About cel animation (flipping,colorizing,camerawork,etc..)

[isd]

I have tested the new TVpaint but there are a lot of things I don't manage to do so I hope I can find some help here.

■Flipping
I have tested the off pegs features, as well as the new "off pegs flipping" feature and they are great.
But there seems to be a sort of bug with the new "off pegs flipping" feature since the first frame doesn't display long enough to be seen by the human eye. Having the possiility to change settings would be nice.
About the flipping feature (shortcut key "w") in general I have some problem. First of all when we flip with paper we flip betheen the previous, current, and next frame. The flipping feature is impossible to customize the way we could flip between these 3 frames correctly, displaying each frame an equal amount of time.
I would like to be able to flip correctly between 3 drawings(instances) and varying the speed on the fly.
When this is possible I would like to be able to flip between 5 drawing, then 7,9,11... well I won't flip with more drawings I thing. At least being able to flip correctly with 3 and 5 drawings is really necessary.

■ Scanning and Colorizing
Here is an example of how keyframes are drawn. You can see red and blue lines (in fact there are sometimes green lines or even more)

These keyframes are scanned for inking.
I don't think I could use the Scan cleaning feature since it would make all the lines black.
So I would like to know how to make the white paper transparent in TVpaint.

Then I would like to know how I could ink the drawing this way:
When I use the paint bucket in an area I would like the area to be colored, as well as the red, or blue line (or whatever color which is not black). Yes I would like any non black line to be colored the same color as the area (preferably auomatically, selecting a color range is not possible because the color differs from area to area).

■Duplicating clips and applying different transformations to them
I often use flash to create a clip (for example a falling leaf loop) them multiplicate it many times with different sizes and applying different filters or movement. AND when I modify the original clip, all others clips are modified the same way (unless I decided to duplicate them under another name and they wouldn't be modified). This is an absolutely killer feature of Flash that makes a 3 days work being done in a few minutes. I guess this is becoming a must have feature for anyone who have experienced it. In some way it is also possible in After Effects with the "composition" thing.
In TVpaint there is the Xsheet where it is possible to select another clip as source, but I don't find the way to apply to the xsheet layer any transformation. I guess the flash and after effects feature could be simulted with the Xsheet thing but it seems it is not possible. Another problem is that when the stack FX is applied it is impossible to go back. What would be nice is to have the stack effect ALWAYS in preview mode, and being able to apply as many effects as we want and they would be saved. And ONLY at the final rendering everything would be rendered in order(cascading rendering), a bit like the after effects compositions. I guess without this feature there is no way I would do any compositing inside TvPaint (which would still be the best soft for hand drawing animation line tests).

I think many of my question might be answered by people who know Tvpaint very well... but I'm not sure everything I am looking for is already possible with TVPaint unfortunately (>_<)

[Peter Wassink]

In the past you have learned to operate a tractor to get from A to B.
this was usefull because there were no roads where you wanted to travel.
Now you are testing this great car you heard about and you like it and want to use it but it won't drive you through the fields.
Instead of asking to put some tractor tires under it and a different gear,
Why don't you try driving it on the road, there are roads from A to B now.

That was maybe a bit obnoxious, sorry about that.
Just trying to say that you may need to dig a bit deeper in order to understand how best to put TVP to use.
When changing your production routines you should also question why you are using certain technical solutions.
These solutions may have worked fine in a drawn on paper production but, might no longer be fully useful or valid in a paperless production-line.

But you are at the right address, here we have all puzzled over these questions and although TVP does not have a standard solution for all of them, it is such a versatile program that workarounds can always be found.

for instance the last question about applying different transformations on duplicated instances of a clip can be achieved through the FX-stack using the keyframer.

The flipping.
If you want to only flip a few selected frames you could use the bookmarks to mark the frames you need to see flipping and then use CTRL+Shift + arrow keys to flip only the bookmarked frames.

And the question about removing the white from a colored scan, maybe someone else here has the answer to that. I don't know what you use these lines for, are they there to indicate the position of special effect like a shadow or highlights? Then why not consider to shift this part of the animation to take place in TVP, i would bet its much faster too.

[slowtiger]

Coloring a scanned image:
from your description I take it that what you scan in is only the rough animation, and the clean-up will be done in TVP. In this case there's no need to make the scanned-in image transparent first. You just creat a new layer on top of it and do your clean-up there. IN case you need to see something under the scanned images as well, just set its layer's transparency to 50%, you will still be able to see the lines good enough to trace them.

[Animark]

I've worked with flash over years and know the advantages of the symbol/instance princip. In the nearer past I sometimes tried to switch back to Flash for some technical movements to do it faster than in TVPaint. But I always got trouble to render in high resolution from flash. Flash projects cannot be bigger than 2880 x 2880 pixel and when you render something to a higher size than about 4000 x 4000 pixel you will miss some parts of your pictures. However, I will not speak against Flash, I loved it for years and there are still reasons to use it.

Since a bit more than a year I am working with TV Paint and I am really happy with that. I remember I had some problems in the beginning, because I had to put my Adobe thinking away to learn the advantages of TVPaint. this days I am working on a little commercial where I have to move about 50 objects at the same time in some scenes. The objects are only different in color and I rembered flash before I started to animate them. But I decided to do it with TVPaint and it works - and I think in a way you seem to miss in TVPaint.

In one and the same project I have my main scene (clip) and some animated objects (clips). In my main scene I use the FX/Keyframer to position and animate my objects (clips). In the FX stack I have about 40 Keyframers and some other effects. It's really challenging my PC power. I always save them (FX Stack/bin/export) on my harddrive before I render them onto a layer. Now I can go back and change something everytime. I just have to clear my layer, load the FX again, manipulate them and render again. Yes, it's not the same like in Flash, but in some situations it's more comfortable, in some not. I think, meanwhile I am as fast in TVPaint as in Flash.

If you are a traditionel animator coming from paper animations (your drawings looks like that), I would say TVPaint could be much more your home as Flash or After Effects - even you can mix them in your workflow. There is one thing I am wondering about. When I am discussing with friends and so about the software we are using, there is never a comparison with Flash or After Effects. We are discussing about differences and advantages between TVPaint, the Toonboom packages, the old Animo, the disregarded PAP and sometimes Painter.

Coming to an end, I would say, yes, you can work, save and reproduce the FX effects. I didn't tested the Out Of Peg thing yet and for flipping I use the way Peter described before. For your deleting the white question you should give some more background informations about your use of the colors and I think there will be a workaround to reach your goal.

[Paul Fierlinger]

I doubt there is anyone here who has spent more time than I have, animating on paper, yet when I started looking around for software, I wasn't looking for features that could take me away from the labor of drawing but that would make drawing easier so I could draw more frames than ever. So now I can draw multiple times more frames than I ever had when working the classical way and that is what has improved the quality of my films. In the long haul, technical shortcuts can't do anything as useful and satisfying as that.

[ZigOtto]

■Flipping

you can flip the nb of instances you want, just increase/decrease the flipbook duration (0.10s f.i.) in the preview setting panel,
also you can flip "on the fly" at the speed you want by scrubbing (RMB-click & drag) on the flip "hand" button.

■ Scanning and Colorizing

I don't get why do you make your red/green/blue lines references on paper,
why don't you use the excellent RGB SketchPanel for doing this ? all the tools you need are there,
and it's so easy to take-in/take-off these color lines when drawn numerically.
Anyway, even from scanned material, you can bucket/fill the color with all the lines, then take off the color lines in just few steps.

(click on it to see the animated gif).

■Duplicating clips and applying different transformations to them

it's so easy to reverse an applied FX, you just have to Undo.
but imo, you first need to think your workflow differently : the best way here is to apply the FX on a duplicated layer, (keeping the original hidden and collapsed), so you can go back to the step before at any time,
as for stacking a FX (Keyframing f.i.) on an XSheet layer, it's not so complicated :
create an empty animlayer, make it as long as the Xsheet layer, and keyframe it (with source = Xsheet Layer).
you can play the FXstack preview = on, to check it if everything goes correctly, then apply it.

[Fabrice]

Here is an example of how keyframes are drawn. You can see red and blue lines (in fact there are sometimes green lines or even more)
Image
These keyframes are scanned for inking.
I don't think I could use the Scan cleaning feature since it would make all the lines black.
So I would like to know how to make the white paper transparent in TVPaint.

Then I would like to know how I could ink the drawing this way:
When I use the paint bucket in an area I would like the area to be colored, as well as the red, or blue line (or whatever color which is not black). Yes I would like any non black line to be colored the same color as the area (preferably auomatically, selecting a color range is not possible because the color differs from area to area).

Hello ! Glad to have some questions

about Scanning and Colorizing
You can use several method :
* the FX Color > Scancleaner + sketchpanel to recolorize some lines quickly.
* the FX Keyer > ColorKeyer
* the FX Keyer > LumaKeyer
But why not directly draw (sketch + clean) into TVP Animation ?

Then, just color your animation in a different layer than the current one, if necessary you can also use the "Fill > B Color" option, or the "Expand" option

[isd]

■Flipping

you can flip the nb of instances you want, just increase/decrease the flipbook duration (0.10s f.i.) in the preview setting panel,
also you can flip "on the fly" at the speed you want by scrubbing (RMB-click & drag) on the flip "hand" button.

Thanks for your explanations.

I have not explained correctly enough about the flipping problem I was talking about.
I know the preview panel and the RMB-drag features.

About the preview settings you can't make it flip the way I have discribed in the first post.
In fact the flipping feature should allow the following :

* Being able to flip between the previous, current, next instance IN LOOP
* Being able to flip between the previous, current, next instance ONLY ONE TIME and STOP at the next instance until we release the button
* Being able to flip between The previous and the current instance only
* Being able to flip between the next and the current instance only

These 4 features should be available independantly, this means each action would have its button.

For the speed the remote panel may be a solution for the moment.

The RMB feature is nice but flipping with the hand which is holding the pen is not a good idea.

[isd]

The flipping.
If you want to only flip a few selected frames you could use the bookmarks to mark the frames you need to see flipping and then use CTRL+Shift + arrow keys to flip only the bookmarked frames.

Thank you for your explanations.
But Shift+Ctrl+arrow key is not an option since it needs 2 hands to use(oh I may create shortcuts?). But what I expect from the flipping feature is a TOGGLE action. This means, you can see the previous frame as long as you maintain the key pressed, and you come back to the current frame when you release it. I guess this would be a lot better than the current flipping feature with one button "w" and may resolve all my other problems regarding flipping. Yes having 2 TOGGLE buttons. This looks like the best solution. This would work with 3 instances only. I guess I should use 5 fingers to make it work with 5 instances. But the more I think about it the more it looks like the perfect solution.
The 5 buttons would be "qwer" and "space".

[isd]

Coloring a scanned image:
from your description I take it that what you scan in is only the rough animation, and the clean-up will be done in TVP. In this case there's no need to make the scanned-in image transparent first. You just creat a new layer on top of it and do your clean-up there. IN case you need to see something under the scanned images as well, just set its layer's transparency to 50%, you will still be able to see the lines good enough to trace them.

Sorry the drawing is really rough but it was to show the red and blue lines. Just imagine it is a cleaned drawing, with blue and red lines. Everything is done on paper.

[isd]

■ Scanning and Colorizing

I don't get why do you make your red/green/blue lines references on paper,
why don't you use the excellent RGB SketchPanel for doing this ? all the tools you need are there,
and it's so easy to take-in/take-off these color lines when drawn numerically.
Anyway, even from scanned material, you can bucket/fill the color with all the lines, then take off the color lines in just few steps.

col-lineout.gif

(click on it to see the animated gif).

Wow, this looks like a nice feature I will try it.
The reason why I draw colored line is because it is the way animation is drawn (in japan).
The reason why It can't be done in TVpaint is because the animator draws on paper and the colorist who would work with TVpaint is not an animator.
You would say "ask the animator to work with Tvpaint" and I would answer that animators don't like working with computers and most of them would do better and faster on paper.
Anyway this may be a transitional state until animators manage to master the software.

[isd]

■Duplicating clips and applying different transformations to them

it's so easy to reverse an applied FX, you just have to Undo.
but imo, you first need to think your workflow differently : the best way here is to apply the FX on a duplicated layer, (keeping the original hidden and collapsed), so you can go back to the step before at any time,
as for stacking a FX (Keyframing f.i.) on an XSheet layer, it's not so complicated :
create an empty animlayer, make it as long as the Xsheet layer, and keyframe it (with source = Xsheet Layer).
you can play the FXstack preview = on, to check it if everything goes correctly, then apply it.

Thank you this helps a lot.
I've looked the help for the multiplane and keyframer effects and they seem very powerful.
What I would like to be able to do for example is applying an effect on a layer, then using this layer as a source to apply it another effect, and still be able to change the original source at any time (this may help to create all the line animation with the effects and color them afterwards for example, or in fact just correct problems easily).

[isd]

Here is an example of how keyframes are drawn. You can see red and blue lines (in fact there are sometimes green lines or even more)
Image
These keyframes are scanned for inking.
I don't think I could use the Scan cleaning feature since it would make all the lines black.
So I would like to know how to make the white paper transparent in TVPaint.

Then I would like to know how I could ink the drawing this way:
When I use the paint bucket in an area I would like the area to be colored, as well as the red, or blue line (or whatever color which is not black). Yes I would like any non black line to be colored the same color as the area (preferably auomatically, selecting a color range is not possible because the color differs from area to area).

Hello ! Glad to have some questions

about Scanning and Colorizing
You can use several method :
* the FX Color > Scancleaner + sketchpanel to recolorize some lines quickly.
* the FX Keyer > ColorKeyer
* the FX Keyer > LumaKeyer
But why not directly draw (sketch + clean) into TVP Animation ?

Then, just color your animation in a different layer than the current one, if necessary you can also use the "Fill > B Color" option, or the "Expand" option

Thanks for your answers.

It is not possible to recolorize because the person who would do the work would not be the animator and a lot of mistakes could be done (or a lot of time loss).
Sketching and drawing in TVP is an option but it would be done with colored lines like on paper.
The possibility to take the lines mensionned by ZigOtto seems to be very nice but I don't really get how to do it. And how filling with colors close to red or blue wouldn't be affected. I am not yet familiar enough with TVpaint to get the trick ^^;

[slowtiger]

Preserving coloured lines:
In my studio days I learnt that each person working on a scene always got the whole scene folder, with all layouts, roughs, clean-up drawings, and finally cels. This way even the painters could go back in the workflow if any question occured, and only in special cases they had to go and bother the production supervisor.

So in your case the pile of paper should, after scanning, go to the very person who does the clean-up on screen. "Never remove information from the pipeline" should be a general rule.

I'd suggest this workflow:
- scan drawings
- use scan cleaner to remove all white (all lines are black now)
- activate the layer's stencil
- colour the lines which need to be coloured with some broad brush, while checking the drawings on paper
This is my workflow if I need any coloured outline on my characters.

[isd]

Preserving coloured lines:
In my studio days I learnt that each person working on a scene always got the whole scene folder, with all layouts, roughs, clean-up drawings, and finally cels. This way even the painters could go back in the workflow if any question occured, and only in special cases they had to go and bother the production supervisor.

So in your case the pile of paper should, after scanning, go to the very person who does the clean-up on screen. "Never remove information from the pipeline" should be a general rule.

I'd suggest this workflow:
- scan drawings
- use scan cleaner to remove all white (all lines are black now)
- activate the layer's stencil
- colour the lines which need to be coloured with some broad brush, while checking the drawings on paper
This is my workflow if I need any coloured outline on my characters.

You are right for the pipeline ^^
But I think you misunderstood my question. I don't need colored outline.
Anyway when I need it I know how to do now thanks ^^