Hi all,
here is a basic problem I can’t solve (newbie). I render from a 3d app to the .pnt format a background and a foreground layer to 2 separate files.
When I import the 2 layers, I would like to have the background hidden behind the foreground, of course - but it isn’t so. The background strokes are seen through the foreground fill.
I am sure there is a simple solution to this but I can’t find it. Thanks in adavnce for your help.
Hi,
You need to make sure that your 3D software have exported the files with a transparent background. You may want to try different format as well such as tga and png for I know those type of file have a proper support of the alpha channel.
Best regards,
Ugo
Thanks for the reply. But it does not help yet :). I really need to render to .pnt (USAnimation) format. The software I use is Lightwave 9.2. I need to export for some scenes quite a few layers and as it is now, I would have to erase by hand the strokes of the background layers seen through the colours of the foreground layers (I am not looking forward to it). Is there a way to get the color fill of the forward layers opaque and hiding the background layers’ strokes ?
http://users.skynet.be/fa074429/StrokesBlem.jpg
Thank you in advance again for your help.
Hi,
Are you importing those in USAnimation or in Toon Boom Studio ??? We do not actually support USAnimation file format in Toon Boom Studio so I can’t guarantee this will work. The pnt we actually support is the Mac Paint format so if you take pnt from USAnimation and try importing them in Studio you may bet weird stuff going on.
Regards,
Ugo
Hi,
thank you UGO for your quick reply.
Well I am using the Swift 3D plugin for Lightwave. It renders to .pnt described as USAnimation. Here is a document that there should be no problem using that format in Toon Boom : http://www.toonboom.com/pdf/pressReleases/2002/Electric_Rain2.pdf
Please tell me that I am not going completely insane 
I use the standalone version of Swift3D and I find that exporting to SWF format works very well for importing content into TBS. I suspect that the plug-in version also exports to SWF.
As to your current issue, it appears to be caused by a fill color that has a partially transparent alpha value. The easiest way to fix that particularly if you have many cells involved is to use the color management system of TBS.
When you import content into TBS, there is a color palette generated with color swatches from that content. If you go to the color panel, you can access those palettes from the palette drop down list. When you get to the correct palette, you can go to the swatch that matches your drawing color and click on that swatch to open the color edit panel. Just set the alpha value for that swatch to 255 and it will be opaque. By editing the swatch you automatically update all instances of usage of that color in your project. This is a very quick way to adjust colors across a large number of cells and frames.
TIP: If you want to jump to the color palette and swatch for any color in your project really fast then use the dropper tool from the drawing tool bar and in any drawing just touch the color with the dropper tool. This causes the palette and swatch for that color to become the active selection on your color panel and then you can just edit it as described above.
Hi,
thanks for te reply. You have put me on the track to the solution there. I simply had to set the selected layer to background in the properties/drawing pannel.
That is pretty basic but, well, I am a newbie.