Suggestions for Next TBS Version

Being able to blur the edge of vector shapes would be fantastic for shadows and effects, and I understand there is already a feature in Flash 8 to soften hard edges that could serve as your starting point…

The feature of peg hole registration for us traditionalists out there would be a fantastic inclusion as well. I’ve already posted on this topic elswhere in the forum.

If any TB crew reads this, thanks for doing so.

Burton.

Hi there,

Thanks for the suggestions. The ability to soften edges have been on my mind too but there are technological constraints to be considered.

The more obvious one would be the export to Flash. Only Flash 8 supports this effect. Since Flash 8 is a property of Macromedia (not like th Flash 6 format which includes an sdk) we can’t export to Flash with soft edges. It could be a QuickTime export only feature but then again it complicates things and we need to plan how we will deal with that.

Unfortunately, peg wholes will only be available in Solo since we use the TWAIN interface to scan in TBS and it doesn’t support peg wholes detection. TBS was not made to support our high end scanning module.

Sorry but nice ideas ! I;m not giving up on the soft edges so you know.

Thanks,



Mathieu,
It is always nice to know that suggestions are welcomed and even nicer to know that they are even being considered. I’m still relatively new to using TBS but I wanted to start providing some feedback in the form of suggestions for version improvements. Mostly small improvements that might add to an already well constructed product.

(1) The eraser uses the currently selected pen definition for its sizing. It would be nice if the eraser could have its own seperate parameter setting and not default to the currently selected pen definition. Normally the size of an eraser is pretty fixed and large than typical pen sizes, and if it could be set seperately from the pen definitions this would save having to often switch pen settings to use the eraser and the inevitable forgetting to switch the pen definition back when your through with the eraser. It is a minor thing that seems to happen all to often in just normal workflow.

Thanks-JK

my biggest wish for the next release (apart from bitmap editing ;)) would be the possibility to maintain the line thickness while scaling, skewing or stretching of selected elements.

every time when i use the object manipulation in the mentioned way, i can only use them as templates for the cleans then, as they get rendered incompatible with the current pen size in order to use them directly.

cheers,
rob

Mathieu,
Here are a couple of small but possibly nice improvements. These are workflow related. These are two possible additions to the “insert cells” dialogue that occurs when a user uses the insert cell command. The first improvement would be to add a text input box for an exposure value. This way not only could you insert a series of new cells but you also could at the same time specify that they be on 2’s or 3’s or whatever spacing desired. The second desirable improvement is in the numbering of newly inserted cells. Currently they are continuously sequentially numbered. It would be a very nice thing if there was a radio button which could be added that would allow the user to choose continous numbers or odd numbers or perhaps even numbers in the sequence. Many animators like to work on 2’s using odd numbered cells and like to reserve the even numbers for when they fill in occasional 1’s. These are just a couple of nice additions that might add value in the workflow. -JK

I’d love it if using shift with the pencil or (especially) the brush made it go in a straight line horizontal, vertical, or 45 degrees.

I not sure if this is a suggestion or just my not understanding how to do something that is already possible.

When animating (on paper at an animation disc) we often take the top drawing off of the registration pegs so that we can compare a shape’s volume with that same shape’s volume on the drawing underneath it. We then can make minor adjustments to that top drawing so as to be able to maintain our volumes and then we place it back on the registration pegs and continue animating. This is done because as the character moves from drawing to drawing the corresponding shapes (head, torso etc.) move and no longer can be compared directly as they aren’t visually closely aligned.

In TBS we can view drawings in an element for comparison using the onion skinning but in order to compare corresponding shapes that aren’t closely visually aligned we have no way of nondestructively moving the top drawing to make a visual comparison. We can select the top drawing object and use the transform tool to move it into position to make a comparison and then perform an undo but this doesn’t allow any adjustments to be made to that drawing (adjust the volumes) before the undo as those adjustments would also be undone.

So what we would like to be able to do is simulate the act of taking that top drawing off of the “registration pegs”, manipulate that drawing paper over the drawing which is underneath it to make our volume comparisons, and then be able to make modifications to that drawing (adjust the volumes) and then return it to the “registration pegs”. Thanks -JK