“...That was the original idea from day one - the elimination of the tweening process. But it is certainly not the only feature of Synfig that makes it unique. In addition to eliminating the tweening process, I also wanted Synfig to be used for pretty much every part of production except story-boarding and editing.”
Synfig Studio 0.63.00
We are proud to announce the release of Synfig Studio 0.63.00. This is a major release delivering you new features, improvements and, of course, bug fixes. The main highlights of this version are listed below. For detailed list of changes please refer to the NEWS files in the source code.
Advanced Outline context menu
Advanced Outline Layer
The most significant change in the new version delivers you improved control over the outlines. Now you can define outline width at any arbitrary point of the BLine. This functionality is available with the new layer type, called "Advanced Outline".
Advanced Outline layer is created the same way as regular outline - using BLine Tool. Just make sure you have "Create Advanced Outline BLine" option checked in the Tool Options Panel. Creating of Advanced Outlines using the Draw Tool is not possible by now - this feature is postponed for the further releases.
With Advanced Outline you can slide width ducks along the BLine an thus define desirable width at any place independently of the vertex placement. Also you can select cusps type and control smoothness of width interpolation. With the context menu you can easily set width to zero or default value and even create gaps in your outline!
Smart Linking of Tangents
Easy BLine editing
This feature introduces you new way of editing BLine shape without touching the tangent ducks. Just click at any point of BLine and drag your mouse - the BLine will change its shape adapting to the mouse position.
This way of editing shapes can be more intuitive for some users. Also, this method allows to hide tangent ducks and have less ducks cluttering the workarea during editing.
New canvas look comparing to old version
Cairofication
We have made first steps towards increasing Synfig Studio perfomance by porting it to Cairo. Currently some work done on porting interface elements - for example, you can notice nice and smooth look of the ducks on the canvas.
Cairofication of other aspects of gui, as well as the main canvas rendering engine, is pending.
Canvas guides
Now, in addition to grid, you can have one more flexible type of positioning - guides. You can add gude by clicking on one of the rulers in the canvas window and dragging your mouse to the canvas. Snapping to guides works too - just select "View" > "Snap to Guides" from the canvas menu.
Width Tool feedback element
The Width Tool now have feedback element showing you affected position and radius of influence. There are also some changes in the algorithm that should make this tool work more precisely for you.
Other changes
There are several more changes to mention:
- Enable displaying tooltips for parameters in Params Panel.
- Translations to new languages: Brazilian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovakian
- Some bugs fixed.