Re: [Synfig-user] several questions

[Robert B Q. Jr. <da...@de...>]

On Jun 6, 2006, at 9:54 PM, Danilo Pravica wrote:
> I came across synfig few days ago and I am already hooked.
> Although not everything was intuitive in the first instance and the
> documentation describes only basic functions I managed to learn  
> quite a
> few things by looking at provided examples.

Good, that's what they are there for. :)

> A simple question, is it possible to make an ellipse with synfig  
> studio?
> Circle is easy but to make ellipse, I had to do two symmetric blines
> which is a real pain. And then trying to join them is even worse :-)

No, there is not an ellipse layer in Synfig. No particularly good  
reason why other than we never really needed it at Voria so it never  
got implemented. As Paul suggested, perhaps the easiest way is to  
combine a circle layer with a stretch layer inside of an inline canvas.

> Also is it possible to make animations where things move along an
> outline/path? What I am trying to do is to move an object on  
> elliptical
> path - a real pain to do manually.

No, there is not. All animation in Synfig is based on keyframes/ 
waypoints. This is why we use the word "Bline" instead of "Path",  
because the word "Path" is overloaded to also apply to animation.  
Blines always refer to geometry.

> And finally, what is the point of keyframes in synfig? In other  
> programs
> I used they define frames where you define how they look and the  
> program
> tweens in between. But in synfig you can move the "green dots"  
> wherever
> you like and having keyframes makes no difference at all (except that
> you can jump quicker to specific times).

Keyframes provide a way to "lock down" specific frames so that when  
to manipulate the animation elsewhere that those keyframes don't change.

I explained this in more detail on the IRC channel the other day:

sciboy: K, oh and the Key dialog is mainly for reference?
darco: no, it has real utility
darco: when you create keyframes, synfig will try hard (by adding  
waypoints behind the scenes) to make sure that as you are changing  
things around in other frames that that keyframe doesn't change
darco: so, if you create, say, a circle... and you create a keyframe  
at 0s and 10s...
darco: then you create a keyframe at 5s, go into animate mode, and  
move the circle somewhere else
darco: You'll notice that the first and last keyframes haven't changed
darco: and that the circle will smoothly animate between all three  
keyframes

Hope that helps!


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