media elements: You can use the media element type to make a link from your animation to a multimedia file (such as an SWF movie, bitmap, or sound clip, as well as any regular Toon Boom Studio library template) on your computer. Rather than copy the contents of the multimedia file to your animation project directory, Toon Boom Studio makes a link to the file in its location on your computer hard drive. This makes it easy for you to update and manage reusable elements in your animation. Of course this also means that you must not move the linked file from that location or you can damage the linkage. Media elements appear in both the Exposure Sheet and the Timeline. Templates can be copied for reuse or they may be linked for reuse in your projects. You must use media elements to link templates to your animations. Media elements identify their contents as references to a centrally stored file. If the template you link contains multiple elements, all of those elements are reduced down into one element, the media element. Linking templates has two advantages: It helps you keep the file size of your SWF animations small. And, it helps you update and manage frequently used material in a central location. If the contents of the template are updated, Toon Boom Studio will update all animations that use the template.

When you have a media element that contains some linked content, it occupies a range of cells in the element. You can modify this content by cutting, copying, and pasting the occupied cells.This does not affect the original content, but does allow you to change the timing of the animation in the media element. You can also change the timing of the contents of a media element by changing its exposure or creating cycles. Media elements also can be cloned.



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