Suggestion: add a glossary, explain the terminology.

[Cyberman-tM]

There is a lot of documentation for OpenToonz, but (at least for me), it's often hard to understand because I don't know what the individual terms mean - even if I would understand the concept.

Perhaps the terms are commonly used, for a newcomer they're new nonetheless.

(Even if it couldn't be a complete list, it would still help, I think.)

Or maybe it exists and I simply didn't find it?

[gab3d]

Hi @Cyberman-tM it could be a good addition to the manual.

What terms do you find should be in this glossary?

[Cyberman-tM]

Almost everything, I suppose. It depends on who the target audience is. Experienced animators? Just describe the unique terms. Amateurs and those who want to dabble in animation (like me)? Start with "A as in Animation" until you get to "Z as in Zounds, that was useful!" :-)

Personally, I'm still stumped about what exactly a "level" is. Off the top of my head, terms that I didn't know immediately and/or think would be useful (in no particular order):

Level (and related, of course) Frame Cell Column (it's obviously a column, but why is it called that? Just because, or is there a hidden reason?) XSheet (and how it's pronounced - Ex-Sheet, or Cross-Sheet?) Timeline Tween (probably a redirect to Motion Path, I don't think OpenToonz uses that term? But anyone coming from Flash will likely look for it) Onion Skin (it gets obvious soon, but still) Raster vs. Bitmap vs. Vector Preview (perhaps? It is exactly what it says, but a short explanation of what it does and why it exists. I.e. that some stuff isn't computed unless you render/preview it.)

I would imagine there are threads from newbies asking for clarification - unless I'm the only one having trouble understanding some of it...

[gab3d]

ok, thanks. if you happen to find any other ones, just add them here.

Personally, I'm still stumped about what exactly a "level" is.

The concept of a level is exactly the same as that of a video clip in a video editing program.

Cell is another tricky term. Basically it's a cell in the Xsheet or Timeline, be that occupied or free.

Xsheet is pronounced eX-sheet, and it comes from Exposure Sheet.

Tween (probably a redirect to Motion Path, I don't think OpenToonz uses that term? But anyone coming from Flash will likely look for it)

Here it's me that's confused. I don't know how you are using that term in the context of OpenToonz. 🤔

Most of these terms are indeed explained throughout the OpenToonz Manual, nevertheless I think a Glossary could be useful to make a quick reference for beginners.

[Cyberman-tM]

When I want to move a sprite (? for lack of a better term - I'm currently only using premade images) from one point to another while shrinking or enlarging it, I'm adding a motion path to the column (I think?) and defining the beginning and end image as key, while adjusting the sizes on both frames.

The program then calculates everything that is inbeTWEEN the two keyframes.

That's what I'd call a tween - but maybe I'm using the term wrong? I'm used to this term from Flash, a few years back.

[RodneyBaker]

If someone has a lot of time on their hands and wants to supply definitions... Attached is a VERY RAW text file that contains all the words found in the online documentation.

Note: Duplicates have not been removed and are still in this listing but it is sorted alphabetically. In the case of this listing I opted for 'small words'; example: Lip and sync are not identified as "Lip sync" but as two separate words. That would need to be remedied in any fully formed glossary. There are also entries that obviously just need to be removed because defining them would serve no useful purpose.

Glossary words.txt

[gab3d]

@Cyberman-tM

Ah...ok. Changes in position/rotation/scale of an item are called Transformations. So you want to animate the transformations of an item and for that you create keyframes, then in between these keyframes you get interpolated segments of an animation, in each particular frame of one of such segments you have an Inbetween position/rotation/scale.

Of course that term could also be used, in the context of a traditional frame-by-frame animation, to refer to a drawing that is between two key poses (for example when using the Auto-inbetween function in OpenToonz, that is the meaning used: it will create new inbetween drawings, that go from the first selected drawing to the last selected one). So it must be used with care to that double meaning of the term.

[RodneyBaker]

Do we know of anyone currently working on a glossary or anything of that nature?