From the course: Toon Boom Storyboard Pro Essential Training

Animating layers and using Layer Transform - Storyboard Pro Tutorial

From the course: Toon Boom Storyboard Pro Essential Training

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Animating layers and using Layer Transform

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- Starting with Storyboard Pro version 5, we've got a lot more options for moving, transforming, and animating our layers and our storyboards. So, to go through those, let's make sure over here on the left we select our transform tool, then come over to the right to the Tool Properties tab. So let's take a look at the different options that are here. So under Layer Transform, you're going to see these three icons. I'm deselecting all of those, so we can see what each of them will do. So, right now, as I move my cursor over the Man grouped layers, I'll turn on-off, you can see which layers those are. I can't select or do anything with it. So, let's turn on each one of these, one at a time, so we see what they do. So the first icon there is Translate Controls. So, that allows me to grab, notice the four-headed cursor. That allows me to move him around, okay? I'll turn that off. The next one is, we hover over it, Show Rotate Controls. So off a corner, any corner of the selection, allows me to rotate the character. Now notice how he's rotating, that's because this circle here is my pivot point. So, I can move my pivot point right over his belly, and now notice he's going to rotate around that pivot point. Turn that off. And the third one here, when we turn that on. That's Show Scale Controls. That allows me to scale a character as much as I want. Now notice when I grab a corner, I can make him fat, thin, scale him. I have to hold down my shift key to keep the scale proper. If I grab top or bottom, I can make him taller or shorter. Or if I grab the sides, fatter or thinner. If I cross over, it actually reverses the other direction. I'm going to undo those changes. Generally, I will keep all three of those on. So at any time, I can scale, I can move, or I can rotate, depending on where my cursor is; makes it a lot easier. The button off to the right here under Layer Transform is Snap to 3D surface, that's only going to be helpful when you're actually working in a 3D environment, which we are not at the moment. Let's look at some of the other options here. I've got my Man layer selected, so this button here allows me to Flip Horizontal. So when I click on it, he instantly flips the other direction. It's a very quick and easy way to reverse your artwork if you wanna take a look at it that way. Or I can also flip it horizontal, you could flip upside-down. Next to that, I've got rotate 90 degrees to the right or rotate 90 degrees to the left. Again, it will rotate based on this pivot point. Then I can reset the pivot automatically, because remember, we moved his pivot point. If I click on that, pivot point goes right back to where it started, wherever the default was. The next button over is Center Pivot on Selection. So if you've got a wheel or something you want to find the perfect center, you select that, and there it is. It's right below his belt, so now if I go to pivot him, it's perfectly in the center. To the right of that, Snap to Ground. That's again, only going to be functional if I'm working in a 3D environment. And scroll deeper into this window a little bit. X and Y, so X moves left and right. So if I make that 25 and hit enter, notice he moved to the right 25 pixels. Or I can just grab and move the character that much. Y, I can adjust that to move him up or down as many pixels as I want. This is the width of the character, that's the height of the character. 100 percent means, it looks the way it's supposed to look. So, if for instance, the height of the character, if I make that 10 percent and hit enter, notice how short and squaty he got. I'm going to undo that. And then, rotation. So let's say I wanna rotate him 90 degrees. Hit 90 and enter, and he rotates exactly 90 degrees. I'm gonna scroll down a little bit further. Keyframes. So, the plus means adding keyframes. So, on the timeline, notice right now down here we have three keyframes, I wanna add one into the space. So if I click the add keyframe, notice another keyframe pops up down here, I'm making it blue right now. I can reset a keyframe, which moves it back to the position it was before. So, for instance, this keyframe that's selected, I'm gonna move him way off over here. Let's add that one in there, I want him back where it was. I hit Reset Keyframe, he pops right back to where he was originally. If I want to erase a keyframe, that's deleting it. So whichever one is selected, I hit that, and notice it disappeared down here. And if I wanna move between my keyframes without having to line it up perfectly on my timeline, I can go to previous keyframes or next keyframes. Button off to the right here is open my function editor, which allows me to adjust my curves. Then we have our Ease In and Out. So, for instance, right now my character bounces around quite a bit, but he just starts at full speed and stops instantly wherever he goes. So what I might wanna do is I might wanna ease into the movement. So I'll take that up to nine frames. So now, as I'm scrubbing, he'll start slower and then move faster. I can ease out of the movement. Notice how quickly he comes really fast down and snaps to the end. So I'm gonna ease out, I'll select that. Select five frames, hit enter. And he's got a lot of time for his movements til the end. So he moves quickly and then slows down right by the end. So that's Ease In and Out. Scroll down, it'll show you Shot Duration and Panel Duration. I can adjust that just as quickly on my timeline without using what's in my Tool Properties. So now we can add a lot more control and a lot more motion to our layers within a single frame of our storyboard using the new layer transform tools.

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