A summer of animation

This summer Krita is going all in for animation. Not only do we have a Google Summer of Code project focusing on it, but it will also be a major point in this year's Kickstarter campaign, alongside with major performance improvements.

There seems to be a lack of a good raster based animation software for traditional style, hand-drawn animation. Krita's excellent drawing and painting features provide a great basis for this. It is no wonder animation is a highly requested feature in Krita.

In the past couple of years, there have been several attempts to implement animation in Krita, most notably Somsubhra Bairi's GSoC project. Unfortunately none of these ever made it all the way to a fully working release. However, they have all taught us valuable lessons and I believe we now know how to finally make it work.

We have been discussing a new design with the Krita team for some months. In mid-April I had the pleasure of meeting the two main Krita developers Boudewijn and Dmitry (as well as Irina and Wolthera). During this small sprint we created a solid design for the upcoming implementation.

The focus of animation in Krita is on hand-drawn animation. That is animation consisting of individually drawn or painted frames. This is close to the traditional style of animation, only with the additional benefits of working in digital media.

However, the animation features will not be limited to hand-drawn frames. You will also be able to animate layer properties such as opacity and position, and eventually even transform mask and filter parameters. Imagine the possibilities!

I have already been working on a prototype version of the code for some weeks. While it still has some major issues, it can already be used to make simple animations, such as the one below. I will soon post more details about the status of the code and regular updates on our progress throughout the summer.

For more information on animation in Krita and the Kickstarter campaign keep and eye out for posts on the Krita website and this blog. If you want to get in touch with us, the best way to do so is through our chatroom or forums.