Question about Levels and general Workflow

[Phil Ray]

Hey everyone,

I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around some of OpenToonz approach to an animation program. I'll say first I am very familiar with Anime Studio, and have a tentative understanding of traditional animation. Also, my goal is to do mostly frame-by-frame animation, using the other 'tweening/bone/etc features when practical. I have watched very many videos and read up quite a bit on OpenToonz, but there are still some pieces of the puzzle that are just missing for me. Specifically:

-What are Levels? How do they relate to Scenes and Columns and Frames?

-What is the general Workflow? To make, for instance, a 3 minute short with 2 settings and 2 characters, what would be the role of OpenToonz structures such as Projects, Scenes, Levels, Columns etc... 

-What space should I be animating/drawing my frames in: Cleanup or InkandBrush or somewhere else?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated! I can tell this is a very powerful program, and am really eager to get animating with it in the most efficient way possible.

Thank you!

Phil

[Juls_3000]

Hi Phil,

Level Strips are series of drawings that you save separately. Each one as associated the palette with the colors used in it.

Columns is a concept similar to layers where you can include levels, that is: drawings of a Level Strip in any order .

Scene is one ensemble of columns from where video or image sequence are exported.

The rest is not easy to explain in few words, here is my recomended approach :

1

Toonz Arlequin 7.1 is similar to OpenToonz, and there are people working to minimize the differences. Browse the index of the User Guide of Toonz Arlequin 7.1 to get the initial idea of the software.

http://www.toonz.com/cgi-shl/download/71H/Toonz%20Harlequin%2071%20User%20Guide.pdf

2

See this video about the convenience to use last nightly version of OT:

https://vimeo.com/163405341

3

Browse this collections of videotutorials to find the one which better match to your needs. Simon collection is remarcable, but the rest are also good, one of them "Toonzharlequin" comes from the creator of the software :

https://workflowy.com/s/JtI13Zub8a#/2f6621291a0e

4

Get back to User Guide and read in deep the part you are more interested now.

Good luck and enjoy !!!

Update: Thank you Greg to differentiate "Level strips" from "Levels", I modified accordingly the text above.

[Greg Smith]

Phil:

It's easiest to understand OpenToonz in the context of which Room you are working in and how it is laid out (thus displaying the relevant functions for that Room).

I like to work primarily in one room to do most everything - having only those Panels open which are most necessary for the most common tasks.  (I use the Toonz Harlequin Rooms and Layouts - mostly working in the "Drawing" Room).  See these videos to understand better:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-t3I3gSAsZWsCvsxUkBZRA

Specifically, the X-Sheet is a layering system composed of columns (which are Levels) - indicating a stacking order of objects - from left to right, leftmost being at the bottom of the stack.  Each column indicates a Level (or Layer, as found in other programs).  Each Level contains those frames which have been "Exposed" from the Level Strip.  The first being at the top - progressing downward to the last.

Levels in the X-Sheet can be Vector Levels, Toonz Raster Levels and regular Raster Levels (or layers).  The order of any Level can be shifted at any time.  Any Level can contain a portion of an animation (present in a given Scene) - or an entire animation.  For keeping track of things in a single animation segment, I find it most convenient to split my animation segments between different Levels - allowing me to see only those Drawings relevant to that segment of animation, displayed in the Level Strip.  

Levels are also used in creating and assembling "Cut-Out" characters - allowing a stacking order of character parts, as well as objects that will interact with that character.

Since "Scenes" are simply containers for a given number of Levels, Scenes can be used to contain specific animation sequences - each scene to be assembled and composited later in another environment.

For every Level, there is a corresponding Level Strip (an archive of all Drawings used in that Level).  You can always have more Drawings present in the Level Strip than are "Exposed" in the Level shown in the X-Sheet.  The Level in the X-Sheet serves to order and Expose the Drawings which are contained in the Level Strip in a particular order and for various lengths of time (frame holds, on two's, etc.).

Explaining this system in mere words may make the concepts difficult to understand.  Watching those videos listed above will provide you with a more thorough understanding and a quicker grasp of these concepts.

Greg Smith

[Herbert123]

Make sure to download the latest nightly build: the display of keyframes in the x-sheet has been restored now, and the room editor is available, making it far easier to setup a workspace you like. The workspaces in the 1.01 version are pretty terrible, in my opinion. They also change the main menus and spread the functionality all over the place. And many other things have been improved and debugged. It almost never crashes for me anymore, while the first version was a tad finnicky to work with, to say the very least.

The x-sheet keys are SO useful!

I created one new "animation" room which I customized to my own workflow. I hardly use any of the built-in spaces at all. Also, consider getting a second monitor - it really helps the workflow. I have a three screen system, with one of the screens pivoted in portrait mode - which turns out to be a real boon when working with the x-sheet :-P

Levels are the 'meat' (content) of your animation. A frame in a level can be re-used as many times as you like in a column. Levels contain the backgrounds, foreground elements, characters, and so on.

Multiple levels can live in the same column.

Scenes are a collection of levels, and can be used in two ways:
1) as a way to create a new scene and/or camera viewpoint - a story segment in your animation
2) as a collection of parts (a method to group elements together), to be used as a subsheet in a scene x-sheet. For example, you may have a segmented character which consists of many parts. All these parts may be animated. You can save a scene with all the character parts (which are levels-->columns) as one character, and drag that character into a scene where characters interact.

Subsheets are comparable to graphic symbols in Flash. To play the animation of a subsheet character in the main x-sheet it is placed in, you must provide it with enough time (exposure) in the main x-sheet.

Before you begin to work in TOonz, ensure you have setup shortcut keys for the most important functions. For example, mine are:
F5: save level
F6: Save As a level
CTRL S save scene
CTRL SHIFT S Save AS Scene
X: open subsheet
C: close subsheet
B: brush
H/J/K/L : loop, frame back, play, frame forward
SPACE: hand
CTRL SPACE: rotate view
CTRL 0: reset view
CTRL P: Preview
CTRL B: open new file browser

...and so on.

You can structure your project in several ways - it depends somewhat on whether you will be doing frame-by-frame or cut-out characters, or perhaps a combination of both.

Have a look at the example projects at http://www.toonz.com/htm/support/sup.htm
I found the cut-out Mozart character to be quite enlightening.

[Greg Smith]

Herbert:

Can you demonstrate how multiple Levels can "live" in one column - and could you also reveal what the purpose of doing this is?

Greg Smith

[Phil Ray]

Wow, Thank you all for the very insightful replies! 

Yesterday evening I studied your responses and the links you all provided, and now I feel like I'm getting comfortable with OpenToonz' way of doing things. Making my own "room" really helped me understand the arbitrariness of the preset "rooms", but I think understanding Levels/Level Strips was the big roadblock for me. Not any more! They are just sets of drawings, that I can then deploy into my scene (via the Xsheet) at my leisure, in whatever order I want and however many times I want. Pretty sensible and useful, actually. Columns are contextual assortments of Level Strip "frames" that function as layers. So I think I'm on my way towards understanding things, only thing to do now is dive in!

One quick question: Greg mentioned that Columns are Levels. If I save a Level, does that save the Level Strip or the Columns or both? If I save a Scene does that save the Columns, i.e. whatever is on the Xsheet?

Greg: Not sure about multiple levels in one column, though I think I remember seeing this in a tutorial I watched a few days ago. I could be wrong. 

Thank you all!

Phil

[BlenderBeetle]

greg: a level is just a set of drawings (individual images that are saved to your computer) if you were to look in your file browser on your computer, you won't get one file, but multiple image files for every level. when Toonz 'reads' your x-sheet, it looks at the level name (and path, because you told it to look at a specific set of images) and the number. it will load the image that corresponds to the number when it plays. 

this is why you can have multiple levels for each column because a column is a layer, which has more to do with the placement of the images on the z axis (i.e. if you want one level to be closer to you than another) or they can be useful for separating out individual parts of a whole image (being able to move trees independently to the background) for organizational purposes, you might have animated two actions of a character into two different level files, but you want them to be in the same column so the ordering of images is consistent. the way that toonz handles levels allows for this. 

I hope this answers your question. 

[Herbert123]

It is very simple. Let's suppose the scene consists of two characters interacting. This can be organized in a number of ways .One way would be to put all the animations and views of a character in the same subsheet, which means the animator would have to open the subsheet, change the content/animate from a side view to a front view, and close the subsheet.

A second optional workflow would be to have individual scenes of the same character, each with a specific view (side, back, front, 3/4. etc). Then organize these files in the file browser (scenes-->characters.-->mycharacter) and drag each version into the same column when needed. These would still be subsheets.

It depends on the type and requirements of your animation, and your preferences how you want to work.

Anyway, TOonz allows for combining various levels in the same column.

But never forget: if you save a level, OT will only save the level that is active (meaning: you selected a frame of that level in a column). If you happen to have various different levels living the same column, each level must be saved individually.

There is a misconception that columns are levels - THAT IS NOT THE CASE! Levels are the CONTENT of your animation, which are placed in one or more columns. The columns in a scene control the timing of your levels - when things are displayed, and the layering IF you wish to display multiple levels simultaneously.

It is no problem at all to display multiple levels sequentially in the same column, though.

[Greg Smith]

Herbert:

However, even if different actual Levels can be placed in one column - the LABEL for that column is given a specific Level Name.  I don't believe that changes when a cel containing another actual Level is selected.

Edit:

Aha, I see now that a Column CAN have more than one Level present in it - I guess the question remaining would be what happens when you Save Levels - and how do they appear when reloaded into a Scene?  Do they occupy the same space in that Column as they did when saved?

Edit:

I also see that, at least when a specific Scene is loaded, those saved Levels which appear in a specific Column in that Scene DO occupy the same space in that Column.

Yet, even though having multiple Levels existing in one Column is legally possible - what would be the advantage of doing this (from an organizational point of view)?  

Obviously there is room for confusion regarding this topic.

Putting the answers to these questions in video format would be of great service to users - especially one that illustrates the practical reasons for wanting to do this (the "Whys", if you will).

Phil:  When you save a Level, both the X-Sheet data and the Level Strip data are saved together - and will appear in the document together, the next time you load that Level.

Greg Smith

[Greg Smith]

Herbert:

Also, what exactly, precisely is a "Subsheet"?  Is that the nomenclature for a Level "living" with and among another Level - both within the same Column?

I'm afraid I don't understand this concept or the reason for wanting to work this way.

Greg Smith

[BlenderBeetle]

Greg:

a subsheet (or sub x-sheet it might also be called) is basically toonz version of a folder option. (in some art programs you can make folders to organize your layers into. it works kind of differently and I haven't explored it much yet but to make it a sub-xsheet you select the columns you want included, right click> collapse. this should result in all of them collapsing into one column which will be a different color than the other columns. (to view or edit your individual columns, right click on the sub-x sheet and click 'open subx-sheet") 

as far as i can tell, this is mostly another tool for organization (I'd be interested to see if someone else has a better idea of it's purpose though) \. I don't use it because I haven't worked with it enough to get the hang of how it handles frames and such. 

[Herbert123]

Subsheets are tremendously helpful in organizing a scene with multiple cut-out characters, for example.

To see this in action, download the Mozart paperless workflow tutorial files from the Harlequin site:
http://www.toonz.com/htm/support/suppw.htm

Basically, each character is made up of separate elements, rigged, and these can then be dragged as subsheets into your scene.

[Juls_3000]

[Juls_3000]

One question for learned:

am I wrong, thinking that that OT basically saves two items : 1) Level strips with multiple drawings, and 2) Scenes with multiple combinations of the drawings contained in those Level Strips.?

[BlenderBeetle]

that's mostly correct, although the scene carries more information such as palette information (taken from palette files that are also saved separately) and FX information. The scene also carries information from your key frames and deformations of images.(basically, if you think about it in terms of video editing, the levels are your raw footage and the scene is your program specific file that keeps track of your edits while referring back to the original files. i believe the term is 'nondestructive editing' or something along those lines)   

[Juls_3000]

Thank you!