Development builds updated

Last months were not easy for us. As you probably know, we are working on the new optimized rendering engine for Synfig – Cobra. And today I am happy to announce that we  have reached significant milestone:

the Cobra rendering engine now capable to render ALL Synfig layers!

That means now you can use it instead of the old rendering engine and enjoy the benefits of optimization. For example, the current development version is already heavily tested in production of Morevna Project to build animation scenes like this. Check out the development builds below and give it a try!

To enable Cobra rendering engine choose “Edit” -> “Preferences” from Synfig menu and select “Render” category on the left. Then set “Cobra (software)” for “Navigator renderer” and “Workarea renderer” dropdowns.

Although the Cobra now can render all layers now, many of them are still implemented in the old way and missing the real optimizations. Here’s a list of layers that have been optimized so far:

• Vector layers: Region, Polygon, Outline and Advanced Outline.
• Image layer.
• Transformation layers: Translate, Rotate, Scale, Stretch.
• Groups and Switch Groups.
• Blur layer.
• Primitives: Circle, Rectangle, Star, FilledRect, SimpleCircle.

As an additional bonus, in the new version you will also find a new layer – “Free Time”. It allows you to animate… well, the time itself. So you can easily do re-timing, slow-mo effect or reverse your animations.

At the end of this post I would like to thank everyone, who contributed to our fundraising campaign for Synfig optimization and made this work possible. Special thanks to our latest contributors: Gabriel Diosan, Corey Hanson and Anonymous.