This is the workflow I’ve come up with so far that might work.
Experienced users might be think… well duh… or the opposite… I’m totally making things harder.
I’ve got three layers per character:
Final ink layer with opaque color
Clean up sketch layer with darker blue color and mid transparent alpha
Rough sketch layer with light blue color and very transparent alpha
Now… is there a way to do in as few clicks as possible to:
- Switch from one layer to another
- Lock the previous - unlock the current
- Change brush or pencil color to a color I’ve designated for each layer
Doesn’t this make sense as a workflow to sketch and refine quickly without losing your creative flow messing around with software buttons?
Toon Boom Animate v3 user since January 2014
Hi michael7177
This may not relate exactly to your questions, but the 4 most useful keys i have found in animate worth knowing are:
‘F’ and ‘G’ - toggle backwards and forwards between frames
‘H’ and ‘J’ to move up and down layers
Workflow sounds fine, depends on the scene but i don’t always do a mid clean up, usual from rough layer to ink.
Harmony User | StoryBoard Pro User | Apple Mac Addict
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That’s what I’m discovering, I’m just doing “rough layer to ink”
I’m left handed and customized these shortcuts so far.
\ - lock all other layers
I’ve tried to avoid certain After Effects timeline keys to keep from getting confused.
I’ve made the drawing tools as much as possible like Photoshop
v - select
a - contour edit
c - cutter
p - paint
Keeping everything handy for my right hand while I’m drawing left handed with the wacom:
, . toggle backwards and forwards between frames
; ’ zoom in and out but I’m getting in the habit of leaving my mouse -scroll wheel near my right hand.
Sounds like you could do with a hotkey macro/mapping/scripting program.
I’m not sure what there is on Mac if you’re using it but I use Autohotkey on Windows (free, will be first thing on Google) and there’s bound to be a Mac equivalent.
For example you can pick a useless key/key-combo, say windows key and z and map it to type your ToonBoom shortcut keys for changing layer, unlocking the new layer, locking the other layers and choosing the colour picker (or a specific colour if you can assign hotkeys to colours, I’m not sure if you can though).
In Autohotkey (assuming your shortcut keys for those things are a,b,c and d) that would be done like so:
#z::Send abcd
You have AH running in the background with that ‘script’ and then every time you pressed windows key + z it would instead type abcd.
Hope it helps!
Biscuits