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Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could share their method to animate on TVpaint.

Coming from paper animation I have been trying to apply the same methods with TVpaint. Here is how I do it.

Firstly I ll go through the step when I animate on paper:

• Xsheet----> I plan my actions to see how long things take then write it down.
  Key drawings----> I first do the drawing then shoot them and adjust the timing on the xsheet. This is where the 123 flip is really nice. You flip through the drawing 1 2 and 3 in order while drawing on drawing 2. Here is a video that explains it around 3:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFxWTXajJZE#t=213
  
  Breakdown drawings----> these drawing go between the key drawings
  
  Then a linetest and make changes
  
  Inbetween drawings----> these go inbetween the breakdown drawings
  
  Then linetests and make more changes. When I am happy with it It, I clean up everything.

Now on TVpaint:

• Xsheet----> In "timeline note"(windows -> tools -> show timeline note) I write down everything and I use the amazing "stopwatch" (windows -> tools -> stopwatch) to time my action
  
  Key drawings----> I do each new drawing in a new instance without worrying about time at first, while fliping using the arrow keys. Then I ajust the exposure of the instances on the timeline to check if my plan is working or not and make the corresponding changes. Then I mark each drawing with a color with the image marks panel (windows---> tools---> image mark).
  
  Breakdown drawings ---> I create new intances where needed and draw the breakdown drawing. Then I mark these with different color then the one used for the key drawings. This will allow me to flip only through the key drawings and it also will help me remember which drawing is what.
  
  Inbetween----> I draw the inbetweens in their own instances each time marking them with a third color to differenciate them from the key drawing and breakdown drawing.
  
  Now I can check if everything works and fix the keys if need by flipping through them using the color image mark flip

That is the best workflow I could find for doing pose to pose animation. The problem is that If I wanted to flip through keys AND breakdowns I have to use the bookmarks(edit--->toggle bookmarks) and bookmarks all those drawings and then flip through the bookmarks.

Alright, I'll try my best, though trust me that the people under the rain are thoroughly aware of the many differing methods we all start out with before we find our own, unexpected ways to approach animation inside of TVPaint.

Your approach is typical of those of us who come to TVP from the classical 2D method, and only for us TVP finally introduced the X-sheet, which involved weeks of cumbersome reprogramming based on high demands of users (including myself). Then it turned out that hardly anyone uses an X-sheet because it is a method anathema to the digital world. By the time TVP's X sheet came out I actually was way into falling in love with timeline work and I never even gave a look at the X-sheet.

The X-sheet principal is to take the animator's numbered sheets and organize them into sequences for the camera operator to follow when shooting on film the first pencil test. There are always mistakes to discover so the animator gets back to reworking the x-sheet.

In the timeline you can rearrange your individual drawings on the fly and once you spot a mistake, you can drag frames or entire sequences to wherever you want and get instant feedback -- why bother with an X -sheet since the X-sheet was primarily designed to help the animator communicate his ideas to the cameraman (the X stands for camera exposure, by the way )

I don't feel like going back to read your own work process, but I presume you are still drawing on paper and scanning your drawings to fill up the X-sheet with. If you draw directly into the Project Panel an X-sheet will soon make no sense whatsoever... and believe me, you will draw digitally soon, if you aren't doing so already.

Then the developers started to answer the demands of professional storyboard artists and the long process of developing this new Tab began. As an animator who has never used animation assistants and for the past 15 years works 90% of the time on my own productions, I had no need for storyboarding. Storyboarding is for team work so I wasn't interested in this new development and paid little interest to it. But at one point I began to notice what can be done with this digital way of boarding. Once I understood how Projects can be split into clips I got myself into a new workflow. I realized the advantage of developing an entire sequence of scenes (now I go along with the flow and call scenes clips, which make up a scene) and work like this:

I use the Thumbnail view of the Project Tab and indeed, draw something like a storyboard to give me the layout of clips that represent a future scene (or 2 or 3 scenes, but never more). I export these stills to my editing program Sony Vegas, where I have already laid down a skeleton of a sound track. I never animate without a sound track. I stretch the clips to fit into the soundtrack and play like a slide show. This tells me right away where I need to make changes to tell the story better. I make copies of the sound track that covers each still image and import those into my TVP clips (remember, what was a storyboard panel is also a clip when you switch from Project Tab to Clip Tab. That's where I load the individual sound clips and start working on an animatic, which comes easy now that I can time my drawings to sound. I do this with all my clips and often export the animatics to replace my stills in Vegas -- well, not really replace because my still is now made of several stills, all under the same file name, so when I go to Vegas I see an animatic instead of a slide show without ever changing a thing in Vegas.

Then comes some real animation and here I depart in a major way from the classical 2D workflow (the X-sheet by now is in the dust bin of my memory). I animate in all clips at the same time, by which I mean, I might choose to start animation that ends clip #1 and then move to clip #2 to start with the animation that opens clip 2. I compare this way of working to the way a landscape painter will work a canvas. Not starting in one corner and painting his way across the entire canvas until it's all covered with paint -- but place a few colors here and there to workout the color composition to start with.

I "paint" out my color composition of several scenes (2 or 3 as I have mentioned which amounts to maybe a dozen or fewer clips)
You'd go nuts working this way in the analog world. The advantages are that you can better develop your character as you sketch and move him about an entire sequence of actions. You get to know him well as you adjust his lines back and forth between clips. By the time it comes to full, hardcore animation you can feel secure about who he is.

I draw basically in two's which means that most of the time I keep my project set to 12fps and expand to 24 when I render out my AVIs to Vegas. There are times when you need to animate in singles, but you should know about those by now.

Since I do all the drawings and my films tend to be long (Sandra and I are finishing up a 2 hr film in 4 parts right now and while she is catching up with all the painting of the clips I have already finished, I have started on a new 30 minute film. But, as I said, since I have to do all the drawing and Sandra all the coloring, I have my own way of taking shortcuts, though I never cheat on inbetweening. I create some very demanding sequences (animation wise), followed by still shots. Or followed by long pans following some small thing in the distance. It is important to make these decisions to fit the storyline -- the use of stills have to be justifiable, not self-serving.

And that's about my whole workflow in the raw... anyone, feel free to ask anything that needs clarification for you.
(And anyone please feel free to answer questions asked of me or join in with what you do differently.)

Well thank you very much. This is very instructive.

Alright, I'll try my best, though trust me that the people under the rain are thoroughly aware of the many differing methods we all start out with before we find our own, unexpected ways to approach animation inside of TVPaint.

It must be really hard to decide what do develop and what to not develop since everyone has its own way of doing things. I guess it is the catch if you are not going to just impose things on users.

Its very nice to see your own raw workflow especially since you do everything yourself without the imposing of teamwork.

It's always refreshing and motivating to see how individual work instead of the classical mind flattening method of the studio worlds. I always hated at school when the teacher said: "It's industry standard to do it this or that way". As if it was the one and only method, the holy method. The more I learn about this world the more I see there are no holy ways.

The more I learn about this world the more I see there are no holy ways.

Maybe you just hit upon one of the reasons why TVPaint has evolved into something outside of the Adobe mainstream that all students are taught in art schools world over. It has become one of the paradoxes and causes of frustrations to find a program that finally allows one to be different yet many wish the lexicon and culture of the software to travel along the well trodden path.

I guess I'm using a bit different approach, since I'm never animated on paper and started animating using TVPaint

• I sketch all keyframes with the blue sketch-brush. Flipping thorugh them to see if it seems valid. Then I set a red image mark on all of them.
• Then I try to set the space between them right to get the approximate timing.
• Sketching the breakdowns and mark them green.
• Adding the inbetweens and refining the timing.
• While I usually use this pose to pose mode for the general movement of the characters I'm adding some additional elements like hair, cloth etc. on a seperate layer, with orange or red animating straight ahead.
• I do the cleanup on a seperate layer in black. First the keyframes, then the breakdown drawings and then the inbetweens.
• If fast movent is involved I duplicate my cleanup layer and add in smears.
• Coloring is usually done in Photoshop. And gets reimported in TVPaint.

Seeing how you have both concentrated your posts on the act of tweening (and I properly reread this time momo's post )I must say I work in a much simpler way that is very close to the way I used to draw on paper. I simply draw poses which I place many frames apart from each other (basically, my animatic) and begin the breakdown process like everyone must.

But I rarely split my character's limbs and body parts or props or clothing between separate layers. Instead, I draw and redraw the entire figure. this way I feel I have more control of the character's body language because forcing myself into redrawing the entire character pushes me into giving each replica enough variety to improve important nuances of acting.

To simplify the mechanical process of creating empty frames between the ones placed further apart, I once asked MadsJuul and at another point Svengali to write me a script. I think it then turned into a collaboration between those two and here is the result:
If I were to end up on a desert island and was told I could pick just one plugin to join me, this is the one I would choose.

Cool, thanks that plugin is great especially now, since I was trying to do the tweens, keys and breakdowns on seperate layer to be able to flip just through one of them at the time.

Paul Fierlinger wrote:

The more I learn about this world the more I see there are no holy ways.

Maybe you just hit upon one of the reasons why TVPaint has evolved into something outside of the Adobe mainstream that all students are taught in art schools world over. It has become one of the paradoxes and causes of frustrations to find a program that finally allows one to be different yet many wish the lexicon and culture of the software to travel along the well trodden path.

Yeah its crazy when you think Adobe is brainwashing the brains when they are still fresh. I am currently trying to completely free myself from Adobe, windows etc... it is diffcutl but possible.