Reeeally stupid noob question: cutting to a new scene?

Library_Dragon · Post by **Library_Dragon** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 2:07 am

Hi all,

I just bought Anime Studio Debut 6, and have been puttering around with it for exactly one day. I bought this program for three reasons: 1) I just got a newish (1-2 yr old) tablet laptop from a friend, 2) we had this animated storyboard we've been wanting to make forever, and 3) this program seemed like an easy way to make that happen.

My problem, stupid though it is, is this: how do I cut to an entirely different "scene" without losing all my layers in the previous "shot", and continue on with the animation as a whole? For example, my establishing shot is a temple on a mountain top, with a slow zoom to the temple itself. How do I cut to my next shot---a hammer hitting a nail---without losing all the layers of my earlier animation?

Could I put a new layer of white on top of the whole scene later on in the animation (some keyframe after frame 0) and then continue to draw/layer on top of that and keep going? Would that work?

I just don't want to be able to see the mountains, the temple, and all of that in the next "scene"....

Any information, tutorial links, or advice is most appreciated

. I've read most of the manual and I've looked around on the forums, but I haven't really seen any questions that cover something like this.

If I'm using confusing or incorrect terminology, I apologize...I'm sort of new to all of this. Even drawing something on a computer seems wierd to me....I was a fine arts major in college, and my department was tiny and poor and my professors didn't believe in letting us use computers to make art...so "layers" confuse me.

Thanks so much for any help you may give !

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 2:19 am

if you double-click on any layer in your layer palette's. You can access the layer settings. Look for the setting that says visible, and it should be checked. If you uncheck this layer will not be visible at any keyframe you want. This effect can be used to turn on and off a layer throughout your animation.However, I recommend rendering out your individual scenes and compositing them in an outside platform, especially if your animation is long or complex as the render time for it can be quite long.also look at this post. You can use this to paste together your scenes. If you really need to in anime studios viewtopic.php?t=17249&start=0&postdays= ... highlight=

madrobot · Post by **madrobot** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:33 am

Do you need the layers from the 1st shoit when you're making the 2nd? If there not being shown, can you live without them? If so,ake a seperate file for each shot. Renders quicker too.

One potential complication is styles, but you can get around that by importing files later, makiing a master files where you have all your styles... but you can worry about that later.

First establish basic workflow for yourself. SOmething that works for you, and is sustainable as the resources for the project grow (into a huge ordered structure, or huge mess, depending what measures you put in place at the outset.)

Good luck and enjoy

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:51 am

you could also lay out your scenes out of shot, and then do a camera move with a 'step' tween on the keyframe (essentially a 'cut')
The main disadvantage is if you have a lot of complex scenes they will start to put a lot of stress on your computer...

Library_Dragon · Post by **Library_Dragon** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 4:41 am

Thank you so much for all the responses so far!!!!

To answer one of the questions here, no I don't need the previous layers in the second shot...which is the problem, at least for me.

It sounds like I've little choice but to do it in little segments and see if my friend, who is an actual film student and all, can edit them together in some fashion. That would probably be easiest, and may or may not crash this new laptop...hmm...

Does anyone here have any idea how big these files get? I have an external hard drive somewhere, maybe I should just save all of these bits onto that and save the laptop the time/space...

Thanks again, I will try the transitions that were suggested, and if I can't get that to work for me I'll do it in little bits. It'd probably be easier that way, really. Thank you all!

madrobot · Post by **madrobot** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 4:55 am

Personally I believe that this would be the right course of action.
AS files are quite tiny (if vector only), however they do get bogged down a little when you have very many layers. Also keying all these layers when you have multiple scenes in one file could get interesting, especially if you start camera moves and so on.