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Okay I feel like I may have to do this in AE but I'm curious can I make these chibi heads rotate around this guy in the center in TVP?
Or is this something I will have to figure out in After Effects?

The idea is to make the chibi heads rotate like a Ferris wheel.

I'd create a layer with the curve I want the heads to follow as a guide, indicate the frames on it, set it to hold. On top of that I'd move each head frame by frame with the paning tool.

Here is how I would do it .

The central head is on a separate layer.

On another layer use a circle guideline around the central head (use the Circle tool in the main panel)

On a third layer arrange the other heads so they are centered on the circle guideline. (now hide this layer)

Create a new blank layer that is stretched out for the duration of the time you want the "ferris wheel" rotation to take (in my case I chose 48 frames)

Go to FX Stack > Motion > Keyframer. In the Keyframer SOURCE tab set the source to the Ferris Wheel Heads layer.
In the POSITION tab uncheck box Offset/postion and check box Offset/pivot , then move the pivot point so it is centered on the head.

Now go down to Bank > Angle and set the first keyframe to Angle = 0.00 , then go to the last frame and set the keyframe to Angle = 359.00.
*IMPORTANT: now click on that last keyframe and drag it over to one frame beyond the last frame of the animation. (see the attached screenshot and .tvpp file)

Select all frames on the blank layer and with Keyframer set to apply on Frames , click APPLY FX STACK. Now the ferris wheel rotation will be applied.


TVPP file - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KmsVIl ... sp=sharing

On my example I had to arrange the chibi heads a bit differently than on your original drawing , to make them fit on a circular guideline for the "ferris wheel" rotation effect.
On yours the arrangement of the chibi heads is in an oval pattern , rather than a circle , so the rotation will look odd if it is an oval arrangement of the heads.
The spacing of the chibi heads on mine is still slightly off , could be better , but I am out of time to do anything more on this . However, I think this should explain it sufficiently for you to do what you want to do in TVPaint , without resorting to AE.



If you want it to go faster you can apply the rotation to a shorter duration of frames (in this case 20 frames, instead of 48) and add option Motion Blur in the Keyframe FX.
Or the rotation can be slower if you apply it to a longer duration of frames, say a duration of 60 frames or 72 frames.
(the problem with a faster rotation, even with motion blur, is you can run into strobing and the optical illusion that the heads will sometimes seem to rotate in the opposite direction.)

20 frame duration (faster)-


72 frames duration (slower) -


(and obviously, this can be done as I imagine you are planning it , to have the Chibi heads all animated on cycles of the heads laughing or talking --- and the central character perhaps glancing from side to side at the Chibi heads as they rotate around --- then using the Chibi Heads animation layer as the Source in the KeyFramer you can add the ferris wheel rotation.)

After following those two very good advice, if you want to try other shapes than a circle and to go to a step further, in the "Offset/Position", select "Spline" and use a Custom Brush as source (your chibi head).
Keyframer is very powerful, you can record your own path too but it needs a bit of pratice!
Do read the doc about it and play around

mox wrote: ↑25 Jul 2024, 14:35 After following those two very good advice, if you want to try other shapes than a circle and to go to a step further, in the "Offset/Position", select "Spline" and use a Custom Brush as source (your chibi head).
Keyframer is very powerful, you can record your own path too but it needs a bit of pratice!
Do read the doc about it and play around

Jerome makes a good point: if you did not want the chibi heads to move in a precise circle , you could record a custom motion path for the heads to follow , which could be a more irregular oval pattern. It takes more work , more trial and error , but you may find that it is more to your liking. The current v.12 user guide is not searchable as far as I can tell, so if you go to the older version 11 user guide you can search for Path Recorder and Path Management . https://doc-tvp11.tvpaint.com

Here is a good tutorial by Kathrine Dallimore on using the Keyframer and Path Recorder -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqP22NbcYuk


The Path Recorder is also covered here by Elodie Moog -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZhzTo4hOgo

Just a note on what D.T. Nethery said above: you can still get a more precise circle or oval shape if you set up a circle or oval guideline before using the path recorder and setting the guideline snap to on.

Also, as I was playing with this I realized you can use use snap on guidelines with the keyframer to position keys better(manually setting keys around a circle guideline for instance), which I didn't realize before as I don't usually use the snap feature.

D.T. Nethery, with your keyframer method is there a way to keep the orientation of the heads vertical, so they do the same rotation, but the ears of the heads stay at the top?

Also as a side note as mentioned above, and I appreciate it is still a work in progress, but I really miss the search function in the v12 documentation!

Fun to see everyone going at this... but you all did not read the "Ferris Wheel" stipulation in the assignement.


A ferris wheel motion means that while the little heads rotate around the center figure head, all the little heads should remain their upright orientation...
now it becomes a bit more tricky.

Still its doable if you counterrotate the individual heads around their own center while they follow a path around the main head.

we run into some limitations of tvpaint. for instance... its not so easy to create a circular motion path. and its impossible to create a perfect circle.
Though you can get close... put a saucer on your wacom and trace its outline with your pen, while recording a motionpath...

click to play: .

Exactly that's what I thought of. If I only use TVP, I stick to my (old-fashioned) solution with a guide path and stamping or translating heads.

I haven't used the keyframer a ton, but I think unless I misunderstand what is being said above that it is feasible to do the ferris wheel effect where the heads stay properly oriented vertically and you can get a nice circle as well (using a guideline/snap to place your keys).

Attached below is a video, sorry for the rush job and hopefully it is clear enough.

1. I cut one of the heads into a custom brush and added to the library, there are other ways around this if you don't have the pro version and the library.
2. Set up a circular guideline(this should work with an elipse but perhaps needing more keys)
3. Used snap on the guideline and set four keys in the keyframer at approximately the 12, 3, 6, and 9 positions(on a clock), and this is a 48 frame loop with the frames at each position set evenly(fr 1, 13, 25, 37, 48) The offset /position set to spline for each of these. Then using the guideline I eyeballed using the bezier handles on the spline to get the red circle(keyframer path) in the video close to the guideline circle(blue circle).
4. The layer has loop set to the end behaviour so it loops.(i realized after recording I had the start frame set to 0, and it is not actually evenly spaced frame wise, but that is just a mistake.)

I don't know how to embed a video, so please click through. edit:
Here is a version using a guideline for the path recorder...it is really rough and quickly done, apologies I was trying to do it quickly and don't have time to edit it right now, but it is what I was describing in my post above. I think you would need to try without preserve timing, and or remove some keys to speed it up if you wanted it to be on a 48 frame cycle for example.

If you really want to get technical, you need to plan ahead:
Turn field guide visible.
Place each of the little heads (on its own layer) in the center, center should be the pivot around each head spins.
Use Keyframer to spin each head around 1x, in as many frames as one revolution around the big head will take, and in the opposite direction.
Now you have one head rotate layer for each little head.
Use Keyframer again to rotate one head around the big head. Apply to all little head spinning layers.
Shift these layers in time so they space evenly.

Peter Wassink wrote: ↑25 Jul 2024, 19:16 Fun to see everyone going at this... but you all did not read the "Ferris Wheel" stipulation in the assignement.

A ferris wheel motion means that while the little heads rotate around the center figure head, all the little heads should remain their upright orientation...
now it becomes a bit more tricky.

Still its doable if you counterrotate the individual heads around their own center while they follow a path around the main head.

we run into some limitations of tvpaint. for instance... its not so easy to create a circular motion path. and its impossible to create a perfect circle.
Though you can get close... put a saucer on your wacom and trace its outline with your pen, while recording a motionpath...

Good point. I thought about going into an extended explanation of adding counter-rotation , by separating all the heads to their own separate layers . It got too complicated for me and I did not have enough time to expand my earlier suggestion. But you are correct. The heads need to remain in their upright orientation.

Slowtiger's solution to shift the heads frame by frame (using a guideline and spacing chart) is good , too.

I was impressed by what Kelan Hordos came up with as a solution using the Path Recorder.

Great to see so many solutions presented.

Peter Wassink wrote: ↑25 Jul 2024, 19:16 A ferris wheel motion means that while the little heads rotate around the center figure head, all the little heads should remain their upright orientation...
now it becomes a bit more tricky.

Hence the Custom Brush solution, since you can choose to keep the asset straight, to follow the path, etc.

I use to do the same as kelanhordosay, but it do raise a question: does the Keyframer spline position should snap to the guideline
I think we should have the choice, unless there are some hiccups to prevent this.

I love how each user has its own way to use (versatile)TVPaint

There's more ways to shave the goat than to skin it with the butter knife!

Thank you all for your input!
I ended up doing this in after effects. It was 100x easier. I'm already struggling with the camera in TV paint (it's not working in playback). And i watched all the videos for it. I don't want to go crazy over a short-form video that's less than 20 seconds long.

I will look over these and start practicing. Jumping into projects was probably a bad idea. I didn't think it'd be too hard.