Most importantly, I’d like to be able to select a line on flattened art on my first try. Often it takes up to 10 or so clicks to manage to finally click a single line in a filled box.
If I draw a box with a black outline using any pencil/line tool and fill the inside with a color, I want to be able to use the contour tool and easily choose to select the line.
Currently, with that box if unflattened:
- The vector of the line and color would crossover when clicking and dragging an edge (because it would only grab either the line, or the color’s vector) causing intersections creating multiple unwanted contour points.
If it is flattened:
- I can’t easily select only the line. It can take on average 10 tries to select a single line with the Contour Tool.
- Same problem as unflattened if a section of line encompassing the fill is broken.
Any help with this would be very appreciated, thanks!
(edited for clarity)
Hi JR
You can select the color of the stroke in the color window and then go to the top meny - Drawings - Select Strokes With Current Color ( shift +cmd +a on mac).
You can also work with line on line art and color on color art sublayers.
That way it is easy to select and adjust lineart.
If you turn on Automatically create color art in the tool properties window while making your line art, its ready to fill color in color art layer.
When working with line and color separately on sublayers you can manipulate both by , with the select tool active press the -Apply to Line and Color Art button in the tools properties.
Best regards
Ivar
Thanks Ivaar,
Unfortunately, I do know all these. I need to have the color and line on just one art mode, such as “Line Art”. The Ctrl + Shift + A method doesn’t do what I need when I only want a section between two contour points selected.
Hi again
I am sorry. I thought we were discussing the select tool. But reading the post over again. I see that it was about the Contour tool.
And the contour tool seems to select both line and fill. Personally I like that, because the fill follows the line.
But again I misunderstood your question and have no answer to it.
Best regards
Ivar
Yes, I like that too. However, I often have to delete a line to connect a joint.You’ll see in many cases, especially once you delete a section of line that surrounds a fill, (for example; deleting the line where a hand connects to a wrist) and then try to alter the line with the Contour Tool; the fill vectors will no longer move with the lineart. This creates an absolute mess when editing the drawing to the point that redrawing is the only option. Though, that’s another issue all together, The issue I’m having now is that the lineart is impossibly difficult to select when it surrounds a fill.
Have you tried using show strokes? (K) in Toon Boom Animate shortcut mode, In drawing mode appears a blue line in the center of the stroke, and you can select it with ease, this action change its color to orange, and then you can move, scale or deform independently the fill color. In camera view you can click right in the center of the stroke, do not select with marquee because you are also choosing to fill. Hope that help you.Yoryo
Not exactly sure what you are trying to do but I found that if you flatten and then click between two contour points you can delete that section of the line. Then if you select the points and have the snap to countour on, so that the line’s point snaps to the fill area, you can move both together again.
Thanks Yoryo and steve,Yoryo: Yes, I’ve tried these, thanks for sharing. 
Clicking on the center of the stroke doesn’t help… though I seem to have figured out why in my reply to Steve.Steve: I believe the problem is the lag that comes with heavy scenes. I have no problems with fresh scenes and uncomplicated art. When working with scenes that have many characters, the time between pressing with a tablet pen and lifting causes the problem.Similar to lagging when using the timeline with a tablet pen. Pressing down to drag a key to a different frame, and lifting up to have it set the key. If I’m in a heavy scene and I don’t lift straight up from the tablet pad, it will place the key where my pen is 1-2 seconds later which is off by a keyframe if I’m not careful.It’s pretty annoying when it comes to keyframes in heavy scenes, but it’s practically not possible to select a line on a piece of art. This seems to be the cause, however, lifting straight up from the center of a line is much harder to do than a keyframe.I guess this can just go in the bin of ‘potential issues’ when getting Toonboom lag.
I can see that the problem is different than selecting only the line art in a filled object, and is more a memory or processing delay due to the complexity of the scene. I have not been presented this case because I try to do several short scenes instead of one long and heavy. Maybe TB support can provide some experience with this issue. RegardsYoryo
Perhaps it would be easier for you to cut the fill, modify the line, and refill.
~Lilly