Synfig

A little bit of history Synfig Studio is an open-source 2D animation program but it behaves quite differently than what you might expect. It was originally created by Robert Quattlebaum to eliminate the manual drawing process. After Voria Studios closed in 2004, the codebase was released to the public under the GPL licence. Mr. Konstantin Dmitriev and the Morevna Project took over the development later on to make an anime using only free tools.

What it does Unless you're an expert in this area, you will probably find the interface baffling at first. You do not draw frames manually here. You use a mathematical ValueNode system to convert spatial coordinates into equations and the software calculates the motion paths automatically. The architecture is strictly decoupled into three components (ETL, synfig-core and synfig-studio). This separation means you can render heavy project files via the command line on remote servers without loading the graphical interface.

Performance and limits I have to warn you about the hardware usage. The application evaluates a massive recursive tree of mathematical nodes so it is heavily CPU-bound. If you try to play back complex vector networks without enabling Draft Mode, the program will simply freeze. Also, the internal skeleton bone system is currently fragile under heavy loads.

Alternatives There are a few things about it that make people look for other options. If you need advanced character puppetry and complex mesh distortion, you will likely end up buying a commercial licence for Moho 14. If you want traditional hand-drawn tools, OpenToonz is the better free alternative.

Conclusion Most software titles that I tested were easy to use and I am not going to say the same thing about this program. It imposes a long technical learning curve. Obviously, you might disagree if your main goal is to automate vector motion graphics on a zero budget - it is a free product so you have to put some effort. Finally, please don't forget that the team working on this project struggles to support further development due to severe financial bottlenecks. If you like this free tool, please consider a donation.

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