More newbie questions

[Sierra Rose]

I am painting with the freefill tool. I love the outline being so bright and easy to see!!!! Wonderful!

But I got lost somewhere, probably with the idea of instances.

I made a layer below my drawing layer to paint on. I made it an anim layer. When I paint one frame and go to the next, it is not an empty frame, but rather contains the paint from the previous frame. So I have to clear the frame before I paint it and must do this with each frame as I go along because each frame contains the paint from the previous one I just painted. How can I make empty frames to paint on that stay empty till I get to them?

Edit: well, when I went to the second color, and started from the first frame again, it didn't keep the previous frame's painting anymore. I wonder what I did to reset it?

[fanany]

Sierra,
I suppose you already have downloaded and installed the Instance Panel from the content sharing section.
that's done, here' my way :

first, make the animlayer with the line-drawings the current one,
- click the [Cl] button, which basically duplicates the current layer, but empties the heads, ("Cl" for clone and clear)
so you get an animlayer with exactly the same timing, but free of content,
- drag it down one step to put it below your drawings layer,
- paint the 1rst frame, then go to next Cell by hitting the [>C] button,
paint the cell, hit [>C] again, paint it, hit [>C] again, paint, ...etc

this method works, however you animate in one's, 2's, 3's ... because you jump from head to head.
to speed up your workflow, you just have to set keystrokes for "go to Next Cell" and "go to Previous Cell",
which are more useful than "go to next frame" and go to previous frame" when we are animating.

Also, if you are using the FloodFill tool, don't forget to set the Source option to "Front" Layer,
and don't miss the Auto Pick Color option, very handy with the LightTable enable.

[Sierra Rose]

Wow, Raymond, thanks so much. I'll go try all this stuff. First I'll download the Instance Panel.

[Sierra Rose]

This may have been already answered, but I thought I'd ask anyway:

Would it ever be possible to put "mark in" and "mark out" buttons on the animator panel? Where they are on the preview window prevents me from using that space for anything else and often things get pushed in front of the controls and I have to stop and move them.

[Manuel]

A workaround : open the Remote panel and put it right under the Animator Panel.
Let only the Mark In & Out buttons visible.

[Sierra Rose]

Manuel, that is such an easy answer. Thanks!