Chronic Ed: Woops! Animation [WIP]

Ok, Since I am making progress with Synfig, I’m going to try and document concepts and tools/functions that I use to generate this animation. It’s going to be slow going, as I’m attempting to make money, but I am trying, heh. (And I really hope I can get my old self back… :crossed_fingers: ).

Here’s the link for the original comic: https://forum.lettucecraft.com/t/chronic-ed-woops

Ok, the past 15 minutes was spent working on the background scenery. It crossed my mind, I could make the scenery in the window move along with Chronic Ed (This is being made for TikTok, so the dimensions of the video is going to be 1080x1920). So it should give it a more 3d like feel.

So I stretched the ground about twice the window width. I’ll place trees, maybe a cloud, don’t know what all yet, but I’ll place them along with the ground, and as Ed is walking through the room, the viewer should be able to see the distant objects move as well. Then once all the images are added, I’ll lower the layers so the horizon is hidden behind the wall.

Also, this is where Synfig will be kind of annoying, if I’m creating all this into inkscape first, then importing it into Synfig, all my layers will be changed, so I will have to slowly go through all the layers in Synfig and rename them (:thinking: Hmm! Doesn’t look like inkscape shows me the object/layer names, and even if it’s possible to change them. Will have to tinker around with inkscape some time and see what I can accomplish before importing into Synfig).

Welp, that’s all I can do for now. Back into town and try to make some more money.

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Ok, here’s the updated background scene showing the window as it’d look in the animation. I just need to add a couple pictures, and maybe a small table. :thinking: Might even need to raise the writing table, too, but won’t know that until I add Chronic Ed into the scene to get a feel for the height of everything.

Definitely not too keen on the color schemes yet, but my creativity is still pretty poor, oof. But meh, it’d be a trivial thing to change the colors if the Muse happens to grasp me just right.

How lovely that Chronic Ed is getting a new home, so to speak.

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Ok! I need to write this down before I forget. (No internet connection where I’m living now except on the phone).

I finally got the eyelid to move, blink, etc. But it’s a bit cumbersome (will work til I get an internet connection to look for and ask some questions on the synfig forums/help pages).

What I had to do is prepare all the nodes I’d need ahead of time and link every one to the same path. Then I could move the lid to the proper position in time, and adjust every tangent spline to the best spot.

There should be a way to automate this, but for the moment this will have to do.


Ok! The second test, I started the animation editing, and moved the eye lid to it’s fullest change, and it worked smoothly. Ok, I can finally do eyelids.

Alright! Found some more issues between creating images with inkscape and importing into Synfig.

  1. Objects with holes are imported without those holes, and each hole is its own image/layer.

That will be a huge problem when it comes to windows. :thinking: How am I going to rectify that? I can see only two options. 1. Cutting the wall into four parts, so that the four parts create an empty hole where the window will go. And 2. Just do away with a movable landscape.

Eh, I’m being overly pedantic. So I should just do away with the idea of a moving window scene.


Ok! I modified it so the background scenery doesn’t move.

So the first question I need to ask in the Synfig forums:

  1. How to save an SVG in Inkscape so that the layers are properly sized for the canvas in Synfig. (Basically, if I create a Synfig canvas of 1080x1920, and I create an image with the same dimensions in Inkscape, how do I export/save so that Synfig will load the same dimensions?).

Found an answer that works, for the scene I’m working on, [Solved] Different scale after export from Inkscape - Synfig related help - Synfig Forums . (Sometimes saving as a sif format doesn’t create everything. So will have to play around with things when that happens again).

https://i.imgur.com/CpeLQr3.mp4

Ok! I got it done–ish. I didn’t plan on the snack being a part of Chronic Ed until it was too late. However, I can edit it later and change it.

Anyway, because SVG changes the origins/scales/etc on insertion into sub groups (layers), the numbers no longer work the same. However, even once I figure out that, there’s another aspect of Synfig that can cause hiccups, and that’s the waypoint types. I’d say I’d have to play around with them, but nah, I’ll just start trying to remember to break interactive objects out of the objects that they’re interacting with.

Either way, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!