Hello! my unusually long introduction and questions

[jrichards]

Hey folks,
Hope life's going well with everyone. I'd like to introduce myself in a more personal manner than expected. I've been interested in TVP on and off for about 5 years now, signed up before and forgot my username/pass/email. I've been using Flash for about 10 years and animating professionally on and off for about 4 years.

I am also ready to throw in the towel on animating completely.

I find illustration programs are the only thing that grants me the ability to draw anything remotely attractive in the digital medium that rivals paper and pencil. Flash is the only widely used and viable program that I have enough knowledge of(currently). It is impossible to draw with fast, steady strokes as I can in my favored illustration programs; I can't sink into any ideas of my own anymore because the program limitations are too frustrating. The workarounds are relatively easy though more boring than watching paint dry.

I've gone to school for animation so I'm familiar with classical animation terminology; not always so familiar with technological lingo. With no time trial on the TVP Demo and months of free time on my hands, I really want to learn this program fully. However, like every time before.. small bugs/inexplicable happenings frustrate me to the point of completely and utterly losing my cool. Imagine: searching through many tens of forums, and tens of documents, trying to find a way to reset the default workspace; merely so you can have a recognizable place to BEGIN when learning a tutorial. I have spent an hour doing just that and once again felt that creeping feeling to give up.

I meditate and calm myself before attempting to learn anything. This helps to push away stress that immediately takes hold of the mind and body when experiencing frustrations of the past. I can only manage one hour of solid learning at a time when I am not making any headway. I can learn and practice an entire day when things are going fairly smoothly. Without a teacher, I am too often lost searching for one crucial problem for days, and NEVER finding an answer for it. This kills my desire completely and nearly did so again today with this demo. I decided to make this post instead.

Example of the issues hit today: I figure learning the interface would be the best starting point. After fooling with the interface initially, I screwed up the placement and can find no way to set up the TVP interface to be exactly the same as what's in the Interface Tutorial. While following along on a second monitor; I tried my hand at the Wrap tool, (he calls it "warp" in the tutorial; the tooltip says "Wrap"). In the example, the Wrap tool changes the perspective of the image, and can be applied to multiple/all frames. TvP will randomly decide that it does not want to apply this to a frame when scrubbing the timeline. After playing with it a bit, I've found that it will bug out because (I'm guessing here) the applied perspective is too extreme (even when the changes are very minimal). I will make a video capture and post it within a day to show what I mean.

I'll likely be asking a lot of questions, some will often be obvious. I've set up a livestream account that I still have to test (will post it within a day), in order to record and document problems. I hope this will result in a clearer explanation of issues.

I don't plan to make a post this long and personal again, so big thanks for anyone who takes the time to read and respond! I would love to make this work and will need the community if I'm to choose to buy this and continue animating. Best of luck with your works!

-JR

[Animark]

Hi JR,

when I learned TV Paint I just started to make a little animated project - in my case a flipbook with 40 pages. My background was 10 years of Flash and Photoshop, some Director, C.T.P. and Animo. I remeber the first 2 days I was frustrated about the shortcuts, because the were not Adobe-compatible and I always pressed the false keys. I decided to rethink my working style to give TVP a chance. After some experiance I thought, the TVP shortcuts are much better than adobes, because I can completely work with one hand on the screen and the other hand on the keyboard. So, I concentrated first on animating frame by frame and on how to make my own brushes. I think after 5 days and one little project TVP and me became friends.

One big thing I learned from learning flash years ago was not to trust too much in tutorials and manuals - try to trust in your own curiosity and try to catch the ideas behind the workflow of others. Just start with an own project and don't be too afraid on clicking on every function. The undo function (shortcut = u) works good in TVPaint

But I agree with you criticising the TVP Manual. I never found it inuitiv or userfriendly, but it helped me sometimes in cases where I just wanted to get an idea of some functions. Also it is defenitely a little bit out of date and you should also use the update (help - whats new in 9.5) and this really friendly and helpful forum - here are some TVP teachers from different film schools..

It would be nice to watch some of the problems you had on video - maybe to help you or to learn some more for myself. I just played a little bit with the Warp/Wrap Tool (I never did before), but didn't got any problems. Take the tool, warp an image, select all desired images, press enter to accept the warps - finally, every selected image is warped.

[jrichards]

Thanks for the welcome, Animark!

I'll try to recreate the bug and upload a video in just a couple short hours. I like the idea of making a quick project but being unable to save any progress is a bit offputting to completing a quick-- anything. Suppose I could screencapture and put the images together in flash to have something to show for it since it has watermarks anyway. My biggest problem is getting stuck on one detail at a time before being able to move on. Having a very linear thought pattern. I guess I'll just try to write down/record any issues I come up against as I hit them then try to move on.

[crayon10]

Those are long post but I did see the word demo. Features in demo may be turned off. Hope to see your work soon.

[jrichards]

Capture seems to work fine and here's an example of the kind of small issues I will post and ask about when I have questions.
http://www.livestream.com/learningtvp/v ... m=ui-thumb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here is the mainpage that will have all the vids I make.
http://www.livestream.com/learningtvp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Any questions about my questions, please ask. I would love to help as much as I would love to learn. Peace!

[crayon10]

Reset was the first thing I looked for when I got my copy. Go to the Edit at the top of the screen and at the bottom of that panel there is Preference, open it. In the Preferences panel the last button named Startup, click that and there you will see just one button. Click that button and you will see a list of four different titles so click the Startup Panel.

When you restart your TVP next time you will get a small preference panel and there you will see the reset button.

[jrichards]

awesome crayon, thanks! I was looking too intently for the words 'workspace' and 'default'. Checked through window, view, image, edit, file, and the preferences but couldn't find anything that seemed like setting a default interface.

[Animark]

Yes, I can confirm your problem with the warp tool. I also tried to apply the warp step after step what means: warp frame 1 and apply (press enter), goto frame 2 and press enter again and so on. On frame 5 TVP did'nt let me apply the warp. So, this could be a bug indeed. I am working with TVP Pro 9.5.18 so it isn't an issue happens only to the demo.

I also tried to paint/draw the numbers and a word on the frames and didn't got the problem - so maybe it only appears when using the text tool.

[jrichards]

Strangely Animark, when I did this before. It would randomly decide that it didn't want to apply the deformation to certain frames. Meaning, I would recreate the process in the livestream video: I'd turn off warp, turn it on again. Try warping as close to the same way as possible. It would quit on frame 2. then another time, it would not work on frame 4. Try again. then it would fail on frame 3. It had no consistency.

Now, important to note to any developers who might be reading: I really, really, really, like your program. I truly want it to work for me. I am impatient when it comes to my creative impulses. IF these tutorials included any, and all potential bugs, that would lead me to buy this program much faster and get to making the animation of my dreams.

It took five years to find out that you couldn't draw inside a symbol in Flash if it was flipped horizontally (before Flash CS1). If we can identify the bugs and create workarounds in the tutorials as the program is made, I truly and honestly believe this program will see much more success, love, and adoration in the near future. Much more than flash. Thanks again TVP for developing such a project to place an animator's dream within reach.

Thanks to Animark for providing the first most kind response to help create work that might shine, or fade, through the ages. I look excitedly forward to create spectacular work with everyone.

[Elodie]

Hello J. Richards, welcome to the TVPaint Community !

Concerning the Wrap tool "bug", I'm not sure to understan what's going wrong... Do you press "enter" twice ? Why twice ? => the first "enter" re-apply the settings in your wrap tool, the second "enter" apply the wrap tool in your drawing space.

Concerning the User guide, please excuse us if it's not always as good explain as it should be, but when TVP Animation 8 and 9 were released, we were not in a good situation (Bauhaus Software sued us) and we didn't have the money to translate the User guide (don't forget we're French ) and so, we did the best we could, with our Beta testers' help.
Don't worry, we took in consideration all the critics we had about the current manual and be sure the next manual will be better

Of course, don't hesitate to ask us any question if something is not explained well in the manual

[jrichards]

Hi Elodie,

Thanks for the concern. The warp tool itself is not a big concern. The concern is that tutorials should cover the bugs as well as their intended purpose.

As someone who gets frustrated easily with software, I will spend hours trying to find a solution to a problem that will never get solved. An example: crayon10 helped me solve my "default workspace" problem in seconds. I had spent at least 2 hours getting angry trying to find a way to set the layout to a default setting. Not knowing it was hidden in the Edit > Preferences > Startup and called "reset". I NEVER would have found that without human help. Again, I appreciate the developers for making this program. It gives me hope and the forums seem to be better than any documentation found so far so I'll try to make it easy for people to help me. In turn, I'll try to help anyone I can.

[Fabrice]

We have our part of the work to do ... more tutorials, easier interface.
It's planed.

[chatbraque]

… And - please - more "video tutorials" !!!
(it's one of the best way for learning nowadays (if not the best)… accurate, clear, easy etc…)

Actually, this forum is allwright for beginers… !
… even if you are always answering less or more the same basics questions
(I guess you'll get tired one day or an other, won't you ?… why not putting the answers on a video?)

… It's perfect for advanced users too… !…
(nice place for them, to discuss their specialist's topics )

… but when you are intermediate, it's too long and not accurate enough to search and find the right topic… and - yes! - the documentation is sometimes weak… (as former said)…
( Nevertheless, the forum is great and very usefull… very "reactiv"… it must stay )

Elodie told me once that video tutorials are long to prepare (I'm not so sure about that)
… but, I'm sure You'll spare lot of time with them (when they're done )
( I guess, this time might be used in a more relevant way on the forum ?!)

"video tutorials"… it's what I'm crying for… loudly !


Pleaaaaaase !

(before I give up !)

[ematecki]

(I guess you'll get tired one day or an other, won't you ?… why not putting the answers on a video?)

How do you do a search inside a video ? :) :) :)

[chatbraque]

"Search between some"… or "Choose between some"… I do'nt know exactly how to say it in English…
I harrrrdly use this language (and only with an atrrrocious frrrrench accent*… )
… and "THE FORUM IS GREAT !" ( I just said it … it's one of your "key points" !)

Anyway, vidéos DO have titles… searching among them is not so long is it ?

Actually, do'nt take it for yourselves…all written "helps" do have the very same problem…
… it's not always easy or accurate to explain by writting… especially when speaking, or teaching about "images"
(un petit dessin, vaut mieux qu'un…)

I'm working very hard these days on improving my knowlegdes in "cinema 4D", after effects, etc…
and I MUST recognize that "vidéo tutorials" are very, very helpfull !

(You can see them pop up here and there on the web… but, well, maybe I'm wrong… who knows ? )



* it's a personal deliberated choice