Fill Tool for Raster Level

[Pyer]

Hi all,

I love the new raster tool brushes (MyPaint) but I can't use the fill tool when using them.

I've read that the workaround is to convert the Raster Laver to a Toonz Raster Layer, but not only have I failed to succeed in doing so, but I also think there should exist a simple fill tool that's compatible with the regular Raster Layer.

Am I the only one??

Thanks!

Pyer

[Rodney]

Unfortunately you are the only one that wants a Fill Tool for raster levels.  :(

Ha!  I joke.  I kid.

There is not a single person in the known universe that doesn't want to be able to fill areas on raster levels.

The good news is that eventually a raster fill tool will be developed but in the meantime various other approaches must be taken.

One of the easiest (in my estimation) is to convert the image to vector or (a bit less straightforward) to Toonz raster.

It'll get there eventually but may take some time to get right considering all things.

For instance, the addition of MyPaint brushes actually makes flood fills more difficult and troublesome as most brushes contain some level of transparency which can keep pixels from receiving the fill.

A recent addition to Toonz raster addresses a related issue.

There are several approaches to paint fills for raster levels in OpenToonz.

One is to use another program (certainly not optimal)
One is to convert from raster to Toonz Raster or Vector 

- While the conversion to vector is easily discovered many people don't realize that the primary means of converting from raster to Toonz raster is via Cleanup.  Once the image is cleaned up it is then Toonz raster compatible and can use fill tools and other features associated with Toonz raster levels.

My own personal favorite approach is to use raster, Toonz raster and vector simultaneously and use each of their strengths for the task at hand.  For instance, I love drawing in (generic) raster levels (not to mention MyPaint brushes) so that makes for nice black and white linework and general painting (such as color backgrounds, etc.).  If I know I will be using a lot of color (esp. color fills) I will tend to use Toonz raster as it excels at this.  For scalable line and shapes which are easily editable I tend to use vector.  When each of these is used on a single 'frame' the results can be quite satisfying.

I am a bit torn.

On the one hand a developer could code a very basic flood fill for raster levels but the immediate problem will be that users will most definitely not be satisfied with that basic capability.

We want full featured tools but it takes time to get to that and there are many dedicated applications that already do raster fills and will likely always do it better (I'm thinking Krita here but there are many others).

As I say though, I am optimistic that flood fills will be forthcoming.

As such it may help to dive deeply into the discussion of what such tools might look like that move OpenToonz implementation beyond that of other programs.

I think I would suggest a two prong approach:  

1)  a very basic flood fill capability

This would first focus on solid color fills

A a later date Gradient fills would be added

... (the level of financial support for a dedicated programmer focused on this task would surely dictate how far this feature set develops but as earlier stated this capability could never achieve that of dedicated programs unless/until we see cross pollination of opensource projects where an update to one application automagically enhances the rest.  

2) Cutting Edge capabilities

In this track the primary focus is on research and development to bridge the gap between raster, Toonz raster and vector formats (basically creating a universal format that (on the surface) doesn't differentiate between vector and raster.  Since this basically already is the Toonz vector format the suggestion might be to chart a path forward for enhancements to that format.  Perhaps a prime example of how difficult this will be (for a programmer) would be to incorporate MyPaint brushes into the Toonz raster format... no small task in and of itself.

This second track's research and development would also have a sub category that takes a hard look and technologies that may not be readily available (read:  opensource and able to be incorporated into OpenToonz) today.  This would include technologies that alter the paradigm of flood filling.  I will guess that voxels are one example of this that while long dormant have recently been making a comeback.  My naive understanding of voxels is that much like the 'minesweeper' approach to filling areas voxels do this in three dimensions which would allow for filling with depth and occlusion/transparency.

All this for the sake of discussion.  :)

[Rodney]

Although I believe there is another option forthcoming a fairly direct way to convert from raster to Toonz raster is via 'Cleanup'.

Steps:

With raster level selected

Go to Scan and Cleanup on top menu

Select Cleanup and work through dialogue box

This will result in a Toonz raster level that can be colored with the Fill Tool

Note that in order to get optimum conversion from raster to Toonz raster users will need to adjust various settings in Cleanup Settings.

[Rodney]

I'm (mostly) having a conversation with myself here.  So bear with me.  ;)

A critical consideration for flood fills when converting from raster to Toonz raster is to use the 'Fill Depth' minimum and maximum settings in order to get colors to propogate through dense areas that otherwise will not fill.

Of course this is *after* the complex raster imagery has been converted to Toonz raster as that fill capability won't be present in a raster level.

The long and the short of it is... convert from raster to Toonz raster at the earliest possible convenience in order to take advantage of the features present with Toonz raster levels.

[Pyer]

I'm (mostly) having a conversation with myself here.  So bear with me.  ;)

No no I'm here listening :)

I will try the conversion route again although it never yielded good results for me (but it was certainly my doing it wrong).

Coming from Harmony and TVPaint, it felt weird not to have a proper raster fill tool (and I do understand the development challenge).

Thanks, and I might bug you again if I encounter problems with the conversion.

Taaa!

Pyer

[Rodney]

it felt weird not to have a proper raster fill tool

But that does beg the question... why don't more people use the Toonz Raster format?

What is lacking (or not proper) in that raster fill tool?**

I can attempt to answer a part of this myself from the perspective of software that was primarily for use with hand drawn images scanned in and converted for use.

In this sense the images only touch upon (generic) raster formatting prior to being ready for manipulation in OpenToonz.

In other words the whole point of ingesting imagery (via scanner) being to get the image formatted into the Toonz raster format.

**There is something definitely lacking now in the Toonz raster format with the advent of MyPaint brushes in (generic) raster format whereas it is missing in (generic) raster.

I did a test of converting a level drawn/painted with MyPaint brushes and the converted image sequence worked rather spectacularly.

So... this discussion has already improved my workflow.  :)

 

[Hans Jacob Wagner]

Rodney can you explain what's happening during the cleanup that makes toonzraster differ from normal raster? I have been fighting a little with the cleanup in Toonz some 15 years back. And I remember having a hard time preserving the douce light greyscale of the line the director wanted.
Not to mention troublesome difference between keydrawer line and that of the inbetweeners.
I find this tread very interesting!

[Rodney]

I keep accidentally replying directly rather than back to the Google group.

Sorry about that.

An additional consideration regarding my observation that grayscale may be limited to 8 bit...

That might suggest that when testing to try images of only 8bit fidelity to see if the 'douce light greyscale' is retained as your director desired.

Then test with higher bit imagery and see if the conversion output fails to meet that same criteria.

[Dave Weese]

1. Select the raster level you want to perform a fill operation on
2. File > Save Level As > give the level a name you will remember because you will need it in a sec
3. File > Convert File
1. Select the image you just saved (OT should recognize the sequence)
2. Choose TLV as the file format
3. Don;t worry about all the options until you've done this successfully once, but you can learn the options by experimentation, generally the defaults are fine
4. Click Convert ... let it finish ...
   
4. File > Load Level > select the same file name you saved earlier but now there will be a file with the same file name but a tlv extension
5. Congratulations! You just converted from raster to toonz raster and can get on with fill operations
   

[Dave Weese]

In another post I explained how to convert from raster to toonz raster, but using cleanup is way easier. Just

1. Select your Raster level you want to convert
2. Scan & Cleanup > Cleanup > Cleanup All

lol, the default options work fine and instantly your raster level is replaced with a toonz raster level ready for paint / fill. Frankly this capability makes all the complaint about not being able to fill raster levels a bit silly, since the whole idea is to have the benefits of toonz palettes (ie you can change all colors after the fact by modifying colors in the palette)

[Rodney]

Dave,

I'm interested in your feedback on the Cleanup approach as I haven't had the success that I originally thought I'd see with it.

Specifically, the cleanup's default appear to be set for a very limited color palette which then produces a cleaned up drawing without all the colors of the original.

I started to look into that but am easily distracted.

:)

[Dave Weese]

in the cleanup menu clip "preview cleanup" so you get a live update of the cleanup settings.
Open the cleanup settings. If you have color in the art then switch from default grayscale to color, then for anime style where you have blues for shadow areas and reds for highlights, you need to click the little PLUS symbol near the color swatch next to brightness and contrast so you can tell Toonz to "find" reds and blues in the art as well.

If you don't do that the cleanup will come out greyscale and you WILL be confused as to why lol.

But fortunately if you take these steps, you can see their effect in the "live" preview. Take your time, dial it in, then when you do painting (ie filling) select the red and blue colors and in the palette (duobleclick to open the style editor) select the settings tab all the way to the right and click "Autopaint for lines". Now when you fill an area flanked by red or blue the red and blue will be erased and replaced with the desired fill color.

Sorry for the typos - I am racing the clock right now.. Hope it helps!

[Dave Weese]

Rodney - also you may want to "convert" instead of "clean up". There are several ways. If, for example, you use toonz' file browser to browse to an image or sequence you want to work with, you'll notice when you right mouse click the file, convert is one of your options.

Similarly (if you are not fond of toonz' pretty slow file browser performance), then use toonz' main file menu FILE > CONVERT FILE

Either way it's the same. You get a dialogue where you can tell toonz what file type you want to convert to

Choose tlv which is the file format for toonz raster level img sequences.

As near as I have been able to tell so far, convert always results in greyscale toonz raster levels, so it is still for the purpose of preparing to do paint.

With convert you have to deal with browsing for files and naming etc., so if you are trying to move fast, arguably (once your settings are dialed in), cleanup is usually faster because it is a one click operation on a raster level - it's instantly replaced with teh new toonz raster level. The one gotcha is that there is no undo, so the only way to get back the original raster level is to drag and drop the images back into toonz. Kinda dumb but you get what you get.

[Rodney]

Dave,

Apologies for the extreme delay in saying 'Thanks'.

I've had it on my list of things to do to delve deeply into all things Open/Import/Convert/Save..... it's a long list!  ;)

The Convert process is very useful and like Export which I often neglect and hardly ever use... I need to leverage all of these tools more often.