So I have chosen to create thousands (hyperbole? Nay) of drawings, since I am an artist and felt it was better to create an animation based on drawing lines and coloring, etc. Anyway, is there a way of doing batch coloring, for instance? Can I “fill in” all of the drawings for the main character layer: Frog? Boy it sure would be a nifty ability. Or can I change 20 frames/cells making them 1 cell to two cell (exposures) with a batch script type action?
Any “shortcuts” regarding this matter will be greatly appreciated.
I’ll start by helping you with your second question first. You will want to learn to apply the “set exposure” commands. Here are two examples, you can experiment with other approaches later.
Example 1
Step 1: Select a single frame on a track layer
Step 2: Right click to open the context menu
Step 3: Choose a set exposure command (in this example I’ll use “set exposure to 3”
Your single frame is now 3 identical exposures in a sequence and all the remaining frames have been off set by two additional frames
Example 2
You have a sequence of frames (assume 10 frames) containing multiple different cells (assume 10 cells) each cell in this example is being exposed one time in the sequence of frames.
Step 1. Shift select all ten frames in the sequence
Step 2. Right click to open the context menu
Step 3: Choose a set exposure command (in this example I’ll use "set exposure to 2"
You now have converted your 10 frames into twenty frames where each cell is exposed twice in the sequence.
By using combinations of example 1 and example 2 you can quickly adjust the timing of frame sequences.
Now to answer your first question:
In a single drawing element you can paint all similarly shaped paint zones on multiple cells all in a single step. This is useful for example if you have a character wearing a pair of pants and you want to color his pants on all the cells in a single element. The trick is the paint zones need to be similar in shape, not identical but similar enough for TBS to recognize them as the same family of paint zones.
Step 1: select the paint tool and from a color palette select the desired paint color
Step 2: in drawing view go to the paint zone you want to paint, in this example the characters pants, click in the desired zone with the paint tool while holding down the SHIFT key and the ALT key.
All pants on all cells for that element will be painted at the same time, it doesn’t matter which cell you are viewing when you do the painting the “paint all” works on all the cells for that element.
Hope these tips help you -JK