how to pan a walk cycle with tvpaint?

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toonsisters
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how to pan a walk cycle with tvpaint?

Post by toonsisters »

Hallo everybody,

We toonsisters are a couple of artists from allover germany working on a short animation called "sauna tango".
We are working with tvpaint to avoid the paperchaos but animate traditionally. Soon I will create a WIP "Sauna Tango" topic, so you can see a little bit of our work.

now we have some walk cycles we would like to pan for comming into the picture and leaving it.
Our idea was to create an animated brush and stamp the animation in each frame. This solution was not satisfying, because the feet of the character were not able to pose exactly, so the character was still "ice scating".

Has anybody a better solution for us?
:(

Thanks for anything helpfull,

best regards
Vera
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Peter Wassink
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Post by Peter Wassink »

In these cases you can get the best result if you FIRST put down the walkcycle on a seperate layer in your background project.
to accomodate the walkcycle the background ususally has a long shape (zum beispiel: 2000 X 800 pixels)
make sure the character walks along without skating

Now, using the keyframer in a seperate 'camera' project , you make the camera move by importing the BG+walk
(make sure this 'camera' project has the right dimensions for your final output...zum beispiel PAL)
so now whatever moves you choose to make with the camera over the BG+walk, the character will be solidly connected with the BG

another advantage is that ...even if the walk is on doubles and the camera move on 25 FPS... the character will still be perfectly connected to the ground
Peter Wassink - 2D animator
• PC: Win11/64 Pro - AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core - 64Gb RAM
• laptop: Win10/64 Pro - i7-4600@2.1 GHz - 16Gb RAM
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toonsisters
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Post by toonsisters »

Dear Peter,
thank you very much for your quick reply.

you are absolutly right. If you want the character and also the background to move, you first have to stick the character to the background and then move the camera.
but our problem is simply , as you say, " to make sure the character walks along without skating".
we have a walk cycle in the middle of the picture and now want the character to walk out of the picture while the background stays.
In animo you would add a "move" tool and push the character for defining the "in" and "out" position.

what do you suggest in tvpaint?

kind regards
Vera
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Peter Wassink
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Post by Peter Wassink »

o.k. Vera... kein problem :wink:

there are a couple of ways to do this (but that goes for most solutions in tvp)

1) you can use the keyframer in the FX stack (under motion)
this method requires a lot of fideling with the x-coordinate value in the keyframer to prevent the unwanted skating.
but its probably closest to what you know from animo.

2) pick up the walkcycle as a custombrush. (say its a 12 frame cycle)
position and stamp down each frame of the walkcycle brush individually on the background.
you now have an animlayer with the 12 fases of your walk
you can simply continue doing this until your character is out of screen

3) but if you want to save some work... you only have to do it once
after you have put 1 cycle down, copy the layer and shift it until frame 1 of the duplicated layer is above frame twelve of the original
Now using the transformtool shift the X value in such a way that the foot of your character on the first frame of the copied layer, matches with the last frame of the original.
double click under the duplicated layer so that all frames become yellow, click apply in the transform tool panel.
all drawings will be shifted and match up perfectly with the first cycle and with the BG.
you only have to shift the duplicated layer 1 frame to the right so it won't overlap.

depending on how many cycles you need you can keep duplicating and transforming the duplicated layers until the character is out of frame. No need to change the value in the transform tool
you can keep using the same value

it sounds really much more complicated then it is!

it will be much more clear to see it....videotutorial! please :P
Peter Wassink - 2D animator
• PC: Win11/64 Pro - AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core - 64Gb RAM
• laptop: Win10/64 Pro - i7-4600@2.1 GHz - 16Gb RAM
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ZigOtto
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Post by ZigOtto »

agreed!
that kind of thing so heavy to explain in words, but so easy to do in tvpa!
:)
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cresshead
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Post by cresshead »

how about a quick'how to vid' seeing as words seem to make it look complicated :D
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toonsisters
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Post by toonsisters »

Dear Peter,

thank you very much for your suggestions.

I tried out both and the "animated brush option" woked out fine this time.
But in order to keep the postproduction work small and not to clean up and color lots of images of the same shape I tried to add an x-sheet level with source walk cycle. Then I tried to add an keyframer effect for moving the x-sheet level in my timeline. But this did not work.
I guess I will keep your option nr. 3 and copy the layer a few times and exchange the copies after coloration although the copy-level thing makes the timeline much more unclear.

Wouldn't it be helpful to organize the levels in folders?
And wouldn't it be great to have a hierarchy windor for quick finding spechial levels?

yours vera
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ZigOtto
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Post by ZigOtto »

toonsisters wrote:... Then I tried to add an keyframer effect for moving the x-sheet level in my timeline. But this did not work.
well here's the way to go :
- create a new AnimLayer, as long as your XSheet layer, and name it "Anim+KF"
- set the KeyFramer's Render/Source to Layer/"your XSheet-layer's name"
...
after your linetest validated, add the color to the source's drawings,
and substitute the line-drawings by the colored drawings,
then, go back to your "Anim+KF" layer, and apply the KeyFramer_FX again, (blend mode = Substitute),
or better, create a new AnimLayer, (long enough), and name it "Anim+color+KF",
and re-apply your KeyFramer_FX in this new Layer.

toonsisters wrote:... Wouldn't it be helpful to organize the levels in folders?
And wouldn't it be great to have a hierarchy windor for quick finding spechial levels?
definitively yes, and I think it's in the wish-list,
(and possibly near the top of the list ...?) wait & see ...! :)
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toonsisters
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Post by toonsisters »

Dear ZigOtto,

I tried out your instructions and they work fine, thank you.
I found out that I don't even need a xsheet level. I can set the render source directliy to my walk cycle anim layer.
Also I can add the color level to the fx level by blend = add instead of substitute.
This is a satisfying solution.

The only problem in my test is, that the keyframer refuses to work on frame 1 - 12 ( which is the length of the source wc ). althoug I have selected them all before applying it renders only frames 13 - 36. Frames 1 - 12 stay blank.
Do you have a clue what I might did wrong or what function might be activated which should't ?
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ZigOtto
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Post by ZigOtto »

toonsisters wrote:... The only problem in my test is, that the keyframer refuses to work on frame 1 - 12 ( which is the length of the source wc ). althoug I have selected them all before applying it renders only frames 13 - 36. Frames 1 - 12 stay blank.
Do you have a clue what I might did wrong or what function might be activated which should't ?
hmmm, could you post a screen-grab of your timeline window to help us to see what could be wrong ?
possibly a KF source's pre- and post-behavior settings (try to set them to Loop, see pict.),
but it could be something else...?
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toonsisters
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Post by toonsisters »

Sorry for replying late.
This problem seemed to be a temporary malfunktion.
After rebooting the computer everything worked out fine.
Thank you for making the efford.

OK, next question:
Is there a possibility to make the FX KeyFramer work on every second frame, so my walk cycle on twos is not scating?
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ZigOtto
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Post by ZigOtto »

toonsisters wrote:... Is there a possibility to make the FX KeyFramer work on every second frame, so my walk cycle on twos is not scating?
do you mean a "Apply FX only on the Instance's Head, not on Exposure(s)" ?
if it's that, I use a script which work pretty well, although a bit slow.
tell me if you're interested.

if it that you have your character in 2's and your BG panning beneath in 1's,
you will get either gliding feets, or (if you fix the gliding), jerky animation...
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toonsisters
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Post by toonsisters »

do you mean a "Apply FX only on the Instance's Head, not on Exposure(s)" ?

Yes, thats exactly what I mean.
I would be very glad If I could try our your script.
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ZigOtto
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Post by ZigOtto »

here it is :
it's the new FX H button in the Instance-Panel v1.2.1 (H for Heads)

uncompress, put the FXonHeads.grg file in your own george folder,
then "load a new toolbar..." as previously explained.

:)
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toonsisters
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Post by toonsisters »

Dear Zig,

Thank you so much for your efford.
Because we decided to do the panning by animated brushes, it took a little time for trying your new panel.

The FXH button works, but on the fx-level. I think this is what it is supposed to do.
But for panning a walkcycle on twos by creating an animated fx-layer (one key with long exposure) refering to a source (the walkcycle layer on twos)
we would need the FXH butten working on the keys of the source.

Is that possible?
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