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Hello!

I must say I must be technically the word’s worst animator. No matter how much I try to read the user’s guide I just can’t manage the simple tricks I am trying to do. Once again I am returning to you, oh mighty great animators of the forum, begging for your help and to enjoy your kindness that seems to be one of the biggest reasons why my enormous 9 minute film is happily progressing.

I’ve been trying to complete these few simple tricks. Firsty, I should make a BG simply move behind a character. The character layer must stay in place and not move. I have finally found the multi plane camera on the FX Stack panel that I think this could be done with. I am trying to select a picture to work with on the time line, so that it becomes yellow below as usual when selecting. Moving the camera around on the open stage window has however no effect at all on the picture itself. Cannot figure out what I am doing wrong?

The other simple trick I cannot survive this time is: A still picture of a character should be made smaller and moved to a correct place on the BG. I have tried some select-like tools without success.

Would be great to get advice. 

Thank you and have a most wonderful rest of the week all of you!

Johanna

I would do this with the KeyFramer. Create your background, which will likely be larger than your animation frame, in a separate project. Keep both projects opened at the same time (you can have as many projects opened as you want).

Work from within your animation project. Open KeyFramer. (under "Motion" in FX Stack). Select tab "Render">Source>Project List and select the name of your background project. It will then appear in the little thumb window and once you press the "Preview" button below, the background will also appear under your animated character.

You are ready to creat the motion.

Select "Position" tab and use the parameters within that tab to create your desired move. Click on any of the "C" boxes you will be using (the "C" stands for create key and the D stands for delete). Create a key for the beginning of the move and using the HUD (the green box) move your view to the last position, which will automatically create a second key. You will now see a key bar with a + at the start and another one at the end.

When you create a key in the middle you will see a new plus appear within the key bar. When you create a new key, a new parameter will be registered. When you have finished, underscore your timeline (double click under the frames and the area will turn yellow) and press "Apply FX Stack at the very bottom and your move will render.

EDIT: To make the character smaller, use the Key Framer as well, only in this case you can do this within the same project.

Hello,

Thank you so much for answering. Unfortunately I have not gotten very far. See, it is the first time I am trying to use the key framer, because my whole film is done by drawing traditionally on paper. What I can do is still so limited..

When I try to put the BG behind the character the characters always turns transparent and black and white. The “prewiew” button below, if you mean the one that is actually on the same window with all other FX Stack stuff, does not have any effect at all. Wonder what I am doing wrong?

I would be grateful for more information.

Thank you!

Johanna

JoHanna wrote:Firstly, I should make a BG simply move behind a character. The character layer must stay in place and not move.

The BG level which will move (pan) behind the character should be opened as a separate TVP project . You can have two projects open at the same time : "Character Layer" project and "Moving BG Layer" project . With me so far ?

If the BG must pan behind the character layer then the BG layer will necessarily have wider dimensions. For instance if your normal project size (character layer) is 1280 w x 720 h then if you want a BG layer to pan behind the character your BG layer might be 3 or 4 times as wide as the normal project size (or wider if it's a really long pan move) . In traditional animation terms it would look something like this:
For example, let's say the BG layer which moves behind your character layer will be 3 x wide = 3840 w x 720 h .

So you have your BG drawn in a TVP project size 3840 w x 720 h . Then you also have your character animation TVP project (size 1280 x 720) open . Create a new layer underneath the character animation layer in this project. The new layer should be the same number of frames (blank frames) as the character animation layer above it. The new layer is where your BG will go.

Now go to FX Stack --- Motion ---- Keyframer . In the Keyframer go to the Render tab --- Source --- Project List --- select the "Moving BG Layer" project as the source. Now go back to Keyframer --- Position and you will use the X position coordinates to position your start position and end position for the move on the BG layer. This can take some trial and error ; you can see what the move will look like by selecting the frames you want the move to apply to and hitting the Play button in the TVP project window. It will show you a Preview of what the move will look like (if you have Preview selected in the lower right corner of the FX Stack window) . When you are satisfied with the coordinates for the move select all the frames in the new BG layer underneath the character animation layer (right-click on the layer and "Select All frames" or keyboard short Ctrl A to select all) and hit "Apply FX Stack" .
This will apply the move coordinates from the Keyframer to the BG layer .
Now close out of the Keyframer and play back the project. If for some reason it doesn't look right to you then simply Undo and return to the FX Stack --- Motion ---- Keyframer and repeat the steps above , making any adjustments needed on the move coordinates and then reapply.

What I have described is a simple East/West (right to left) or West/East (left to right) panning move . You can get into much more complicated moves which also utilize the Y and Z coordinates. The moves can be linear or splined . You can add ease-ins and ease-outs to the move so it's not all evenly spaced . That is all covered in the TVP manual, but it's complicated to understand at first. The easiest way to get your head around the Keyframer is to simply experiment with it a lot. Try many different tests to see what it does.

Multiplane camera: similar to Keyframer , but even more complicated. I'm not going to get into that in this post because from what you described (i.e. "make a BG simply move behind a character") you don't need the Multiplane , the Keyframer is enough to accomplish what you need.


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JoHanna wrote: The other simple trick I cannot survive this time is: A still picture of a character should be made smaller and moved to a correct place on the BG. I have tried some select-like tools without success.

So let me be sure I understand you on this: You have a BG layer . Then on top of that you have another layer of a still image of a character. You want to reduce the size of the character and reposition it relative to the BG layer , is that right ?

On the character layer use the Freehand Select tool (from the Main Panel tools) to select around the character. Now use the Transform Tool (also in the Main Panel) to reduce the size of the character and to reposition it. See the Appendix user manual for TVP 9.5 for how to use the improved select tools and Transform Tools in the Main Panel:

download the Appendix to the User Manual

OR you can also use the KeyFramer to resize/reposition the character layer , as Paul Fierlinger suggested above. Use the X ,Y, Z coordinates in KeyFramer to change the size and position of the character image .

Please post back if you still need help. Try to be as specific as possible what you are trying to accomplish and include screen grabs showing what you're trying to do within TVP if possible.

JoHanna wrote:my whole film is done by drawing traditionally on paper.

When I try to put the BG behind the character the characters always turns transparent and black and white.

Yes, that is the intended result. The scanned drawings of your characters are imported into TVPaint. Then you run the Scan Cleaner FX on the drawings to strip out the greyish/white pixels from the scans , to make the drawings transparent with only the graphite lines of the character showing. As in a traditional animation pencil test (line test) you see the pencil drawings as transparent, with the BG layer showing from underneath.
For your line test if you want to make the characters opaque on top of the BG (but the area around the characters still transparent so the BG shows through) you can use the Flood Fill (paint bucket) tool to fill the character drawings with opaque white . This is sometimes done for extra clarity in a line test ; see starting around 0:36 mark - to - 0:44 mark in this clip reel of pencil tests: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Vekiduuk0#t=36s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (the rest of the pencil tests in that reel are traditional pencil tests where the character layers are transparent on top of the BG ) , and then again from about the 1:01 mark - to - 1:06 mark in the same reel of pencil test clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Vekiduuk0#t=1m2s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


In most cases that is not necessary and the line test should just have the character layers transparent on top of the BG layer , then when you are ready to color the characters you will use the Flood Fill (paint bucket) tool to fill the character layers with opaque color.

Hello!

Thank you! I feel like being much closer to the answer already. But good grief! Some issues still keep on bothering. I have been trying all kind of different numbers in the x position coordinates. Now the BG actually appears under the character and the character stays in it’s right colors, but there is a but or two.

I have not yet the slightest idea what the x coordinates represent other than the BG changes it’s size when they are handled. I always get the BG behind the character in two parts, a smaller and a bigger square on the top of each other. Also, the colors change considerably darker when trying to apply FX stack and also after applying, the both squares stay there and I cannot get just one like I would naturally like to. I have not either created any actual panning yet. It does not move anywhere.

Is it the numbers that make the BG move or is there perhaps another trick for that?

Sorry for being so impossible. I really appreciate your help more than you can ever imagine.

Johanna Sherlock alias animator from a forest

It sounds to me that you have more FX than just Motion>KeyFramer activated. If that is the case, close all the others. If you would like, I could help you out over Skype or the phone. Where do you live (this is where it helps when people give out this information)? I'm outside of Philadelphia where it is almost 9 AM now.

Hello Paul!

Thank you.
I sent you an inbox message about Skype. Hope you'll get it.
Johanna

Yes, I just replied....