Hi all,

In order to make a simple animation with inkscape I searched the internet. It is already a long time that people suggest that Inkscape will cole up with a possibility to do so. Unfortunately the developers didn't do that until v.0.91.
A lot of the suggestions related to animation based on inkscape drawings go back in time 'a long way'.

In most cases I read about solutions where an inkscape drawing is used in combination with other software e.g. blender, synfig etc. etc.

What is the best approach at this moment using inkscape v0.91 (0.92 beta realeased)?

KR, Leo

Depends. What kind of animation are you aiming for?

Thanks Moini for your quick reply.

For the moment I want to apply simple animations to a drawing I made in Inkscape, but.....searching the internet I have seen so many nice animations that I see it as a next step. Meaning I would like to pick a solution that can last on the long term as well.

For now I just need a solution for simple animations. I saw heathenx's video, which seems a neat solution, which I will try to use. Furthermore sites about snapsvg but I am not sure I understand how to use it.

Most of the sites suggest to make a drawing in inkscape and import the file in blender, pencil, synfig etc. I think synfig would be the best option since there are a lot of videos available and manuals to read.

Any advise is much appreciated.

KR, Leo

Mmh, I think my question wasn't precise enough, sorry - let me try again, Leo:

1) Where/how do you want to use the animation? Would it be a presentation? Would it be on a website? Do you want to create a video sequence? A film? A game? A gif to include into forum posts ? Or would it be something entirely different?
2) What kind of thing do you plan to animate? Do you:
a) want to move, zoom, rotate parts of the drawing?
b) want to change paths by moving their nodes (deform them) as part of the animation?
c) want to change the paths' properties during the animation (e.g. their color)?
d) want to embed any multimedia contents in the animation?
e) want to do something else?

As for the video you want to follow:
Are you referring to this video by heathenx: http://screencasters.heathenx.org/wp-co ... ep086.html (uses Jessyink), or this one: http://sozi.baierouge.fr/, the standalone version, not the extension that is included with Inkscape). It's straightforward, available for Win, OS X and Linux, works with SVGs from Inkscape and recognizes their layers. It's certainly easier to use than JessyInk - but serves a different purpose. You don't need to write any code to be able to use it. But it can't deform paths, it can't change their color. It doesn't output an mpg or other video file, but a web page.

But there are many, many more options... I assume you've already read https://inkscape.org/en/learn/animation/ ?

FYI I'm a newbee in this field.

I have made a drawing in Inkscape and want parts of the drawing to animate e.g. a nose of a monk changing shape like Pinoccio's nose, a few balloons moving in the wind etc. The drawing is just for me. In the future the image could be placed on a website, so no plans like that for the moment.

I referred to the second video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwwqmMY-Lt8). For me it looks like a simple way to animate, but it is flash right? Because the inkscape-file is converted to swf-format??
Actually I saw a YT-video showing a way to animate by using layers but I cannot find the video anymore... or maybe I am just too tired.

I did see the Inkscape page about animation.

I will try Sozi, assuming your advice doesn't change because of the information above. Do I understand well that you do not suggest software like Synfig or Pencil?

Thanks for your input.

KR, Leo

That sounds like a nice project

The shape-changing thing is a type of animation that doesn't work with Sozi, unfortunately. Sozi isn't able to change anything about the contents, but it can move things in the image, independently for each layer. It's mostly meant for presentations, where you zoom around in a large image. But it's easy to use. A couple of unpolished examples can be found here: http://vektorrascheln.de/posts/2015/Dec ... animations

Yes, the video is about creating a flash animation, as far as I understand (didn't watch it in full length). It's also almost 10 years old, so I wouldn't rely on the software still being available, or to look in the least like it does in the video. It doesn't require flash to do an onion-skin animation at all. If it's meant to be short, like the one in the videos, you can easily create gif images of the exported png images.

There is also an animation extension for Inkscape which can export the images you put on different layers, in stop-motion/onion-skin manner. I've once started to work on it (and with it) a bit - it's not perfect yet, but works, if you don't do crazy things.

Gotta go - I'll continue later.

Synfig and Pencil will probably work very well, and Tupi, too, for the kind of step-based animation that you describe.
These are all made explicitly for creating animations. I would suggest you check out all of them, to find out which one you'd like to work with most.

If you share your findings and progress here, I think this would be of interest to many forum visitors!

A good overview: https://inkscape.org/en/learn/animation/

Actually, someone contacted the development mailing list last week, about being ready to put some type of animation ability into Inkscape asap, and actually offering to do the work (or at least start it).

Anyone else with programming skills, who might want to help, please get involved! Lack of programmers who are interested in helping with the huge amount of work, is what's holding back native animation with Inkscape.

(Sadly, the amount of time expired since a request is made or even the number of people asking for a particular feature, has little to do with actually realizing any particular feature in the program. The primary factor in realizing new features, is having a developer or developers who is/are interested in doing the work. Hopefully the project's new funded development guidelines will help stimulate the development of things like animation.)

Hi Moini and brynn,

Thanks a lot for the info. I have been watching some tutorials now on Synfig and I go for that application now.

KR, Leo