Hello everyone,
I am working on a 23 minute hand drawn frame by frame animation and I have two palettes in my master palette
1) The rough animation Palette
2) The clean-up palette
Now (as usual) I have my project broken up into several small sequences/scenes and I am using the “Link To External” palette option
However I have the need to make some changes in my master palette. I did this but it is not reflecting in all the scenes that I have this palette LINKED to. Each scene has the linked palette showing the exact state it was when it was linked.
Can anyone help explain how I can edit a master palette so that the new edit will reflect on ALL projects linked to that palette.
Thanks in advance for your help
It sounds like your link is not good in some of the scenes. Check in the scenes where it doesn’t work if the palette that you are linking to is at the right path. You can do that by hovering your mouse over the name of the palette. The tooltip will show the path to the palette.Is it possible that you rename the master palette or that you moved it?Did you clone the palette in the scene that are not linked anymore? If so only the top clone in the palette list view will be active. Normally if you are properly linked, changing the colors in any of the scenes will update the master palette.Did you ever get that the colors had to be recovered for those palettes? If so it did a new palette and wasn’t linking anymore. Do you have more than those 2 palettes and the default scene palette in the palette list view?Lastly it could be that you did an Import… instead of the Link to External for some of the scene since the two items are one beside the other in the menu. Again the best way to know it to check the path.
Thanks a lot Steve for your detailed reply and explanations.So far I have about 18 scenes using the same palette, and I did not import the palette. I linked them all and never changed the directory name/path and I haven’t “dared” cloning yet.So I guess the one that applies is the colour recovery issue. I once had to recover the colors after a programme crash…in fact more than once BUT I am no more sure which scene(s) it affected. I will have to check the paths -in about 3 hours, when I get to the studio and I will let you know. Meanwhile, going by your explanations, I have these questions:- does it mean that I have to RELINK all of the scenes afresh?- and for the future, in case a color recovery occurs, is it advised that I relink after that so as to refresh the chain, or is there any method of ensuring that the color recovery pulls the colors from the master palette?Thanks again
I again Steve,I have crosschecked and truly the palette were stored in two different places. So I have restored the originalThanks againAnother question which I am sure you would know the answer:I do experience heavy drags when drawing. My project is 2048 x 1152 and does not have any backgrounds yet. Despite that, when I draw, sometimes it takes ages before Toon Boom reactsDo you know if this is a video card or cache problem.- I have my undo steps set at 200.- Does Toon Boom have a “purge” function?- Is there a particular video card that is recommended for Toon Boom. I am on an ATI Radeon HD 6400drawing on a Cintiq 21 UX2010.I have done my updates for the video card and the Cintiq yet the problem persistsI’ll be very grateful for any hintThanks
Let me explain the color recovery a bit. When you get a color recovery message it’s because one of your drawings has a color that it cannot find a color pot in a palette with the same identification number (each color pots of a palette has a unique id, you are actually painting with these ids). If you decide to recover the color, what it does is that it looks at the drawing and recovers the RGBA values from when that drawing was last saved but this RGBA might not be the latest good version. The palette decides the valid RGBA by being in your palette-list. So when it recovers the RGBA value it creates a new palette that is in your scene, not at the orginal palette’s place because the drawing doesn’t keep that information, only the name, id and rgba value are stored at the time of the save.So like you said, if you get a recovery message it’s always better to search for the master palette and link to it. That’s the only way to have a master palette concept.As for the other question of slowness it could be many factor.Do you draw with textured lines?Do you have many lines in the drawing? Every vector counts, if you have 10 or 1000 lines it will make a big difference. In a bitmap system like Photoshop what is important is the resolution of the bitmap, in a vector base program it’s the number of vectors (lines). If they are with texture then it’s even heavier because the graphic card has to deal with bitmap texture also.I don’t know if you are on Mac or Windows. I’m not sure about the ATI radeon card if it’s a good one for OpenGL. In the past on Windows I remember that the Radeon where not the best performers. Maybe ask at support@toonboom.com how that card is.What kind of resolution are you displaying? Do you have to monitors, cintiq and a monitor? Do you have the Real-time anti-aliasing on? If yes take it off. Put the full scene anti-aliasing instead. The first one does a mini render all the time. It’s only good in special situations. If you are on Windows you have to change the settings in your graphic card to take advantage of the Full Scene anti-aliasing. On Mac it does it automatically when you change it in the Preference>OpenGL tab.
Wow Steve, thanks for those details.With that, the master palette issue is solved and I know better now.As regarding to the slowness of my system, again I have seen a possible cause in your replies and that could be: I have a lot of lines during the keyframe animationnevertheless, to answer the other questions…- I m on windows 7- I do not draw with textured lines- I have open GL switched off- This is my first ATI Radeon card. I have been using nVidia for 12 years until this system which was an emergency solution and it came with the card. I will ask Toon Boom Support. I do model my backgrounds using Luxology modo601 and had the same issues. The Lux guys sent me some patches but I never tried them because their sp2 came out the next week.- I have two monitors. (a) A Cintiq 21 UX (holding the drawing window, timeline, tools and library)(b) A dell Ultra sharp 27" holding only the Network and Top view…and this is where I run other programmes when needed…like mails, internet browser and folders.- I am neither using real time anti aliasing nor full scene. - I am not sure I understand the resolution question but here are my monitor resolutions: Cintiq: 1600 x 1200Dell: 2560 x 1440Without wanting to bug you too much, I have uploaded a .pdf of SOME of my preferences at the link below[url=http://www.ebeleokoye.com/docs/ebele_tbPrefs.pdf]http://www.ebeleokoye.com/docs/ebele_tbPrefs.pdf. Perhaps you would find something in my settings which i need to change.Thanks again and regards from Berlin.Ebele
Hi ebeleEFound two older post’s on the subject. Maybe they can help out: 34 General Discussions / General Discussion / Re:problem design pleez help me on: October 31, 2012, 10:58:26 AM Started by mohammedI_47071, Message by Lilly VogelesangAre you using Animate, Animate Pro, or Harmony?First, do you have a supported graphics card? See the system requirements here:http://beta.toonboom.com/professionals/animate/featuresSecond, do you have the graphics drivers installed for the tablet that you’re using? Or are you just using a mouse? If you are using a tablet and it is installed, try to remove the tablet preferences.Lastly, if you’re on Windows, you should turn off the aero theme. If you right-click on the Desktop, and select Personalize, then you can switch from Aero to Basic.After trying all the above, make sure you quit and re-start the application. 24 General Discussions / Technical Support / Animate and Windows 8 drawing issues on: November 02, 2012, 07:25:38 PM Started by mudbubble, Message by mudbubbleI just installed Windows 8 on my home built PC. I was running Animate on my previous OS (XP) without a problem. But Windows 8 has a serious issue when drawing on the stage. It’s hard to explain but the lines do not keep up with the cursor - dreadfully slow. I may need to update video card drivers but I shouldn’t think that would be the issue. Anyone else on the cutting edge of Windows?SOLVEDAfter a stubborn hour of experimenting I discovered that my problem was that I was running dual monitors - one being 24" Dell and the other a 21" Cintiq. The Cintiq was the 2nd monitor and Windows 8 didn’t like that. So I disconnected the first monitor and now use just the Cintiq and Animate performs flawlessly.-----Best regards-Ivar
Thanks Ivar,I will have a look at the link(s)On the surface it looks like I might have to disconnect my dell monitor… 
(I cannot work with one monitor alone)Well, I am curious how it turns out…will keep you postedRegardsEbeleUPDATE;I had to double check; - my video card is recommnded- all my drivers are up to date- I am not using the aero theme (using basics because certain 32 built programmes which i run do not like aero)- I DEFINITELY can’t delete my tablet preferences, because that holds all my shortkeys for animating and other programmes.I guess the next thing left to try is to work with only cintiq which is almost unthinkable for me…but if it happens to be the only solution…hmmmm :
Is it slow on a new scene with the first line you draw or doesn’t get progressively slower as you add more lines?If it’s slow to start with then it’s something the setup. If it gets slower the more complex the drawing is then it’s because you drawing is become heavy. You could do a flatten to reduce the number of lines.I couldn’t figure exactly but it looks like the 6400 is a low end card for Ati, right? I saw a 6400M for laptops. You are not on a laptop, are you?You could try to turn off you monitor just to see if it makes it faster. It might be that the card has trouble refreshing the big resolution (Cintiq: 1600 x 1200 +Dell: 2560 x 1440) 4160 x 1440.
Yes! It gets PROGRESSIVELY slow as i draw.After I sent you the .pdf, I switched off the very drawing (with a lot of lines) behind the screenshot and redrew them with as much fewer lines as I could in my drawing style and I noticed a change.So obviously it lies in the lines.Now enlighten me on flattening lines: Does this action have any effect on the data size and or vector quality?Is there an advantage of leaving the lines unflattened?Thanks :-)P.S…and of course a HD6400 video card is not a high end card. The DESKTOP machine came with i7 processor; 4GB RAM (stocked up to 16GB afterwards) and 1TB disk:, all for about 1500 dollars in Nov 2011…So I guess one cannot expect much more…I guess when my project gets SERIOUS, I would be looking at a graphic card upgrade
Yes it does have an impact on the data because you have less lines. The vector quality will not be affected. The reason you would not flatten is that it’s easier to move/cut/paste individual lines when they are separate entities. You could flatten them when you are pretty sure you don’t need to re-edit certain drawing or parts of a drawing.
Thats a huge help Steve. I could use that in this stage of rough animation. (quite helpful) Thanks and have a nice week!