Export files
Saving a project in TVPaint Animation Pro format with all associated layers may require a considerable amount of storage capacity.
Even if it contains specific data relative to your project (opacity, layers, etc…), the TVP format is not a practical solution if you want to share it with your friends at parties or on a website. Use of the dependencies function will render your project smaller, but it is not more practical in the
aforementioned cases.
The option File > Export project to... is used to convert your project into a format of your choice: animated GIF, AVI or QuickTime file, numbered frames sequence, etc. You will find this very practical as you are able to save your work in smaller files.
This option is present in the File main menu. Once selected, the following panel appears:
Its layout should be familiar to you.
You may choose to export an image (or image sequence) from your project while retaining the layers or current brush (possibly animated).
These three possibilities are mutually exclusive. To export the project image:
* A box on the top left-hand side is the first section of this tab and provides information relative to the current project.
* The second section deals with the export file format:
TVPaint Animation Pro allows you to export your projects in a wide variety of formats: DIP, AVI, GIF, QUICKTIME, FLI, PNG, PCX, SUNRASTER, PSD, TGA, JPG, ILBM, TIFF, FLYER CLIP, D1 RTV, CINEON, SGI, SOFTIMAGE, VPB.
Each format has its own features which are explained in an appendix. Some are configurable (for example AVI format), others are not.
Handling TVPaint projects 5-9
When the export file format imposes the choice and setting of a video and audio codec, click on the Config button to display the corresponding settings panel.
Export files
The codecs present in the popup menus and their configuration options are those installed in your operating system.
In order to save a TVPaint Animation Pro project in DVD format, you must have a MPEG-2 encoder codec installed in your operating system.
When required, and depending on the various formats of export, you may need to set the following option parameters:
- Mode
You may choose to export your work in the form of images or a video with a limited palette (8 bits=256 colors), a large palette (24 bits=16.777.216 colors), a palette which takes into account the pixel transparency: 32 bits, a palette with no color data, but only pixel transparency (a mask). - The palette
In the case of a limited color palette, you may choose to use: A gray scale palette.
The program palette located in the Bin tab of the palette panel
A global quantized palette to be used for all frames of your footage or animation. A local quantized palette which is modified for each frame of an animation. - The number of colors
You may also choose a precise number of colors between 2 and 256 (to do this you must first choose one of the two quantized palettes).
- Dither
The Dither button is used to disperse the pixels of your animation in order to simulate use of a palette with a lot more colors (technically referred to as «Floyd-Steinberg dithering»).
- Alpha
Options relative to the Alpha function were discussed on page 7. * The third section of the panel contains several options:
- The Browse button and an associated text field are used to enter the name and location of the file to be exported.
- The Single image button is used to save the image visible in the right section of the panel only. - The Sequence button is used to save, one at a time, the images located between the Mark in and Mark out points. The images created in this way are numbered.
By default, the images are numbered as follows:
file_name_1.ext, file_name_2.ext, … … … file_name_123.ext, …
Including a « 0 » in your file name may help with numbering your images. For example if the first file name is « dessin_000 », the images will have the names dessin_001.jpg, dessin_002.jpg, … …dessin_354.jpg…
- The Animation button is used to save all the frames between the Mark in and Mark out points in a single file and is available for some file formats (deep, gif, quicktime, fli, avi).
* The fourth section of this panel manages the restrictions and attributes imposed on a file to be exported: width, height, frame rate, pixel aspect ratio, field.
* Several buttons are present in the fifth and last section:
- The Background button, when checked, renders all the pixels of your images opaque using the background selected (color, check or none) which is placed behind the transparent pixels of your images.
- The Correct aspect button is used to correct the pixel aspect ratio of the images to be exported in accordance with the setting made in the fourth section.
The Stretch to frame rate button, when checked, imposes a previously selected frame rate on the file to be exported while retaining the original duration.
Export files - If the aforementioned button is checked, the Time interpolation button allows you to decide whether the frame rate (or fields) correction should be carried out by interpolation (smoothing) or duplication (or deleting as the case may be).
To export an animated brush:
The options are the same as those available to export a project display. To export project layers:
The options proposed are: - Choose the path and file name
- Choose the file format: TVPaint or PSD (both file formats retain the layers you have created). Exporting in PSD format :
Earlier we saw that the Export panel contains three tabs: Project display, Project layers and Custom brush. The Custom brush tab does not concern us at this point in time as we are only interested in the differences resulting from the choices made in the Project display and Project layers tabs :
If you decide to export a project in PSD format in the Project display tab, you will export an image (or an image sequence) with all the layers of your project in a single image without transparency. The transparent areas will be replaced by the color black.
If you decide to export a project in the form of layers in the same way as your project .tvp, you will have to choose the Project layers tab for thisexport.
If you decide to export a project in PSD format in the Project layers tab, you will export an image (or an image sequence) with all the layers of your project in the spatial order, with transparency.