SYNFIG VS ANIME STUDIO DEBUT SOFTWARE
SYNFIG VS ANIME STUDIO DEBUT SERIES

So, approximately at the same time, I heard about Linux. KD: Besides my passion for animation, I was very geeky. Well, I started teaching animation in the local computer club when I was 17. PB: Tell me how you found out about Synfig. The fact is, this first anime made a significant impact on me. KD: Yes, I shared it with a few friends of mine. There wasn’t much demand just because people wasn’t aware what anime was.

SYNFIG VS ANIME STUDIO DEBUT SERIES

As far as I can tell, it was the first ever anime TV series that became available in our town. KD: The first TV series I brought to our town was Evangelion. I had to travel 500 kilometers to Novosibirsk to get my first TV series on CD (Novosibirsk is the nearest big city). I also travelled to other cities to buy anime when the first CDs appeared on the market. The bit transfer rate must have been horrendous. PB: Ah! Now I understand! You were swapping videos with each other over courier. But there were no “legal” copies sold in Russia back then, anyway. We were using CDs to transfer the copies. PB: “Post” as in “using a letter”? With an envelope and a stamp? Gorno-Altaisk, the unlikely capital of Linux-based 2D animation. There were two TV series translated and shown on the local TV channels: Sailor Moon and Pokemon, but I missed them both, so, the only way to get anime was to contact anime fans in other towns and try to make an exchange by post. I live in a remote town, Gorno-Altaisk, so it was hard to find anything on this topic.

KD: Oh, my anime thing didn’t begin until 2001. When you sat down in front of the TV as a child, what was it going to be? Dragon Ball and Doraemon? KD: We didn’t have computers back then, so we drew on paper and shot it using a camcorder. PB: And how did you do that? Pencil and paper? Or did you already have access to computer programs? When I was a kid, I was always trying to make animations along with my two other brothers. To start from the beginning, since my childhood I had a passion for animation. PB: “Center of the 2D animation universe”, then. KD: Ha ha! Well, I’m not sure that it’s the real center. PB: I guess which begs the first question: How does a quite isolated town in Siberia become the center of the Linux animation universe? So it’s late evening over there, right? Out there, in the middle of Russia?

SYNFIG VS ANIME STUDIO DEBUT SOFTWARE

We got together with Konstantin Dmitriev, Synfig’s de facto project leader, main developer, head fundraiser, and all-around evangelist, to find out how he got involved, what’s brewing in the world of Free Software animation, and where the project is headed. We had already talked about how great the Synfig animation suite of programs is elsewhere on this site, but what we were missing is actually talking with the person who makes it possible.

Synfig vs anime studio debut