Introduction

When first opening TVPaint Animation, you will always have a empty project, with an empty Animation layer, containing an empty image. Start by drawing a fixed character on this layer's image or by opening the Monster Walk project to follow this section's lesson:

If you choose to open the Monster Walk project your Canvas and Timeline should look like this:

Say we'd like to add a background to our drawing. Elements would appear in front and behind our character. Thus, we could use the Behind drawing mode or draw over the character to add those elements. However, there would be no way to change the character's position afterwards.

The use of Animation layers will allow you to add background and foreground elements in a much easier way: you will be able to overlay several layers to create a more complex image (for example, you can have a layer dedicated to background elements, another one displaying a character and a last one dedicated to foreground elements.) We will review the way to use Animation layers in the following pages of the manual.