Documentation

Delete instances from the layer

We’ve just learned how to delete the content of instances and layers. Let’s see now how to remove instances from the layer.



You can right click on an instance and delete it from your project by selecting the Delete from Project option. It will behave differently according to the selected instance’s number of exposure cells.

If the instance has only one exposure cell, it will be deleted from the current layer after clicking on Confirm.



In case the instance has multiple exposure cells, the last cell will be erased.



The instances located to the right of either the deleted instance or the exposure cell will move to the left in order to fill the gap resulting from the deletion, as you can see on the screenshots above.

The Delete from Layer command, part of the same contextual menu, can also be used to delete an instance from your layer. It will allow you to have more control over the way the deletion will be made.



Indeed, different deletion behaviors can be associated with this command. Open the General tab of the Preferences panel (Edit > Preferences > General) to access the Default delete mode drop down menu, as explained in lesson 1. From there, you’ll be able to choose one of the following deletion modes:



< Keep empty > In this case, an empty instance will fill the gap resulting from the deletion of the selected instance. The screenshots below depict the use of this option on the first instance: the instance showing the letter ‘A’ is replaced with an empty instance.



By clicking on > Fill gap from left > the instances on the left of the deleted instance will move to the right to fill the gap resulting from the deletion. You can see that the instance showing the letter ‘B’ has been deleted and that the instance showing the letter ‘A’ moved from the left to the right to fill the gap.



With the < Fill gap from right < option, the instances on the right of the deleted instance will move to the left to fill the gap resulting from the deletion. Here, the instance showing the letter ‘B’ has been deleted and the instance showing the letter ‘C’ moved from the right to the left to close the gap. Users of former versions of TVPaint will recognise this behaviour as the previous default option.



> Stay put < is a combination of the three preceding modes. If the deleted instance is the first one from the layer, the head of the layer will now be the second instance (Figure 1).


Figure 1

If the deleted instance is the last one from the layer, the tail end of the layer will now be the second to last instance (Figure 2).


Figure 2

If the deleted instance is at another point in the Timeline, an empty instance will replace the deleted instance (Figure 3).


Figure 3

The [Cut Selection (Adaptative)] and [Delete Selection (Adaptative)] shortcuts will behave following the [> Stay Put <] mode if your layer's position is locked. If this is not the case, the behaviour of those shortcuts will follow the selected modes in the [Preferences > General] panel.

Other delete options are available in the Image > Exposure menu.



* Remove Exposure will remove one exposure cell in the current instance.


Original


Remove Exposure

* Remove all Exposures will remove all the exposure cells in the current instance. Only the head of the instance will be kept.


Original


Remove All Exposures

* If several instances are selected and the Remove all Exposures option is used, all the exposure cells from the selected instances will be removed. And the selection will be stretched on the heads of the modified instances.


Original


Remove All Exposures

* Delete instance head will remove the current instance head.

If we position ourselves on the first instance, A, the content will disappear, but the instance will still exists, and the following instances will not be moved to the left.



If we position ourselves on the B instance, and we delete it, the A instance will be extended to the C instance.



Also, if we select(*) the two B and C instances, and we delete them with this option, the A instance will be extended to the end of the layer.



(*) for a partial selection, see the Animation layer selection chapter.