule for the release will be like this:

1. Splash screen for the new version contest started on March and will end in April 30th.
2. During the last week of April, code will be frozen for new features and a candidate release will be out. Call for translators
3. During first week of May there will be the Splash screen contest voting pool. A new release candidate including latest code modification and translation will be out.
4. During second week of May the final release of 0.62.01 will be out.

The Synfig Project team is also working hard on Documentation restructure and wiki update. Any help on that is welcome.

Also a Code reorganization has been started towards 0.63.00 version.

Wish us good luck!!

Konstantin Dmitriev, artist, director and leader.

Konstatin Dmitriev (aka Zelgadis) is the leader and main animator, designer and director of the Morevna Project, the first 2D Open featured Movie in the world. This project is an special case of study. Using only Free/Open Source Software it has the aim to create a featured film. In the production pipeline there are used several well known tools: Pencil for rough drawings and animatic shots, Synfig for animatic composition and vectorized 2D animation, Blender for final composition, special effects and 3D environment in some scenes, Gimp/Krita for coloring and shading conceptual keyframes  and gnu/make and vorbis-tools as helpers for the project render.

Without any external financial and with only the help of some friends, he has created a very interesting project that will be a total success.

All the project sources are released under Creative Commons license so anyone is welcome to contribute. As all the sources of the project are available, he has settled  a git repository to control all the changes of the project and from which easily any one can retrieve all the files and just ‘make’ the whole animation if the proper tools have been installed. Also, for project management he has created a wiki and maintains a blog for the main news of the Morevna Project.  Even more, he has created his own universal packaging for the main production tools (pencil, synfig, blender) to be sure that all contributors have the proper tool available.

Konstantine is also a very active member of Synfig community and I am personally a fan of all what he does. His enthusiasm, persistence, nice humor, and all his knowledge, make him a valuable partner to care of.  I’m proud to have him as friend.

He has moved and installed the wiki, forum and joomla databases that holds Synfig Project into the new host (tuxfamily.org). Even more, he has created some DLP macros that are helping to reorganize the wiki and to help to translate it in any language, in an easier way.

In a few words, he is exceptional.

Synfig Studio: again on the road

After some months of incertidumbre, I’m happy to share with you that Synfig proyect is again on the road. There has been some code improvements lately that goes from a new unified Rotate/Scale/Translate tool to a great improvement in stability in the windows version.

Aslo we are looking forward to a new host solution that hopefully aid us to grow in a proper way. At the moment we still at http://synfig.org

Synfig challenges

In Synfig forum we use to do a monthly challenge to keep the usage of Synfig. This is the last challenge entry I’ve done. I tis completely created with Synfig. The intention was to use the random capabilities of Synfig.

New sketches

I’ve been drawing random stuff with my wacom and krita. Here are some of them:

Mr. Moloch

Mr. Moloch

This is the new face of Mr. Moloch. I’ve simplified the face making it easier to animate and draw. Also I’ve tried to give it a “mad looking”. I think that the ears are quite big but I like them that way. I will trace to Synfig and see how does it look. I want to test some different expressions over it to definitively select this face.

The color is something pending. Maybe I paint it with a weird color to make it different. Aslo I would like to paint its mouth of different color, like its stomach. I’m enjoying it!.

Again, Krita and a piece of paper on the tablet were my best partners.

Enjoying wacom tablet

I use a wacom Graphire to draw in the computer. Since I get it, never felt comfortable drawing with it. The feed back loop hand-wacom-screen-eye was not satisfactory. This evening something has changed.

First I put a piece of of paper between the wacom surface and the pencil. The paper feeling helped me heaps to increase productivity. Also I managed to change the body position in front of the screen and the wacom. Befre today I had the wacom just as much close to me as possible. It made me very difficult to coordinate the had movements and the eye feed back. I’ve just elonged my arms a bit and separated the wacom from my body. Not much but enough to make more “similar” the hand movement and the visual feedback.

The result was very intresting and I wanted to share with you.

The partner of Mr. Shipwrecked

Here I present the partner of Mr. Shipwrecked. This cat would make the life very annoying to our lonely man.

But it is not a mad animal. It is just a question of good luck and opportunity.

Opposite to our Shipwrecked man, this can looks fat, happy and funny. So, do you understand now why our man “hates” this partner? Anyway our man never would make any damage to this lovely cat because it is the only real partner he has.

I have to define what’s its color. Also I’m not so happy with the eyes. But the most important thing is to make it easy to animate.

It hasn’t a name yet. Hmmm, I have to think on one for it. Anny suggestions?

I did it mainly on Krita.

Mr. Shipwrecked

This character has been rounding my head a lot of time. This is going to be the main character of a set of adventures of a shipwrecked in an island. But he is not alone. There will be a partner that would make his l(already difficult life) a hell. Most of the time the problems comes on search and obtain food (look how thin is he).

This is a first sketch. Maybe can suffer some variations and simplifications. Let’s see where do I arrive with this.

I used Krita to create it and I plan to trace in Synfig to animate it.