Why do you work with tvp

[Rik Jurriaans]

Why do we work with tv paint, i want to hear your opinions about it, what is it that differs tv paint from the rest, why dont you use toon boom or digicell flip book.

Rik

[Klaus Hoefs]

With TVP I can do pixel animation and drawings in a rich natural way. With it's fluent straight stable workflow it is very fast on doing pixel animations.
Here is an excerpt as an example of digital drawing :
http://www.khoefs.de/gallows.htm

some screenshots:

HoefsGallow#16_2.jpg (91.3 KiB) Viewed 37450 times

HoefsGallow#16.jpg (79.81 KiB) Viewed 37442 times

[Rik Jurriaans]

wouw realy realy nice drawings, so full of expression

Rik

[Sierra Rose]

I love TVP because I get can draw and paint naturally. I find the interface easy and logical...the light table is only one of many miraculous features.

It has so many I probably could never use them all, but knowing they are there keeps me exploring new ideas. There is so much help on the forum, one never need feel lost with the program.

The price is reasonable considering all that one gets for the money. The other users are so varying that you see there are really no limitations. Also there are geniuses using this program who keep making more shortcuts and tools that are wonderful and they post them free for anyone to use. Ah, let me count the ways...

[idragosani]

I tried DigiCel and found its drawing capabilities rather limited. ToonBoom seemed ok but again, the drawing tools were more limited. I then found Mirage after reading about it in Tony White's book and gave it a test run -- the idea of a completely paperless animation studio realy drew me in. I was impressed with the natural drawing features, 2D video compositing & effects, not to mention the traditional 2D animation tools. I have since then moved to TVPaint and still enjoy using it completely. I use it more than PhotoShop! In fact, I took two online courses through schoolism.com and did the majority of the assignments in TVPaint.

[idragosani]

I also have to say that interacting with the developers of the software on this forum also is a big plus -- it's very akin to the spirit of open source software.

[Gochris1]

I started with Mirage, and moved over to TV Paint.

I don't use ToonBoom because I don't like working with vector based images. (though sometimes I use Anime Studio)

The Animator's Toolbar makes the animation process very fast.

I like the variety of styles possible with TV Paint. All of the Flash or Toonboom animation I see looks the same to me. I needed an application that at least gave me a chance to create something that looked original.

And the cutbrush is an amazing tool. Toonboom has nothing like it.

[slowtiger]

Because I paid a lot of money for it? *g*

I started with Mirage, following an ad on AWN (see, advertising pays!). Then shifted over to TVP v9 which has a lot of improvements but still a UI which I found hard to get comfortable with. As with all software, lots of training now enables me to work quite fast with it.

Why TVP? Some of my favourite points:
- The basic concept of "immediate rendering" (like Photoshop) enables me to change everything at every moment.
- The response of the drawing tools is faster than in Photoshop.
- It has nearly all functions I need.

Of course there are some negative points as well, for those I compensate either with switching to a different application (Photoshop and AnimeStudio), or complain a lot here in the forum ... but overall its a very good program. And all people I gave a little presentation here at my desk were immediately convinced.

[Gravin]

Why do we work with tv paint, i want to hear your opinions about it, what is it that differs tv paint from the rest, why dont you use toon boom or digicell flip book.

Rik

Have you ever used either of those programs? I think that would be reason enough not to use them, there kind of awe full by comparison...

Well ok lets be fair, I'm sure that they both have there usefulness for some people but for me TVPaint had the most comfortable feel and feature set.

Flipbook has a very weak drawing engine for paperless animation. Its improving with each version but its nothing compared to TVPaint. I actually think TVPaint is a little overkill in the drawing engine department sometimes, which is good since I never feel limited. The rotating disk is also a huge plus for me since I have a habit of rotating my paper as I draw.

Toon Boom just didn't feel right to me, again the drawing engine is kind of blah by comparison and the interface felt stiff. One thing I really like about TVPaint in the UI department is that its very flexible. I like that the program is open ended enough that I can set things up the way that works best for me, HOORAY for customizable panels!

I also have to say that interacting with the developers of the software on this forum also is a big plus -- it's very akin to the spirit of open source software.

I have to agree, I feel like there is a strong sense of community here, its like shopping at a small Mom and Pop store instead of a large chain supermarket

[Rik Jurriaans]

gravin i totaly agree i know im realy realy new to animation and i just know a few basic options in tv paint but i tested alot of other programs and i hevn't seen a rotating animation disk like the one of tvpaint, the pancils of tvpainiant also feel and look great it is just a great program to work with.

The scripting is also nice like the roll macro, thas just great to learn classical animation with so you dont have to preview for every frame of animation you make.

Rik

[CoreyAnimator]

Well I will be very truthful in my opinion.

I use tvpaint mainly for the rough drawing and cleanup. It mimics traditional pencil best out of any program out there i know, and I tried pretty much all of them. The ability to use blue pencil and erase it byitself without making a new layer is amazing to me. Oh yeah and it has the best light table out there!

(ok time to moan) But I cant use tvpaint by itself because when it comes to everything else I think it falls short.

1.) Cluttered interface (small drawing space, menus everywhere O_O... could use dockable menus, but with time you get used to it like any program, but not my favorite interface to work in personally)
2.) Bad selection tools (corel painter suffered this same problem at first too, still does really)
3.)Slow coloring work flow compared to vectors (unless u want an orignal color indie film look instead of cell shade look)
4.) Hard to ink work with pixels unless u have a wacom cintiq (again, unless ur going for creative line look)
5.) Confusing camera system
6.) inability to draw outside the drawing area
7.) Waiting for playback on longer animation, it has to render the preview to test the animation(not a big deal for me though, just choose lowest quality)

Just the simple things seem to be overcomplicated to me. Its a great program though....oh and toonboom has the rotating disk thing too , I didnt know tvpaint had one! lol.

But yeah I love tvpaint for rough drawing and quick line cleanup, thats mainly why I use it. You wont find a better program for just "pure drawing" out there. I mean.. If toonboom or flash had drawing tools that felt more like pencil, Id probably use them over tvpaint but tvpaint is still the king of rough pencil test to me : )

[Fabrice]

1.) Cluttered interface (small drawing space, menus everywhere O_O... could use dockable menus, but with time you get used to it like any program, but not my favorite interface to work in personally)
2.) Bad selection tools (corel painter suffered this same problem at first too, still does really)
3.)Slow coloring work flow compared to vectors (unless u want an orignal color indie film look instead of cell shade look)
4.) Hard to ink work with pixels unless u have a wacom cintiq (again, unless ur going for creative line look)
5.) Confusing camera system
6.) inability to draw outside the drawing area
7.) Waiting for playback on longer animation, it has to render the preview to test the animation(not a big deal for me though, just choose lowest quality)

some points have already or will probably be improved
that's the reason why you have the autopick color for the flood fill tool, the rooms system, timeline notes, etc ...

[Julian wigley]

I love TVP because I get can draw and paint naturally. ...... Ah, let me count the ways...

Sierra,
Like your new 'personality'-it could have been done with a 4B pencil?
All the best,
Jules

[Sierra Rose]

Thanks.....I just used the TVP pen, size 2 with the Wacom set on Pressure. I used a medium brown color. It's the first time I have ever done a self-portrait that resembles me so I am pleased about that.

[StopmoNick]

My main use is a little different - I'm primarily a stop-motion animator, and I use it to fix up and composite my images. It does most of that well, and is far more straightforward to use than After Effects. I import a sequence or QT movie, and there it is, ready to work on. So my answer to the question is probably, I work with TVP so I don't have to deal with AE! I do things like paint out support wires, composite elements together, re-size and crop, add or remove frames. My drawing is mostly limited to lightning forks or smoke effects added to an existing image.
Since I am starting with images either rendered in Lightwave or photographed with a DSLR, I like to keep working in pixels, I hate vectors.
I don't do much green screen work in TVP because the keying is fairly poor. It's one of many basic functions that have needed improvement right from when I first used Aura, then Mirage. For good greenscreen I need to be able to expand the selection area by one or two pixels to get rid of the green fringing around my puppets, then feather the edge to soften it a bit. (Softness in TVP doesn't do it, it affects the whole image.) So I'm forced to go to Photoshop for that, and batch process the images. More often I use an old technique from film called frontlight-backlight, where alternate frames are shot with normal lighting on the puppet, then a light on a white screen behind and the puppet in silhouette. TVP does a good job of separating the two sequences and boosting the contrast on the backlight frames. So it's an important part of my workflow, despite some limitations.