Kid Rocket Clean-Up in TVP Animation by Jeff Baker

Jeff Baker rough animated this on paper, then imported to TVP for clean-up.

Stop-Motion with TVP Animation

This is a Clay animation film made by school-age children using TVPaint Animation. 

 Although TVPaint is used primarily as a "paperless" animation system for drawing directly into the program with a Wacom tablet, the program also has a video frame-capture feature and onion-skinning which permits Stop-Motion animation.  In this film the students made good use of TVPaint's "green screen" chroma key feature to place the clay animated fish into the sets for the swimming shots . They also used TVP to add effects animation such as the bubbles .   In addition to frame-capturing the clay animation, they used TVP to animate the titles and the small school of fish swimming in the first shot.

   

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UPDATE :  in the years since I first posted this example of Stop Motion Animation made by students using TVPaint I  had the opportunity to teach many online classes on stop motion animation , using TVPaint as the frame capture software.   There are some advantages to using TVPaint because of the built-in digital painting tools , as well as the the FX functions such as chroma-keying ("green screen") , which can be used to digitally remove puppet rigging.  During most of the time I was teaching stop-motion classes using TVPaint I had the students using HD Webcams such as the Logitech C910 , C920, or C930e which are capable of capturing very high quality images , especially if careful attention is paid to lighting . (also TURN OFF the webcam's auto-focus and auto-exposure. Use the Logitech Camera Control software or even better webcam control software like iGlasses or Webcam Settings to control the exposure and focus manually)    However, one of the weaknesses of TVPaint for stop motion frame capture , compared to something like the industry-standard stop motion software Dragonframe , is that for years TVPaint was limited to using a limited number of  Canon DSLR cameras (and then only using a plug-in on the Windows version of TVPaint, not on the Mac version of TVPaint) for the best quality frame capture.  In most cases the best option for frame capture in TVPaint was to use an HD webcam which produced acceptable results.    Now however there are some options for capturing higher-resolution images with DSLR cameras (both Canon and Nikon) using a couple of different applications: 

1.)  Spark-O-Cam  https://sparkosoft.com/sparkocam  is an app that lets you use your Canon or Nikon DSLR to capture images from the live video feed of the DSLR at resolution of HD 1920 x 1080

https://sparkosoft.com/how-to-use-dslr-as-webcam 

Unfortunately, Spark-O-Cam is for Windows-only , so it is not a solution for Mac users.

An even better solution is to use:

2.)  Elgato Cam Link 4k which will work for both Windows and Mac.   It requires a camera that can produce a 4k HDMI out .   Elgato has a list of cameras that can produce the 4k HDMI output here: https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/cam-link/camera-check

This will allow for high-resolution frame capture into TVPaint from your DSLR camera or HDMI video camera.   You can use it for capturing stop motion animation as well as shooting line tests of traditional pencil on paper animation. (attach your camera to a copy stand and shoot the drawings on an animation peg bar taped down securely on the copy stand platform.)

Here is a playlist with examples of stop-motion animation made by students using TVPaint with HD webcams:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbp9nfV0r-0&list=PLpyXxVvCbmX-wRVDjnG40mOdO-9W3U2JA

"Le Chat Noir" TVP Animation

 

 A short film animated with TVPaint Animation (BG's done in Painter) made by students Xavier Gorgol, Rony Hotin, Sébastien Genre, Yoann Robert  at Lycée technique des Arts et Métiers in Luxembourg.

 

"Lucien" , short film animated with TVP Animation

"Lucien" a short film animated using TVP Animation by Nathalie Corcessin, Djamel Meslem, Pierre-Julien Vandenburie, students at LISAA (L'Institut Superieure des Arts Appliques).

Mark Chong- Work In Progress

Not animation, but a good time lapse demonstration of the rough sketching and clean-up capabilities of TVP Animation by illustrator/animator Mark Chong. The time lapse was captured using the stroke recorder embedded in TVPaint. Mark has some great digital drawing tutorials on his blog Ten-Minute Drawing Tutorials.



Here's another illustration inked in TVPaint by Mark Chong:
(click on the image to see it larger)

"SnowMotion" by David Meslin

Animated by UCLA Animation Workshop grad David Meslin, working directly in TVP with a Wacom tablet.

This is a good demonstration of a more "painterly" approach that can be used with TVP Animation.

Chad Essley - TVP Animation

Very fun piece of paperless animation by Chad Essley drawn with a Tablet PC  (Motion Computing LE 1700)  animated directly in TVPaint Animation:

Rusty Mills' "Gotcha Covered"

Rusty Mills is a classically trained animator who has been on the forefront of embracing the new paperless animation technology . Here are some scenes from Rusty's work-in-progress reel for a film called "Gotcha Covered". Rusty is animating this on a Motion Computing tablet PC using Mirage. (a previous version of TVP which is no longer available, but very similar to the present TVP Animation). He did most of this animation while commuting on the train into Los Angeles . Now that's a portable animation tool !

 

 

©2008 Rusty Mills 

 Notice how Rusty's rough animation looks virtually the same as traditional pencil-on-paper animation. There is no discernible difference in this that screams out "digital". The drawings look very natural and organic, like real pencil sketches. 

If you don't immediately recognize the name Rusty Mills , you've seen his work: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0589278/ on shows such as Animaniacs and Pinky & The Brain , among others.   Sadly, Rusty passed away from cancer on Dec.7 , 2012.  He was a fine animator and director/producer and a good friend.  All of us who knew and worked with him miss him.

"Patriot" by Roy Iddan

An animated short made by Roy Iddan with TVPaint.

Patriot - Animated Short by Roy Iddan from Captain_Fantasy on Vimeo.

"Stranger" by Alon Boroda

Short film "Stranger" by Alon Boroda , made while a student at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Animated in "Mirage" (which is the name TVP was marketed under from 2003 - 2005 when it was being distributed by BHS. Mirage as such is no longer available, but TVP is the same as Mirage , only better, with more features) .

Eric Goldberg : "Racetrack" Drew Carey's Green Screen

This piece wasn't animated directly with TVP or Mirage , but does show how TVP can be used to color animation with a "hand-painted" look. The drawings were done on paper , then scanned into Mirage (an earlier version of TVPaint ) for coloring.

 

There's more about that in the linked article from AWN , so take a look . I think that the Racetrack segment from Green Screen is as fine and funny a piece of animation as you're likely to see , so just for the pure enjoyment factor I wanted to share this .

  -------- "Racetrack" is a beautifully animated piece by Eric Goldberg, as a segment of Drew Carey's Green Screen Show.

 

  "Drew Carey's Green Screen Show" featured Drew Carey as the host , and an ensemble cast of improv actors doing skits in front of a "green screen" . After the live actors had done their stuff , the footage was handed over to various animators (coordinated by Acme Film Works) to embellish the skit with animation. The show never really took off , and like all improv sketches there were hits and misses . One of the hits, in fact probably the strongest piece that came out of this show, was a sequence called "Racetrack" animated by master animator Eric Goldberg.

 

In an article on Animation World Network there is a bit about the production process they used on the piece . I was interested to note that they used Mirage for the ink & paint. Notice how the drawings have a beautiful, organic hand-colored look , like watercolor washes or markers.

According to the article :

Without pre-sketching or testing, Goldberg animated with ink directly on paper, working in a style he was comfortable with, allowing for a certain amount of boil and spontaneity. He wanted the game's horse character to have the same scratchy, rubber-hose freedom of the Fleischer and Krazy Kat cartoons.

His wife, Susan Goldberg , assisted as art director, and his two daughters helped with mattes. Using Shake for compositing and Mirage for ink-and-paint, Scott Johnston helped achieve the animation's watercolor look.

Goldberg was committed to putting in as much technical detail as possible, such as the secondary action of the horse's reigns (animated by Todd Jacobson), because it makes the piece more convincing and compelling to watch. Goldberg feels this added effort adds a quality and touch that really sells the whole illusion.

As I've mentioned before, the application called "Mirage" is no longer available as such . The company that used to sell Mirage , Bauhaus Software, no longer sells it . However the software development company (TVPaint Development Co.) that originally developed Mirage has taken over and is now marketing a much improved version of Mirage as TVPaint Animation.

Peg Hole Registration with TVP Animation

Even though TVPaint Animation is great for tablet-based paperless animation , it is also very useful for traditional hand-drawn animation pencil tests.

When scanning drawings it is much faster to use an Auto Document Feed scanner . However, drawings scanned with an ADF scanner are not precisely registered. The peg holes on the individual drawings may shift quite a bit when running through the ADF scanner rollers , causing the drawings to jitter . The peg holes must be aligned.

This is done with the soon-to-be released TVP 9.5 improved Peg Holes Registration function . Drawings are scanned in off-pegs, but are then easily registered and aligned. (previous versions of TVP have used the "2-Point Stabilization" function in the FX Panel to accomplish peg-hole tracking and registration which worked fine, but was not as simple and easy to use as the new Peg Hole Registration function)  UPDATE:   Some 13 years after I first posted this, the Peg Holes Registration function TVPaint version 11.5 is better than ever.   UPDATE #2: And in 2023 , we have TVPaint 11.7.1 , with an improved Peg Hole Registration function. 

Here is an example.

1.) In the first part the peg holes on the raw scans are unaligned and the drawings shift & jitter .

2.) In the second part it shows the same set of drawings with the peg holes aligned using TVP Peg Hole Registration.

Here is the complete rough animation of this scene: This scene is from a pilot for a film that was never completed. The version of this scene that I turned in was more tied-down (and had all the inbetweens) , but I held on to these rough drawings from my first pass on the scene , so decided to use these drawings as a demonstration of how Peg Hole Tracking & Registration works in TVPaint. This does not have all the inbetweens. (also, the sound is missing. There was a line of dialogue at the end.)
NOTE: the grey "schmutz" on the right side of the drawings was caused by shadows on the original scans because I scanned these quickly without closing the scanner lid. I removed the shadows later in TVPaint as you can see in the final pencil test posted below.

UPDATE: Here's a higher res. version (2K) than the 480p version I posted years ago:

 

Old 480p version -