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If I have a sequence mostly on two's and I want to delete an area over all the instances in that sequence, I select the area to delete and then select all the instances, but when I hit delete, it converts all the images from doubles to singles. It keeps the same timing, but instead of a single instance held for two frames, or whatever, I have two single images and so on. Same thing happens if I copy something and paste it over a sequence of instances. Instead of pasting that image on to each instance, it does that, but creates multiple single frames. Here is a visual to make sure what I am saying is clear. Why is this and how can it be avoided so it does not disturb the existing instances held as in the Before image?

David_Fine wrote:I select the area to delete and then select all the instances, but when I hit delete, it converts all the images from doubles to singles

This is also bugging me all the time. It has something to do with the "auto break instance" behavior and is apparently on the todo list of the TVPaint team.
You may know the option in the menu "Image->Instance->auto break instance". Unfortunately it only works if now frame is selected. To me it is a strange behavior and will hopefully be changed in the future.

There is a difference between the "delete" key and the "clear the instance" button in the animator panel (white square).
The delete key respects the "auto break instance" option but the "clear the instance" button does not. But here also it does not work if many frames are selected.

There are many "auto break instance" cases e.g. here:
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6705" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8140" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You can try this Retimer panel from ZigOtto it was very helpful to me: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3139" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

David, I think you might be looking for "Recompute Many Instances Into One Instance With Several Exposures" which you will find in the animator's Panel (Turn your Help popups on to find the icon )

Paul Fierlinger wrote:David, I think you might be looking for "Recompute Many Instances Into One Instance With Several Exposures" which you will find in the animator's Panel (Turn your Help popups on to find the icon )

No Paul, recompute only works when there is information in the layer left.
you can use the " duplicate current layer and clear heads" function from the animator panel but that will give you an empty duplicate of the entire layer.

if you want to delete only part of the layers content but keep its timing structure, well currently you can't.
Switching off auto break is what you would expect to do the trick but it doesn't, i think it should be made to do so.

You certainly can. This option has been touched upon in another thread that David started, this one!

David_Fine wrote:If I have a sequence mostly on two's and I want to delete an area over all the instances in that sequence, I select the area to delete and then select all the instances, but when I hit delete, it converts all the images from doubles to singles. It keeps the same timing, but instead of a single instance held for two frames, or whatever, I have two single images and so on.

hi David,
I have a [Clear Heads] button for a while in my Animator Panel, and I think it should be available somewhere in the content sharing section,
if you can't find it, it's easy to replicate it :
in your custom panel, create a new button by rmb/Add new Action ... Type script Command ... and enter this command :

David_Fine wrote:...
Same thing happens if I copy something and paste it over a sequence of instances. Instead of pasting that image on to each instance, it does that, but creates multiple single frames. ...

well, here again, there're solutions, but depending of the nature of your copied element,
(full image, images, selection of an image, custom brush, spare image, clipboard, ...),
and also the paste mode you want, "paste over" or "paste and replace",
basically in my process, when I want to duplicate part of an instance drawing to some following instances, I use the selection tool, then I "copy to brush", select the target sequence, and "Stamp on Heads" (which is just a "Stamp-in-Place" command variation).

I tried Paul's Recompute Many Instances suggestion and that did the trick. When the instances all turned to singles, clicking that button turned them back into the original instances, so thanks Paul. Only thing is, I am baffled as to why one needs to do this to somehow magically correct the situation using a button with the complex name, "Recompute Many Instances Into One Instance With Several Exposures". How does one figure this stuff out? Well, I guess right here with the kind help of others. Thanks!

One more question related to pasting. Maybe I should post a new thread, but since I have some comments here, I thought I would just add it to this. If I want to copy a portion of a drawing and then paste it onto a number of other drawings, say a pair of legs, then I select the legs on the first drawing, hit copy, select all the other drawings and hit paste, but it does not happen. In fact, strange things happen. I paste on a selection and they just all disappear. Anyway, what is the correct way to copy an element which has been lassoed and then paste it on to a number of other frames, just as I would in Photoshop, without disturbing anything else?

in that case i'd lasso it with the freehand custom brush and then "stamp in place" over the selected range in the desired layer.

if you don't want to use the custom brush, you can copy the content of a lassoed selection to a new layer in the Tool:select panel by using the cut or copy to layer buttons.
then you have your element on a new layer which you can extend to the desired length and if you like merge.

"Stamp in place" sounds like the one to use for this. Thanks. It does then make everything single frame instances, but then I can use Paul's suggestion "recompute many instances..." to fix that. So a multi step process for something that I think should be done in one single move. You copy something, it pastes it where you say without disturbing anything. If I want everything changed to singles (and not sure why I would) then I can choose to do that as a separate action. I hope this might be addressed in an update.

By the way, I can see that Stamp in Place is on the Tool panel, but how can I make that into a button so that I don't have to have that panel open? I can't find it in the button edit menu anywhere. Any idea how to do that? Thanks.

David_Fine wrote:Any idea how to do that?

You can search for "stamp" in the keyboard shortcuts panel.

Yes, but that's in the keyboard preferences, not the button menu, so I guess I can at least assign a key combo, but how do I assign it to a button?

here it is

Excellent. Thank you. I was looking for "Stamp in Place" and so overlooked this because it says "Custom Brush..." My bad.