Questions about the project workflow

[Ami]

Hi!

I now have the TvPaint pro! It seems great but it's so complicated that I have spent many days just trying to understand it.
I'm trying to make a synchronized animation to a music clip, about 15 seconds. it should look like a colour pencil and have camera movements and metamorfosies. I'm going to draw some parts on paper and scan it (for reference or for part of the animation) and some parts i will draw with wacom tablet. I have watched tutorials and read the manual but maybe it's best to ask... So I have some questions about the overall workflow:

- If I want to animate with "twos", do i do it in animation mode or in xsheet? (i can't decrease the playback to 12 fps cause it has to be synced to music)
- Should i do kind of an animatik first, to try to sketch the main points to match the music. do i do it with the storboard tool? can i have music there?
- Then what are the stages: Sketching, animating, colouring, textures? everything goes to a different layer?
- in which point should i do the camera movements?
- when scanning: should i scan straight to tvpaint or somewhere else and then import?
- is it recommended to do the whole project in tvpaint or continue in aftereffects after animating?

I hope I will learn the program soon. Everything that is done with tvpaint is great but at the moment i'm very confused how to use it.
Kindly,
Ami

[ZigOtto]

hi Ami, and welcome !

- If I want to animate with "twos", do i do it in animation mode or in xsheet? (i can't decrease the playback to 12 fps cause it has to be synced to music)

in animation mode (use xsheet only when lot of re-uses),
about animating in "twos", you just have to hit [+1] button in the Animator /Instance panel.

- Should i do kind of an animatik first, to try to sketch the main points to match the music. do i do it with the storboard tool? can i have music there?

yes, make your scenes with few rough drawings, time them on the timeline, when it works with the (spare) sound track, you can go further (inbetweens, clean, color, fx ...), that's the best way imo.

- Then what are the stages: Sketching, animating, colouring, textures? everything goes to a different layer?

yeap, preferably, but everyone has his own worflow, and the one you practice is always the best.

- in which point should i do the camera movements?

from start, in the animatic stage.

- when scanning: should i scan straight to tvpaint or somewhere else and then import?

straight to tvpaint, if your scanner available on the same machine.

- is it recommended to do the whole project in tvpaint or continue in aftereffects after animating?

well, if you don't need some 3D camera in your scene, you can do everything in tvpaint, then finish the work in a film editor software (Premiere or Vegas for exemple).

[Ami]

Cool!

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm getting optimistic..
Ami

[Elodie]

Hi Ami, I'm glad to see you here

- If I want to animate with "twos", do i do it in animation mode or in xsheet? (i can't decrease the playback to 12 fps cause it has to be synced to music)

If you want to animate in double frame you can manually double the frames like this, like Zig has just explained :

01_doubleframea.png (20.82 KiB) Viewed 18255 times

Or, when you create the project for the first time, change the speed as 12 fps :

01_doubleframeb.png (16.94 KiB) Viewed 18255 times

If you change the playback speed in the remote, the sound cannot follow and you don't here

- Should i do kind of an animatik first, to try to sketch the main points to match the music. do i do it with the storboard tool? can i have music there?

Well, it's not useless =)
If you want to load the music on the animatic go here :

02_loadasound.png (24.01 KiB) Viewed 18255 times

I hope I will learn the program soon. Everything that is done with tvpaint is great but at the moment i'm very confused how to use it.

Don't hesitate to ask your questions here ! You can also have a look on the user guide and the 9.5 appendix.

[Ami]

Thanks, more questions will follow:
Now I have made an animatic and i would like to know
-Can I merge the clips into one clip? I would like to continue as one clip, since i don't have clear edit points. or do i have to make it again if i want it in the same timeline?
-Are there some sound settings, I'm afraid it plays the music too fast (should be 25fps). Or can i change the frames into seconds to see the speed of the sound clip.
Ami

[Elodie]

-Can I merge the clips into one clip? I would like to continue as one clip, since i don't have clear edit points. or do i have to make it again if i want it in the same timeline?

No, you can't, because it gives many problems concerning the layers' management. You have to do it manually.

-Are there some sound settings, I'm afraid it plays the music too fast (should be 25fps). Or can i change the frames into seconds to see the speed of the sound clip.
Ami

You only can make fade in and fade out with sounds. If you want to use the time value, please just click on the word "frame", here :

frametimecode.png (6.39 KiB) Viewed 18177 times

It will turn into "Time code"

[Fabrice]

since i don't have clear edit points

humm, did you try the "mark in" and "mark out" points ?

[slowtiger]

In my studio time I also operated the 35mm camera sometimes. There I learned the trick to add some 10 frames before and after each scene, to allow for minor corrections during editing.

Just create your scenes in TVP with a certain amount of overlap. A bit of additional bookkeeping helps (read: notes on paper).

[Ami]

since i don't have clear edit points

Hmm, I meant that I'm making metamorfosis-animation, so it's all one clip. Everything should flow and continue after another.
One option that i thought is to make a fake cut with something going quickly in front of the camera.
Or to do it with smaller bits with this overlapping and when it's almost done, tie it all together.

[ZigOtto]

Now I have made an animatic and i would like to know
-Can I merge the clips into one clip? I would like to continue as one clip, since i don't have clear edit points. or do i have to make it again if i want it in the same timeline?

not actually, but in fact, you can do that via a workaround : if you are in Clip:Timeline mode (second tab in the timeline panel), and if you use the command : Project/Render Camera to a New merged Project, you will get a new project with a single clip from all of them, but the layers will be flattened too.
just to mention it, it could help (or not).

[Ami]

you can do that via a workaround : if you are in Clip:Timeline mode (second tab in the timeline panel), and if you use the command : Project/Render Camera to a New merged Project, you will get a new project with a single clip from all of them, but the layers will be flattened too. just to mention it, it could help (or not).

Thanks!
That's just what I wanted. Great!

[Peter Wassink]

you can do that via a workaround : if you are in Clip:Timeline mode (second tab in the timeline panel), and if you use the command : Project/Render Camera to a New merged Project, you will get a new project with a single clip from all of them, but the layers will be flattened too. just to mention it, it could help (or not).

if your animation is still only black and white you could use the scancleaner FX to make the white bg transparent again. ( lines on transparent are much easier to work with)
watch out though... make sure you change the default profile(the black and white graph) setting of the scancleaner FX into to a line from corner to corner. because else it adjust your line a bit