Workflow question for a short Topic is solved

[PiotrNikov]

Hi all!
So I have a very dumb question concerning workflow.
I have this 3 minutes short that I've entirely boarded in TVPaint. I have 16 shots in one project. The whole thing sits nicely (with sound) in the project timeline.
I've started animating the whole thing (scene by scene) and my question is this: Is it actually safe animating (and inking/coloring) everything in one big project? Should I split every scene in individual files? If yes how do I do that?
Thanks in advance!

Piotr

[slowtiger]

You should definitely split your profect into separate scenes. Not only gets navigating a lot easier, you also minimize the risk of data loss (which thankfully only can happen when your comuter loses power during saving a file).

Since you already started to animate, you need to cut up your layers at the scene beginning so they're truely separated. Save project as copy. Go into finde, duplicate the project as often as needed, name it scene-wise. Open each of it and erase all but what's the correct scene in there.

[PiotrNikov]

Thanks a lot. It all makes sense.
Just a question for the TVPaint people then. If this is the advised workflow, wouldn't it make sense to have cool tools to help the export process? From scenes to individual files? And maybe have a reference system to be able to concatenate all the different exported scenes into one?
Just thinking out loud...

[Fabrice]

It's something we have in mind.

[PiotrNikov]

Cool! Thanks Fabrice!

[Animark]

I would advise the following workflow. It's more comfortable than slowtigers method (which was the best method before CLIPS were invented and which is not wrong) when having a master soundtrack and having different camera movements in the clips (when working with clips). But I think it only works in the pro version of TVPaint.

Let's say, you have not worked with clips and your 16 shots are on one and the same timeline. Your soundfile is one master soundtrack. When now duplicating your file and erasing for example the first shots pictures, your soundfile will stay in the same position like before and you have to correct its position. Or you have to split the soundtrack to the length of your shots before you duplicate. Here is a better way:

1. Cut your timeline to different clips (for every shot a new clip)
- position your timeline locater to the first frame of the next shot
- use the CLIP/SPLIT CLIP function of the top menu
- now, when changing to project view, you will see your clips (a new one on the left, the one with the remaining frames (and shots) on the right.
- your master soundfile is also automatically split to the new clip(s)
- do this with your hole movie. In the end you should have 16 clips. Rename your clips to the shot names, if you like.

2. Make a new project from every clip
- change to project view
- select one clip (click on it) AND (this seems to be kind of a bug) click slowly again on it. Now use the (Right Mouse click on selected clip) CREATE A NEW PROJECT FROM SELECTED CLIPS function and you will get a new project. If the function don't works - this is the bug - try again and click slowly two times (not double click) on the clip to select it. Try again. .
- safe your project, do your animation ...

I mostly prefer to make my storyboard and animatic in different clips from the beginning. And I mostly use one Master-Soundtrack. If you like to work that way, keep in mind to use the SPLIT THE SOUNTRACK TO CLIPS function before making your new projects from each clip. If you forget this, there are now sounds in your new projects. And if you work with clips you can make camera work individually for each shot. After creating the new projects from the clips, the camera work will preserved. Then its also very easy to correct your project dimensions, when having zooms and so on.