Synfig Studio for Mac is a free and open-source 2D animation software, designed as powerful industrial-strength solution for creating film-quality animation using a vector and bitmap artwork. It eliminates the need to create animation frame-by frame, allowing you to produce 2D animation of a higher quality with fewer people and resources. Synfig Studio is available for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Features and Highlights
Layers
Synfig supports a multitude of layers of various types; geometric, gradients, filters, distortions, transformations, fractal and a few others.
Bones
Full-featured bone system allows to create cutout animation using bitmap images or control your vector artwork. The Skeleton Distortion layer allows to apply complex deformations to bitmap artwork.
Spatial resolution-independence
Most elements are vector-based, and all layers are parametrically generated, hence even when changing the target resolution of a project, the only pixelation will occur in imported raster images, not the built-in components.
Temporal resolution independence
Animation-keyframes are automatically interpolated by the computer, resulting in smooth motion
High Dynamic-Range Imaging (HDRI)
By using floating-point math in the image calculations, HDRI processing allows canvases to internally understand a far greater range of pixel luminance, resulting in better lighting effects, and improved color composition.
Sound support
The tool has basic features for syncing your animation with a soundtrack using Sound Layer. Linux users can get all benefits of full-featured audio editors through the JACK integration.
Pentablet-friendly tools
The draw tool can read the pressure sensitivity channel off your favorite tablets, for natural line weighting, and more to come!
Artist-oriented design
While it may not be obvious in this early state, Synfig (and its proprietary predecessors) has been designed from the ground up with animation workflow in mind.
Path-based Gradients
Unlike purely SVG-based vector software and most consumer-level animation programs, the app has full support for gradient paths - gradients that follow along a drawn shape. This allows artists to easily add soft shading to animation without the trouble of painting it onto every frame.
Also Available: Download Synfig Studio for Windows