Tools
To understand paperless animation, you must first discover the tools available. There are, of course, drawing tools, but also practical features such as setting a drawing as a key, breakdown or in-between.
When you create hand-drawn animation digitally, there are certain tools you require in order to work efficiently, as you would with an animation table, paper and pencils.
The onion skin and light table are used to preview previous and next drawings, cells, elements and frames. When designing or animating, it is very useful to see your previous drawings. Just as if you were building a cut-out puppet, you want to view other drawing elements to know where to draw the new element.
This topic is divided as follows:
• | Onion Skin |
• | Light Table |
• | Rotate View Tool |
• | Create Empty Drawing |
• | Reposition All Drawings |
Onion Skin
The Onion Skin tool lets you preview the previous and next drawings. By default, the previous drawings appear in a shade of red and the next drawings are displayed with a shade of green. You can change these colours in the Preferences dialog box.
- Do one of the following:
‣ | From the top menu, select View > Onion Skin > Show Onion Skin. |
‣ | In the Timeline view, click the Onion Skin button on a layer. |
‣ | In the Tools toolbar, click the Onion Skin button. |
‣ | Press Alt + O. |
Blue arrows appear on both sides of the play head.
- Drag the blue arrows to add more frames to the onion skin display.
Light Table
The light table is used to preview the previous and subsequent active layers in washed-out colours. It is useful for seeing the other layers when designing, animating or cleaning up your animation.
Only the currently selected drawing is displayed by default in the Drawing view. When enabling the light table, the other layers appear as a washed-out display and are used as a reference. You can not select or manipulate them.
In the Camera view, when the light table is activated, all layers but the currently selected one are shown washed-out. The display returns to the normal mode when an animation tool is selected.
- Do one of the following:
‣ | In the top menu, select View > Light Table. |
‣ | In the Drawing View toolbar, click the Light Table button. |
‣ | In the bottom Camera View toolbar, click the Light Table button. |
‣ | Press Shift + L. |
- The drawings for the other layers are displayed as washed-out colours in the Camera and Drawing views.
- In the Timeline view, you can disable the layers you want to hide from the light table.
Rotate View Tool
Use the Rotate View tool (animation disk) to rotate your Camera or Drawing view while you draw for increased flexibility. The rotary tables in each view are independent; if you rotate the Drawing view 25 degrees, if you switch to the Camera view, you can use the rotary table in that view and rotate it to a different angle without affecting the settings in the other view.
- Do one of the following:
‣ | In the Camera or Drawing view, hold down Ctrl + Alt (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ + Alt (Mac OS X) |
‣ | In the Tools toolbar, click the Rotate View button. |
The rotary table appears.
- Rotate the view to the desired angle.
- Release the keyboard shortcut or switch to a new drawing tool.
- Press Shift + X to reset the rotation.
Create Empty Drawing
The Create Empty Drawing command automatically creates a drawing in the selected cell, replacing any drawing that may already be exposed in that cell and the following ones until it meets another drawing, key exposure or a blank cell.
- In the Timeline view, select the cell in which you want to create an empty drawing.
- Do one of the following:
‣ | In the top menu, select Drawing > Create Empty Drawing. |
‣ | In the Timeline View toolbar, click the Create Empty Drawing button. |
‣ | Press Alt + Shift + R. |
The new drawing is created in the Timeline view.
Reposition All Drawings
The Reposition All Drawings option is used to reposition, scale, rotate or skew all drawing strokes on every drawing included in a layer.
- From the Tools toolbar, select the Reposition All Drawings tool. This also automatically selects every stroke in your drawing in the Drawing and Camera view.
- Do any of the following:
‣ | To reposition, click and drag your selection to a new area. |
‣ | To rotate, rotate the selection box handle. |
‣ | To scale, pull or push on the top, side, bottom or corner control points. Hold down Shift to maintain the selection’s ratio. |
‣ | To skew, drag the sides or top and bottom segments, between the control points. |
- When you release your cursor, every drawing in the drawing layer you repositioned, scaled, rotated or skewed will follow the same transformation.
- You can also adjust the position by modifying the settings and using the operation buttons in the Tool Properties view.
Parameter | Description | ||||||||||||
Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical |
The Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical operations flip the current selection horizontally or vertically.
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Rotate 90 Degrees CW and CCW |
The Rotate 90 Degrees CW and Rotate 90 Degrees CCW operations rotate the current selection 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise.
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Width and Height |
Use the Width and Height operation fields to enter specific values to resize the selected shape with precision.
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Offset X and Offset Y |
Use the Offset X and Offset Y operation fields to enter specific values and precisely reposition the selected shape.
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Angle |
The Angle operation lets you to enter specific values and accurately rotate the selected shape.
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