Mistakes in the user guide

[ematecki]

On https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index.php?lang=en , chapter 5 is called "Tra*gidi*tal Animation: Advanced functions".

[Thierry]

Should be fixed :p

[D.T. Nethery]

This is not a mistake as such , but a suggestion to add additional information.

I am glad to see the section in the User Manual on Video Input has been updated:

https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index ... ideo-input

My suggestion is that a few words might be added to the user manual page on Video Input regarding the information in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=12019

The SparkoCam software I recommended for connecting Canon and Nikon DSLR's to TVPaint at 1920 x 1080 resolution.

and even better, the Elgato Cam Link 4k connector that David Meslin recommends here: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=12019#p121952 which can connect HD video cameras and DSLR cameras at up to 3840 x 2160 resolution.

These options allow the user to connect their DSLR camera or HD video camera , not limited to the use of WDM webcams, in TVPaint for stop-motion animation frame capture or to shoot traditional line tests of animation drawn on paper.

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[D.T. Nethery]

EDIT: as of March 1, 2021 , this has now been fixed .

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I notice that this part of the User Manual still contains mistaken/non-standard terminology referring to the Multiplane Camera :

https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index ... ra-concept

It says:

Editing table and computer multiplane camera -
Below on the left you will see the schematic diagram of a traditional multiplane camera setup often referred to as editing table. Each plane is placed on a sheet of glass and is moved progressively while filming.

Our computer multi plane camera effect, seen below right, does not function in the same way:
In this case, it is the camera which moves progressively while filming and the scenery is automatically duplicated horizontally (the starry sky background does not move and is always placed in front of the virtual camera).

I have never seen a multiplane camera referred to as an "editing table".

A better way of phrasing this would be:

Traditional multiplane rostrum camera compared to virtual computer multiplane camera -

"Below on the left you will see a schematic diagram of a traditional multiplane rostrum camera setup . Each plane of artwork is placed on a sheet of glass mounted in moveable metal or wooden frames and moved progressively at different rates of speed under the camera to produce the illusion of depth."

Just to be clear, this is an editing table, made by companies such as Steenbeck or KEM.

Or an older style Editing Table (editing bench) with a small Movieola viewer and film reels with rewind cranks, where film is viewed and spliced together by an editor.

Neither of these type of editing tables has any relation to a multiplane rostrum camera stand used for shooting animation.

[Matthieu]

Hi!

I’m Matthieu. I’ve recently joined the team so this is my first time posting here

Thank you very much for noticing this and for your suggestions. We will update the user guide accordingly.

[Svengali]

Hi!

I’m Matthieu. I’ve recently joined the team so this is my first time posting here

Thank you very much for noticing this and for your suggestions. We will update the user guide accordingly.

Welcome aboard! The more the merrier!

sven

[Matthieu]

Hi!

I’m Matthieu. I’ve recently joined the team so this is my first time posting here

Thank you very much for noticing this and for your suggestions. We will update the user guide accordingly.

Welcome aboard! The more the merrier!

sven

Thanks for the warm welcome!

[Paul Fierlinger]

Hi Matthieu
Below it says I'm here with 101 others. It's good to see and more so with a new site administrator.

[tribute27]

Hi!

I’m Matthieu. I’ve recently joined the team so this is my first time posting here :)

Thank you very much for noticing this and for your suggestions. We will update the user guide accordingly.

Welcome! Happy to have you! :D

[Matthieu]

Thanks for the kind words

[D.T. Nethery]

This page in the user guide has some potentially confusing information for the new user trying to learn TVPaint : https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index ... -instances

At the bottom of the page it says: "You can also use the shortcut [H] and [J] to flip your animation respectively backwards or forwards. We will see these notions in lesson 05."

BUT in TVPaint 11.5 I think the default shortcuts do not have H or J assigned to Go To Previous Instance or Go to Next Instance. Default shortcut for Go To Previous Instance is CMD Left and Go to Next Instance is CMD Right, not H or J. In the default shortcuts for 11.5 I don't think H or J are assigned to any function, so the mention of using shortcut H and J to flip your animation backwards or forwards is confusing.

Screen Shot 2021-03-15 at 11.43.49 AM.jpg (19.2 KiB) Viewed 67853 times

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[Matthieu]

Hello David,

Thank you for noticing this! It's indeed confusing. We'll update the documentation accordingly.

[D.T. Nethery]

These are not mistakes as such, but some suggested improvements for clarity.

This page on Exporting Files from TVPaint: https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index ... cts-export
could use some editing to omit reference to Quicktime (no longer used , replaced by FFMpeg) and some clarification of certain points .

"Saving a project in TVPaint Animation format with all associated layers may require a considerable amount of storage capacity.

Even if it contains specific data relative to your project (opacity, layers, etc…), the TVP format is not a practical solution if you want to share it with your friends at parties or on a website. Use of the dependencies function will render your project smaller, but it is not more practical in the aforementioned cases.

The option File > Export project to... is used to convert your project into a format of your choice: animated GIF, AVI or QuickTime file, numbered frames sequence, etc. You will find this very practical as you are able to save your work in smaller files."

I suggest that the first, second and third sentences above are not necessary to explain that TVPaint files tend to be large and to give a reason for exporting a project from TVPaint: "Even if it contains specific data relative to your project (opacity, layers, etc…), the TVP format is not a practical solution if you want to share it with your friends at parties or on a website. Use of the dependencies function will render your project smaller, but it is not more practical in the aforementioned cases." because it is unlikely that anyone wants to post a .tvpp file to play on their website (which not possible) or to "share with friends at parties". I think the first , second , and third sentences are redundant or irrelevant to the subject of Exporting. I think this page of the User Guide would be better to simply start from the fourth sentence:

"The option File > Export project to... is used to convert your project into a format of your choice: animated GIF, AVI or QuickTime file, numbered frames sequence, etc."

BUT I also suggest a change to this sentence:

The reference to "Quicktime file" should be omitted because TVPaint has moved away from using Quicktime for export to MOV , in favor of using FFMpeg. Further, I would suggest that "numbered frames sequence" would be better as: "numbered image sequence in commonly used image formats such as PNG, JPG, TIF, etc.".

I would suggest that the sentence should be written as:

"The option File > Export project to... is used to convert your TVPaint project into a format of your choice: animated MOV, MP4, AVI , GIF , or a numbered image sequence in commonly used image formats such as PNG, JPG, TIF, etc."

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This paragraph:

- As allows you to choose the kind of export you want :
• Single image (save the image visible in the right section of the panel only),
• Sequence (save, frame per frame, the images located between the Mark in and Mark out points-. By default, the images are numbered as follows: file_name_1, file_name_2, … … … file_name_123, … Sequence becomes Animation when exporting in a video format.
• Animation is used to save all the frames between the Mark in and Mark out points in a single file and is available for some file formats (deep, gif, quicktime, fli, avi).

needs to be updated for TVPaint 11.5 export options to explain how to set the export according to Mark In and Mark Out points compared to the option Full Range, which is now the default. (but the "Full Range" option vs. Mark In/Mark Out is not mentioned in the current version of the user manual.)

Screen Shot 2021-03-23 at 9.08.15 AM.jpg (24.17 KiB) Viewed 67603 times

Also remove the reference to "quicktime" file format in this sentence: "is available for some file formats (deep, gif, quicktime, fli, avi)." I would suggest changing that to:
"is available for some file formats (MOV, MP4, AVI, GIF, DEEP." .

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Regarding this tip that appears in the above paragraph:

Screen Shot 2021-03-23 at 9.23.39 AM.jpg (21.13 KiB) Viewed 67603 times

I think the wording "Including a "0" in your file name may help with numbering your images." gives the impression that this is optional , but in my experience it is necessary to include "0" or "00" preceding the numbers in the image sequence so that the image sequence will remain in the correct order when imported into applications such as Adobe Premiere or After Effects. I would suggest changing it to remove the ambiguous words "may help" , to read more decisively as:

"Including a "00" in the name of your exported image sequence will keep the image sequence arranged in the correct order when importing the image sequence into other applications, such as video editing software. For example , when exporting an image sequence of 354 images if the first file name in an image sequence is "ImageName_0001", the image sequence will have the names ImageName_0001.png , ImageName_0002.png , ImageName_0003.png ... ImageName_0354.png ."

Screen Shot 2021-03-23 at 11.23.23 AM.jpg (23.71 KiB) Viewed 67600 times

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Under PROJECT and CLIP tabs, this sentence:

"The second section deals with the export file formats: TVPaint Animation allows you to export your projects in a wide variety of formats: DIP, AVI, GIF, BMP, QUICKTIME, DPX, FLI, PNG, PCX, SUNRASTER, PSD, TGA, JPG, ILBM, TIFF."

should remove the reference to QUICKTIME as an available file format. I suggest the sentence should read as:

"The second section deals with the export file formats: TVPaint Animation allows you to export your projects in a wide variety of formats: PSD , AVI, MOV, MP4 ,GIF, PNG, JPG, TGA, TIFF, BMP, DPX, DEEP,FLI, PCX, SUNRASTER, ILBM."

(note: in addition to removing the reference to "QUICKTIME" , this also lists the available image formats with the more commonly used formats listed first , with the more obscure formats such as DPX, DEEP, FLI , PCX ,SUNRASTAR, ILBM listed after the more common formats.)

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➔ I'm not sure exactly where , but somewhere in this section of the User Manual concerning Export options it should be mentioned as a note to Mac users that a file exported as MP4 (FFMpeg) LOSSLESS PNG will not play in Apple Quicktime Player, but will play in alternative video players such as VLC, Elmedia, or MPEG Streamclip. Because Quicktime player is still the default video player for macOS this can lead to frustration if a Mac user attempts to export to MP4 (FFMpeg) LOSSLESS PNG , because files in that format will not play in Quicktime player. The other two options for exporting to MP4 - MP4 (FFMpeg) Compressed H.264 or MP4 (FFMpeg) Compressed MPEG-4 will play in Quicktime player , but not the option MP4 (FFMpeg) LOSSLESS PNG.

Screen Shot 2021-03-23 at 10.02.14 AM.jpg (30.33 KiB) Viewed 67603 times

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➔ I think the provided video tutorial could stand to be updated (or amended) to better explain the export options of "Mark In/Mark Out" vs "Full Range" , and the option to export to MP4 format.

Another short video tutorial simply demonstrating the basic export function of an animation project in TVPaint to video formats AVI , MOV, MP4 would be helpful.

[D.T. Nethery]

An addition to my suggestions posted above regarding Exporting from TVPaint.

Regarding the AfterEffects Import TVPaint JSON.jsx script : https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index ... xport-json

For some time now it has been the case that this JSON script will only work when it is run from the Default workspace of After Effects. (at least this is my experience with running the JSON script on macOS . I don't know if it's different running it on Windows, but I'm sure some simple tests could confirm). After the import to AE has been accomplished in the Default workspace the user may switch to using any other workspace in After Effects. I believe this important bit of information should be included in the user guide and also as a "Read Me" .txt file included in the download file so users are aware that the AfterEffects Import TVPaint JSON.jsx script must be run from AE's Default workspace.

Run JSON script from DEFAULT AE Workspace.png (89.1 KiB) Viewed 67588 times

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[Matthieu]

Hello David,

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I will make changes in the documentation to make things clearer.