Documentation

The Display tab

The Display tab

The Display tab allows you to set various parameters regarding the way brushes, tools and layers are displayed.

The Tool Display section is divided into two parts:

- Hide tool preview (for all tools!), when checked, masks the tools preview. If you leave this option unchecked you will see a picture (preview) of the brush you are drawing with underneath your cursor.

This option can be useful when working on a computer with limited resources: the use and display of large tools may indeed slow it down.

Checking the Hide empty shape line preview option will mask the Eraser, Oil and Air brushes when drawing a shape using the Rectangle or Ellipse tools. Leaving this option unchecked will leave the preview of the brushes on (as shown on the picture below):


Preview brush

The Clip Thumbnails > Play on mouse hover option, when checked, will allow you to play Clips when hovering over their thumbnail in Project View.

The Layer Thumbnails parameter, gives one the option to either show all the thumbnails in a layer (which can take a lot of time to generate), or only the first and last one.


Layer thumbnail option enabled
Layer Thumbnails option Enabled

Layer thumbnail option disabled
Layer Thumbnails option Disabled

You can also disable or enable this option in the timeline.

Option in the timeline

You can also apply a checkers pattern to layers’ empty instances thumbnails (so you can quickly spot them) by turning the Differentiate Empty Instances option on. It is possible to add cross to make those empty instances thumbnails stand out more checking the Put an X Mark on Empty Instances parameter.


With the « Differentiate Empty Instances » option turned on


With the previous option and the « Put an X Mark on Empty Instances » option turned on

Note that enabling either one of those settings will also mark empty exposure cells with an horizontal line.

The Pop-up for drag and dropping images parameter sets the behavior when drag and dropping images in the Timeline. If checked, a pop-up will appear when drag and dropping images and you will be able to choose between Mov(ing), Copy(ing) and Insert(ing) the image. If unchecked, you will need to hold Ctrl to copy images and Shift to insert them. If no key is hold, images will be moved.

The Drawers section gives options to display either the left or right Drawers, both, or none.

The Timeline section gives the following options:
- The Extended Timeline option (by default active) allows you to have an extended timeline on the entire lower part of the interface. Otherwise, the timeline is shrunk to give more space to the Drawers. For this option to work, the Timeline must be docked.
- The next option allows you to display the timeline Vertically.
- The last option allows you to display the XSheet (or exposure sheet) in a third, separate tab, at the top left of the timeline.

This old function of TVPaint Animation is no longer displayed by default.

Horizontal timeline
Horizontal timeline

Vertical timeline
Vertical timeline

The Magnet option allows the various interface windows to be snapped to other windows and menus. This allows management of the interface to be quicker and more practical

The next section, Project window, contains a tick box used to place the current project windows behind the other interface panels.

The last option Use TVPaint Menu is only available for Mac OS X. When this option is checked, the main menu of TVPaint Animation is both available in the Mac menu and inside the TVPaint Animation window.

The Use TVPaint menu option