Shadow problem

Hello,

I’m very new to toon boom so i’ll hope this question is easy te answer.

Toon boom version: 3.5
OS: Win xp home

What i have done:
I’ve created a leave (drawing). This leave is connected to a peg and has a motion tween. The purpose of the tween is to move the leave through the wind. Then I have added a new element ‘shadow’. This element is connected to the same peg as the leave. The order of the layers:

- Peg leave
- Shadow element leave
- Leave drawing

Problem:
When I add a new shadow element it moves with the leave and the tween. But i can’t manage to edit the shadow element in the tween. The leave goes from up in the sky to down on the ground, and is moving from right to left. The shadow has to be on the ground when the leave is in the sky and moving with the leave until it hits te ground. Then the shadow has to stick to the leave. The only result I get is that the shadow sticks to the leave all the tween long.

I’ll hope you guys understand my problem. Does anyone has the same problem, or can anybody help me with this?


If I am understanding your description correctly then here is a suggestion. Seperate the appropriate key framed parameters to the appropriate pegs. By that I mean the keyed values associated specifically with the leaf should be located in the embedded peg contained inside the leaf element. The keyed values associated specifically with the shadow should be located in the embedded peg contained inside the shadow element. And only those keyed parameters common to both elements should be contained on the main peg element. So for example horizontal motion is common so that should be keyed on the main peg. But vertical movement and location are specific to each element themselves so those parameters should be keyed on the individual elements only. To insure that a key is placed only on a specific element be sure you select only that element in the time line when setting the keyed parameter. Let us know if you have additional questions or if this explanation is not sufficiently clear to help you resolve your issue. -JK

Ok tnx for your reply. I shall try your suggestion.
If I need more help, I’ll let it know.

Sorry for the stupid mistake ‘leave’ is offcourse ‘leaf’.
Forgive me, I’m Dutch :-[

You can also try to clone your leaf drawing including the peg movement and then remove the vertical movement manually with the function editor. Once the movement is good (horizontal only the ground) you can attach it to a color transform fx layer and make the transformation a black transparent fx (you can also use the flatten option if needed when using multiple elements).

Also you may want to try the drop shadow effect but scaling download the vertical axis (take the top handle and bring it down near the round control central point). This will reduce the up and down effect and look a bit like a ground shadow effect. But this also deform the shadow itself but sometime it can give a very realistic effect.

Play around with these tricks to achieve what you want to do.

Cheers,

Still little bit stucked:
I see it is useful to duplicate elements and pegs.
But I am still wondering why I can’t add a keyframe to a shadow element. To add a keyframe to a color transform effect is no problem.

I want this so I can set the opacity of the shadow to 0 on frame 1 and like 100 on frame 5 (No fade effect). Then I can add another shadow element in the same peg to show the new shadow. This is because the leaf turns a little bit on the move and requires a new shadow.

tnx in advance