Welcome to TVPaint Community forums !

Hi All,
I just downloaded TVpaint 64 bit demo and I had a questions about entering information into the xsheet. I come from a cambridge Animo background and entering frames into the Xsheet worked very fast. I was wondering if there was a way to select a cell on the xsheet to enter a frame in without double clicking on it or dragging a frame over (IE. enter button selects, type key in, enter to accept). Also, is there a way to hold a previous frame. Lets say i enter 1 in frame 1 from layer B (B-1) and then i enter in frame 3 (B-2). Currently there is a blank frame that is created on frame 2. is there a way to hold that frame 1 for 2 frames?

Frames
1: B1
2: Empty (hold previous frame?)
3: B2
4: Empty
5: Empty
6: B3 (enter, type, enter)?


Thanks,
JohnnyGJunior
System: Windows 7
TVPaint 64bit Demo

Forget the Xsheet tab in TVPaint Animation. It was added in 2006 and finally, almost nobody use it. So, the feature wasn't updated for 7 years.
Everyone use the Clip : layer tab because it is more intuitive than the Xsheet : layers stack on the left, durations on the right. In other words, it is a Xsheet, but a horizontal one.

You should better load your animation as an image sequence and manage the duration of each image by stretching their tails (the little square at the end of each instance).

johnnygjunior wrote: is there a way to hold that frame 1 for 2 frames?

Delete the empty frame and stretch B1.
To stretch a frame put your cursor above its borders an make appear a double arrow.

Thank you Elodie. I am used to typing numbers into an xsheet i guess (for example Mouths). I am totally open to learning something new. I will try this.

The new timeline abilities are really good. Not only can you drag any frames' duration (that's a hold), you can also drag and copy single or multiple frames around, even to other timelines. So for mouth frames you could have one source layer, and from that always copy what you need and paste to your destination layer.

Come to think of it, this could be improved even further ...

AH! I get it.... FANTASTIC!

BTW, when did you use Animo the last time? I was an early Animo user and even beta tester.

Actually, I used it on a project last year. We had some old systems that had v6 installed. Now we no longer have it which is a bummer - I absolutely love Animo. it was fun to use and fast. Funny how time flies though, I first started using it in 98 at a studio called Tape House Toons. All Good stuff.

If you don't mind, i do have another question, Sorry if its all newbie stuff...

lets say that i created a set of rough mouth shapes labeled. M1, M2, M3, M4, M5... and i want to reuse them in the timeline over an over again. M1 , M3, M5, M2, M2, M3 ------ I like the timing and now its time to cleanup those 5 drawings, but I have them exposed over and over again (i used M1 - 15 times). Is there a way to just clean up M1 - M5 and it effects the rest of the exposures?

ALSO, is there a way to make color chips that are replaceable throughout the scene? I am checking all the tutorials, but i can't seem to find an answer to these.

Thank you so much.
JohnnyG.

I tried using the XSheet a while ago, just to see how it works... it's not worth the effort, really. I think it's just a legacy feature that is still there for sentimental reasons. You can do so much more on the timeline view.

Thanks idragosani. I'm trying out the timeline and its working pretty good so far. I just have lots of questions and im researching...

SO - i figured out how to apply a change to one images across the exposure. I found the button: Apply the current image on the instances with the same name.

Now, my only other question was the color chips. Can you make color models that you can change a color chip and it changes through the animation?


thanks so much. This program is getting to be fun

Johnnyg

Nope, colour magic like this isn't possible. (The Animo colour model was a charm - but the concept only works with flat colours on clearly defined areas.) In TVP you can have your colour fills on a separate lecvel, so a later adjustment is easier, but not automatic.

Have you had a look at Anime Studio? It's the only program I'm aware of which keeps the legacy of Animo's vector mdule.

Yes, the best way is to put every color on a separate layer.

When you want to change one color, select the new color you want, go to that layer's first frame, draw a filled rectangle in "replace" mode over the whole image, hit undo, select all frames of the layer, hit [Enter], voila !

Probably worth a little custom button/script :)

you guys are so helpful. Thank you so much. This is great and it makes sense.


These questions where common issues we would run into in production and i want to make sure with the next software we get, we can still address them. I will try your suggestions.

you guys are the best!

ematecki wrote:Yes, the best way is to put every color on a separate layer.

When you want to change one color, select the new color you want, go to that layer's first frame, draw a filled rectangle in "replace" mode over the whole image, hit undo, select all frames of the layer, hit [Enter], voila !

Probably worth a little custom button/script

Also, with all colors painted on a separate layer below the line artwork you can use FX Stack -- Color -- Color Replacer. In Color Replacer choose the Source Color (the color you want to change /example: the character's BLUE shirt) and the Destination Color (change shirt color to GREEN) , then select all frames and hit Apply FX Stack and it will automatically change all the occurrences of the Source color to the new Destination color on all frames.

I thought i would just share my notes. LOL

Thanks D.T. Im going to try that today and explore some more.