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I am not clear on blending, rendering, and exporting.
Does blending make a file that is less than the sum total of the layers?
The only render button I see is for the storyboard so do we need to render the clip before exporting?

Blending modes: how the top layer affects everything below. You see the effect while working, it is "rendered" into a new layer when you merge layers (think of "mixdown" in audio).

Exporting means "rendering out a file" (video or image(s).

Hi Crayon10, welcome on the TVPaint Community.

Layers blending modes : they increase the renderings possibilities. They are really useful in particular when you touch up photographs.

Export to... : save your file into .jpeg, .png, .mov etc...

Render a storyboard : export it as a .html file and share it on the web or by emai (for producers, friends, team members etc...)

That is clear, thank you for responding. I have been looking for a book that would cover the subject of blending but there are none. What subject heading should I be looking under to get a better grasp on using the blending function?

The user guide

=> http://www.tvpaint.com/v2/content/artic ... manual.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
==> lesson 3-11 to 3-13 ^^

crayon10 wrote:That is clear, thank you for responding. I have been looking for a book that would cover the subject of blending but there are none. What subject heading should I be looking under to get a better grasp on using the blending function?

It's a good habit to reach for a manual, but in my experience, the best way to learn TVP (or any other software application) is to just start animating something real -- not just little tests. I don't think it's comparable to learning how to fly an airplane where you need to understand every functionality of the craft before you take off and that's only because you might kill someone. I'll admit something here that I have never made public before; I don't know what those blend modes are for either and I think it's because I've never run into a situation that would have made me find out more about them -- and I've drawn a whole feature film.

Ok, so I have to work on this a little bit at a time. Thanks for your replies.

There are plenty of entries on the web regarding blend modes.

for starter, try a wiki one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blend_modes" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or another one (albeit using photoshop to exemplify, but it gives a good idea):
http://www.psdtop.com/blog/basic/unders ... ing-modes/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks, Asaf
I hate to sound like a nay-sayer (because I too often probably am one) but I believe that in our case we can do well without these. The thing is, Sandra chooses and uses her color schemes so naturally and applies them so effectively that she probably has no need to reach for these helpers. I have passed your links on to her, but I think she will dismiss them as "too webie", a favorite expression of hers when she's describing something that has the much too obvious look of a digitized effect.

If I had to paint my drawings myself, I would most likely reach for some of these effects too but I am fortunate to have Sandra who has the rare ability to achieve the same results but with more convincing, hand made strokes, though she does use a semi transparent eraser all the time (or the slider of the layers) to emulate the real watercolor layering she learned long before digital painting existed.

I am so glad crayon got me out of the closet to ask for more details and receive this information from you. Thanks again.

I'm halfway with Paul here - most blending modes are just a waste of screen estate for me. But I very often use the darken, lighten, and multiply layer modes. And I like TVP's special grain merge.

I suspect that modes like add, substract, and difference were introduced by John Knoll himself just because they were the most basic arithmetic operations possible to implement with pixel values...

Darken is a good example of why Sandra wouldn't go this route. She creates dark overlays which she then adjusts with the layer's slider, but the dark is not just a bucket fill of pure black. Sandra will create darkness by mixing other colors into the black, such as blue, or green -- all depending on the colors below, the time of day the clip depicts etc. It makes for less uniformed effects.

i love the way the multiply blendmode lets you create nice shadows easily.
you cannot really achieve this by using a normal layer with reduced opacity because this will lighten up the darker parts of the underlying animation.

having the layer set in multiply blendmode leaves the darker parts as they were and darkens the lighter parts.

i find that for instance a dark purple with low saturation gives a very nice result.
Sandra should experiment with multiply a bit.

#edit#
mixing all shadowcolors by hand is off course much nicer but for a shortcut i find the results can be very satisfying.

I'll make sure she tries because I am curious myself to see the results for comparison, but there is another factor that goes into good painting, which is the frame of mind one gets into while applying individual brush strokes. For people like Sandra this is one of the most influential aspects of her painting; it is all about certain moods she acquires within the proccess.

With our current project there are many such scenes with darkened corners because it is all about 19th century environments and moods. I find myself creating different lines depending on my own frame of mind when absorbed in work. Often if I can't put myself into the right mental state for a certain clip, I will move on to another one and return to it when the time is right. This is essentially what digital technology can never emulate.

From what I've seen you and Sandra prefer "flat" colours without texture. I like textures a lot, and multiply and darken let me keep them visible when shadowing.

Oh well. Right now I'm creating really "technical" animation, but with that handmade look I so much like. Should be finished end of January.

True, but flat is good in 2D. So much for the importance of understanding blend modes to get started with TVPaint.