We have updated Pencil packages. Please grab them from the packages page.

Major reasons to upgrade:

• Duplicate frame button
• Keybindings to control the applications

Notice that this version of Pencil is different from the official one. We have made several improvements and bug fixes. Unfortunately, they were not included into official version.

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Synfig Studio packages have been updated. It is release candidate for the upcoming 0.62.02 version with a lot of usability improvements. Please grab the updates from packages page.

Major reasons to upgrade:

• Smart linking for tangents.
• Option to forbid animation for any layer parameter to avoid accidental change in the animation mode.
• New default blend method option – “By Layer Default”.

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It’s been a long time since we posted last demo snapshot. I guess it’s time for another one. ^_^

Download Ogg/Theora video: demo-20101010.ogv (34Mb).

Shot 51: Artwork by Eleonora Pala

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Priestess-Sister character concept by Eleonora Pala:

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Here’s some artwork pieces from the past week:

Ivan's Sisters layouts WIP by Varvara Zaharova

Shot 49 artwork by Eleonora Pala

I am proud to announce new version of “Remake” – unified build system for animation projects. It’s purpose to automatically track changes in your project files and update rendered footage.

Download remake-0.2.tar.gz

What’s new:

• Support for the Blender 2.5x.
• New “-t” option to run multiple jobs in parallel when rendering footage.
• New “snapshot” feature – you can save the current rendering as video file to track your “work in progress” changes. This feature is especially useful when your project is under version control. See manual page for more information.

See also:

• About Remake
• Tutorial

Morevna Project is proudly presents an update of Stickman Template. Stickman Template is used for character animation. It tends to simplify setup when you want to make animation in cutout technique or something more complex.

Changes:

• Now stickman’s parts are automatically stretched depending on the bone length.
• Additional scale and rotation controls for head.

Enjoy!

Download Stickman Template

OK, looks like it’s time to try the new strategy of attracting contributors to the project.

Our previous strategy was based on the assumption that contributors will work directly with the production tree and maintain their working copies using git. Now I should admit that it was quite naive for me to expect this strategy to be the main one for collaboration. At least at this time.

New strategy is the strategy of “calls” – small, extremely specific tasks where multiple people can put their efforts together without deploying full toolchain, described in the Contributor’s Guide. I hope this strategy will bring community closer to the project, let us have more fun and make the Morevna Project more “crowd-sourced”.

This is the first call from the series I plan to make and it’s about drawing.

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During the process of adaptation of Morevna repositories for the new build system we have decided to get rid of complex repository structure involving submodules. The purpose of using submodules was to have the ability to watch the histories of many repositories in sync. I have to admit now, that “git-submodules” approach is a fail.

Now all repositories are the “same level” – there’s no “super-repository” anymore. The “production” repository is replaced  by the “lib” repository, which is now of the same level as the “demo” one. For the cases when we need “synced” history view, that problem is gracefully solved by “git-subtree” and that results in much simpler structure and workflow.

Current repository users need to re-fetch all data according to new structure. Please wait while we updating “Contributor’s Guide” with new instructions.

EDIT: “Contributor’s Guide” updated. Have fun!