Welcome to TVPaint Community forums !

I'm working with storyboarding using the "Project" tab. Here's the problem: I click over to the "Timeline" tab and add a background color layer that I wish to have hold behind several panels, but when I click back to "project" to highlight the next storyboard panel, and then click to "Timeline" again, my background layer isn't there.

Is there a way to have your background layer hold behind several successive panels of your storyboard?

Thanks!

-Bruce

BruceM wrote:I'm working with storyboarding using the "Project" tab. Here's the problem: I click over to the "Timeline" tab and add a background color layer that I wish to have hold behind several panels, but when I click back to "project" to highlight the next storyboard panel, and then click to "Timeline" again, my background layer isn't there.

Is there a way to have your background layer hold behind several successive panels of your storyboard?

Thanks!

-Bruce

If you've got several different CLIPS (scenes) that make up your entire storyboard/animatic , but the same Background is used for more than one CLIP (scene) then I find the easiest thing is to just copy & paste the background layer into each CLIP , so each Clip/scene has it's own BG layer. Obviously when there are cuts between scenes where the camera angle changes and there is a new background then each of those Clips will have it's own unique BG layer , but what I'm suggesting is for when you have different Clips/scenes that use the same BG layer. (just copy & paste it to each Clip in the Project tab) .

I was thinking there might be a more automated way of doing it, but I guess that sounds simple enough.
Thanks D.T.!

-Bruce

BruceM wrote:I was thinking there might be a more automated way of doing it, but I guess that sounds simple enough.
Thanks D.T.!

-Bruce

There may be ! (a more automated way of doing it) but that's how I do it. Maybe one of the TVPaint power users will chime in with an easier/more automated way.

You could imagine a script that updates layers with the same name than the current layer in each clip with the same name than current clip

But I assume that when you say you want to "hold you bg behind several panels", your clips are next to each other, right? Why don't you use only one clip then? We are not in toonboom storyboard pro, you can animate your character in one clip and keep your background underneath (you even can set the post behaviour to "hold").

If your clips are not next to each other (because you use the same BG again later), you also can clean all your clips in only one clip, then when your background is done you just split the clip and move it to it's new location.

Thanks Nathan!
I'll give that a try.

-Bruce