Re: [Synfig-user] Animating Gradients

[Chris M. <do...@gm...>]

On 9/16/07, Carlos Lopez Gonzalez <car...@ya...> wrote:
> You're absolutely right. I felt a little silly once I
> send the message and read your first proposal and
> realize then that it was the same solution that I
> gave.

Well, the fact that we both came up with the same solution made me
feel better about it anyway.

> Regarding about more than two Cpoints at same place I
> think It only should have some use if you want to
> animate the position of the CPoints.

I have made a change today which keeps all the cpoints in place, and
animates them, even if they aren't 'visible' in the gradient (yet).

> I'm wondering if it would be better to Convert the
> Gradient into its components:

This is a very nice idea.  I saw the 'two tone' conversion for
gradients, and was thinking about adding 'three tone', but synfig
supports arbitrary length lists in its conversions - that's what it
uses for vertices in outlines and regions, so a new conversion type
which lets us view cpoints as a list of sub-parameters would be a good
way to do it.  The current animation of gradients that I just
implemented doesn't really let you move a cpoint - it lets you fade
the old one out and fade the new one in, but that's not the same, and
doesn't look as smooth, so adding the extra convert type you suggest
is something I'll look into doing.

> In this way the position or the color could be easily
> animated and everything is easier. If you want to go
> from a 3 CPoints gradient to a 5 CPoints gradient just
> create the 2 extra ones before, without changing the
> look of the original gradient and then move it and
> change its color as you want.

Indeed.

> FOrgive me if you have discussed this option before
> and I reopen it again...

I've not seen it discussed before.

Chris.