Here’s another update for Pencil fixing few minor issues:

• Blank keyframes are saved correctly now. #7
• Fix Ctrl+Z keybinding not working under some circumstances.
• Fix some keybindings to be more conventional.

Download now

As usual, the source code can be found in this git repository. All changes are made against the Pencil SVN190.

We have updated Pencil packages. Please grab them from the packages page. This version is different from the official one and includes all our previous modifications, as well as following improvements provided by davidefa:

• Export movie fixed. Audio layers are mixed with video now. To select video format use an ‘appropriate’ filename extension (ex: .avi, .mov, .mpg, .mp4…), movie framerate is selectable (but output codecs don’t support all framerates, a safe and usual choice should be 24, 25 or 30 fps).
• Audio playback fixed
• Minor fixes in audio layers ( corrupted audio passed end of ‘audio frame’ )
• Improved undo/redo functionality
• Fixed saving animation (removed ‘optimization’, now saving is slower but safer)
• Added fps parameter in saved animations
• 3 ‘layers’ of onion skinning (configurable trough edit->preferences->tools, to remove a layer set its opacity to 0)
• Added import movie (frames are imported at the current fps, there is no check to limit the imported frames)
• Other minor fixes (moving selection on bitmap layers, moving layers, load and save dialogs…)

The source code can be found in this git repository. All changes are made against the Pencil SVN190.

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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On May 31, 2010 new version of Synfig Studio was released. You can download it from the packages page.

Major reasons to upgrade:

• Reworked Motion Blur layer.
• Better SVG import
• New functionalities of Normal Tool
• Improved rendering to avi when using ffmpeg target
• Fixed issue with tablets and other input devices at first run
• Fixed issue with remembering windows layout

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It’s been a long time since Synfig Studio 0.62.00 came out. But because of our absence this significant event didn’t get mentioned here. It’s time to “redress an injustice”. We’re on 0.62.00 now. The packages page is updated.

Major reasons to upgrade:

• Hey, it’s release!

Synfig Studio packages have been updated. Please grab them from the packages page.

Major reasons to upgrade:

• Reverse manipulation for scale convert type
• Improved UI
• Keyframes are now displayed in Curves panel
• Keyfames are now draggable
• Tablet settings are remembered
• CPH monitor to collect statistics about crashes

More info:

A long time the only way to change keyframe position was only through editing Keyframes panel. In this version keyframes are displayed on the timeline and (yes!) you can drag them with mouse. You can also shift a bunch of keyframes by dragging with ALT key pressed.

New panel on top of the canvas window shows and allows to change display mode for a canvas. For example, it’s very handy to see which ducks types you have enabled at the moment.

Also, there is a good improvement that allows to manipulate ducks converted to “Scale” type. This improves workflow very much for such techniques like “Sewing Blines”. This improvement is one step to the “Smart tangents linking” feature.

Sometimes there are nasty changes in Synfig code happen and that causes overall Synfig instability. To track those changes we now have a tool called CPH monitor. It collects information about Synfig crashes and should give us necessary statistics about its overall stability. Of course this statistics is very approximated and depend on user activity type.

I think that update deserves a screenshot:

Click to enlarge.

P.S. By the way, CPH is stands for “crash per hour”. ^_^

Pencil is a open-source software for making traditional (frame-by-frame) animation. Now we packaging Pencil too, because we using it intensively for producing animation sketches (animatics).

• for RPM-based distributions (Fedora, Red Hat, Mandriva, etc.):
  • 32bit: pencil-0.4.4b-54.morevna.1.i386.rpm
  • 64bit: pencil-0.4.4b-54.morevna.1.x86_64.rpm
• for Debian-based distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, etc.):
  • 32bit: pencil_0.4.4b-54.morevna.1_i386.deb
  • 64bit: pencil_0.4.4b-54.morevna.1_amd64.deb

NOTE: You need Qt >= 4.3.4 installed to run Pencil.

Synfig Studio packages have been updated. Please grab them from the packages page.

Major reasons to upgrade:

• Integrated support for “magick++” render target.

More info:

The “magick++” render target could be used for rendering gifs. During the discussions on WIPs we often use gif files to quickly show the animation previews. Gif files are also good when we want to integrate small pieces of animation as a part of some tutorial page for illustration purposes. The advantage of usage “magick++” render target over standart “gif” render target is the significant difference in speed and resulting image size.

See also: Synfig render options.

OpenSource software could evolve really fast and dramatically change behavior from version to version. Those changes could produce regressions. That’s why it is necessary for all Morevna Project  members to use the same versions of production software.

Blender is included in the repositories of all popular linux distributions, but usually without FFMPEG support. Though, it is easy to obtain appropriate binary from blender.org official site. Situation with Synfig Studio is worse. We’re using development version from SVN, because it contains some nice recently developed features and have more bugs fixed. From time to time it is happens what we discovering new bug, and if it is fixed we are not waiting for the release and jumping to next SVN version.

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