If you have never heard of Synfig Studio, you are not alone… Neither have I up until a little while ago. Synfig has been in development for a long long time, and has recently come out with a brand new 1.0 release.
Use the full-featured bone system to create cutout animation using bitmap images or control your vector artwork.
Synfig is a free and open sourced vector based 2D animation software that is intended as an industrial strength solution for creating film quality 2D animation. Synfig Studio allows you to work with 2D vector artwork and keyframes. New in the latest release is the ability to deform 2D characters with joints and bones.
Synfig Studio 1.0
Synfig Studio 1.0 has a brand new user interface, that was reworked to give a more friendly experience and be much more intuitive to use. Synfig now incorporates a single window mode that is powered but the modern GTK3 libraries.
Bones for Animation
The latest release has a full-featured bone system. You can easily create to cutout animation in Synfig, using either bitmap images or vector artwork. The Bone MultiLink feature allows you to connect your artwork to the joint system with just a few clicks. You are also able to set the region of influence that the bones will have on the artwork, letting your design a bit with the deformations.
Cutout Tool
New to Synfig Studio 1.0 is the cutout tool. The tool offers non-destructive editing of your artwork right within Synfig. So you can cut your bitmap images to prepare them for animation without leaving the application. Again, Synfig does this nondestructively, so there is no need for re-importing items if you make a mistake.
Work with Sound
Version 1.0 has a new Sound Layer. With this layer you can have all the basic features needed for syncing your animation with audio or a soundtrack.
Simple 2D Dynamics
Synfig also offers some simple built in physics. You can automatically create friction and drag effects using the new Dynamics Converter.
Download and try out Synfig Studio
Synfig Studio is a free and open-source 2D animation software and runs under Windows, Linux and Mac OS X – to learn more about Synfig Studio 1.0 and its features, check the development site. You can also download Synfig here.
via [libregraphicsworld]
