The next steps

So, we have reached our first milestone by releasing the Demo. Though, it’s not time to relax –  there are still a lot of odds and ends to finish before we can proceed with the production of the next episode. Here I’m going to outline our main priorities for the next two months.

Synfig development. Synfig Studio is an important and vital part of Morevna Project. So we are strongly interested to be in sync with its development and contribute back. When working on the Demo we have made some unofficial modifications (plugins support and disabled keyframes). Now we have to incorporate  those features into the official (master) branch and release a new version of Synfig Studio. With the release of new version we also plan to rework terminology of Synfig Studio by making it less exotic. This is a small change to the code, but with huge influence to documentation. So we have to work hard on that.

DVD and Artbook. Besides watching Morevna Demo online, some people would like to have a DVD-version to hold in their hands. That’s why we plan to make a DVD-version available for purchase. It will contain the Demo itself, together with a lot of extra data: all sources and software to recreate the movie from scratch, video tutorials, complete ora-files for all paintings and many more. Well, in fact DVD medium looks kinda old-fashioned nowdays, so I’m considering to use SD-cards instead. Also we want to  publish an artbook illustrating the process of creating each scene of the Demo with some useful notes and comments.

Website. As the project growing, our website needs a lot of love too. We have a lot of interesting stuff here, but it’s not visible due to the lack of good structure. Also I would like to have a nice and attractive frontpage, highlighting the main things from the start. So, it’s time to redesign and restructure the stuff. Be prepared for changes.

Alternative soundtrack. Previously I have mentioned a music band from LaGrange who wrote a very nice rock song for Morevna Project. Unfortunately they didn’t managed to finish it to the Demo release, but I think it will be a waste to drop the song in its current state. They  have provided all the source tracks for me so I can  make my own changes and they are willing to give their further support. I’m very interested to work on the song and bring it to the finished version according to my vision. So it will be another interesting challenge! BTW, the music band members are happy to publish the song under the terms of our beloved CC-BY.

Remake release and rewrite. We have to release the new version of Remake with our latest changes. After that I’m going to fully rewrite it into Python language. With the practice of rendering Morevna Project Demo it become obvious that we have significant performance bottlenecks caused by current implementation in bash. Rewriting the tool in Python also make it much easier to develop and maintain, opening a great perspectives for further improvements.

Well… In fact I’m pretty sure it will not be possible to fit all the work above into the tiny two months. But at least we have chances to complete some of them.

Why I’m sticking with 2-months interval? Because on February 1st we plan to launch the donation campaign for the next episode (most probably using Indiegogo this time). That surely will take some time to prepare too and by that time we will see how much of our plans will come true. Well, at least you won’t think that we are plan to have lazy days here. ^__^

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9 Responses

  1. “we also plan to rework terminology of Synfig Studio by making it less exotic.”

    Thank goodness! I’ve tried learning Synfig (half-heartedly, I’ll admit) a few times. I’ve always found that things that had fairly standard names across most other apps (like nodes) always seemed to have different names in Synfig (ie “Ducks”?!) which just made learning things harder and take more time than it needed.

    I would *love* to learn how to use Synfig well. I’m familiar with using complex apps (eg Blender, Maya, Avid, Lightwave). While there is often a need for complex apps though, the need to re-invent pre-existing terminology is always a hindrance.

    Anyway, congratulations on the demo release, and good luck with the work, yet to come!

  2. indie gogo? i was about to sugest use something like kickstarter (or maybe more than one of those kind of services)

    I’m happy you got this idea , things should get easier now ^__^

    good luck!

  3. This project is amazing and gives aspiring 2-d graphics and animators, like myself, great hope for what you can accomplish. I think the work you guys have been doing is great; keep up the great work!!

    Also, thanks for all of the additions to Synfig including the more basic terminology, it’s very much appreciated!

  4. @nyula:
    Yes, Indiegogo. To run a Kickstarter campaign you have to be a resident of US or UK. Such conditions cannot be applied for us.

    @John Smith
    Reworking terminology and improving the tools are two completely different tasks. We consider reworking pen tool someday, but it won’t be porting of Inkscape’s Pen. I see it much like drawing in the way as demonstrated by ILoveSketch project:

    Luckily there is a paper published on that (and the 2d sketching case is not covered by patent):
    http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~shbae/pdfs/Bae_Kim_Kwon_2003_Digital.pdf

    BTW, I hope you aware there is already a tool in Synfig similar to Inkscape’s Pen – it’s called “Draw Tool” –
    http://wiki.synfig.org/wiki/Draw_Tool
    and It’s usage explained here –
    http://wiki.synfig.org/wiki/Doc:Creating_Shapes#Using_tablet_to_draw_shapes

  5. I was wondering since you taught children about synfig
    Can you do a synfig tutorial series using the latest synfig since morenva project demo is released?Maybe a 6 hour series that starts with the the interface, then we are introduced to things like model sheets,maybe even explain all the params panel in an easy to understand way especially interpolation.

  6. Hi, John!
    We’re considering to make a tutorial series someday, but right at the moment wi are already overloaded with other tasks with higher priority. So, maybe someday. ^_^

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