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With all due respect, I just can't sit and have a war of words with a critic who's never seen the film, as it were.
Having used TVP since the days of the Amiga computer, having seen it come so far, becoming a beta tester for it.. and having the idea presented by others and myself totally lambasted isn't necessarily refreshing. Especially since it's a feature I've been looking forward to possibly seeing happen, for the last ten years! I could say the same for so many other animators out there, wishing that the feature would blend finally into the bitmap animation arena.

Whenever anyone uses the animbrush or the keyframer, they're essentially using a symbol. A container for multiple frames of animation. (Without the dynamic re-scaling, positioning and object based implementation.)

Again, Paul. Until you make a film using Flash and symbols, I can't make any sense of your statements.

Do you know Joanna Priestly? Talk to her about the experiences making her last three or four films in Flash, and what a tool the dynamic symbol is to the independent animator.
Try making a film using it, gain some factual, personal and literal perspective on the tool before you declare it useless. If the feature ever makes it into TVP, maybe you can have a special "P" button implemented that turns it off, just for you.

All I was saying Chad was that I concur with you. Stiff puppets, cuddly puppets or movies with too much dog poop all work when created by the right hands. I don't want to use Flash and you don't want to have to draw things over and over again. We all have our naysayers; you have me, I have you and Tulip has hers. That's all. Don't you see I'm with you?

Ok, I believe I'm hearing you. And what you're saying is it just boils down to preference, and a difference of opinion? I'm really not just being a naysayer. I speak from the position of someone who has used the symbol technology since it was first invented, and I've made several films using it. AND, I'm a traditional animator who does hand drawn animation on paper and directly into TVP.. So I thought I would offer my personal perspective on this user's requested feature of symbols in TVP.

I DO want to draw things over and over again, because I love it, and there's no substitute for it. (And I do this on a regular basis.) But I also have call to do some things in an automated fashion that moves sequences of animation around with fewer steps involved.

What I want, is the extra ability that making the animbrush not just a thing to be manually stamped down, or moved using the keyframer, provides.
It's essentially a re-vamp of how the animbrush / keyframer work. Or at least a second optional path to go down when using the two together. Like Slowtiger said, it would probably involve a whole new framework within TVP for this to be implemented, as things stand, but I believe that it would be an improvement for many people. No reason why we can't have the best of both worlds, right?
Perhaps it might be seen as useless to you, but if I could somehow fly out there to do an in person demo of the usefulness of the technique, I would. It would take so much of the headache out of so many operations in TVP, I can't tell you.

C

Well, I know some TV shows definitely done in a Flash-like fashion - "Fairy Godparents" come to mind, 80% of it being talking heads over stiff bodies - but they are entertaining as hell.

A symbol-like reference system for single images (like we already use with X-sheet and exposures) is a good thing. I've already mentioned somewhere that I'd like that expanded, so a moving BG in TVP wouldn't increase file size. But I know that just this simple request would need big changes in the code, like an ability to deal with artwork bigger than the project window, and a shift of the workload of rendering. And inventing an as fast as replacement for the simple reading of rendered frames instead of rendering it every time some adjustment is made (or another frame is entered) must be a nightmare.

And I can easily think of other improvements which would make my workflow easier, like the ability to group & link layers (a bit like pre-compositions in After FX) so I could keep characters split up on several layers, but be able to perform actions like moving & scaling more easily.

slowtiger wrote: Symbols are about saving file size and work with references instead of independently rendered images. The introduction of exposures and the X-sheet was the first step into this direction. The system is not perfect yet, it suffers from some redundance and inconsistancy, but I can work with it. Give me some better way of organising, grouping and hiding layers, and I'll be quite happy.

I would love something like the Flash "symbols" in TVP, or like after effects "compositions". In fact when you are used to it, it is very difficult to go back. Thanks to this my workflow in Flash is not only a hundred times faster than with anything else (including tvp) but it allows me to modify anything even a character inside a complicated camerawork, and even at the end of the production, on the fly without recalculating anything. This is magic.

I use tvp for drawing more than animating in fact, because the lack of compositing features of TVpaint (versus Flash and after effects) is a bottleneck.

But since tvp has the best analog-like drawing features I would like to be able to use it more for animating.

I use it also for intervalling since the out of pegs flipping feature has been implemented, but I have still difficulties to just storyboard the way out inside of tvpaint, Flash beeing 10 times faster and flexible for such conceptual work (Flash drawing features are insanely crappy nevertheless).

By the way, a question.

Is there a way to do the same thing as a Shift-F5 in flash?
In flash when you click on the top of the timeline, and press shift-F5 the current image is deleted from all your layers, and when you press F5, an instance of the current image is added to all your layers.

You can this way modify the timing of all the layers at the same time.
This is very useful when you have finished your animation and you want ot modify some timings.
In flash the lenght of the camera works(tweens) is also modified at the same time, this is absolutely a killer feature for editing an animation or even a whole sequence, and is necessary if you want to sync with the sound/music easily.

So if it is not possible I would like as the next new features, this, as well as the symbol/composition way of compositing. I would be so happy to dump flash for good.

CartoonMonkey wrote: What I want, is the extra ability that making the animbrush not just a thing to be manually stamped down, or moved using the keyframer, provides.
It's essentially a re-vamp of how the animbrush / keyframer work. Or at least a second optional path to go down when using the two together. Like Slowtiger said, it would probably involve a whole new framework within TVP for this to be implemented, as things stand, but I believe that it would be an improvement for many people. No reason why we can't have the best of both worlds, right?
Perhaps it might be seen as useless to you, but if I could somehow fly out there to do an in person demo of the usefulness of the technique, I would. It would take so much of the headache out of so many operations in TVP, I can't tell you.

C

this is so true.

Don't mistake those that are used by the symbol technology, and those who use it to do better and faster what they could do with pen/paper/tvpaint/after effects combined.
Dynamic symbols are a technical revolution that has absolutely no disadvantage to the traditional way, it just helps do it better and faster.
And when your head is not taken into useless technical and calculation problems, it can be more creative.
I experience this constantly.

slowtiger wrote: A symbol-like reference system for single images (like we already use with X-sheet and exposures) is a good thing. I've already mentioned somewhere that I'd like that expanded, so a moving BG in TVP wouldn't increase file size. But I know that just this simple request would need big changes in the code, like an ability to deal with artwork bigger than the project window, and a shift of the workload of rendering. And inventing an as fast as replacement for the simple reading of rendered frames instead of rendering it every time some adjustment is made (or another frame is entered) must be a nightmare.

It may be a nightmare or not, but it should happen sooner or later.
I think adding some scripts, and small features, making cosmetic upgrades won't be enough at some point.
TVP staff should be aware that what the competition lack is just a nice drawing engine (vector or bitmap won't mean anything more than a processing method in the not-so-distant future anyway. Celsys has already implemented their bitmap-like vector drawing tool which is fantastic),
feature they COULD implement quickly and beautifully if they WANTED (they just don't want to do it for marketting reasons, having different products for every task : photoshop/flash/after effects), but they can change their mind anytime.

So I really think the future of TVP is like you says, revamping the x-sheet/keyframer/anim brush into a modern system.
I don't think TVP should at all costs preserve anything they built until now, they should dare not be compatible with the present version. People who are in the middle of a project could finish it with the "old" version (still supported) anyway.
But the present problem of TVPaint it that, for this price it let you think it could do everything but in fact it does a few things very well, and all the others very bad (compositing/editing/post processing mainly).

I think Adobe may not create a nice drawing system in flash anytime soom, but what they are doing is making all their products more and more inter-dependant, so the threat is close.


EDIT by Elodie : Please ISD, the EDIT button does exist...

isd wrote:... Is there a way to do the same thing as a Shift-F5 in flash?
In flash when you click on the top of the timeline, and press shift-F5 the current image is deleted from all your layers, and when you press F5, an instance of the current image is added to all your layers.

You can this way modify the timing of all the layers at the same time.
This is very useful when you have finished your animation and you want ot modify some timings.

the answer is YES :
the commands are :
- Clip: Delete Image => to delete one (or several) image(s) in all unlocked layers of your project,
- Clip: Add Exposure => to add one (or several) exposure(s) in all unlocked layers of your project,
to use these commands, you can go to the menu (Clip/...), or better, you can make yourself 2 buttons
in a custom panel embedding these commands, and assign them, each one to a shortkey.

I personnaly think these tools (very handy to tweak the animation's timing) could be (should be ?)
integreted in the default Animator Panel.

Ah, thanks Zig! I've often needed this option but I never knew where to find it.

isd wrote:....
I personnaly think these tools (very handy to tweak the animation's timing) could be (should be ?)
integreted in the default Animator Panel.

And I agree!

@isd Thank you.

Thank you, very handy. So much so it changed (a bit) how I work.

Here are two buttons I made using these commands. Note that hotkeys can be assigned directly to
Project:Clip:Add Single Exposure
Project:Clip:Delete Image

Sven

Thanks for those very handy buttons, Sven!

More thanks coming at you, Sven. Great stuff there.

Very handy, but it would be much more handy if it was possible to use this function only on selected layers. Is there a command for that?

So happy to have these buttons now, I was going crazy looking for them in the manual and panels. Thanks.

mabbiss wrote:So happy to have these buttons now, I was going crazy looking for them in the manual and panels. Thanks.

Sven's shortcut buttons (from 2011) are fine , but in fact the same function is in the default Animator Panel in TVPaint which has many useful shortcut buttons . See the TVPaint User Manual , Lesson 6 , section 6-26 - through - 6-29 .

The differrence is: the default buttons only work on the selected layer whereas Sven's buttons work on ALL layers.