I like to work in another drawing software and import all my images. Like most board artists I work rough and submit my work to the director so it can be reviewed before clean up. Since I have to go through the trouble of including dialog and action notes in the roughs I need to then replace the rough boards with the clean up version. How do I do that without having to redo all of my dialog and action notes.In other words I need a “replace drawing import function”. Since this is standard working procedure for a board artist I’m sure this exists but I can’t figure out how to make it happen.Thanks
Are you doing your boards by hand and then importing them? What you can do is select that panel and do a Layer > Import Images as Layers, though you’ll have to delete the original image’s layer. ~LillyToon Boom Support
I asked the same question in the General Storyboarding Discussion board. Here’s the response:"I’m afraid there’s no better way at the moment. I will submit this as a feature request for future versions of Storyboard.~LillyToon Boom Support"I had to contact ToonBoom via their support e-mail to get a response. You may want to do the same to make it clear to them that this is a necessary feature that should definitely be included in the next version. It’s absence is one of the main reasons I gave up on TBSP for now and returned to After Effects.
Rochelle, Your post on the forums was made on Friday afternoon. It was responded to when I was doing the forums on Monday. I just wanted to make it clear that Support operates on a Monday - Friday basis, and that the forums are checked as often as possible, but that in general the forums are meant to be a way for customers to talk to each other and help each other out, like the forums for any other software company. We do try our best to help our customers out on the forums, but if you want a fast response, then you should email support directly. Support should respond to all emails within 24 hours during the Monday - Friday work week. Regarding the issue of being able to replace images, I have been discussing this issue with the developers. The reason it is not a simple matter is because when you import images into Storyboard they are converted to our file format. So there is no way that we can simply reload the images, because they are no longer preserved as bitmaps - they are converted. However, we are looking into trying to find a better way to replace images. You will not, however, be able to replace a series of images with their timing intact, because of the file conversion.Thank you for your input - we are constantly striving to improve our software, and we take into account all comments that are received.~LillyToon Boom Support
Well I’ve discussed further with the developers, and the Layer > Import Image as Layer command should do everything that you need it to do at the moment to replace your image. If you have a transform on that layer, by doing the First Frame Transform and Last Frame Transform in Storyboard Pro, there is even a way to get this to apply to the new image. - if you have a transform on Image 1 - layer 1:- import new image to Image 1 - layer 2.- with the select tool, select the image on layer 2, and do Ctrl-C (command-C) to copy this image.- with the select tool, select the image on layer 1, hit delete to delete it. Now hit Ctrl-V (command-V) to paste layer 2 into layer 1. - now layer 2 should be in the place of layer 1, including any transformations.For images that don’t have any transformations, then there’s no reason to even copy and paste the new image - simply delete layer 1.I hope this helps.~LillyToon Boom Support
Thanks for this info Lilly.To be clear I’m doing my drawing in Sketchbook Pro (I just prefer the interface and tools for drawing) and then import Pngs. Unfortunately the problem is that I will have a few hundred panels in a seq so I don’t want to cut and paste them one at a time. What I need to do is select a range (say 1 to 300) and then import new panels into the existing board structure so that the info I had written in the dialog and action etc for each panel stayed the same but the drawings changed. I don’t understand the technical difficulties involved but I would have to say this is ESSENTIAL for typical production pipelines. It seems it’s not available so I’m left having to recreate the pages a second time. Thanks for listening and for passing it all on to the developers.
I just reviewed your suggested method and I realize you didn’t say to cut and paste, you are suggesting to reimport a new drawing on a layer above the old drawing. However my issue is the same since I need to do this hundreds of times in a typical seq so I need an automated version to replace them.Ok just trying to clarify.Thanks
Hello Tod, I understand your issue and I will pass on your comments for further investigation. Storyboard is idealised for a paperless workflow, though we try to allow for as many different workflows as possible, truly the best way to do it at the moment is to actually do your revisions in Storyboard. We will continue to investigate this issue, however.~Lilly