Traditional 2D animation for free with OpenToonz

and DarrenT

Section 5 Exercise – The Viewer

Recommended time: From 15 minutes to an hour

Exercise details:
This exercise is to give you time to experiment with some of the viewer options that we've
looked at in this section and build upon the previous sections information about columns
and levels.

Tasks:
Now that we've covered all 3 level types in the previous section and the viewer in this
section, I'd like you to draw a background that could be used for an animation using ALL 3
level types. Often, you might just use 1 level type for the whole background and maybe
just the 1 column, but as a practice, I'd like you to create a level of each of the 3 types in a
different column that will combine to make a single background. And this is good practice
for a few reasons:

• You will create each of the 3 level types yourself and see how they're represented in
the xsheet and timeline. Refer back to exercise 4's Comparing Drawing Level types
document for ideas of which level to use for which purpose.
• You'll get more of a feel for the drawing tools
• You'll start to see the difference in the option for each of the drawing tools
• This exercise demonstrates that you can use multiple levels, shown in multiple
columns, to build up a single image; using columns in the same way that you'd use
layers in drawing applications. Try moving the columns (by dragging the header) in
front of and behind each other to see how they look.
• You'll start to use some of the viewer options

A few areas of the viewer to try out:

• Try out the different full screen options to see which you find most useful (and their
shortcut keys):
• Windows > Toggle Maximise Panel
• Windows > Toggle Main Window's Full Screen Mode
• Right Click > Full Screen Mode
• Flip the view as you draw, definitely horizontally and maybe vertically, depending on
what your drawing is.
• Make sure you create a level that is larger than the camera area and use the
'Camera View' button on the viewer top toolbar, to see which part of your drawing
will be visible.
 Traditional 2D animation for free with OpenToonz
and DarrenT
• Try out the Zoom, Rotate & Pan buttons and their shortcut keys. And maybe map a
few of these to your tablet or start to write a few down, to learn them. You will use
these often, so creating or learning shortcuts will be extremely useful.
• Try out the 'Background Colours' buttons on the viewer bottom toolbar, to show
white, black & checkerboard backgrounds, to see which you prefer and to confirm
which areas of your drawing aren't yet painted.