Hello there all!
I need some help…
I have imported Illustrator files in Toon Boom Animate Pro,
(yes they are pdf compatible) yet they still remain Bitmap…
What am I doing wrong?
I have followed all the TBA Pro tutorials and cannot find the answer…
Even when I import a PNG file and check the “Vectorize imported items” box,
the images still remain Bitmap.
Please help… anyone?
Viv.
Dear Lilly,
I have done the things you said about importing an Illustrator file. Toon Boom asked me if i wanted to recover my colours, which I did and now the colours are in the recovered palette. Then I dropped my file into the timeline and it shows in the OpenGL view…
It looks fine at first, (I can also use the contour editor etc which is great!)
however, when I zoom in the image becomes bitmap-looking, with pixels…
Its not as smooth looking as the ‘KarateRabbit’ image (which is presented in the tutorials).
Now when i export it as a swf file, the image is vector!! (great!)
But in the OpenGL I can hardly see the exact eye contours of my image/character, which makes it difficult to alter.
I hope you know what it is Lilly, i already emailed to the Toon Boom support email, and i did try all the tips they gave me but nothing changed… they said I should upload my file, (too big for email) but I dont know how.
Thanks already,
Kind regards,
Vivien
Oh thank you so much Lilly!!!
That was it!! The Real-Tme Antialiasing was on!!!
I can’t believe it!! I spent hours/days searching the web
and going through all the preferences and trying different files in Toon Boom
and the answer was right there!!!
I can’t thank you enough Lilly!!!
I’m so glad because now the work becomes so much easier!!
You’re a life saver!!!
Thanks a million!!!
Vivien.
When you import an illustrator file, you should import it into your library and then drag and drop it into your scene. It will pop up a colour recovery window. If you go and take a look at the recovered palette, you should see all the colours that you were using in your illustrator file, and so this is a hint that this has been vectorised. You will also be able to manipulate the image with your contour editor and your select tool and your drawing tools, and this too is an indication that your image is a vector image.
A PNG file by definition is not a vector image, it is a bitmap image. However, when you import a bitmap image (different from the Illustrator which is always vector) you have the option of vectorising it. There are several different vectorisation options, black and white, grey, and colour. If you do black and white, it will make your lines black and your white transparent. If you do grey, it will make your lines vector lines with a bitmap texture applied to them to retain the grain of your original line, and your background will be transparent. If you do colour, it will take that image and plop it as a texture into a bounding box. It’s a type of vectorisation because you can use your eraser on it and your brush tools on it, but it doesn’t break up the regions into vector colours, it’s still a bitmap texture.
So what exactly is going wrong? What behaviour are you experiencing?
~Lilly
Well your problem is probably that you have antialiasing turned on. If you go to Edit > Preferences, OpenGL tab, turn off Real-Time Antialiasing. This is simply a way of getting an atialiased look like you would have when you do your final bitmap export.
I hope this is the problem. 
~Lilly