Linking Your Layer to an External Image

When working on a large production, you may want to centralize your backgrounds into one directory instead of duplicating your background several times in different scenes. As backgrounds are generally reused in many scenes, some studios like to save space on the server and link the different scenes to the background directory. Also, if they modify one background, it is modified everywhere at the same time without having to reimport it. To do so, you must use the Timing columns.

Timing columns are exposure sheet columns that link to files that are outside the scene’s structure. Because of these external links, care must be taken not to break the links by moving the scene’s location or the background directory’s location. Breaking a link will result in images not appearing in your scene.

Refer to the chapter to learn more about using Timing columns.

If you are working with Toon Boom Harmony Server and all your scenes are located on a centralized server, you can also use the Link to Images option.