Elements Notes and Cell Notes: There is never enough desktop space in TBS when you are working, even if you are lucky enough to have a duel display setup. So there is always a need to use some useful work flow tricks to save space and still have good work organization. One such trick is in naming elements and then utilizing element notes and cell notes for more detailed information.

When I use to do mostly hand drawn animation on paper, I always found ways to abbreviate things and also to write little notes in the margins of my drawings or exposure sheets. So for me, some of those methods just naturally carried over into my TBS work flow. I normally name my elements by single letters of the alphabet. (A, B, C, D,E,F,G …..) and my backgrounds BG with a number, like BG1,BG2. If I later need to add an additional element in between two existing elements, I just add a number to the element name, like A1. This use of alphabet letters just helps me to be more organized and it also makes finding things in a large time line label list really easy.

Of course, the major drawback to using a single letter for a name is that it doesn’t tell me what the element contains. So to solve that, I add an element note to each element when I create it. I can put as much detail about the element in that note as I need. The note doesn’t clutter up my screen space, but it is there for me to refer to just by “rolling” over the element’s name label in the timeline or the exposure sheet. So if element “B” is “crazy rabbit character”, I will put that in my element note for element “B”.

Now cell notes are also very useful when working. I use them whenever I want to remind myself of some action or detail that I want to add to a drawing at a later time. I tend to animate in an iterative multi-pass approach, which means I may revisit a drawing many times before it is completed. So I use an attached cell note to keep up with things left to be done or to be considered. For example “add additional action with crazy rabbit’s ears starting at this drawing”.

The beauty of cell notes is that they are frame specific, which means that when I tie a note to cell a-23 at frame 11 that note is only seen at that location. If I reuse cell a-23 at a different frame location it doesn't include the previously attached note. Element notes are always attached to the element and show both in the Timeline panel track list and in the Exposure Sheet panel.

















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