Synfig Project Forum

I'm not too sure, but this might actually be the second major project (first being Morevna) where the primary animating tool would be Synfig. But since it's BIG I might need some help. Hopefully this is the right thread, but if it's not please move it to somewhere suitable.

Project Goals: 1) To promote Synfig as a choice as professional grade animating tool.
2) To help gather people to develop Synfig after making the world realize its potential.
3) To promote OpenSource tools for Major Multimedia Development projects and let the world know that it doesn't take money to build a good movie; just skill of small studios.
4) To set a new record of quality for fanbased movies.

Fleabane Trilogy: Moonlight Reckoning
You can read about it here.
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/ ... 278.0.html

The poster of the movie can be found here.
http://tushantin.deviantart.com/art/Awa ... -149891039

The plot sketch is done, and the script is halfway. I was initially planning to do the animation all on my own, but of course, to actualize this dream project I may not be able to do it alone, thus I require...

1) Storyboarder / Conceptionist
2) Pencil animator (Traditional pencil/pen, but one can use GIMP/Pencil software too)
3) Sound FX artist
4) Video guy (the one who clips and combines videos / Chroma Key thing)
6) Blender artist (for 3D elements and particles)
7) Background artist (Mostly, which is the most time consuming of all)
8.) A couple of more voice actors.

Please do reply and feel free to ask any questions.

_________________
Bartimaeus: "One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror."
My website of awesomeness!

Hi tushantin!
It is great you have started this project using Synfig!

I'm not sure I can help on artistic side but you have all support from the staff and anything you need from us (private forum, downloads, etc.) please ask us!
Maybe you can write an article for the forntpage of the website. I would love to publish it!
Good luck!
-G

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Synfig needs your help!
Developers, packagers, bug testers, translators, artists, web developers, wiki writers... you can contribute!

Wait, what kind of article? XD You mean film production using Synfig?

I do need some help on Linux multimedia though. Stopmotion doesn't seem to export video for me on Ubuntu (I almost NEVER use sudo apt-get since I have no net) but Avidemux works wonders with video sequences. I have heard a lot about Cinelerra and KDenLive, but I'm having issues with it; audio in Cinelerra doesn't seem to work, nor is it exported, and both crash. I was wondering if Jahshaka would be better though, but Blender does have a pretty good video tool although it's not meant for composting.

Any Video processors/Multimedia distros you'd recommend? That's actually the only problem I'm facing gravely.

As I progress I'll ask for some tips and advice. Thanks for the help!

EDIT: Oh yeah! And a good way to integrate Synfig animations with Blender? Chroma Key is good, but getting the 3D elements in position with an already done 2D animation is kinda... difficult. Some tips/tutorial would be great.

_________________
Bartimaeus: "One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror."
My website of awesomeness!

My children see "Code Lyoco" on TV. It's a French animated television series featuring both conventional animation and CGI. But you have not 2D and 3D at the same time.
I think you can have a background in 2D and the characters in 3D. Is this that you think about?

I mean that you can write an article (a summary of the project and the intentions) to be published on http://synfig.org. I can do a review too but I don't have so much time lately.



I think that there are some tips on Blender-Synfig integration at morevnaproject.org.

For video composition I think that Avidemux is good enough to produce master material. For video edition maybe you can give an opportunity to Openshot video editor. It looks interesting and simple enough for basic audio/video edition.

-G

_________________
Synfig needs your help!
Developers, packagers, bug testers, translators, artists, web developers, wiki writers... you can contribute!

Wow, I hadn't heard of OpenShot. I'll have to give that one a test drive.

Matt

_________________
Creepspace: The Witch Game - Created with open source software!

sounds like an ambitious project - and a fine one at that

I've used ubuntu and mandrake for several years, the best video editor I've found has been blender's compositor. There's a few interesting plugins you can download for it too. Cinellera, as you said, doesn't work (ten points for trying though).

integrating blender with synfig.. in blender, you can add a background image in the 3d view for reference, this can be a video or an image sequence... in 2.5, press the N key in the 3d view and scroll down to background images, tick the box and click on "add image" and then on the little triangle next to "not set", and then on "open image", and then browse away. If you want to use an image sequence, go to the folder with the images, press A to select all of them and click on "open". There will then be some options for your start and offset and so on.
This won't affect the background in the render at all, that will still be what you set it to in the render settings. (Personally I would render the 3d stuff with no background as pngs (rgba) and composite it all together after)

hope that helps-

I've actually made videos with Cinelerra, so I wouldn't say that it doesn't work, but it's neither as easy nor as stable as the Blender VSE - especially when working with image sequences.

Matt

_________________
Creepspace: The Witch Game - Created with open source software!

@Genete: No problemo! XD I'll get one done as soon as possible.

Thanks for Openshot! I've downloaded the dependencies and DEB packages and I'll check it on my comp today. Hell so long as it doesn't crash it's WIN!


@saorsa: Ah, so what plugins do you recommend? And thanks for the Blender input, I'll try that out.

_________________
Bartimaeus: "One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror."
My website of awesomeness!

yeh you're right, I should have phrased it more carefully... cinellera is (was?) a promising project. I made some nifty things with it too and it seemed to work ok, but it fell apart as the projects got bigger

The blender plugins I was thinking of are these:
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~mein/blend ... uence.html
( and I'm sure there are others scattered about the web : )

Ah thanks! Those plugins are awesome!

I guess I noticed this late.
http://synfig.org/en/news/latest/78-mor ... nd-blender
Awww man, that was my idea! Guess Morevna's gonna beat me, especially since I'm doing the whole project solo...

EDIT:
@Genete: It seems the article has a demo released. I suppose I'll have to wait until I too have a demo ready before writing the article so people might know the promise of quality.

_________________
Bartimaeus: "One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror."
My website of awesomeness!

You can do a small article first and then a better one later. Even if you need I can create a user account as redactor in the website.

-G

_________________
Synfig needs your help!
Developers, packagers, bug testers, translators, artists, web developers, wiki writers... you can contribute!

Hello im Alessio from italy im new to the forum,id like to help i can draw,i have also the program manga studio,let me know news,cy a

@Genete: Haha alrighty then. A bloke has just given me valuable feedback on the plot sketch so I'll be able to flesh out the story soon enough. After that I'll hand you the article.

@Wolverine82: Nice to know you're interested, but if you've read my post you'd know I'm mostly encouraging Opensource, so Manga Studio just isn't good enough. XD If you're experienced with GIMP/Inkscape lemme know.

_________________
Bartimaeus: "One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror."
My website of awesomeness!

i know but manga studio is the best for draw manga it has lot of tools stuffs and so much more,i havent those free programs cause always i use that program.Let me know if you would like to see my example of artwork,or if you like more do rough sketches and after i will draw yours with my style,cya soon (however i have also artrage 2.0 so good for coloring and do artistic work)