Newbie: One-clip project??

[Catriona]

Hi all

I'm a newbie, having never made an animation on TVPaint before, so sorry that my question is very basic. I watched a training course (by Bloop Animation) in which all the scenes were separate clips in the Project, and then I breezed ahead and made an animatic with all the images in one big clip. Now I'm ready to start animating and I'm wondering if I should separate these all out into separate clips in one project: how (with audio embedded individually) and more importantly: why?

thanks

Catriona

[slowtiger]

It depends on the length and complexity of your project. I had a 2 min film in just one project file which blew up to 9 GB size, so that's not practical (took 10 min to open or save). OTOH I had a very simple 2 min film with about 15 clips and very few animation in just 1 file without problem.

Doing storyboard and animatic in just one file is convenient, but after that it's recommended to break up each clip into its own project file. In the end you will export all files into separate video clips to import into your video editor, where you would do all editing and the final sound work.

[Catriona]

Thank you slowtiger, that's a really clear answer. I hadn't thought of file size issues. It'll end up as 5 minutes of frame by frame drawn animation so going by what you're saying I should definitely break it into individual clips. Or wait: you actually mean a separate project for each clip? (Sorry, still getting the hang of the software.)

[slowtiger]

yes, separate project files.