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Animation Glossary
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Term Description
3D -Stereoscopic Technique
The ability to create stereo images which, when animated and viewed through 3D Active Glasses or using glasses with one red and one blue lens, will appear as a three-dimensional movie. Toon Boom Animate Pro and Harmony can create 3D imagery. For more information download the tutorial from the product's How To page or view the demo video in the Animate Pro Features - 3D Stereoscopic section.
Acitvation The process of initiating the licensing of a Toon Boom product. This verifies the legitimacy of the product by checking the Product Code with the Toon Boom activation database.
Alpha Channel The alpha channel is the image’s channel carrying the transparency information. An image already has three channel: red, green. blue (RGB). The alpha channel is the fourth channel (RGBA). The matte or transparency information is stored in this fourth channel. An image without an Alpha Channel is always opaque.
Animate Family
of products Consisting of Animate and Anmate Pro these are the digital animator’s natural companion Toon Boom Animate is aunique end-to-end vector based animation software that includes content creation, compositing and delivery to audiences across media. Ideal for professional animators, boutique studios, students and educators, it’s a complete digital animation application. Toon Boom Animate Pro is the most complete professional animation software for serious animators, offering award winning state-of-the-art content creation, animation and compositing toolset for any animation style within a single all-in-one desktop application.
Animatic This is a movie developed from the storyboard and includes sound. The storyboard panel is exposed for the duration of the scene and sometimes the characters are placed on a trajectory to indicate a motion. The camera moves are also animated. The animatic is used to determine the rhythm of a project and provides a preview of what is happening, before starting the production.
Animation A simulation of movement created by displaying a series of pictures, or frames in rapid succession. Anime An animation style known for its sinister and dark feel, popular in Japan.
Arc Action naturally follows the shape of an arc. Action is rarely straight line.
Aspect Ratio The aspect ratio is the relationship between the width and height dimensions for any scene, frame or film format. The television ratio is 4:3 and the widescreen ratio is 16:9.
Auto-feed Automated method of feeding drawings to a scanner in which multiple drawings are stacked into a sheet feeder. When the user activates the scanner, the drawings are scanned consecutively, without further user intervention.
Automatic Lip-sync Detection
Toon Boom Animate can automatically map drawings in an element to the mouth chart you have generated for a sound. This can save time when you are lip-synching a voice track.
Axis An axis is an imaginary line around which an object rotates. For 2D graphics, there are two axes:
X which is horizontal Y which is vertical
For 3D graphics there are three axes: X which is horizontal
Y which is vertical Z which is for the depth
Elements in Toon Boom Digital Pro can be translated on the three axes.
Background A background is the part of the scene that is the farthest to the rear. The background is the artwork, decor on which the animation takes place.
Backlight In Toon Boom Animate, the Backlight tool temporarily transforms the painted zones into a darker colour so that you can easily locate any empty zones or bubbles left behind during the Ink and Paint process
Bezier Method of defining curved lines invented by the French mathematician Pierre Bézier.
A Bézier curve is a mathematical or parametric curve. Bézier curves use at least three points to define a curve. In Toon Boom, a function can be hooked to a Bézier curve and vary along with the curve value information. Bézier curves are also very useful in vector graphics. They are used to model smooth curves and can be scaled indefinitely.
Bibliography Here are some reference books that you will find very useful in your animation instruction: Blair, P. (1994). Cartoon Animation.-- Laguna Hills, Ca.: Walter Foster Publishing. Laybourne, K. (1998). The Animation Book. -- New York: Three Rivers Press. Muybridge, E. (1989). The Human Figure in Motion. -- New York: Dover Publications.
Muybridge, E. (1984). The Male and Female Figure in Motion: 60 Classic Photographic Sequences. -- New York: Dover Publications.
Thomas, F. and Johnston, O. (1981). The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. -- New York: Disney Editions. Whitaker, H. and Halas, J. (1999). Timing for Animation. -- Boston: Focal Press.
White, T. The Animator’s Workbook; Step-by-Step Techniques of Drawn Animation.-- New York: Watson-Guptill Publications.
Williams, R. (2001). The Animator’s Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles, and Formulas. -- London: Faber and Faber.
Bitmap A bitmap image is composed of pixels and has a single resolution (size); if it is enlarged too much, it will start losing definition and pixels will start to appear. This is known as pixelation.
Breakdown In cut-out animation, the breakdown is the action of breaking a character in pieces to create a puppet with articulations. To breakdown a character, the artist will cut parts such as hands and arms, from the character’s model and paste them in separate layers before fixing the joints and setting the pivots. In traditional animation, a breakdown is an animation pose generally found between two key poses. The key poses are the main poses in an animation and the breakdowns are secondary poses helping to describe the motion and the rotation curve.
Camera Shake Camera shake occurs in a scene when the camera moves slightly and quickly in several directions. This gives the impression of an impact, vibration or, for example, bumps on the road.
Caption A caption is a text field containing dialogue, effects, sound or slugging information.
Cel In a traditional animation process, a cel, also known as celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which the animation was inked and painted before being sent to the camera.The picture’s outline is drawn on the front of the cel and then it is coloured along the back. In Toon Boom, a cel is an individual space encountered in a Xsheet’s column where you can expose a drawing or a function’s coordinate.
Character
Design Each character for an animated film is drawn from multiple angles in poster style format called a model sheet whichserves as reference for the animators.
Character Design Model Sheet
Each character in an animated film is drawn from multiple angles and displayed in a poster style format called a Model Sheet. The Model Sheet serves as standard reference point for the animators to continually refer to, thereby
maintaining consistency in the look and style of the character. Children's
Animation Products from Toon Boom
Comic Boom :- comic strip software. Flip Boom All-Star :- easy to use animation software. Flip Boom Classic :- a complete and simple animation software that makes it easy for kids and beginners to learn animation.
Clean up After the rough drawings have been tested and approved, all of the noise in the image (the excess lines, the notes, etc.) is removed to create final drawings which can be inked, painted, and shot. The clean up process is the action to either trace a clean line over a rough drawing to get the final drawing or to remove dirt and extra lines left by the scanning process.
Closest Similar Shape -Morphing Rules
A colour, a line shape or a zone will morph with the closest similar one in the destination drawing. Refer to the Morphing Rules glossary entry for a complete list of rules.
CMYK Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black. Refers to process used by printers to define colour on the printed page. Colour Art to
Colour Art -Morphing Rules
A shape drawn in the Colour Art can only be morphed with another shape in the Colour Art. Refer to the Morphing Rules glossary entry for a complete list of rules.
Colour Card A Colour Card is a solid colour the same size as the camera. The Colour Card can be used to fill the scene background with a solid colour when there is no background image included.
Colour Model In animation a colour model is the official colour design that must be used to paint the animation. A model is the definitive character, prop or location design that each artist musts follow for the production.
Colour Swatch to Same Colour Swatch -Morphing Rules
If you want to perform a colour transition, you have to create the effect at the compositing level. Refer to the Morphing Rules glossary entry for a complete list of rules.
Colour Wheel A display of the colour spectrum in the form of a circle. Colour-Override
effect
The Colour-Override processes the colours in a drawing layer. The drawings in this layer must be in TVG (Toon Boom Vector Graphic) file format. Using this effect you can; change colours from the palette without affecting the actual palette, swap clone palettes, replace a specific colour zone with a bitmap texture, and hide or display selected colours. Comic Boom An easy-to-use comic strip creation software made by Toon Boom.
Composite In Toon Boom, a Composite is a module found in the network used to merge several image outputs together.
Compositing The compositing process is the action of incorporating all of a scene’s elements together to create the final result before sending it to the rendering step. For example, the compositing artist will import all the animation sequences,
background, overlays and underlays in the scene and position them correctly. The artist will set the camera frame and animate it if need be. Finally, he will create all of the computer generated effects needed.
Converting contour lines to central lines
In Animate and Animate Pro, you can convert contour lines to central lines and central lines to contour lines. You can make an invisible line by setting the size of the Pencil tool, Ellipse tool, Rectangle tool, Line tool or Polyline tool to 0 (zero). refer to the Animate and Animate Pro user guides for more detail.
Cross-Dissolve An effect used to fade two scenes one into the other.
Cut A Cut is a direct transition between two scenes. When a Cut is used, there are no transition effects inserted to pass from one scene to the other. The first scene ends and the second one starts immediately.
Cut-out Animation
The process known as Cut-out Animation is the action of animating characters made out of several pieces by moving them around frame by frame. Cut-out animation can either be computer generated or done traditionally using paper. Cycle A group of images that together make up an action, such as walking. A cycle is an action repeated as a loop over time.
It can either be a series of animated drawings or a series of keyframes. Detach from
Parent The Detach from Parent command is used to disconnect elements from a peg or from one another. Dialogue The dialogue is the text spoken by a character in a movie or animation.
Dope Sheet Used by animators, directors and other members of a crew to track the sequence and timing of images, dialogue, sound effects, sound tracks and camera moves. Also known as an Exposure Sheet.
Doping Assigning a particular drawing to a range of frames. Double Bounce
Walk
In the key frames and passing positions in a double bounce walk, the body is lower than a reference line drawn in the upright position. During the in-betweens, body is above this line giving the appearance of a bounce.
DPI Dots Per Inch. The standard measure of resolution for computerized printers; sometimes also applied to screens, although in this case it should more accurately be referred to as pixels per inch. In either case, the dot is the smallest discrete element making up the image.
discrete element making up the image.
Drag Mouse (or pen) operation that usually results in an object on the screen being moved. Dragging with a mouse is done by holding down the left mouse button when the cursor is over the object to be moved, and moving the mouse in any direction.
Drawing Element In Toon Boom, a drawing element is an individual layer linked to a folder containing all of the drawings exposed in this particular layer and even drawings that are not exposed but are available to this layer.
Dropper tool The Dropper Tool is used to select any colour on your screen. You can use it to pick a colour from your drawing without going to the Colour Palette.
Ease and Bezier
Functions When you create a function to control a parameter over time (Scale, X, Y, Z, Rotate), you can use either an Easefunction or a Bezier Function. These functions can be controlled using the Ease Editor or the Bezier Editor. Each function editor presents a different method of editing the values over time. The shape of the graph which is created indicates the velocity of the function, regardless of the editor you use. The type of function that you choose is largely based on your own working preference.
Ease-in Gradual acceleration in the action. Other common terms for ease-in and ease-out are slow-in and slow-out. Ease-out Gradual deceleration in the action. Other common terms for ease-in and ease-out are slow-in and slow-out. Ease/Velocity In animation, the ease, also known as velocity, is the acceleration and deceleration of a motion. It can either be a
motion created by a function curve or a series of animated drawings. Other common terms for ease-in and ease-out are slow-in and slow-out.
eLearning A location on the Toon Boom website where you can find information to help you learn more about using each product. The material includes: Workout Series (interactive animation lessons), Video Lessons, Tips and Tricks, Tutorials, Templates and Documentation.
Establishing Shot
An establishing shot is a scene where the viewer can see the whole area where a sequence is happening. For example, if a child is playing on the ground in front of his house, the establishing shot would be a scene where the viewer can see the house, the ground, a part of the street and the buildings around the central point of action. This helps the viewer understand the story location and orientation.
Exposure In animation, an exposure is the number of cels on which a drawing appears in the scene. For a drawing to appear longer, the exposure must be extended over more cels.
Exposure Sheet (Xsheet)
The exposure sheet or Xsheet, is a sheet with several vertical columns and horizontal frames used to indicate a scene’s timing.
Each column represents a scene’s layer. In each column the drawings numbers are indicated and spread over the certain amount of frames they need to appear.
The exposure sheet is used by animators, directors and other members of a crew to track the sequence and timing of images, dialogue, sound effects, sound tracks and camera moves. Also known as a Dope Sheet.
Fade-in/Fade-out
Transition effects used to open or close a sequence. A Fade-in occurs when the first scene appears progressively, from complete transparency to its complete opacity. A Fade-out occurs when the last scene progressively disappears, going from complete opacity to complete transparency.
Fast-in Dramatic acceleration at the start of the action. Fast-out Dramatic acceleration at the end of the action. Feather Edge
effect
This effect makes the edge of of a drawing soft and blurry. You can use this on subjects such as the Sun, or a flame, where you don't want a hard edge to the drawing.
Field In animation, a field is a measurement unit used to calculate motion, registration and camera positioning. A standard animation scene will vary between 6 to 12 field.
Field Chart A field chart is a guide will all the field units that animator and layout artists use to determine a scene size or a camera motion.
Fill Shape to Fill Shape -Morphing Rules
If you have a Brush line or a Colour fill zone which are contour vectors, make sure that you morph it with another Fill or Brush line. Refer to the Morphing Rules glossary entry for a complete list of rules.
Morphing Rules Brush line. Refer to the Morphing Rules glossary entry for a complete list of rules.
film-1.33 Use the film-1.33 resolution setting for the film format that conforms to the standard 4:3 pixel aspect ratio.
film-1.66 Use the film-1.66 resolution setting for the film format that conforms to the widescreen 16:9 pixel aspect ratio, (the pixels are wider than high).
Flip Boom All-Star
Flip Boom All-Star is perfect for any young-at-heart talent looking for an easy to use animation software. Import digital pictures. Draw quickly using fun tools. Zoom in/out tool. Rotate tool. Drag-and-drop templates. Set your action on two layers. Type in your text or dialogue. Import MP3 files. Upload your animated ideas directly to Facebook, YouTube, iPhone, iPod or iPad.
Flip Boom
Classic Flip Boom Classic is a complete and simple animation software that makes it easy for kids and beginners to learnanimation. Simply draw and colour a series of pictures with small progressive changes and press play to see your cartoon characters come to life. Upload your animated ideas directly to Facebook, YouTube, iPhone, iPod or iPad. Flipping In traditional animation, flipping is the action of going through the drawings of an animation sequence very quickly to
see the animation in motion. Flipping can also be the action of creating a mirror transformation on a selection. Follow-through The Follow-through is the secondary motion caused by the main action. For example, a character wearing a cloak is
running. The main action is the body running. This will cause the cloak to follow the motion, although, it won’t move at the same time, it will react a few frames later and will follow the main motion curve.
Force Frame Rate
This to forces the software Toon Boom Studio to play a scene at the correct playback speed. For example If a scene is too heavy to be played back in real time, Toon Boom Studio will drop images rather than playing back all the images at a slower pace.
Forum Forums are available for all Toon Boom Consumer and Commercial Products and are a great way of getting involved in the Toon Boom Community.
Forward Kinematics
Forward kinematics is a feature used to animate principally 3D characters and cut-out puppets with hierarchy. It is used to animate a puppet from one of parent part such as a shoulder and make the rest of arm move with it as a single piece. Frame A frame is a single photographic image in a movie. In traditional animation, a second generally contains 24 frames in
North America or 25 frames in Europe.
Frame Rate Is the measurement of the frequency (rate) at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. The term applies equally well to computer graphics, video cameras, film cameras, and motion capture systems. Frame rate is most often expressed in frames per second (FPS) and in progressive-scan monitors as hertz (Hz). The frame rate is the speed at which the frames are played. They are generally calculated by frames per second. For example, a scene could be played back at 12, 24, 25, 30 or 60 frames per second or any other number.
Function In Toon Boom, a function is a computer generated motion, trajectory or path that elements, other trajectories and effects parameters can be attached to. The function can be controlled by adding keyframes and control points on the function curve.
Gamut The range of colours that a particular device can represent.
Glow effect The Glow effect adds a bright soft-edged light or diffuse light region around an image. The Glow effect is useful in creating a rim-light.
Glue In Toon Boom Digital Pro, the Glue is a feature used the fix complex joints. The Glue will fill the gap when an articulation is bent.
HDTV High Definition TeleVision delivers a higher quality image than standard television does, because it has a greater number of lines of resolution. To take advantage of the superior quality your output device must be compatible with HDTV technology to make this resolution setting useful. HDTV normally has an aspect ratio of 16:9. HDTV is now a broadcast standard in N.America, with the USA converting to digital broadcast in mid 2009 and Canada to be totally HDTV by 2011.
Hints These are used when Morphing. Hints are identification points existing in both the source and destination drawings to create associations between the two of them.
Hold Frames in the animation during which the character maintains its position without moving. A hold can be created between any two keyframes.
between any two keyframes.
HSV Hue, Saturation, Value. A method of defining colours in terms of hue (tint), saturation (shade) and value (tone or luminance).
Icon Small picture, usually on a button.
In-between The drawings that are between the key poses. These are drawn to create fluid transitions between poses. Ink and Paint The ink and paint process is the action of painting the empty zones and colouring the lines on the final animation
drawings while following a colour model.
Interpolation In animation, the interpolation is the computer generated motion created between two keyframes, you have the choice to create interpolation or not between your keyframes.
Inverse Kinematics
Iinverse Kinematics (IK) is a feature used to mainly animate 3D characters and cut-out puppets with hierarchy. Iinverse kinematics will animate a puppet from one of the extremities such as a hand and make the rest of the body follow naturally.
Jump Cut A jump cut is a jerky cut between two scenes. Generally, a jump cut is not good visually. It is generally caused by two scenes ending and starting with similar image. The lack of difference causes the eye to see a little jump between the two scenes.
Key Pose Important positions in the action defining the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. Keys or a key poses are the main drawings in an animation sequence describing the motion. For example, if an arm is waving, the keys will be the arm being at one extremity of the wave motion and the other extremity. By flipping those drawing, the animator can see the skeleton of the motion without having all of the drawings.
Keyboard Shortcuts
One or more keys on a computer keyboard which, when held down, cause an operation to be performed in the current application.
Keyboard shortcuts are used throughout the Toon Boom software and form an integral part of the workflow. It is, in most cases, possible to customize the shortcuts in the Preferences dialog of the software.
The shortcuts are written as follows in the Toon Boom user documentation: Each key in a sequence is shown inside square brackets as in; [Ctrl]+[A]. The brackets “[ ]” separate the key from the “+” sign, neither the brackets nor the plus sign are part of the sequence.
To use a shortcut, press the key and the character simultaneously.
Keyframe Important positions in the action defining the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. In Toon Boom, a keyframe is a computer generated position in time on a given trajectory.
Kids Animation Products made by Toon Boom
Comic Boom:- Create your very own comic strips! Flip Boom All-Star:- perfect for any young-at-heart talent looking for an easy to use animation software. Flip Boom Classic:- a complete and simple animation software that makes it easy for kids and beginners to learn animation.
Layer In animation, a layer is an individual column, level or character. The scene’s layers are superposed to form the final image.
Layout The layout process is the communication step between the storyboard and the animation. The layout and posing process is the action of putting on model at the right scale the storyboard for the animator to start his work. The layout artist will draw the background, create the camera and field guide matching the scene and the camera motion and he will draw on model the main action poses.
Layout and Posing process
The layout and posing process is the action of putting on model at the right scale the storyboard for the animator to start his work.
Layout Artist The layout artist will draw the background, create the camera and field guide matching the scene and the camera motion and he will draw on model the main action poses.
Layout Planning Drawing of the main features of the scene used as reference when planning the animation and executing the initial stages of it.
Light Table The Light Table feature allows you to see the other layers in transparency while working on a particular one in the Drawing view.
Line Art to Line Art - Morphing Rules
A shape drawn in the Line Art can only be morphed with another shape in the Line Art. Refer to the Morphing Rules glossary entry for a complete list of rules.
Line of Action Direction that the action will follow. Also known as the Path of Action
Lip-Sync Lip-sync is the term given to the process of synchronizing a character’s mouth to sounds in the dialogue soundtrack. The mouth is adjusted frame-by-frame to match the sound of the dialogue and provide the illusion that the character is speaking. Lip-sync can be used for any sound sequence, not only speech, you could for instance have a bird chirping or a wolf howling at the moon.
Low resolution This format is ideal for videos destined for the web, where size and fast download of a video file might take precedence over quality.
Manual Lip-sync Detection
Toon Boom Animate allows for the manual swapping of mouth position drawings to match a voice track. For this process, both sound scrubbing (listening to a sound wave broken-up frame-by-frame) and drawing substitutions from the Library View are used.
Master Palette A master palette is a group of colours attributed to a character or a prop. The palette is used throughout the entire production to keep a consistency in the look and avoid the colour changing during the show. Also known as palette. Model/Colour
Model
In animation a model is the definitive character, prop or location design that each artist musts follow for the production. A colour model is the official colour design that must be used to paint the animation.
Morphing In Toon Boom, the Morphing feature creates computer generated drawings between a source drawing and a destination drawing. Animation created with the Morphing feature can be reused in different projects.
Morphing Rules There are seven Morphing Rules to take into account when you are morphing, they are:
Closest Similar Shape - A colour, line shape or zone will morph with the closest similar one in the destination drawing.
Pencil Line to Pencil Line - If you trace a shape using a pencil line you have to morph it with another pencil line. Fill Shape to Fill Shape - If you have a Brush line or a Colour fill zone which are contour vectors, make sure that you morph it with another Fill or Brush line.
Colour Swatch to Same Colour Swatch - If you want to perform a colour transition, you have to create the effect at the compositing level.
Vanishing and Appearing - If a colour zone does not find a match in the first or the second drawing, it will progressively appear or disappear.
Colour Art to Colour Art - A shape drawn in the Colour Art can only be morphed with another shape existing in the Colour Art.
Line Art to Line Art - A shape drawn in the Line Art can only be morphed with another shape existing in the Line Art.
Motion Keyframe In Toon Boom, the motion keyframe is a keyframe with computer generated interpolation.
Mouth Chart Adding a lip-sync to a project can really enhance its quality and storytelling. However, it can be difficult to shape a character’s mouth so that it matches the sound at the precise frame. To solve this problem Toon Boom provides a lip-sync feature which analyse the contents of a sound element and generates a mouth chart based on the eight animation phonemes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and X, which is used to represent silence).
Mulitplane Camera
Toon Boom’s multi-plane camera provides control on control on X. Y and Z axes. Move, scale and rotate any of your elements to create amazing 3D scenery with real-time playback. You can easily add a depth of field effect for an even more realistic render.
Multiplane The effect of passing through multiple levels of drawings to create a sense of depth in a shot. A multiplane is a scene where the layers are placed at difference distances from the camera so that when the camera moves a depth illusion occurs. With a multiplane all the perspective and scale is calculated automatically.
Network In Toon Boom a network is a group of interconnected modules representing each element in the scene. The network is mainly used to create effects, rendering and rigging.
NTSC This is the standard analogue television broadcasting system used in North America and conforms to the North American standards on how rectangular pixels are displayed for computer and television screens.
Nudge A nudge is a small push (left, right, up, down, forward or backward) done with the keyboard arrows on a selected element. Nudging is used to move a selection very slightly and precisely.
Onion Skin In Toon Boom products, the onion skin is a feature allowing to see the previous and next drawings of a sequence. Overlay An overlay is a part of the scene environment, such as a chair or a bush, placed in front of the main animation. PAL This resolution works best with the European format for television and computer screens, as the rectangular pixels are
displayed at a different orientation.
Palette Style A palette style is a second version of an existing palette with a slight change in the tint and value. A palette style can be used to create the night version of a palette. It may also be called a clone palette.
Palette/Master Palette
A palette or master palette is a group of colours attributed to a character or a prop. The palette is used throughout the entire production to keep a consistency in the look and avoid the colour changing during the show.
Pan To move the camera across the scene in any direction.
Panel In Toon Boom Storyboard Pro, a panel is a frame in a shot. A shot can be composed of one or several panels. Paperless
Animation
The paperless animation process is the action of animating digitally. The main paperless animation process is to draw frame by frame the animation directly in the software.
Passing Position In drawing a walk sequence for a character, the point where one leg passes the other is the passing position. Patch
Articulation
Toon Boom Animate's advanced rigging allows an articulation fixing technique called Patch Articulation. Patch articulation is a colour fill patch that is drawn onto a third layer and is used to cover the joint lines. It is a simple and powerful technique. With this technique, you avoid having to create a correction layer at the end of the animation to fill the gaps in the joints. You do not need to worry about the articulations at all. Once a patch is set, the articulation is fixed for the entire animation length.
Path - 3D Path In a 3D Path, the X, Y and Z curves are locked together and controlled by a single velocity function. When you add a keyframe, it is added on all three trajectories at once, as is the velocity. This is very useful for long, smooth trajectories. Path of Action Direction that the action will follow. Also known as the Line of Action.
Peg In traditional animation, a tool used to ensure accurate registration of action as cel layers moved. In digital animation, when you are doing more advanced puppet rigging, you can use peg layers. Peg layers are trajectory layers that do not contain drawings. They are motion paths that you can use to add path articulations or use the Inverse Kinematics tool. Pencil Line to
Pencil Line -Morphing Rules
If you trace a shape using a pencil line you have to morph it with another pencil line. Refer to the Morphing Rules glossary entry for a complete list of rules.
Phoneme Unit of sound in a particular language.
Pivot A pivot is the point around which one a peg or a drawing rotates. Pixel Smallest element of an image displayed on a monitor or TV screen.
“Pixel”, short for Picture Element, is a single point in a graphic image. It is a small sample of an image, a dot, a square or a very small section made out of smooth filtering. If you zoom in close enough on a digital image, you will see the pixels which look like small squares of different colours and intensity.
Pose-to-pose A technique that is characterized by the drawing of keyframes at significant points in the action first, refining the key drawings, and then doing the in-betweens. This process gives the creator more control and ensures the accuracy of the final result.
Pose-to-Pose Animation
Pose-to-pose animation is the action of creating all the main action poses, called key poses, and then place the secondary poses between the keys. The secondary poses are called breakdown. Finally, the animator fills the gaps with the in-between drawings to get a smooth animation.
Product Code A secure twenty-character alphanumeric code provided by Toon Boom licensing when the legally purchased software is registered for activation. Without this code Toon Boom products cannot be activated or used.
registered for activation. Without this code Toon Boom products cannot be activated or used.
Quadmap layer A Quadmap layer can be described as a deformation transformation layer that does not contain drawings. This can be attached to any drawing layer, cut-out puppet or even other peg layers they will all follow the deformation you set in the Quadmap layer.
Removing colour swatches, in Animate/Animate Pro
In Animate and Animate Pro, you can remove colour swatches from the Colour view by clicking on the Remove Colour button in the Colour view toolbar.
Rendering The final step when animating by computer. During rendering, the computer takes each pixel that appears on screen and processes all of the components as well as adding some motion blur before it produces a final image. In animation, the rendering process is the action of calculating the final images after the compositing process.
Resolution The resolution is the size of a scene generally calculated in pixel. For example, the NTSC resolution is 720 x 480. Resolution type should match your final output: HDTV, film-1.33, film-1.66, NTSC, PAL, low.
RGB Red, Green, Blue: method of defining colour by specifying amounts of these three colour components. Rigging The rigging process is the action of attaching the cut-out puppet parts one to the other.
Rotary Table In Toon Boom Digital Pro, the Rotary Table is equivalent to the animation disk/table and allows to rotate the workspace to be more comfortable while drawing.
Rotate View Tool The Rotate View tool allows you to turn the workspace the same as an animation table.
Rotoscoping Is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films. The act of sketching over live-action footage to create an animated sequence.
Roughs The roughs are the skeleton sketch of an animation or a design. Roughs mainly consist of sketch lines and shapes, they can also have the design details, but it varies.
Safety Area In animation and movie, the safety area is a zone at the centre of the scene’s frame safe from being cropped by the TV frame. Since once the image is sent on TV, it cuts a margin off the original one, the scene’s main action will be placed inside the safety area to be sure it is not cut away.
Scene A scene is a shot in a movie or show. A sequence is composed of several scenes. A scene changes to another scene by a simple cut or a transition.
Script The script is the original text containing all the movie or show information. In animation, the script contains all of the location descriptions, dialogues, time and more. A project starts with a script.
SCSI Small Computer Systems Interface: a type of connection standard between computer devices.
Sequence In animation, a sequence is a series of scenes or shot forming a distinct part of the story or movie, usually connected by unity of location or unity of time.
Shot A shot is a scene in a movie or show. A sequence is composed of several shots. A shot changes to another shot by a simple cut or a transition.
Showcase A presentation of work produced on Toon Boom software by hobbyists, professionals, students and schools. The Showcase includes Advertisements, Feature Films and Television episodes.
Slow-in Gradual acceleration in the action. Other common terms for slow-in and slow-out are ease-in and ease-out. Slow-out Gradual deceleration in the action. Other common terms for slow-in and slow-out are ease-in and ease-out. Slugging In Toon Boom Storyboard Pro, slugging is indicating the start and stop times of dialogue and relevant actions.
Sound Layer In Animate, you can import sound files to add dialogue and sound effects to your project. The sound layer will be added to your Timeline and Xsheet view when you import a sound file in your scene.
Sound Scrubbing
The process known as Sound Scrubbing lets you hear sound in real-time while you move the playback pointer forward or backward. This is very useful for finely-tuned lip-synching. You can scrub sounds from the Timeline view.
Stop-Motion
Keyframe A stop-motion keyframe is a keyframe with no computer generated interpolation.
Storyboard A visual plan of all the scenes and shots in an animation. The storyboard indicates what will happen, when it will happen and how the objects in a scene are laid out.
Straight-ahead A technique where an entire sequence is drawn from the first position to the last in the sequence, in order. There is very little planning in this methodology, and where the character ends up and how it gets there can be a surprise both for the audience and the animator. While this approach is a lot more spontaneous and creative, it can create inaccurate results. Strokes Strokes are invisible vector lines forming the drawing zones. They can be adjusted with Bezier handles.
Studio Toon Boom Studio is ideal if you are looking for an all-in-one animation software, from sketching to final publishing. Drawing digitally, scanning hand-drawn animations, seamlessly importing existing artwork, it can do it all. Animate using a skeletal bone system, pegs and animated elements. Set camera moves. add audio tracks and lip-sync your
animation. Studio lets you add lip sync to your animation, setup the action in a 3D space and publish your animation projects for print, TV, HDTV, the Web, YouTube, iPad, iPhone or iPod!
Symbols In Toon Boom Animate, Symbols are boxes in which you can place whatever you feel like. You can use Symbols to animate your puppet. You can use the Symbols to create reusable animations such as blinking. A Symbol combines animation, artwork or layers into a single object that you can control in one layer. You can also create Symbols out of each body part in your cut-out puppets. To do so, you can either duplicate an existing Symbol or create a new blank one in the Library. You can then drop the Symbol anywhere in your animation.
Tablet/Pen Device used in conjunction with, or instead of, a mouse, to move a mouse pointer (sometimes referred to as the cursor) around the computer screen.
Template A template is an asset stored in the library that can be reused in any project. A template can be a drawing, a series of keyframe, a sound file, a panel, a cut-out character, an effect, a trajectory, an animation or anything else used in the software.
Thumbnails A thumbnail is a very small image used as a reference or an indicator.
Time Code A time code is a timing information printed on a movie clip to indicate what scene, hour, minute and second is currently displayed on the screen.
Timeline The timeline is a horizontal representation of the scene’s elements, timing and keyframes.
Tips and Tricks A series of short but useful animation techniques available free of charge in the product section of the Toon Boom website.
Toon Boom
Animate The digital animator’s natural companion Toon Boom Animate is a unique end-to-end vector based animation softwarethat includes content creation, compositing and delivery to audiences across media. Ideal for professional animators, boutique studios, students and educators, it’s a complete digital animation application.
Toon Boom
Animate Pro Animate Pro is the most complete professional animation software for serious animators, offering award winning state-of-the-art content creation, animation and compositing toolset for any animation style within a single all-in-one desktop application.
Toon Boom
Harmony Harmony is a revolutionary team-based infrastructure for animation production. Its array of cutting-edge featuresincreases productivity and encourages creativity. Developed in conjunction with the leading studios worldwide, Harmony is specifically designed for long-term episodic and feature-length projects, providing a true animation pipeline. Several animators can work simultaneously on the same scene while the asset library provides users with easy access to up-to-date media assets.
Toon Boom Pencil Check Pro
Toon Boom Pencil Check Pro is the most flexible line testing software available in the industry. Developed for the most prestigious and demanding studios, Pencil Check Pro provides an extensive feature set designed around a user friendly interface. Pencil Check Pro is the classic animators’ best friend, sitting next to the animation table for fast and accurate line tests. An easy to use must-have tool for students learning animation principles.
Toon Boom
Storyboard Pro production, whether animated or live-action. Developed in conjunction with expert storyboard artists, Storyboard Pro speeds up production planning and enables you to reach new heights with increased production integration. Its advanced features make it the tool of choice to create an entirely digital storyboard.
Toon Boom
Studio Toon Boom Studio is ideal if you are looking for an all-in-one animation software, from sketching to final publishing.Drawing digitally, scanning hand-drawn animations, seamlessly importing existing artwork, it can do it all. Animate using a skeletal bone system, pegs and animated elements. Set camera moves. add audio tracks and lip-sync your
animation. Studio lets you add lip sync to your animation, setup the action in a 3D space and publish your animation projects for print, TV, HDTV, the Web, YouTube, iPad, iPhone or iPod!
Trace and Paint After the rough animations have gone through cleanup and a final line or pencil test, each drawing is traced and painted for the final animation. In today’s digital world, this may be done in a variety ways other than the traditional celluloid or acetate.
Track Breakdown
The soundtrack for animated film is broken down into individual sounds documenting the precise frame by frame position of each sound.
Traditional Animation
The traditional animation process is the action of drawing on paper all of the animation sequences before either scanning them or inking them on cels.
Trajectory A computer generated path or trajectory, that elements can follow. The trajectory can be controlled by control points, keyframes and velocity.
Transition A transition is an effect placed between two scenes to pass from one to the other. Common transition effects are cross-dissolve and wipe.
Underlay In animation, an underlay is a part of the decor placed behind the main animation. Units Aspect
Ratio
The aspect ratio describes the shape of the grid unit. A square grid unit would have the ratio 1:1, where as a grid unit of aspect ratio 4:3 is a unit with one side 1.33 times as big as the other side.
Vanishing and Appearing -Morphing Rules
Vanishing and Appearing - If a colour zone does not find a match in the first or the second drawing, it will progressively appear or disappear. Refer to the Morphing Rules glossary entry for a complete list of rules.
Vector A vector-based image is composed of points and bezier curves. The computer reads the points and traces the
segments linking them to reproduce the image shape. There is no fixed size or resolution in a vector image. The graphic can be enlarged and distorted as much as desired and the system will simply recalculate the segments and rebuild the shapes. Vector images are translated and displayed in pixels once the calculation is done.
Velobased
Functions You can create Velobased functions for certain effects, like changes in rotation or size over time. In these cases, theVelobased functions are linked to the velocity of a 3D path. You cannot change the shape of a Velobased function to control its velocity. With Velobased functions, you can link changes in rotation or scaling to the velocity of a 3D path. This makes it possible for changes in rotation or scaling to progress at the same speed as changes to the position of an element.
Velocity/Ease In animation, the velocity, also known as ease, is the acceleration and deceleration of a motion. It can either be a motion created by a function curve or a series of animated drawings. Other common terms for ease-in and ease-out are slow-in and slow-out.
Walk Cycles In order to avoid making innumerable drawings, animators routinely make a walk cycle for their character. This comprises a series of drawings “on the spot” that describe the walk for that character. The illusion of movement is created with background pans.
Workout Series There are two types of Workout Series: 1.Toon Boom Animation Workout Series is a dedicated program of exercises designed to help you develop the techniques and skills necessary to get the most out of Toon Boom Studio. 2. The Toon Boom Animation Workout Video Series focuses extensively on Cut-out animation and teaches you how to turn a set of pictures into a fully animated character using the latest version of Studio.
Workspace In Toon Boom Storyboard Pro and Toon Boom Animate Pro, the workspace is made up of; the views, toolbars and menus.
Xsheet (Exposure Sheet)
The Xsheet or exposure sheet, is a sheet with several vertical columns and horizontal frames used to indicate a scene’s timing.
Each column represents a scene’s layer. In each column the drawings numbers are indicated and spread over the certain amount of frames they need to appear.
The exposure sheet is used by animators, directors and other members of a crew to track the sequence and timing of images, dialogue, sound effects, sound tracks and camera moves. Also known as a Dope Sheet.
Zone An area which can be painted using a colour.
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