I have saved a template which consists of a character moving from one part of the screen to the other. It has several elements, attached to a peg. Basically I can’t see how I can drag this on to the timeline. It doesn’t allow me to drag it into anywhere appart from where I used it the first time to create it. When I do this though, it affects the previous frames.
It seems like this should be something quite basic, as it is in Flash, where you can just use a symbol again wherever, but in ToonBoom I really can’t work out what I am doing wrong. Can anyone help?
Well, this is really one of the great features of TBS, using Library assets…
To create those, drag anything, like single drawings, whole characters, animations, whatever you like, into the “Global” Library (create sub-folder for better organization).
From the Library drag anything back into any project…
Please have a look at JK’s Tips and Tricks: “Using Libraries in Toon Boom Studio”.
http://www.toonboom.com/support/forums/toonBoomStudio/index.php?board=7;action=display;threadid=2631
Regards
Nolan
Hi Nolan, thanks for the reply. The thing is, I know about the global libraries etc, and I have used templates before but I seem to be having trouble with this one. I can drag other templates onto the timeline, but the ones which I am having trouble with appear to be ones which have multiple elements attached to a peg. It just won’t allow me to add it to the timeline. Do you know why that would be?
There is normally no reason that a single template can’t be used multiple times in the same scene. Each template and its elements are automatically renamed with the addition of a copy number when it is dragged from the library to the time line. And once in the time line the templates associated frames can be repositioned to a new starting frame position.
Templates are not the same thing as symbols in Flash so don’t try to confuse the two, but there is nothing that normally restricts the use of a template over and over in the same scene. Each template application is a unique copy of the library template and not just multiple instances of the same library object like with a Flash symbol. If you use a copy from a template and modify that copy it has no effect on the original template and if you modify the original template none of the prior applied copies is effected. They are all unique and independent.
As to your specific situation I believe that more information is need for us to diagnose the problem. -JK
Ahh case solved, I simply dragged it onto the main camera view rather than the actual timeline itself. Don’t know why I didn’t try that before, but thanks anyway!
That will work. You also can drag and drop the template to the track label list of the timeline itself just not on top of an existing template label but rather between the lines in the list, and you can drag and drop the template to a specific down stream starting frame of an existing version of the same template as well. What doesn’t work is trying to drag and drop a template exactly on top of a previous copy of the same template, that confuses the software and it doesn’t make the copy. -JK