trenino wrote:I am aware of the annotation area in the timeline, which is a more general place for notes, but I haven't seen yet in the videos or in the software the option to annotate the kind of frame, as it would traditionally be done in an Xsheet. From my limited understanding, this is a way that gives an instant, visual way of going through the timing of the animation and also seeing the multiple background exposures/images.
In any case, since this seems a conscious decision not to incorporate the xSheet, at least not in a meaningful way, like other programs do, I was wondering if someone cares to explain the logic behind that decision. Also if people feel that that using the timeline for everything is more intuitive/faster etc.
As I said, I am a total beginner, and to my knowledge all the important books on 2d animation teach the classic structure of 2d animation, that includes the xSheet. As such I would expect to find this in such a prestigious and expensive software like TVPaint.
Thanks
The xsheet was created at in the end of the 20s' / early 30s' for a simple reason : to synchronize sound and images.
The first talking animated film was "steamboat willie" and Disney's team recorded the sound after the animation. It was tricky, but it was good enough for a short film.
However, when Disney had the great idea to be the first company to release a long feature in animation (Snow White), his team realized they couldn't use the method "animation first - sound after" (too risky : Disney wanted something efficient).
One guy in his team thought : "ok, there are 24 frames in a second, let's split a text in 24 frames". And he wrote a text with blank space and draw line between each syllabus. Someone else completed the idea with a whole sheet with cells, so it became easier to say which drawing goes with which syllabus.
And there you go : Disney sort of invented the exposure sheet (xsheet) for the needs of Snow White and the 7 dwarves.
It has evolved for many years, including notes, cameras moves, etc.
(the information comes from "the art of animation" by Bob Thomas)
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So, what's about TVPaint ?
Thanks to computer science, animation and live action films evolved to be more and more digital.
Less and less people animate on paper, so less and less people have to sit in front of large desk with heavy camera to take footages of paper sheets (which was the other purpose of xsheet : putting and finding all the papers of the film in order into the right storage place).
Screens are wider, so having a vertical display is not that comfortable anymore, and it brings different issues (how to display long layers' names, opacities, Fx, eases, and so many things which are common in digital animation ? )
Plus, editing software (for video and sound) always had a horizontal timeline.
The xsheet, like celluloid, belongs to the past (imho). People need to keep timing when they switch from a software to another one and with digital processes, there are faster and more efficient ways to do so (edl files, xml files...) than following cells and sheets.
In 2006, we included an xsheet feature after many people requested it. It was not the best in the world, but it worked well.
Result ? Barely nobody use it, that's why it's hidden by default in version 11.
Activating it won't change anything for you, for your real question was not " I need a xsheet" but "I need to note what are my main keys".
