Tips for Using Toon Boom Studio v4.0

Having made approximately 945745923909450 errors in my history of using Toon Boom Studio v4.0, I thought I might share some of these mistakes and tips to make other users' relationships with the program a bit less rocky and tense.

#1:

When drawing using the Mac touchpad, do not accidentally touch a second finger down and send the pencil rocketing off into the timeline and beyond. Having come from a PC with separate clicking buttons and touchpad, I am not used to this sensitivity with multiple fingers on the touchpad, and this one has turned many a well-intentioned drawing into crazy lightning.

 

#2:

Go immediately into (for Mac) TBS > Preferences > Display > Renderer > and select OpenGL rather than Quartz2D. Every time I have left a project in Quartz2D mode instead of OpenGL, the image gets all crumply and epileptic in playback and the upper left corner of the frame is reduced to rave party strobe lighting. STICK WITH OPENGL.

#3:
 If you have an area of colour to fill in, but the area is segmented into hundreds of tiny sections (e.g. detail on a person's face or clothes), leave the area transparent, draw a large rectangle of the colour you want, send the rectangle to back, and put it behind the original drawing, and this will fill in the colour despite the sections.

#4:
The gradient features in the colour palette are limited- linear gradients only run from left to right, not top to bottom. To make the gradient run from top to bottom, or to change the direction of the gradient in any way, use the 'C' and 'V' keys to rotate your image. The gradient will still appear to fill from left to right but when you rotate your image back to normal, it will rotate with it.


#5:
If you have changed computers, operating systems, hard drives etc, or have lost or damaged your TBS install files in any way, don't worry- if you go into your account on toonboom.com, you can re-download any of your TB products, for Mac OSX or PC. Yay! This was a massive relief when I thought I would have to re-purchase TBS just because I bought a Mac.


#6:
If your animation is getting sluggish and the program is struggling to keep up with the complex processes that you are making it do, try doing your scenes in small segments (i.e. segments of 3-5 seconds), export the segments as you go, and assemble them in your external film editing program. Trying to export your entire 6 minute animation from TBS, ready to go, will most likely result in flickering, jumping, and the program freezing a lot. Also, you can't edit your transitions and clip lengths with anywhere near as much freedom as you can in a program like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut.


(HINT: When cutting animation with Final Cut Express, I never pay any attention to how long a sequence takes in TBS, I simply Command+J to modify the duration of the clip once it is in Final Cut. E.g. if a shot is meant to track down over 4 seconds, I do it over 8 seconds in TBS and speed it up later. However- make sure the option for 'Frame Blending' is checked in the Command+J menu, as this will keep your sequence looking smooth no matter what you do to its length.)


That's all for now- maybe some more later. If anyone has any more specific questions about either TBS or Final Cut Express, feel free to email me (s.lang@live.com.au) and I'll see if I can help out!