I’m really surprised that no one has asked this question for over a year - hopefully there’s a simple answer that I’m missing and that’s why no one asks it anymore!!
I’ve split up my scenes for a 3 min animation in order to save render time and to keep from overtaxing my processor. Now that I have the scenes done, I want to merge them all into one TBS project. I don’t want to export the scenes and then simple edit them together in FCP or Premier or Avid or even After Effects - I need to be able to use the camera to pan from one scene to the next, or use an element of the scene as a transition wipe.
How do copy layers from one project and paste them into another, while maintaining the animation and position in 3D space? Or how do I import a project into another in such a way that maintains the 3D positioning relevant to the current project? I’m thinking that this might be a ‘template’ situation - is it?
Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!
Kristen
Moving assets from one project to another is done using the Global Library. Any templates that are created and saved in a Global Library will be available for use in all your projects. Entire scenes can be saved as Library templates.
As to the other aspect of render time when you have multiple scenes in a single project. TBS provides check boxes next to each scene in the Scene Panel. These boxes are used to include or exclude scenes at render time so that you can selectively determine which scenes are rendered. That way you can render scenes individually or in any combination you choose. The Scene Panel also allows you to selectively reorder scenes. It is very useful for scene management.
I hope this helps you. -JK
JK -
I don’t think you can save scenes in the Library in TB Studio. I’ve created a couple different libraries trying to get this to happen, and I can’t drag the scene into the library icon in the library list like I can with my drawing assets. How to you create a library from a scene? I’ve right-clicked on the scene and selected ‘create library’, then it makes me select a folder, and then it creates the library icon in the list, but there’s nothing inside it. When I drag assets individually into the new library, it only makes the drawings available in other projects - it does not save any keyframing or timing that has been applied to that drawing. I can’t drag a scene into the new library. It doesn’t make the ANIMATION available between drawings.
If you say you can save entire scenes as templates, where would I find the tutorial information on how to do that? There’s no information on making scene templates in the PDF user manual I have. I’ve been trying to solve this problem for a long time. It’s frustratingly unintuitive. My goal is to move layers around between different ‘timelines’ - not just the drawings, but the drawings with the motion, rotation, and scaling keyframing applied. I have three different TB project files, each with only one scene (the exporting has never been a problem - I can export each of the scenes individually and edit them together in After Effects). How do I get all the scenes to merge into one project - with all the keyframing and timing applied? I can merge all the drawings through the library, but not drawings WITH keyframes and timing. How do I do that? I’ve tried opening another project file through the library of the original project (like you would do to import comps in After Effects) but that doesn’t work.
Kristen
After searching around a bit more, I stumbled upon an article talking about the ‘Paste Special’ option in the Edit menu. I checked, and found ‘Paste Template’ (grayed out). So, I tried selecting the scene from the library panel then selecting Edit>Copy. Then I selected the ‘Global’ library and selected Edit>Paste Template and it worked - ONCE. I was able to pull the entire timeline of data from that scene into another project.
So I deleted the ‘test’ and set to work on doing it with the scenes I really needed - but now I keep getting the error ‘Paste not allowed here’. I’ve made sure that all the layers are deselected in my timeline window. I can copy the scene, but when I paste, it just adds the scene right back into it’s own timeline. So, I deselect all layers, select the ‘Global’ library from the library window, and when I try to paste I get the error ‘Paste not allowed here’.
What step am I missing? I haven’t found this process written out anywhere - I’m trying to figure it out all on my own. I wish it was written down somewhere so I could stop wasting all this time.
Kristen
To save an entire scene to your Global Library is actually not difficult.
(1) First you create the entire scene that you are going to want to save.
(2) Then at the very top level of your timeline for that scene add a peg element, this will act as your “scene peg”. You can think of it like a folder to hold the scene.
(3) Next drag all of the timeline track labels for your scene up on to that “scene peg” element so that they are attached to the peg. You can rename that scene peg to something meaningful although you will also probably want to rename your library template after you create it too.
(4) To create the template, collapse the scene peg so that all the attached tracks are hidden in the timeline track list.
(5)Select the collapsed scene peg label in your timeline track label list and just drag that label up to your desired Global Library in the library panel.
You now have a copy of the entire scene available for re-use. -JK
JK -
I found some older posts you’ve written and gleaned those steps over the last few days. I’ve been able to ‘nest’ timelines effectively, but now I’m having multiple camera issues. I know you can have multiple cameras in the timeline, but that you can’t export multiple cameras. You export from one camera view, then re-export the scene from another camera view, then edit them using FCP or Flash.
OR - you can set up one camera to do it all using ‘non constant segments’ for cuts. Which is what I normally do, but that becomes a problem with merging the scenes. I thought maybe it would do some sort of hierarchy - the secondary camera deffering to the primary camera. So when I have a nested sequence, the camera movement only exsists within the framing of the primary camera. No dice - the other camera in the nested sequence becomes ‘deactivated’ when mixed in the same timeline as the primary sequence. So, when I click and drag the scene from the library, I loose all the camera moves from the templated sequence.
Any advice on how I can streamline my production in order to accommodate this ‘glitch’? When I’m creating the different scenes (in different projects to help with rendering and editing) everything goes in to the global library and I don’t know which scenes will end up as ‘masters’ and which will end up ‘nested’. What can I do to the main camera so that it ‘takes on’ the movements of the nested camera when the timeline reaches that section?
Hope this isn’t too confusing. Just looking for some tips. I can get it done (just move the master camera around until the moves are like the nested camera) but I was hoping there was a trick I was missing to make the job easier.
Thanks for all your help! And for being so patient. You’re A LOT NICER than the gurus on any of the Adobe boards! 
Kristen
PS - How long have you been using Toon Boom products?
I’ve been using TBS since version 1.0 so I think that was around 2003 or 2004. As to your question. Take a look at this article I wrote and see if any of this approach would help you. Multiple Shots In A Single Scene -JK