Synfig is a vector based 2D animation package. It is designed to be capable of producing feature-film quality animation.
The software eliminates the need for tweening, preventing the need to hand-draw each frame.
Synfig can be used for all aspects of the production of animations except story-boarding and editing. It has a powerful high-dynamic-range compositing system which allows users to add all sorts of special effects and shading directly in the software while maintaining spacial and temporal resolution independence.
Synfig stores its animations in a non-standard xml-based-format, which includes natively vector graphics and additionally raster graphics, referenced to external stored bitmaps.
Key Features
- Standard tools for freehand drawing: Draw shapes, select colours, fill areas etc.
- Spatial resolution-independence.
- Temporal resolution independence – use of keyframes to reduce the workload.
- Pentablet-friendly tools.
- Path-based Gradients.
- Supports a multitude of layers of various types; geometric, gradients, filters, distortions, transformations, fractal and a few others.
- Simulating soft-shading using curved gradients within an area.
- Wide variety of real-time effects which are added via layers.
- Control and animate the width of lines.
- Link any related data from one object to another.
- Saves to animated graphic formats like MNG and GIF.
- Output targets include JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, PPM, DV, OpenEXR, ffmpeg (MPEG1), libavcodec (AVI), imagemagick (MIFF), yuv420p, MNG, and others.
Website: www.synfig.org
Support: Documentation
Developer: Robert Quattlebaum, Adrian Bentley and contributors
License: GNU GPL v2 or later
Synfig is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Animation Tools | |
|---|---|
| Synfig | Capable of producing feature-film quality animation |
| Blender | 3D creation suite with a huge variety of uses including animation |
| LibreSprite | Create 2D animations for videogames |
| Pencil2D | Easy, intuitive tool to make 2D hand-drawn animations |
| Tahoma2D | Full-featured 2D and Stop Motion animation creation based on Toonz Studio |
| Drawpile | Draw, paint and animate together with others on the same canvas |
| Glaxnimate | Simple and fast vector graphics animation program |
| OpenToonz | Based on Toonz Studio Ghibli Version |
| Friction | Motion graphics software for vector and raster animations |
| Inochi Creator | Tool to create and edit Inochi2D puppets |
| EagleAnimation | Stop-motion animation application |
| K-3D | 3D modeling and animation software |
| enve | Create vector animations, raster animations, with sound and video files |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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