storyboard question

[hilere]

Currently I did my storyboard as one clip timeline per shot, containing all the different panels to explain the action within that shot. This seemed a more logical way to me in the production flow than creating a new project panel for every action, because this way I open the clip and start animating, having all the panels with me within the clip I am animating in.
The big downside I encountered is that I can not print out my storyboard with all the panels, since TVP only prints the first image in a clip.

So I wonder if there is another way of working in TVP giving me both advantages, meaning I open a clip containing all the panels within a scene, and being able to print a storyboard with all the panels.

I noticed that merging 2 clips in the project timeline does not result in opening it as one time line in the "clip:time line". It stays 2 seperate clips, which is anoying, since when you start animating, you want to have all the information of the same shot with you. So when you merge 2 clips to become one shot, it seems logical to me that it opens as one shot too.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Have you looked into "Print.../Anim" under File in the main menu?

EDIT: You can copy timelines from one clip and paste to another.

[hilere]

This is not a storyboard printout. In print anim I just print the panels with no option to have timing and other information.

Yes, I know you can edit. But this is a hassle when you have a shot of 15 or more panels.

There's always workarounds, but relying too hard on workarounds is not helping the software improve. If these things are not possible in the soft at the moment it might be an idea to implement it in future versions.

[Paul Fierlinger]

O.K., but also there is no getting around the fact that animation is labor intensive. Not every part of what we do has to be thought of as a workaround, a hassle, a drag and a backward way of life.

[hilere]

Paul,
I'm working for over 20 years in animation myself. I know there's no easy way, especially if you're searching for bringing quality. And as far as I'm concerned, TVP is a blessing. The reason why I am posting these issues is just because I think it is such a fantastic tool, and everything that can help this tool improve is welcome.
On my current project I did the step towards TVP, leaving traditional paper animation behind. And I have to say I certainly prefer the digital way of working. I did my research on different softwares before deciding to buy TVP. One of the reasons for me to choose for TVP is that the TVP team is really listening to it's customers (at least that's the impression I have). That's why TVP has so many usefull features that are hard to find in other packages. In ToonBoom for example you have to buy the most expensive version to get the option to take drawings off the pegs!

The only problem I see in TVP at the moment is that not everything is userfriendly yet. But I know the team does everything they can to make it so. I try to help speed up this process by giving them the input about all the issues I encounter while working with the soft.
Animation is indeed labor intensive, so everything that can help making it less intensive, I think, is welcome.

[slowtiger]

The first "storyboard software" I used was a form file in RagTime, a then quite new office software in 1993. Our studio paid an extern to program it for us, and I was the one responsible for scanning all drawings, import them into the file, and add the appropriate dialogue. Tedious work, but already an improvement over scissors and glue. Because of the clever programming of the form I could add or delete drawings, and the dialogue even went with it! It even was possible to have different frame sizes, allowing for pans.

Amazing how one could make an office application jump through hoops. It had drawbacks, of course. Any document over 50 pages got incredibly slow or even crashed. The first drawings had a terrible resolution, because I scanned them with a handheld scanner - anyone remembering these? But it was good enough to serve the studio for several years, until they replaced it with some other system I don't know because that was long after I left.

Well, this RagTime form is my personal litmus test for a storyboard software, and I agree to hilere that it must be able to print all frames of a shot.

[Mads Juul]

Currently I did my storyboard as one clip timeline per shot, containing all the different panels to explain the action within that shot. This seemed a more logical way to me in the production flow than creating a new project panel for every action, because this way I open the clip and start animating, having all the panels with me within the clip I am animating in.

I agree In that must be the Logical way of working. And unfotunately TV Paint is not supporting that way of storyboarding .(For now.). I'm storyboarding and doing animaticcs in TV Paint. And I'm Working that way that I make a Project containing one clip pr Sequence. I think i would like to do a clip pr. Shot and do my Sound editing in the Project tab but it has the following draw backs.

- I can not see my Layers and Instances from the clip a in the Project window so I hard to navigate in the projekt tab. This is difficult to implement visually. But there must be a way,
- I can't hear the Projekt sound when I'm navigating and working in the clip timeline. Which for me makes the Project sound unusable.
- When I put mark in and Mark out in the Clip Window the Clip changes duration in the Project window I can see It's a nice feature. But I think it be something else than the mark in and out which I use for ranging my work area and not for setting the length of the clip.
- I'm not printing my storyboard because I'm doing animatics right away so I'm delivering Movie Files. But If printing the ability to store information for the single Instance would be necessary. I think by the way this could be handy in other places. like tv_ReadProjectString and tv_WriteProjectString , then something like tv_ReadInstanceString id and tv_WriteInstanceString id. Could be nice if the Instances also had a unique ID you could read. like the layer id.
-mads

[ZigOtto]

... So when you merge 2 clips to become one shot, it seems logical to me that it opens as one shot too.

hilere, merging clips is not available in tvpa (for now), that's why you always stay with 2 separated clips,
actually, what we can do is :
- split a scene in 2 scenes,
- join 2 scenes into one,
- split a clip in 2 clips,
but unfortunately not allowed to join 2 clips in one ...

... The big downside I encountered is that I can not print out my storyboard with all the panels, since TVP only prints the first image in a clip.

So I wonder if there is another way of working in TVP giving me both advantages, meaning I open a clip containing all the panels within a scene, and being able to print a storyboard with all the panels.

this sounds like a good request : this job I think could be done by using the new Image-Mark feature,
imagine in the Export StoryBoard window, an option : Clip : Print [1rst Image] / [Image(s) Marked] ...
so, if you choose "1rst Image", it will work as it's working now,
if you choose "Image(s) Marked", it will create as many panels as you have marked images within the clip.

I didn't print storyboad on paper for a long time now, but the last time I did, my workaround was to duplicate the project, split the clips to get one-instance-clips only, rename the project "myproj-SB" and export the storyboard from this duplicated one,
then back to the original to work on the animation ...

[Fabrice]

interesting topic for the future.

[artfx]

I personally I am all for not having to print my boards, but not everyone on a project has or is using TVP Animation. The 3D guys use their 3D tools and some background painters use PS or whatever they like. It helps to be able to print the boards for them. I also have clips with 3 or 4 frames in there to describe a more complex action.

Maybe there is some kind of marker we could put on the timeline in a clip to designate a new panel to be printed?

[slowtiger]

Something like a "page break"? Good idea!

And a printed storyboard is a must in a discussion, you can make changes on paper easily, tear it apart, whatever.

[dabblz]

TVP is marketed as a "professional" storyboarding product, isn't it? But it isn't. Because there are things regularly expected by storyboard professionals which this program can't do, like

-printing each panel (clip) in a shot, with shot and panel numbers
-easily creating industry-standard transitions, like cross-dissolve or a wipe between two shots, without being forced to descend into the individual clips and laboriously create layer transitions. Alternatively, please supply, or discuss, a macro/plugin for such a common task. (A cross-dissolve is probably the most common transition in film language besides a straight cut).
-ensuring that cross-dissolves and wipes can be exported and imported via EDLs, or some other robust method of moving back and forth between the TVP and standard editing programs like Adobe Premiere or FCP.
-customizing, using, displaying, and printing industry standard terminology, like "scene" or "shot" as required.
-I like the idea of combining paint, animation, and editing features in one product, but without the above, this product is not a clear winner for pro storyboard artists or teams, against painting the panels in Photoshop, and editing them in Premiere. So why change?

d

[Elodie]

Hi Dabblz,

Welcome to the TVPaint community !

TVP is marketed as a "professional" storyboarding product, isn't it?

No, TVPaint is marketed as a professional animation software that allows you to animate, create storyboard, turn them into animatics, use special FX, connect it to a webcam for line testing (for the ones who prefer the traditional way on paper), edit video, manage soundtracks, create lip-sync, color animation, imitate traditional rendering etc... TVPaint is not only dedicated to the storyboard / animatic functions, it's an all-in-one software.

-printing each panel (clip) in a shot, with shot and panel numbers

If I understand you well, that's already the case : your clips can be reorganized as scenes and you can print your storyboard in PDF and HTML.
In the software and in your printed version you'll see the number of the current scene, the number of the current clip and how many clips are into a scene.

-easily creating industry-standard transitions, like cross-dissolve or a wipe between two shots, without being forced to descend into the individual clips and laboriously create layer transitions. Alternatively, please supply, or discuss, a macro/plugin for such a common task. (A cross-dissolve is probably the most common transition in film language besides a straight cut).


-ensuring that cross-dissolves and wipes can be exported and imported via EDLs, or some other robust method of moving back and forth between the TVP and standard editing programs like Adobe Premiere or FCP.

TVPaint is not a video editing software. This kind of feature is in our mind since we added the storyboard feature in September 2009, but unfortunately, that's not possible for the moment (the software would be too heavy to manage).

-customizing, using, displaying, and printing industry standard terminology, like "scene" or "shot" as required.

Terms like "scene", "shot", "sequence", "act", "plan", "panel", have different meanings following if you are from the animation or from the live-movie industry (our software is used by the both industries).
When we created the storyboard function, there was a huge debate with our beta-testers and finally, we decided to choose the words "scene" and "clip" in the TVPaint vocabulary.
Firstly because these both words are written and nearly pronounced in the same way both in English and French.
Secondly, as nobody could agree on the correct term to use, we prefered then to define our own vocabulary, even if users are free to use their own words if they prefer.

-I like the idea of combining paint, animation, and editing features in one product, but without the above, this product is not a clear winner for pro storyboard artists or teams, against painting the panels in Photoshop, and editing them in Premiere. So why change?

You are free to use your pencil on your paper sheet, then scan them, edit them on photoshop, make them move via after effect and edit them in Premiere. Then use your storyboard / animatic a reference to start the animation via the software of your choice (or even do it on paper).

You are also free to draw all you storyboard, turn it quickly into an animatic by using the "timeline view", manage sounds, write notes, print your storyboard, use a camera tool and imagine the camera moves and see them on the screen, continue your storyboard and animate it, color it, add FX and finish completely your animation movie, just into only one software. Then, you can export it with an EDL and do the final montage into Premiere, Vegas or any other video software.

You're free to choose the way you prefer, we don't force anybody

Thanks for your comment and your suggestion !

[slowtiger]

-easily creating industry-standard transitions, like cross-dissolve or a wipe between two shots, without being forced to descend into the individual clips and laboriously create layer transitions. Alternatively, please supply, or discuss, a macro/plugin for such a common task. (A cross-dissolve is probably the most common transition in film language besides a straight cut).

From this I assume you plan to do whole movies within only one application - which means you will have the whole movie within one file. I assure you this is not practicable at all. Even a 2 minute movie in one file will give you a file size in the Gigabytes, with long minutes to wait for every open and save action. Believe me, I've done that.

Professionals use video editors for a reason: these programs work with a system of references to already existing video files. Even then the raw material for editing might be as large as 10 GB for 1 minute of HDTV. And this is only one layer, 3 channels RGB plus maybe 1 alpha channel. And still these programs need much time to render your small preview, even more to render the final export.

TVP has multiple layers for each frame, and it stores each frame with individual information separately. This is necessary because you want to be able to precisely edit/draw each frame separately. Although it uses an internal reference system (exposures and X-sheet) files soon become very large. That's the reason why you split up movies into sequences, sequences into scenes, and scenes into clips. You don't start with a complete storyboard within one project file and fill it up until you have a finished movie.

Always choose the right tool for the job.

[Animark]

Hello,

this is a nice discussion on doing storyboards with TVPaint. There are two aspects I will give my voice to.

- publishing different frames of one clip would be a nice feature
Now we can choose if we want to print the first frame of a clip OR one other frame when setting a bookmark to that frame. The first bookmarked frame will be printed. I can imagine, that there is a collision when having a couple of bookmarks and don't want all of them published - so maybe a solution could be, to have special publishing-bookmarks. But a possibility to choose between publishing one OR all bookmarks would be adequate for my personal use.

- having some easy transitions between clips
I remember that I did some storyboards years ago with a special storyboarding software. There it was a nice feature to have a fade between two pictures. It was just possible to enable it and to choose the length of the transition in frames. Not more, but nice.

But anyway, during this year I did some storyboards and could choose between Storyboars Pro or TVPaint. I decided to do every board in TVPaint, because the functions are adequate and the storyboarding project is a very good base for the final animation project. Just split it into different projects, correct the resolutions (if necessary) and animate ...