Synfig Studio (also known as Synfig) is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

vector Vector most often refers to: * Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction * Disease vector, an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematics a ...

-based 2D

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

software. It is created by Robert Quattlebaum with additional contributions by Adrian Bentley. Synfig began as the custom animation platform for Voria Studios (now defunct), and in 2005 was released as free/

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

software, under GNU GPL-2.0-or-later.

Features

As a true front-end and back-end application, it is possible to design the animation in the front-end, ''Synfig Studio'', and to render it at a later time with the backend, ''Synfig Tool'', on another (potentially faster) computer without a graphical display connected. Incremental and parallel rendering with Synfig Tool is supported by some open source render farm management software, such as RenderChan. The goal of the developers is to create a program that is capable of producing "feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources." The program offers an alternative to manual tweening so that the animator does not have to draw each and every frame. The software is capable of simulating soft-shading using curved

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function f of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p gives the direction and the rate of fastest increase. The g ...

s within an area so that the animator doesn't have to draw shading into every single frame. There is also a wide variety of other real-time effects that can be applied to layers or groups of layers like radial blurs, color tweaks that all are resolution-independent. Other features include the ability to control and animate the width of lines at their individual control points, and the ability to link any related data from one object to another. Synfig also works with High Dynamic Range Imaging.

File formats

Synfig stores its animations in its own

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

file format, often compressed with

gzip gzip is a file format and a software application used for file compression and decompression. The program was created by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler as a free software replacement for the compress program used in early Unix systems, and ...

. These files use the

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(uncompressed), (compressed) or (zip container format). The files store vector graphics data, embed or reference external

bitmap In computing, a bitmap (also called raster) graphic is an image formed from rows of different colored pixels. A GIF is an example of a graphics image file that uses a bitmap. As a noun, the term "bitmap" is very often used to refer to a partic ...

images, and also a revision history of the project. Synfig can render to video formats such as AVI,

Theora Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It was developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg contai ...

and

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, as well as animated graphics formats such as MNG and

GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...

. It can also render to a sequence of numbered image files, using formats such as PNG, BMP, PPM and OpenEXR. From version 0.62.00, Synfig has basic support for SVG import. From version 0.91

Inkscape Inkscape is a vector graphics editor. It is used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagrams, and flowcharts. It uses vector graphics to allow for sharp printouts and renderings at ...

can save as file format.

Morevna era

200px, Morevna Project. Much of the development of the tool since May 2008 has been in association with the Morevna Project, a Russian organization centered around an animation project using Synfig and other

libre software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

and based on the folkloric characters of Ivan Tsarevich and Marya Morevna, specifically in the context of '' The Death of Koschei the Deathless'' re-invented as a science fiction anime. They have been making regular updates since then on the Morevna project site, including a demo video released on November 10, 2012 and several episodes of the Morevna story and of animatics based on the '' Pepper&Carrot'' webcomic. '' Free Software Magazine'' contained an article on the project.

Name

It was originally called SINFG, a recursive acronym for "SINFG Is Not a Fractal Generator", referring to the software's capability of generating fractal imagery in addition to animation.

References

External links