Welcome to TVPaint Community forums !

anyone have an idea on this?

i'm working on an animation which takes place on a basketball court surrounded by a chainlink fence. it would take too long to draw the chainlinks on every background, especially on shots with a moving background. my idea is to create a new paper with the chainlink design which i can then manipulate the dimensions of to fit the perspective of the shot, but i have two problems:

can you import or create new papers?

can you create a paper with holes in it through which you can see other layers? (the holes in the chainlink)

i'd be grateful for any ideas!

Does it really have to be that realistic? OK, OK ...

Fences are made with chainlink between posts. I'd draw one of those segments between two poles in good resolution and multiply it as often as needed. Perspective distortion is possible.

Of course you could create own papers and import them. But paper with "holes" in it is not possible. Also you will have a problem to properly scale your paper texture so it fits the drawing, and the texture will always stay at the same place in the frame. I don't recommend it for your problem.

If you hace TVPA pro, then you can draw your fence, take it as brush, and use the "distortion/Perspective : 4 points" FX, from the FX Stack.
Then, you can set key position for each corner of your fence and animate it in perspective.

You can also use the keyframer, the first step is always to draw a full flat version of your fence, and cut a brush from it.

you could also consider to create a 2frame animbrush with chain shackles, set angle to direction and draw the curved lines of the chains, the brush will place the shackles on the lines.

...oops
i just realized chainlinkfence means something else. i thought you ment a chain link.
in dutch, fence material like that is called kippengaas http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kippengaas

in this case... Manuels method is the ticket.