Hello fellow animators and technicians,
I have a few questions about the software (ToonBoom v3.02) that I hope someone would be kind enough to clear up for me:
1) How long (minutes?)/large (bites) a movie can you render out? I’m using an Imac G5, 160GB harddrive, and have 8GB of RAM memory installed.
2) When planning out your movie, do you break down the scenes into several shots or do you just use “scenes” as if they were individual shots (that’s what I’ve been doing)?
3) Can you copy/paste scenes (shots) from one ToonBoom project file to another?
4) I’d like to use imported bitmaps for my backgrounds (to get the old “Disney” feature animation look); any caveats when using this process? Will too many bitmaps crash the software?
Thanks in advance for all your help!
#1: No help, sorry.
#2: I use the scenes to do different shots, like you say. It’s easier to organize the timeline that way.
#3: To copy scenes from one file to another, or to copy a scene inside a file, put the entire scnene’s contents on a single peg in the timeline, then collapse it and drag it to your global library. You can make a catalog for it in the library if you want. I’ve done a few shots the hard way, dragging everything in and placing it meticulously by the numbers to get it right over and over. What a waste! Toon Boom is built to make it easier than that.
#4: Again, I got nothin’.
Thanks Rob!
I just saw your animation with the biker discussing the internet: cool! You have a knack for capturing personality through character design. It seems you have a lot of experience using pegs to do the cut-out style in ToonBoom. Any insight into your style? Sorry if I’m probing too much. It is good to chat with fellow animators!
Thanks Mo!
Insights into my style… That particular guy I thought up and drew a few years ago and have been working with ever since.
The nice thing about Toon Boom is that I can rig up the character for anything I might want him to do, from expressions and mouth shapes to limb and torso movement. The piece you speak of was an experiment in Toon Boom Solo, but could easily have been done in Studio.
I’m learning a few techniques that I hope will allow me to do more action oriented stuff without too much more work. We’ll see how it goes.
What kind of animations are you working on?
I’m working on a cel animation in an antempt to capture the Disney style. I’m not dead set on getting the look down, but trying to meld the paint on glass style of Aleksandr Petrov with some of the classic animators from the 40s like Bill Tytla and Norm Fergusan. I have a background in stopmotion (hence the moniker “stopmodude”), but I’ve been away from animation in general for several years. If and when I have something ready to show, I’ll try to post it so you can see.