Testing Clip Studio Paint new timeline

I am using Clip Studio Paint for most of my comic work, and most recently, as my main storyboarding tool at work.

Celsys recently added an animation timeline feature. And was so trilled when they announced it but I had to wait until it was translated into English before really testing it. So far, I am REALLY glad with the animation tools. If you wish to make animations that have a 2D traditional feel, this is a great tool. Not so if you are into cut-out. There are better software out there for that, like Toon Boom.

The timeline at first wasn’t very intuitive because you have to use both the timeline and the layer window to work out your animation, but once you get a hang of the layer window, it works like a charm. The auto-naming of the layers is smart. You can even create cell templates that register a basic layer structure for each new frame you create.

You can even shift and trace with the onion skin tools. The shift and trace tool is not as intuitive than TvPaint, but a lot easier to use than ToonBoom. Way to go, Celsys!

In one of the storyboard sequence I made, it seems I hit the maximum number of layers you can have in one .clip document. Because yep, it seems you can’t have an infinite number of layers. So plan your sequence carefully! I don’t know how many layers I had, but it was way too many. In a regular animation scene, you wouldn’t need as much.

I have been testing it a little and made this simple animation. This is a WIP, so a bit of rough left, no background yet. I am having a LOT of fun with these new tools. I kept it simple (it’s basically just a head turn) because I wanted to focus on the tools and not the animation.