Adjusting and Tweeking: This page contains multiple tips and tricks for improving your
animation work.
Converting Tweens for Non-constant segments from 1's to 2'sTo use
tweening first and then convert it to 2's, you establish the keys and create the tweened segment and set your
spacing as best you can using your function curves. That makes your
non-constant segment on 1's.
Tweening is always on 1’s by how it is implemented in TBS. Now go to the end of the segment and step back two frames, with the
transform tool active "add a keyframe". Then repeat this step back two frames and adding a keyframe process all the way back until your entire segment has been subdivided on 2's with
keyframes connected by
constant segments. You now have captured the computer assisted
tweening and converted it into a sequence of
keyframes. If you are not totally happy with the final
spacing at this point you can tweek some of those keys. The point here being that you get the aid of automated
tweening but the ability to adjust things after the tweens have been created.
Adjusting Animation Timing With Set Exposure and the Cells PanelYou have created a sequence of drawings, your keys, and you want to set up the
timing for this sequence of drawings and then go in and add additional inbetweens without changing the
timing you have already established for these keys. You always want to extend
exposures from the first
frame of the sequence of frames in an exposure set. For example, you have a drawing titled c-12 at
frame 23 and you want to extend its exposure for 3 frames. You select c-12 at
frame 23 and you <right click> and choose "
set exposure to 3". This adds 2 additional exposure frames of drawing c-12 and pushes all additional
cell exposures out to allow those
exposures to be added at frames 24 and 25. Suppose that you want to change your
timing and set the number of
exposures of drawing c-12 to 4
exposures instead. You go back to
frame 23, in this example, and select just drawing
cell c-12 again at
frame 23 and <right click> and choose "
set exposure". This opens a dialog panel where you will enter 4 in the “frames” text box and click OK. You now will have 4 exposure frames of c-12 instead of 3 again the downstream drawing are relocated to accommodate this
timing change. Suppose you don't like that
timing and you really wanted it to only be 2 exposure frames. You need to go back to
frame 23 ,again, and select drawing c-12 and this time <right click> and choose "
set exposure to 2" .This reduces the exposure frames for drawing c-12 down from 4 to 2 and the downstream cells are shifted back to account for the reduction in frames used by drawing c-12. You can add or subtract
exposures for each drawing in a sequence of drawings using this technique as a way to adjust and fine tune your
animation timing.
See this tutorial
Toon Boom Fundamentals - The Basics Part 1 for a great example of this technique
Now suppose that you have your
timing adjusted and you now want to start adding some in between drawings into this timed out sequence of keys but you don't want to change the
timing. You move to a
frame where you want to replace an existing drawing exposure with a new inbetween drawing, and select that
frame either in the timeline or on your
exposure sheet. Now go to your "
Cells" panel, where you will see a preview of the drawing
cell that is currently occupying that
frame. To replace that drawing
cell with a new blank drawing, you just pull the slider handle at the bottom of the "
Cells" panel all the way over to your far left and this replaces the current drawing with a new blank drawing and you are ready to draw your in between. You repeat this technique for each in between drawing you want to add into your already timed out sequence.
Suppose that you don't want to use the Cells panel to insert blank cells for your inbetweens as described above. Here is another approach where you want to duplicate the cell in the previous frame and then just modify the new cell as your inbetween. You have a sequence of frames with a cell followed by one or more hold frames of that same cell. You move the frame slider to whichever hold frame in this sequence that you want to convert into an inbetween. You right click to open the context menu and select the "duplicate drawing" command.You now have an exact uniquely named duplicate of your original cell and you can modify it into your inbetween.
C1- -C2-C3-C4-C5-C6- (13 frames) "
C1" is a cell that is exposed three times the
"-" represents a hold frame.
C1C7-C2-C3-C4-C5-C6- (13 frames)
C7 is a duplicate of
C1 to be modified as an inbetween.
C1C7C8C2-C3-C4-C5-C6- (13 frames)
C8 is a duplicate of
C7 to be modified as an inbetween.
Notice that the timing has not changed, it is still 13 total frames but you have now inserted two duplicate cells for inbetweens between key drawing C1 and key drawing C2. The same process is repeated to put in inbetween cells between keys throughout the sequence by converting holds to duplicates of the previous key drawing cell.
This technique also works on the
timeline. You select the desired drawing which is represented by a tick mark on the track for the element and <
right click> and choose
set exposure and enter the desired total number of
frame exposures in the dialog panel.
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