Welcome to the Spoken Tutorial on “Create a Plant animation” using Synfig.
In this tutorial, we will familiarize ourselves with animating shapes in Synfig.
We will learn to- draw shapes and group layers,
add a vertex by using Insert item,
split tangent option,
mark active point as off option and
animate the shapes.
Here we will create a Plant animation.
To record this tutorial, I am using-
Ubuntu Linux 14.04 OS,
Synfig version 1.0.2
Let us open synfig.
Go to Dash home and type Synfig.
You can open Synfig by clicking on the logo.
Now, let us start creating the Plant animation.
We need to first create the graphics in Synfig.
We will create a plant with a flower.
Let us save our Synfig file.
Go to File and click on Save
Select the folder in which to save.
Type the filename as Plant-animation and click on the Save button.
Draw a white background layer before you draw any other shape.
Change the name of the layer as Background.
Go to toolbox. Select Spline tool.
Make sure that only "Create Region Layer" is selected.
In the toolbox, set the fill colour to green.
Now, draw a triangle with the Spline tool as demonstrated here.
We should close this shape after drawing the 3 vertices.
To do so, right-click on the first vertex and choose Loop Spline.
This will trace a green triangle shape.
To make a rounder triangle, we have to tweak the tangent handles a bit.
Click on Transform tool and then right-click on each vertex.
Select Split tangents so that the tangent handles of each vertex can be moved separately.
Observe the Layers panel.
A new layer is formed. Let’s name it as Stem.
Press Ctrl and S keys to save the file.
Now, we will learn to animate the shape of the stem.
Click on Turn on animate editing mode icon.
Select the shape by clicking on the Stem layer.
Make sure the Toggle tangent handles option is ON at the top of the canvas.
Then, go to the Time track panel and place the Time cursor on the 24th frame.
Select the Transform tool.
Click on the top vertex of the stem and drag it upwards on the canvas, as demonstrated.
You can use + and - sign for zoom in and zoom out respectively.
Next, go the ruler.
Drag five Guidlines on to the Canvas as shown.
Press Ctrl and S keys to save the file.
On the Toolbar, click on the Transform tool.
On the canvas, right-click on the shape.
Then click on Insert item and keep shape.
Add 10 more vertices on the Guidelines as done here.
Do this by clicking on Insert item and keep shape.
Now, right-click on each vertex.
Select Split tangents so that the tangent handles of each vertex can be moved separately.
Then go to the Time track panel and place the Time cursor on 23rd frame.
Go to parameter panel.
Click on the triangle icon of Vertices to open the group.
Check the newly added Vertices.
We have to make them inactive on the 23rd frame.
Right-click on the newly added vertices.
Click on Mark active point as off.
Do likewise for all the newly added vertices.
Press Ctrl and S keys to save the file.
Once again, go to the Time track panel and place the Time cursor on the 30th frame.
Come back to the canvas.
Move the vertices to create the starting part of the leaves, as demonstrated.
Again, go to the Time track panel and place the Time cursor on 37th frame.
Let’s come back to the canvas.
Move the vertices to create the leaves, like this.
Remember mark active point as off for newly added vertices only.
Back to the Time track panel.
Place the Time cursor on the 45th frame and move the top vertex, as shown here.
In the same way, we will add two more leaves in the Stem layer itself.
Go to the Time track panel and place the Time cursor on the 80th frame.
Move the vertices of the stem to form the green coloured sepals around the bud.
Once again, go to the Time track panel and place the Time cursor on 90th frame.
Then go to Keyframes and add a new keyframe.
Now, click on the Spline tool.
Make sure that only "Create Region Layer" is selected.
In the toolbox, set the fill colour to pink.
Then draw a bud with the Spline tool, as demonstrated.
Remember to close this shape after drawing the 3 vertices.
To do so, right-click on the first vertex and choose Loop Spline'".
Note that the trace of the form is now closed.
Adjust the vertices and create bud shape.
Change the layer name as Bud.
Place the Bud layer below the Stem layer.
Again, go to the Time track panel and place the Time cursor on 99th frame.
Move the top vertex of the bud, as done here.
Press Ctrl and S keys to save the file.
Now, go to the Layers panel and select the Stem layer.
After this, come back to the canvas and right-click on the stem shape.
Add a vertex by clicking on Insert item and keep shape.
Likewise, we have to add 4 more vertices.
Place the time cursor on 98th frame and mark the active point off for these vertices.
Move the vertices as demonstrated, so that we get a shape like this.
Press Ctrl and S keys to save the file.
It’s a good habit to save our work frequently.
As we proceed ahead, I won’t mention this explicitly.
Please do so yourself at regular time intervals.
Go back to the Time track panel and place the Time cursor on 100th frame.
Go to the Layers panel and select the Bud layer.
Click on Duplicate twice.
Name the layers as petal_1 and petal_2.
Place the Time cursor on the 108th frame.
Move the nodes of the petals as demonstrated.
Go back to the Time track panel and place the Time cursor on the 115th frame.
Go to the Layers panel and select both the petal_1 and petal_2 layers.
Click on Duplicate.
Name new layers as petal_3 and petal_4.
Let’s come back to the Time track panel.
Place the Time cursor on 120th frame.
Move the vertices of the 3rd and 4th petals, as demonstrated.
Go to the Layers panel and select both the petal _3 and petal_4 layers.
Click on Duplicate.
Name the new layers as petal_5 and petal_6.
Back on the Time track panel, place the Time cursor on 140th frame.
Move the vertices of the 5th and 6th petals, as demonstrated.
Again, go to the Time track panel. Place the Time cursor on the108th frame.
Then go to the Toolbar and click on Transform tool.
Select the stem part of drawing.
And move the vertices of green sepals of the bud, as shown here.
Back on the Time track panel, place the Time cursor on the 128th frame.
Move the vertices of green sepals of the bud, as demonstrated.
Place the cursor on 0th frame. Select Bud layer.
Go to Parameters panel. Change the Amount to 0.
Similarly do for petals layers.
Let us do the same for 89th frame.
Click on Turn on animate editing mode icon.
Click on Seek to begin at the bottom of the canvas.
Play the animation by clicking Play icon.
Now, let's add a gradient in background layer.
Select Background layer. Click on gradient.
Drag gradient on the Background as demonstrated.
Set the outline colour to brown and fill colour to blue.
Let us now save our Synfig file.
Now, we will check the preview.
Go to File and then click on Preview.
Set the Quality as 0.5 and Frame per second as 24.
Click on the Preview button and then click on the Play button.
We can see a preview of the animation on the screen.
Close the Preview window.
Now, let us render the animation.
To do that, click on File and then on Render.
Click on Choose and open the Save render as window.
Click on the location where you want to save the rendered file.
Change the name to plant-animation.avi
Click on Target drop down menu and select the extension as ffmpeg.
Next, click on the Time tab and change the End time to 150.
Then click on Render.
Let us check our animation.
Go to Desktop.
Open the folder in which we saved our file.
Now select the plant-animation. avi.
Right-click and play the animation using Firefox web browser.
With this we have come to the end of this tutorial.
Let us summarize.
In this tutorial, we learnt to animate a plant in Synfig.
We also learnt to:
draw shapes with Spline tool,
add a vertex by using Insert item,
split tangent option,
mark active point as off option,
animate the shape.
Here is an Assignment for you.
Draw a simple cartoon face with long hair filled with different colors
and animate the hairs.
Your completed assignment should look like this.
Cartoon face with animated long hairs.
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