009 Handles and Expressions: Toonboom Advanced Tutorial

[@crabofchaos7881]

I come here to refresh my memory whenever I need to do an expression. Ubermensch content. 10/10.

[@ErmilinaLight]

This is literally my ULTIMATE GUIDE on function sharing! It's always so hard for me to remember how to do that and even follow your advanced videos is sometimes hard. So it's so good i can rewatch it thousands of times as they are short enough! Thanks again!

[@StylusRumble]

Svetlana Ermilina - I think it took me 473 uses of the share functio before I actively rembered that you need a keyframe for it to work. Lol Those little details will drive someone crazy.

[@ErmilinaLight]

Exactly! I was like whyyyyy it's not woorking??? Then like, screw it, where is that video, and finally - KEY FRAME it! haha

[@awklocke]

If anyone is looking into the expressions, this is the page for the available "commands" so to speak. It's actually Javascript, like the rest of toonboom scripting :) Here is the link: docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-12/premium/Content/_CORE/_Workflow/028_Animation_Paths/074_H1_Expression_Columns_.html

[@FrankSummersAnimation]

Great tips! Instead of using Remove Transparency, I like to use the Visibility Node which will display an element in Open GL, but not in Render View, etc.

[@StylusRumble]

thanks :) - Someone else suggested the visibility node too. I always forget about that one lol.

[@PedroAlpera]

I love your tutorials!, they are so great. I´ve working with Harmony some years but I'm learning a lot with this, lots of useful tips and tricks. Thanks a lot! :)

[@gabejimenez250]

Thank You so much that was an awesome video! I am going to have to watch it a few times and put it to practice but I think theres enough information here to get me going in the right direction. Really appreciate your work. I am getting a lot of value from this. keep up the good work!

[@MrVichocente]

you save my life, great tutorial

[@crabofchaos7881]

And I'm back again, not even a week later!

[@romanshatov5815]

Hello, is it possible to bind position between layers in TBH Advanced version? Thanks!

[@StylusRumble]

I have never used advanced, so I don't know what it can do. Sorry :/ Toonboom twitter is pretty good at finding answers.

[@maggieorr9154]

I've been looking for a tutorial on how to do handles for several weeks. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a good one! I'm so glad I was able to find this one. It was super helpful. Thank you! Is there a way to create a handle for replacement drawings? So that there's a quick, easy, visual way to, for instance, do lip-sync or change hand poses?

[@StylusRumble]

Thanks! One note viewers have brought up is that the remove-transparency node is not as good as the visibility node, in case you didn't know about that. For lip sync, I just use the brackets to scroll through the options- nothing high tech or fancy. I've heard a few good things about this drawing sub addon (link below). I don't use it but it seems worth a try. www.cartoonflow.com/toonboom/scripts/quickswap.html

[@maggieorr9154]

Thanks for answering! I love quickswap! It's really helpful. I was just wondering if there was a way to key an object to drawing replacements. But I'm starting to suspect that there isn't, since I can't find any tutorials for it. Lol. Regardless, I spent a large part of my day going through your other tutorials after finding this one and they're great! Thanks so much for putting them all up here!

[@StylusRumble]

I'm sure someone with programing knowledge could find a way to do it. That is out of my league, I'm afraid lol.

[@maggieorr9154]

Thank you for your help, regardless! :)

[@gabejimenez250]

quick question, when setting up the image switch to the controller, do you share the functions of the individual drawings, Let me give you some context, I have an image switch and 5 drawing layers connected to it, do I share the functions of each of the drawing pegs and then connect it to the bezier, I am running into a problem where I have the controller set up and sharing the function, and I set the image switch to the conrollers x axis, but when I move the controller nothing happens and all the keyframes from the image switch disappear

[@StylusRumble]

You shouldn't need to share the functions of the individual drawings at all. Just the controller's peg functions. That peg's X is hooked up to all 5 image switches, and the keyframes would all be on that peg.

[@gabejimenez250]

Thank you so much for getting back to me, I got it kind of got it working, Ok so here is whats going on Im doing the image switch and it has two drawing layers on it, I keyframed the ports created my controller, put a peg, shared the peg, set the image switch to the controllers pegs X,, by the way the only x available to me is x-scale not Pos X when I do this the the keyframed ports get erased, the controller disappears , and when I set the ports again the 0 port will not display the controller, on the 1 it does come back. when I connect the image switch to the controller drawing layer, it works fine but not the peg layer. the peg layer only gives me access to the scale, angle, and skew.

[@StylusRumble]

If you are using the scale, the default position of the scale is 1. If you set the scale to 0 the controller will be infinitely thin. It's still technically there, it's just too thin to see. Make sure the peg itself is switched to separate, not 3D path in the transform tab. Keyframe the controler's peg and share the functions. If it decides it really doesn't want to let you use the posX, you can try creating an expression Value("Scale_name_thing") -1 That way the scale of 1 will give you the 0 port, Scale of 2 will give you the 1 port. You can also add a blank drawing to the zero port. That way scale 1 gives you the first image you have, and 2 will give you the second one.

[@gabejimenez250]

AGH YESS! Beaeutiful! Thank you so much! I have been wrestling with that all morning! lol. ok now to implement that into the rig! thanks again PEACE!

[@5dsGX5ds]

aa hell no..

[@loookclick938]

Thank you for such a useful tutorial!