Is There A Good Text Based Introduction To OpenToonz?

[arthur brogard]

I am a complete beginner and getting exhausted trying to come to grips with opentoonz via all those youtube videos.

it gets  wearying listening to their digressions and minute involved explanations when I just want to start...

I find  paper manuals enable one to consult the index and dip in where you want to, flick through the pages, go right to the bits you want.

Is there any such text help anyone can direct me to?

Just for the very elementary starting stuff?  How to get a first animation made and exported ?

[Matthew Funke]

Does this help?

https://media.readthedocs.org/pdf/opentoonz/latest/opentoonz.pdf

[arthur brogard]

 Brilliant.  Thank you.

 :)

[arthur brogard]

  Further post much later.

  Unfortunately the docs are not what I wanted.  They're incredibly detailed with no concept of 'overview', drilling down into fine detail in every little aspect.

 Totally full of minute detail that is excellent to have but of no interest me right now.  Details of where every file is in the computer etc..

 Does anyone know of a simple set of beginner instructions for starting with OpenToonz?

 Failing that how about these little questions?

 Just what is the onion skin and how is it meant to be used?

 Every time I select a cel on the xsheet I get a blank screen I can draw on and I draw on it and then that's shown as a new level. O.K.  Fair enough. That's like a new Layer in ordinary Drawing.

 But how do I get that Layer/Level to persist?  As a permanent background?  I drag it down the column and think that'll do it but it doesn't.

So if that's my animation in one column there, with all the layers in it - what's the rest of the columns for, what are they?

Them's the kind of low-level questions I would like quick answers to.....

   

[Rodney]

Hi Arthur,

Asking text based questions here in the forum is a great way to proceed.  :)

I'll give you my take on your questions.

You asked:

Just what is the onion skin?

Onion skin is a term that originates in drafting, architecture and similar trades where notations are written on a sheet of (mostly) transparent paper.

Think:  Tracing paper

These 'overlays' were useful for adding information on top of original drawings without changing/damaging the original.

The process was adapted for use with animation when it was observed that sheets of paper could be seen through the top layer that helped the artist see where previous drawings were and make important changes so when the drawings where projected the lines were close enough to be perceived as being related to other/previous lines but had appeared to move.

Onionskinning with computers allows the frames preceding and following the current frame to appear in various states of transparency.

Highly customizable approaches to Onionskinning such as what is available in OpenToonz allows the user to select which frames they want to show, how transparent they want each layer to be and what color they want to have the images appear.

Side note:  Flipping an image or set of images back and forth quickly is a near equivalent to onionskinning and works well.

The idea being to roll or flip through the drawings quickly while keeping a focus on a specific part of the drawing to see what changes (or lack of change) occurs.

In traditional hand drawn animation you may be familiar with use of a light box.

This also has a similar function as the onionskinning processes.

There are other cool applications of lightbox and onionskinning that can be used.

For instance, a utility such as Vitrate can make the OpenToonz canvas transparent so that OpenToonz itself can be lightboxed/onionskinned and windows placed underneath can be draw over directly on the canvas.

how is it meant to be used?

The primary means of use is to set desired color, paper thickness and such in Preferences then...

If using onion skin in a drawing Level drag the onion skin handles to where they need to be to display the preceding and following frames (as desired).

If using the xsheet a similar set of markers can be turned on, extended to display frames and used. 

OpenToonz does allow us to set up our own onionskinning methods too by adjusting the transparency (and color) of Levels.

That may be a bit too far afield for this discussion but it's important to make the software tools work for you and not vice versa.

Now to the point of this question might be WHY would we use onionskinning?

The reasons are many and varied and at this exact moment the primary reason I would use onionskinning is to better track the arcs of moment of an object or shape.

Using onionskinning  we can then 'inbetween' images quickly and smoothly.

And therein I think lies the primary answer to the question of how onionskinning is to be used.

Onionskinning is perhaps first and foremostly an inbetweening tool.

We start we one drawing.

Use that drawing to inform a second drawing.

Use the first and second drawings to inform the creation of a third,

Use the first and third to create a logical drawing that fits between those two...

Etc.

Etc. 

Etc.

I'll take a stab at your next question in another post.

[Rodney]

how do I get that Layer/Level to persist? 

The xsheet (exposure sheet) is for exposing images for later viewing.

The frame basically breaks down to rows that are frames in a camera and columns that are layers (overlays).

As such we can add an image to a cell in the xsheet and it will appear in that one frame where we put it.

We can get that frame to persist by exposing it for more than one frame 

Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to select our frame and grab that little rectangular handle at the lower right of the cell and drag it down to where we need it to be.

So if we drag the cell that is on row/frame one down to row/frame 24 we will have exposed that image for 24 frames or one second (assuming 24 frames per second is our camera projection).

There are several ways to expose images into the xsheet.

My favorite is to draw right into the canvas, move down one cell in the xsheet and then draw the next frame.

OpenToonz knows that I want to keep on drawing in straightforward fashion and will add those new drawing to the same level (in most cases... there are exceptions).

If drawing in via the Level Strip perhaps the easiest way to expose the drawings is to select them, Right click and choose 'Expose in xsheet'.

The downside of this is that we don't have full control over where those images will be exposed and OpenToonz will likely place them in a new Level/column in the xsheet.

So perhaps an even better way is to select the desired images from the Level Strip and drag and drop them into the xsheet wherever we need them to go.

This image needs to be on frame 7...drag. drop. done.  This image needs to be an overlay in column/level 4... drag. drop. done.

Specifically to the question of creating a permanent background...

Make sure your background is exposed/placed to the very left of the xsheet as other levels to the right will be above that level.

A common problem for new users it to forget to make the bottom layer opaque OR to set the Scene background so that it isn't transparent.

The Scene's background and transparency can be changed via the top menu  Xsheet>Scene Settings> then slide the A (Alpha) setting over so it is no longer transparent.

For those that don't want to mess with the Scene's background default... just make sure the first column in the xsheet is a solid color (or fully opaque background image).

If anything here is unclear please let me know and I'll try to be more specific.

[arthur brogard]

 Thank you.  V. much.   :)

  I think I begin to get the idea.

  I understand the concept alright.  That's what I was looking for when I first got the prog.  That's what I assumed we'd do:  draw something then be helped - i.e. by transparent layers - to draw the next thing exactly where it should be in order to create the impression of smooth, proper movement.

  Now I think I'm closer to finding it.   It is like this? :

 draw something with onion skin enabled and get that red and green circle on the left. In the xsheet view.

 then in order to keep the last frame there for reference drag the red and green circle down for as many frames as you want to use it for reference...  or drag down the little blobs it gives birth to....  I'm not sure which to drag,  not sure where the red and green circle comes from in the first place and so on.....   but it's something like that.

I find that then when I move to the next frame in xsheet I get a page with the last frame there rather faintly and I can draw again as I want to - with reference to that last one.

That I think is what you've said there in different words and that is how it seems to be working for me.

I don't know how to draw in Level view.

[Rodney]

By your description I'd say it's sinking in!

It sounds to me like you've got a good idea of what is going on..

It took me a few days to get a good feel for use of OpenToonz specific way of using onion skin.  Using it and... accidentally trying to use it incorrectly... will help speed up the learning process.  

Make lots and lots of mistakes because that is how we learn. 

At least with OpenToonz that is... were we can easily survive when things get broken.  :)

As far as drawing in Level Strip view... I wouldn't worry too much about that if you are drawing directly while working with the xsheet.

That is the better way most of the time.

Drawing individual images in the Level Strip view is more useful for setting out a series of images where only a few of those may be used... such as with lipsync.

Think of it as a collection of images from which to choose from in the xsheet.

Then while in the xsheet we can quickly scroll through the available images until we find the right one.

Where the Level Strip is particularly useful is with AUTOMATED inbetweening where we might draw a vector image... copy it to a new frame and alter the lines position... insert some blank frames in between those frames... then click to automatically create the inbetween images betwen those two.  There are some other tools that specifically work with the Level Strip too.  

[abro...@yahoo.com]

 Well I hope it is.  Thanks for your encouragement.

 That levels technique sounds like where I want to get to:  draw few and have the machine interpose the frames between...

 They call that 'tweening'  I think?  If I want to google help on it?

  I've got to get more hands-on.  Try harder.   :)

[Rodney]

It's that 'harder' part that I rebel against.  ;)

It is imporant to put into practice those thing which we think we know... to test them... or in old world terms, prove them.

That's where the word 'im-prove' comes from... we can always take what we learn and plus it up as we learn new ways to apply what we've learned.

Auto-inbetweening can be useful but it's important to remember that it can read our minds.

Computers just do what we tell them to do.

Speaking of terminologies... 'tween' is certainly a useful term.

Betwixt and between... what is the difference?

Tween simply means an overlapping area created by two shapes.

Inbetween is a point or area in that space defined by those shapes.

Betwixt... not an animation term... would suggest something beside the two (literally 'by two').

The term inbetween simply clarifies that the state of the thing/object under consideration is firstly and foremostly 'in' or inside the influence of these other two.

It may even more often than not influence the one while being influenced by the other.  Think:  cause and effect.

So while we may create that inbetween after we have defined our two extremes that doesn't necessarily mean that is the order of progression.

And this will often play out when we consider energy and forces that cause object to move.

Are they accelerating or decelerating?  Storing energy or losing it?

This relates to motivation... which yields motion in otherwise static objects and motive in living characters as they consider what they might do.

Anticipation (think: 'ante' as in first or before) is that element of storing up enough force (kinetic energy) to execute the desired move and propel an object forward.

I'm going a bit too far afield but not without purpose.

The idea with inbetweens is to convey a sense of weight in objects that have no weight on paper.

That drawing of a heavy bowling ball 'weighs' exactly the same as the drawing of a helium filled ball/balloon but what is seen inbetween points A and Point B can convince us that one is a whole lot heavier than the other..

In a reasonable world the bowling ball shouldn't behave like the balloon and vice versa... unless we've established a precedence for that behavior in our imaginary world.

Over reliance on autoinbetweening isn't a good thing but it can be a great time saver.

Another useful feature of OpenToonz is the guided drawing feature which allows us to draw lines on one frame and see suggestions for where our next lines should be on the next frame.

This is especially helpful because the auto inbetweening feature is going to use the order in which the lines were drawn to decide where to create the new inbetween.

If we've drawn our lines in some haphazard order... the autoinbetweening will still follow that hapharard order (and garbage in/garbage out will be our result).

The guided drawing feature can be found (when using vector levels) via Right Clicking on the canvas.

Once activated... draw some line on frame one... then go to frame two and see the lines with arrows that tell you were the previous line was drawn and what direction it was drawn in.

If you can't see the guide line... don't forget to turn Onion Skin on.