Welcome to TVPaint Community forums !

I learned to animate in Flash last year, and heard of TVPaint so I decided to give it a try. I can't figure out anything ^^; Like, how to create a new frame, or add frames between existing frames, and many other things probably. I tried going with the bouncing ball tutorial but it does the actions really quickly and doesn't say "now click here- X" and I miss a lot. Can someone help me? Haven't found a proper tutorial yet

Just a few quick hints: explore a lot with your right mouse button placed on top of just about anything, for instance on top of a timeline layer to make a new frame (later you can ask for the shortcuts to those features). Explore all the drop down menus from the menu bar at the top. TVP is not FLASH because it does many, many things FLASH never will, and it's not Photo Shop although it does many things Photo Shop does. Download the manual.

Can someone help me? Haven't found a proper tutorial yet

Hint : You have some icons in the top of this forum page, why not click on this one, and see what happen ?

You know what would be really useful for new users is a set of "hints" for people coming from Flash or Toon Boom, that lists equivalent ways of doing things in TVPaint compared to other applications. Blender did this recently with a series of videos targeted towards users of apps like Maya. You wouldn't have to make videos, just a cheat sheet for new users.

I saw a comment recently on, I think, John Kricfalusi's blog about various types of animation apps and how to get good background artwork, and one comment made me go "huh?" -- someone said they loved the work done in TVPaint but said the interface was impossible to understand.

It's not relevant in some situations because the way to work in a vector software and the way to work in a bitmap software are two different things, I can say by working in some feature films pipeline actually.
Doing so generate constant request to imitate the other software, and the people never understand what is a pixel or a vector.
(and I even don't speak about asian software like Retas, it's other habits compared tothe Adobe suite ...)
Anyway, yes I confirm we are still working on the tutorials, to improve the first contact with the software.

But when I read this :

Haven't found a proper tutorial yet

I can only give a link to the lastest tutorials from July. (not the bouncing ball, try the interface and basic shortcuts, tutorials, etc ...)
I hope it will help, they were created in this purpose.

And the manual is laid out well and not overly technical. So open it up and search for keywords like, "New Frame" or "Frame" etc.

idragosani wrote: "huh?" -- someone said they loved the work done in TVPaint but said the interface was impossible to understand.

I've heard this sentiment before, but I have yet to hear anyone give a clear reason why they don't understand the interface. One answer that I keep hearing is that they "don't understand French logic", but I think they're just manual shy.

In my opinion there's nothing wrong with the interface at all it's actually fairly simple and intuitive

I agree, I was able to jump right in without trouble.

I'm curious if you can remember the blog post you mentioned, I'd like to read those comments.

I understand what the problem is because I hear it from my students every year. When you open TVP you expect to see prominently
1. a pencil
2. an eraser
3. a timeline with a series of empty frames to fill up with drawings
4. a switch to a light table to turn off and on.

But what you see in actuality is not enough; some drawing and painting tools and one frame. That's about it. What I would like to see is everything I list above with a preset of the bouncing ball already drawn on the first layer, painted on the layer below, and a background layer below those two. The Lightable should already be opened and the Tool set should have an eraser in its arsenal.

Besides that, there should be a minimal list of the most asked questions answered and the list should be already opened -- maybe just one or two pages that would answer how to stretch out the timeline, how to add and subtract frames, explain instances etc. I don't think there would have to be more than 10 or 15 questions to answer.

That's a good point. There could be a startup screen with that option. Or a box that pops up on startup that you could disable. Maybe something that has videos to say Intro to tv paint, Bouncing ball exercise, Pen pencil and brush essential, etc

I think it can be devised so that it would be easy to create (read as uncomplicated and very basic) because the developers are up to their ears with new coding. What I described could be prepared by almost anyone here, including a Custom Panel with a pencil and an eraser. All that the developers would have to do is to make TVP remember this project as a sample project, listed in the startup panel.

Whatever you would do with this project you couldn't save it because each time you open it again, it would open as a sample project again. This sample could be extended by a camera move setting; whenever you open the camera tool, there will already be a simple zoom on the bouncing ball sequence. You could play with the camera, erase the bouncing ball and draw your own ideas, but none of these could ever be saved -- for that you would have to create a new project -- which would be explained in the Q&A dope sheet always sitting on top of the GUI.

v.veidt wrote:I agree, I was able to jump right in without trouble.

I'm curious if you can remember the blog post you mentioned, I'd like to read those comments.

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2012/08/ ... s-and.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's pretty Toon Boom-centric, but I got the first comment in and mentioned TVPaint

Paul Fierlinger wrote:I understand what the problem is because I hear it from my students every year. When you open TVP you expect to see prominently
1. a pencil
2. an eraser
3. a timeline with a series of empty frames to fill up with drawings
4. a switch to a light table to turn off and on.

But what you see in actuality is not enough; some drawing and painting tools and one frame. That's about it.

What I would like to see is everything I list above with a preset of the bouncing ball already drawn on the first layer, painted on the layer below, and a background layer below those two. The Lightable should already be opened and the Tool set should have an eraser in its arsenal.

Besides that, there should be a minimal list of the most asked questions answered and the list should be already opened -- maybe just one or two pages that would answer how to stretch out the timeline, how to add and subtract frames, explain instances etc. I don't think there would have to be more than 10 or 15 questions to answer.

MatthewTardiff wrote:That's a good point. There could be a startup screen with that option. Or a box that pops up on startup that you could disable. Maybe something that has videos to say Intro to TVPaint, Bouncing ball exercise, Pen pencil and brush essential, etc

I really like that idea of Paul's , to have a preset sample project open up showing a simple animation sequence -- "bouncing ball already drawn on the first layer, painted on the layer below, and a background layer below those two. The Lightable should already be opened and the Tool set should have an eraser in its arsenal" -- and the tools enabled that Paul mentions. This would instantly help new users to see how the layers and frames are set up on the timeline.

And Matthew's idea to have option of the preset project disabled with a simple box to uncheck in the Start-Up panel if you don't want the preset sample project to open .

fuzzbucket wrote:I learned to animate in Flash last year, and heard of TVPaint so I decided to give it a try. I can't figure out anything ^^; Like, how to create a new frame, or add frames between existing frames, and many other things probably. I tried going with the bouncing ball tutorial but it does the actions really quickly and doesn't say "now click here- X" and I miss a lot. Can someone help me? Haven't found a proper tutorial yet.

As others have pointed out , the entire User Manual is a series of tutorials on the different functions in TVPaint. Dig a little deeper . And the Tutorials posted here: http://www.tvpaint.com/v2/content/artic ... torial.php and here: http://www.tvpaint.com/v2/content/artic ... _tags=tvp9 (those show TVPaint 9/9.5 , but the functions are still all basically the same in TVPaint 10)

Fuzzbucket , you got a good conversation going here , but it's too bad you are the only one not participating in your own topic. Where did you go ?