Welcome to TVPaint Community forums !

Sorry for the cumbersome thread-title, I don't know how to name it.
If you transform a layer on the first frame, then mark all frames of this layer and press return, the transformation gets applied on all images. But if you got a long layer with only two keyframes, you need to recompute the keyframes.
Wouldn't it be better if the "return-tool" (sorry I don't know how it's called) only affects the keyframes? Or if this isn't fine with everybody, maybe SHIFT + ENTER could do this.

Try to desactivate autobreak

Oh of course, thank you.

But nontheless, could be nice if it only affects the heads. I never understand why it should affect all images.

Personally I just never activate autobreak and autocreate (don't feel the need to draw to break an instance, and while flipping i need to draw on my heads and not breaking instances). It's too vicious and confusing for me and really slows me down, I have one shortcut to break my current frame keeping the drawing, one to break a blank frame on my current position (same shortcut to create one outside of my layer) and one to insert a blank frame by breaking my current position, but keeping the drawing and going to the now blank instance at the beginning.
But with the new TVPaint, to do that i had to tweak a little my shortcuts with a custom panel to activate autobreak, break, and then desactivate it.

I understand it's usefull for the FX stack, and i know that it's my personal workflow with TVPaint and a lot of people prefer autobreak so I think it's good to have it for each layer (because for animation or background layers maybe you need different options). But maybe, as you said, some little things in TVPaint like transforming or breaking instances manually maybe need to escape from the rules of the layers and just break or not break if nobody expects anything else. While moving all instances of a layer for example, if autobreak is activated we will always recompute exposures afterward because all the images are the same... Or I missed something usefull. So i agree with you.

But maybe, as you said, some little things in TVPaint like transforming or breaking instances manually maybe need to escape from the rules of the layers and just break or not break if nobody expects anything else.
. . .
Or I missed something usefull. So i agree with you.

You've missed years of people fighting on the forum to get a behavior that fits to their own workflow without wondering about other people's workflow. What if you want to break several exposures into instances while using transform tool ? How can the software make the difference between "oh, ok this time, he wants to affect heads only" and "oh, ok, this time he wants to use transform tool to break some expos into instances" ?
In version 10, using transform tool did only affect heads, but if you needed to break some expo into instances, that was not possible.

That's why auto break and auto create are now layer dependant : to give users the possibility to choose what they want, which is faster, easier and more logic to do than spending weeks of developpent for something impossible (aka "trying to guess what the user wants").

yup, I confirm this debate started at least more than 5 years ago, if not more ... damn, I'm getting old

Elodie wrote:What if you want to break several exposures into instances while using transform tool ?

Using the transform-tool to break several instances already sounds like the wrong usage of the tool. I know this is just some example and I'm using the "return-tool" also with an eraser to brake a lot of instances, but why not add a button to brake the selected frames into instances and let the "return-tool" do it's job only on heads?
The posssibility to turn the auto-break on and off is already great, but it's an extra step to turn it off, transforming the whole layer and then turn it back on again. And keeping this behaviour just cause some users (me included) use it the "wrong way" to break instances with it, seems wrong to me.

Using the transform-tool to break several instances already sounds like the wrong usage of the tool.

it's really depending on the people using the software. Some people will find this way of thinking/praticing logic.

This discussion remembers me the reccurrent debate about the AntiAliasing modes (none, medium, best, smart) : all of them are used and choosing one depends on the user, his workflow and the context.
(I remember David Fine who said in this forum that the transform tool should be always in "smart" mode while most of the japanese user will think that the same "smart" mode is a bug)
but ok, it's off-topic.

I know this is just some example and I'm using the "return-tool" also with an eraser to brake a lot of instances, but why not add a button to brake the selected frames into instances and let the "return-tool" do it's job only on heads?

When working on the handy panel (v11) , we have removed the "break instance" from the animator panel (v10). Maybe it should be back.

It just feels weird to me, that the "return-tool" (does it have a real name?) does two things at once: repeating the task AND breaking the instances.
But I guess you're right, everyone got it's own workflow and I shouldn't expect that the minority shares mine.

Fabrice wrote:When working on the handy panel (v11) , we have removed the "break instance" from the animator panel (v10). Maybe it should be back.

That would be nice. Thank you Fabrice.

schwarzgrau wrote:It just feels weird to me, that the "return-tool" (does it have a real name?) does two things at once: repeating the task AND breaking the instances.
But I guess you're right, everyone got it's own workflow and I shouldn't expect that the minority shares mine.

It's very difficult to know: each new country we visit brings to us new habits from users and the corresponding questions, then new developments.

Just to be clear about what i said : i understand the years of debate youre talking about (that's why i said i can maybe miss something) and so i understand and find it very clever, as i think i said, to have different settings for autobreak and autocreate. Also i understand the fact that there is a lot of diferent workflows and you try your best, and really succeed at it. So no problem on my side with the new functions.

We were talking about one particular topic that maybe is doing two things at the same time (not the same thing as smart aliasing, but good exemple about being careful about the future). On this particular topic, if two workflows can be understood, then it's usefull to have it possible. In this particular case i think it still has to be determined, just for this small step that can be avoided. That's a small detail, but maybe the current behaviour can lead to confusion for some people not used to breaking or not and recomputing instances. And i understand that's a risk for TVPaint to delete the possibility of moving AND breaking diferent instances, cause maybe it can be usefull.

Also i agree that break instance in the handy panel could be nice

no harm done, we understood you had understood
We can talk again about it next time we meet at Gobelins (4 - 5 May) , I should have some free time as Léo will do the 1st year training.

Also i agree that break instance in the handy panel could be nice

ok, I keep track of it, more and more people ask for it.

Yay!