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Is there a way to work on a section on the timeline without it moving the rest of the timeline after it? That is, if I want to fiddle with the timing on a few frames, but want the instances which follow to remain where they are. They only thing I can think of is to duplicate the layer and then delete the before and after on each layer, but that's bit cumbersome every time I want to do that.

no "halfway layer lock" as such...

but do you know that if you use the top-left 'instance handle' (one of two tiny grey squares inside each instance)
TVPaint respects all the timing after...?

And sometimes to be sure nothing shifts...for this purpose i use an image mark on the frame i want to remain and put a bookmark on the timeline...
when i'm finished i make sure these are still/again aligned....

or you could split the layer... this is a one click affair... afterwards you can merge the two layers into one again.

Yeah, I think splitting the layers is the best workaround, but it's still a multistep thing, right? Like, I can't just put the cursor where I want to split and then just click on one thing? I believe I have to carefully select one section, then copy to layer above, then go back to the layer below and delete the same, or am I missing the secret easy splitting tool??

There's a one click tool to separate and another one to join in the Handy Custom Panel under the tab Current Layer.

This -
You need to be on the layer you want to split. It will split the layer AFTER the current frame you are on .

When you want to Join two layers back together again make sure you have both layers selected before you click Join.

Thank you Paul and DT. So splitting the track is great, but now I am wondering if I can do the opposite. I have a character on three levels and when I move the timing on one, I want the other two to stay in sync, so I want to be able to move the timing on one track and have it lock to the other two so that they also move along and stay in sync. Is this possible? How do people manage to keep layers in sync when editing the timing on one element of a multi layer character?

I don't believe there are too many instances when you could mechanize the match so without knowing what exactly you are planning to change it is difficult to make a suggestion. The way I would go about something like this is to first make a temp track of all three layers merged. The temp track would become a fourth one which you would make the changes on and then you would use this temp track as a template to manually adjust the two matching tracks.

Another solution might be to make the changes in the KeyFramer and use the same set of keys to match the changes on the other two tracks. In my experience this can get complicated and messy and I find myself staying away from the KeyFramer and just matching each changed position manually with the Transform tool.

I am curious to see if anyone will come up with an easier mechanized way but I have never found making frame by frame corrections with the Transform tool all that difficult or time consuming.

if the multple layers belonging to the character have the same break-up to start with. (i mean how the layer is cut up into instances)
you can make sure to do your time editing, by first selecting all the layers that belong together,
then when you edit one layer the other selected layers will automatically have the same timing change done to them.

so you still need to keep making sure all layers are slected when editing, but this does work.

The layers are not all identical in timing. For instance, one of them might be held legs which will eventually move. The second would be the body and the third, lip sync. So if I adjust the hold at the start, I want the hold on all three layers to move at the same time, but right now, I have to do one, then visually match the others. Paul's suggestion of merging still requires fiddling around to visually match. The only other way is to split all three layers so that they are effectively locked because I am now only moving the first part of each, then join them up. All these options are very cumbersome, so I wonder why TVPaint does not simply allow you to lock them together from a certain point. Or that you select multiple lanes and whatever you do to one, happens to the other selected. This would save so much time and avoid mistakes.

This request comes down to (or is similar to) wanting to have folders in the layer panel,
And this is a very longstanding request that apparently is not possible in the current architecture of the software.
The colorgroups were introduced years ago as sort of a workaround solution. to at least get some partial layer grouping functionality.
By my knowledge a rewrite of the source code to accommodate this in the future is underway but i have no idea when we can expect to see it.

Peter Wassink wrote: ↑21 Oct 2018, 20:32 if the multple layers belonging to the character have the same break-up to start with. (i mean how the layer is cut up into instances)
you can make sure to do your time editing, by first selecting all the layers that belong together,
then when you edit one layer the other selected layers will automatically have the same timing change done to them.

so you still need to keep making sure all layers are slected when editing, but this does work.

Thanks Peter, I did not know that. There might be a way to streamline...

This only works sort of. Every single instance must be the edited the same for this to happen. So for instance if I have a layer which begins 10 frames later, say a prop which appears, when you select that layer along with the others and edit as described, that prop layer does not move and will be out of sync. So the option to select all layers and move them together is only limited to situations where the instances are the same on all those layers. As soon as the layers do not match, as in my previous description of a held layer with legs only, then you can't do this. Linking and locking layers together would be a really great thing. Even grouping layers so that you can collapse the group, even if you can't edit them collapsed, would be a wonderful thing for tidying up the timeline for working. The coloured tags does help, so that's good.

also, using frame markers can go a long way in helping to keep layers aligned when editing them.
but i agree totally that a way of locking layers together would be a very important improvement.