Synfig skip sequence - squirrel dreaming of acorns

[uberscientist]

WOW! Very impressive.

[Kay1209Kay]

THAT SUN STARES INTO YOUR DEEP,DEEP SOUL. O-O

[caricaturize1]

Ppl below seem to be struggling with the same question that I have. How do you "draw" a squirrel on frame 1 for example..and redraw him on frame 2? what do you do with the objects of the first frame? is this 'replacement' animation? Can you please make a tutorial of how the rotation of his face was done? thank you and great work!

[taiglander]

@caricaturize1 "Drawing" for me means using the bline tool to create every single detail (shape of the head, ear, inside of the ear, fur on the cheek...). The layers remain on the other frames, but you have to slightly move them to match the new shapes and positions. Of course some details disappear (just turn their amount to 0), while new ones come out (create them ex novo but don't forget to turn their amount to 0 on the previous frames). It's just simplier and more boring than you think :-)

[hahli1994]

Was the images (frames such as the squirrel) imported into synfig and then objects such as the acorns were rotated in synfig too? But the backgrounds were developed in synfig? How do you turn synfig into a frame by frame kind of program?

[taiglander]

@hahli1994 Hi! The original jpg image with the different frames was imported using the import option, but it serves only as background reference, because then you have to manually draw your character (bline tool) by creating layers - regions and outlines - for the different parts of its body. The squirrel is made up of some 80 layers. They must be then singly animated for 10 keyframes (again with the jpg original as a reference), while Synfig elaborates the in-betweens.

[taiglander]

@hahli1994 The acorns were drawn and animated (rotation layer) in Synfig, same as the background (simple translation towards left and loop). The video was rendered as a png sequence and then edited in MonkeyJam (really simple program, but I suggest you to use Blender if you want to add some sound).

[mrgreyblake]

So the actually squirrel animation was done elsewhere (not in synfig)?

[taiglander]

@mrgreyblake

No, everything you see was drawn and animated in Synfig, but the poses of the squirrel are not original, in the sense I took the original ones by Preston Blair (jpgs images), traced (copied) them and let Synfig draw the in-betweenings to see how it works. Hope I was clear!

[blancman]

amazing animation work!

[zohaibayub85]

hey taiglader do u have any tutorials that could be useful to me??? i've just started learning basics.

[Sepero1]

I think a perspective mistake was made. The flowers/mushrooms in the foreground should move faster than those in the background.

Otherwise, it looks very good. 5stars

[taiglander]

Thanks for the comment! You're really right, and that's not the only mistake: if you notice, the flowers on the background run much faster than the mushrooms on the same level... But what I dislike the most is the fixity of the sun: it makes my poor little squirrel appear like jogging on a treadmill :-) At least it'll lose some flesh on its belly ;-)