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David_Fine wrote:So this is clear, thank you. My only question is that here we really have one single 60 frame scene, split into three x 20 frames in order to do the moves. So how do you change each scene to be those split parts? That is, lets say you have about 8 levels. Do you manually trim each level down to the 20 frames needed for the part 1, 2 and 3? That is, for part 2, you have to trim 8 levels on the left and the right. Or is there some simple way to select a section of all layers, hit delete and they are all deleted? It just seems like a lot of adjusting that could result in errors, but maybe I am missing something. Certainly in an app like Pro Tools, with multiple audio tracks, it's easy to trim a bunch of tracks in one quick move. Does TVPaint do this?

it's easy in tvpa as well, here's my way :
in the project tab (timeline view), navigate in the timeline and go to the position where you want to split,
(last image of the first part, in my example, 20i after the clip's starting frame),
then, simply hit the [split Clip] button of the Animator panel (or your corresponding assignated shortkey),
you will get 2 new Clips, renamed "clip-name Left" and "clip-name Right",
- repeat the process to split the right part in 2 clips,
then RMB-clic each part and rename them ("Rename Clip ..." command).

nb:
I personnally use this clip-splitting technique only at the final stage,
(in fact, just before the final export), to refine the camera move when it looks to need it,
before that, specially at the animatic step , I start with a rough camera set along the initial clip,
because its more flexible with one camera move (+ progress profile) on a single clip,
here you can test quickly different options, where you want the move start and end, at what speed,
when to stop and hold, the length of the sections (A>B, B-hold, B>C) one to the other, ...
and of course, tweaking the progress profile to fit any animation modification,
once everything "in place" and validated, I can go to split and make the camera move more "accurate",
f.i. to get a flat (hold) section perfectly flat.

Excellent. Thank you. I figured there must be some very straightforward way to split all layers and that's it! So you simply apply each camera move to each section. Easy. Can you rejoin a split clip? I don't see that button.

I also see that there is a button to separate a scene into two scenes. How is this different than separated a clip? Is it that the clip is maintained within one scene, but two scenes become two individual TVPaint files?

David_Fine wrote:... Can you rejoin a split clip? I don't see that button.

yes, but only two in once, I mean it will merge only the current clip with the next one,
unfortunately, afaik, it doesn't merge the camera paths (I think it keeps only the 1rst clip's camera settings).
basically, this button copies the stack of layers of the next clip and paste them at the end of the current clip,
so if both the 2 initial clips had 5 layers each, the (resulting) merged clip will get 5 + 5 = 10 layers.

David_Fine wrote:... I also see that there is a button to separate a scene into two scenes. How is this different than separated a clip?

well, a scene is nothing more than a group of clip(s),
f.i. SCENE1 = "Mam in the kitchen", containing 3 Clips :
- Clip1 = "Mam is cutting vegetables",
- Clip2 = "she put them in the boiling water,
- Clip3 = "she reduce the heat and stir",
...
you can take out a clip of a scene to make it its own scene, or to join it to another (existing) scene,
Split and Join Scene(s) works only with full clips, (you can't split a scene in the middle of a clip).
it's more explicit in the Project tab / thumbnail view, just clic the clip's headbar and drag it out of the scene,
or into the neighbouring scene to join it.
you can also permute (changing the order of) 2 clips just by "clic & drag" one over the other.

I suppose putting clips into one scene is a question of working method. I am editing in Final Cut, so I am only really interested in having a scene be just one shot, which is then assembled elsewhere. if you want to build a sequence of shots in TVPaint and then output them as one, then combining clips becomes more useful.

I work the same way as you describe but I also discovered how practical ti can be to keep a cluster of clips around as well because they all relate to each other and it's pretty handy to play back not just the current clip but the preceding and following ones at the same time. Having the mental awareness of what separates one scene from the other two on either side helps me in the story telling process. I think this is because I find it important to give each scene a real role to play and the best way to keep track of how that is working out so far is the ability to group them into distinct clips within distinct scenes and all this before I jump to my NLE, which serves the same purpose of course, but for me in bigger chunks.

Yes, I can certainly see the value of having a few clips available so that you have the context as you animate. So to do that, you effectively make one TVPaint file with all those selected scenes opened into it as a sequence of clips.

This is where the development of the Project Tab taught me how to think in terms of Scenes and Clips. Even when I go to my NLE (Sony Vegas) I always start watching my current clip by playing back the timeline a scene or two preceding the current clip in progress -- and a few animatic clips following the current one. I Have to look at how it fits into its surroundings the way a viewer would come upon it; in a flow of clips.. It is the same as a painter or muralist would step back from their work. This made a huge difference into the way our stories began to take shape.

Sandra doesn't work this way, because she must import just one clip at a time to paint, they are so large. So large, actually, that many of them she never sees run in real time until I export her WIP into Vegas. When she comes over to my computer to watch it, I make sure that she watches it the same way, so I start the screening at least a scene earlier. Then we talk about how her colors work within the development of the story and not as if we were looking at a single painting. Sometimes this makes us change the story because the writing is still taking shape.

I have become so used to looking at our work this way, that looking back, it seems to me that I had been working all those earlier years out of context, as if a book author would never read back to herself anything more than the one sentence she would be working on.

BTW, to get back on topic, this is where I realized we must have an easy way to split Scenes into two, or remove the last clip or two from Scene A to start Scene B with. While getting into the flow of this new way of looking at our work, it eventually became second nature for me to recognize already in the thinking (writing) stage where to place not just a Scene but individual Clips as well.

Note: I don't write scripts that often when I'm working on our own films by which I mean with the benefit of having no outsiders for us to answer to. My writing is going on inside my head -- day and night, over and over, and that's how we both need to watch Scenes and Clips as they begin to appear on screen, because that's where Sandra starts contributing to the writing process.

very interesting post, and I 100% agree of course,
( ... it should be printed in bold and pined up on the wall around any animation-desk )

when directing, a film-maker must frequently "flip" between Scenes/Clips all along the production steps,
from animatic to the final rendering, as an animator flips his drawings (fore/back) when animating.
these few "steps back" to see our work (in progress) in its context, and to feel how it vibrates and rings,
is a good thing to tickle our creativity .
it's also a good way to check (and tweak) the global "dynamic" (pace, rhythm) of the sequence we are working on.