pain in the XXX

[roberts...@gmail.com]

at the moment i am animating (cut out animation) a 280 frame shot with 4 characters, two of them speaking.

Opentonz is unusable for cutout style animation without the option to zoom in or out the Xsheet/timeline, period

[joshua shute]

I had heard within the last month or so that xsheet zoom is a feature that is currently being worked on. Until it's implemented just be sure to collapse each character into their own subxsheet to simplify the xsheet. also, when dealing with vector levels, the control point editor tool and the skeleton tool both let you easily select columns from the combo viewer (where you draw) by clicking on the drawing; the skeleton tool takes it one step further by showing the selected column in the xsheet. that takes care of moving from column to column in the xsheet with easy but does nothing for fact that only 30 or so frames are all that is visible in the xsheet at any given time.

[roberts...@gmail.com]

thanks Joshua,

i dont use the sceleton tool for now, my characters are rigged in the schematic window via connctions.

lipsyncing the character in a subxsheet for example means that you have to load the audiofile in it, but cant hear the audio, when leaving the subxsheet level for looking at all my characters together in the xsheet.

so i have to load my audiofile into the xsheet and also in the subxsheet at the same frame position

so i have to load the audiofile 5 times; xsheet and each characters subxheet

[joshua shute]

I'm using the latest nightly build for mac and audio columns inside a subxsheet can be heard outside the subxsheet. 

Consider using one audio file that runs the length of your scene with all relevant sounds included in that one audio file instead of multiple files or collapse all your audio into a subxsheet so that all your audio plays in one column starting on frame 1. if you've timed out your scene, with an animatic for instance, you should be able to load one audio file in on frame 1 regardless of being on the main timeline or in a subxsheet and everything will line up. loading audio into multiple subsheets just involves copying the columns and pasting the column and should only take a heartbeat to accomplish, commandC then commandV.

Whether you connect the columns yourself in the schematic window, use the skeleton tool in the combo viewer, or don't rig anything at all, it doesn't change the functionality I'm talking about with the skeleton tool. clicking on a drawing in the combo viewer using the skeleton tool moves the selected column to the column containing the drawing you clicked AND moves the xsheet so that that column is visible in the xsheet. so say you have 5 characters and a bunch background elements in your scene spread across 250 columns, no matter what column youre on, if you click character A's hand (which is on column 150) with the skeleton tool, you have just selected column 150 to edit and have moved the focus of the xsheet so that you're looking at column 150. Then clicking a bush in the background stored on column 6, means you're now working on column 6 and opentoonz automatically scrolls along the xsheet so that you're looking at column 6 in the xsheet.

 no need to scroll through the xsheet yourself looking at column names or column images guessing which column holds which drawings, just click the drawing in the combo viewer with the skeleton tool.

[roberts...@gmail.com]

thanks Joshua:)

4 persons, two of them in Dialog and interacting with some movements longer than 30frames.

lipsyncing itself works good in OT, but you have to move the characters head a little, while its speaking and it does some gestures too.

When playbacking/scrubbing und testing my animation i find a little window of 30frames in the xsheet too small to overlook and adjust my keys.

scrubbing slow movements in context is nearly impossible.

of course, i tweak some keys in the function curve Editor, but a scalable xsheet ( 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 for example) would help so much