Extend drawing area outside field

[D.T. Nethery]

I don't know if this is possible to implement in the TVPaint drawing interface , but I'm going to throw it out there anyway as a request to see what the answer is . (the computer programmers here will have to excuse my ignorance if making such a request is not feasible ; I'm a cartoonist and not knowledgeable about what it takes to add something like this . However, since the forum is "Feature Requests" , I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask...)

I prefer to use TVPaint as a drawing/animation tool because the drawing tools are very responsive and feel natural to me, unlike the application Flash , which does not have very responsive drawing tools . However, one thing I do enjoy about Flash which I would hope to see implemented in TVPaint is that I can draw out past the edge of the camera field and I can put my timing charts and any other notes out there in the "margins" , which are visible to me when I'm working on a scene ,but not visible when I render a movie of the finished scene (only whatever is in the camera field shows up in the final movie rendered from Flash).

I think it would be very useful to be able to do that with TVPaint .

(I hope the attached image of the Flash drawing "stage" shows what I mean , if my written explanation is not clear)

By the way, when I posted this feature request on the Bauhaus forum last year I was told :

"simply work in an oversize project - say 50% larger than your target resolution . Paint a white (or other suitable BG color) filled rectangle at exactly your 'final' screen resolution, and center it in the frame (the "center" Element script will do this for you with a double-click.) Turn on Hold for that layer, place it at the bottom of the layer list, and lock it.

Later, when you are ready for output, use the Crop tool to discard everything outside the white central area."

So, yes , that does work ok, except working in a larger resolution puts more stress on the computer's processor and RAM, and for a lengthy scene (many layers, 200 to 300 frames) it will make the application slow down to a crawl, and this method also involves several extra steps to get the same thing as in Flash . I'm looking for more than a work-around method.

To be clear : the feature request I'm making is for a drawing area like Flash, where the camera view (the "stage") is visible when rendered to a movie , but the margin areas around the drawing area can be drawn on or have notes written. This would be part of the default interface , with no extra steps or layers required.

If it's not possible or not feasible to implement this feature in a future version of TVPaint simply say so and I'll be content with TVPaint as it is . This isn't a major drawback in my opinion and I can live without it (the option suggested above , of working at a larger resolution and using the "margins" of that larger area for notes ,etc. is certainly workable) . I just thought it would be a nice feature to have last time I was working in Flash and said to myself: "hmmmm.... it would be nice if Mirage/TVPaint had this feature, too. I wonder if that's possible ?"

[Patrice]

Hi David,
Don't worry, your question/request does not hurt us. You can ask us for all you would like to have in our Software (if it is realistic... ).

You are not the first to ask us for this kind of feature. It is not possible in the actual version cause it was not planned during the development of the 8th version of our technology. So it would be a big increase of work to do that but maybe we can add it in a future version. I can not say you when, just one day.

Patrice

[D.T. Nethery]

Thanks, Patrice. That's a good, honest answer.

Well, put it in the box with the other "blue sky" feature requests and maybe someday ... I think it would be a useful feature .