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I've been promising something more indepth so here it is though there's so much more to talk about I'm going to keep this particular tutorial short and as to the point as I can for a bigger "fuller" tutorial.

HeirarchyHeirarchy is the most important feature in ANY digital art program. It effects everything from layer clipping to hiding and unhiding portions of art with layers above and below. Taking this into consideration, the Animation folders especially, are extremely fussy when it comes to heirarchy. Thus the importance of planning.

Specifying FramesIf you do not specify your frame in the timeline, you can NOT edit your animation. Please view this deviation to see what I am talking about.

This is going to happen or become important when you duplicate your layers or grouping folders inside your animation and you think everything is lost. I showed this exact issue in the above tutorial.

Hierarchy and Specifying Frames: What's the best way?
The best habit to get into is to have two animation folders or 3. If you are using three, have the bottom folder for storyboarding. Have the middle one for sketching your draft frames to the timing you desire and your top folder for your inking and colouring. If you're using two then have the sketch below and inks on top.

You should also consider creating a separate folder on the very base of your hierarchy for your background, animated or not.

In the youtube video at the top of this page, it acts as if the first two planning and drafting folders were already done. It was specifically aimed at inking and colouring.

A great feature in clip is once you set up your grouping folder, the next one you add, adds the same amount and type of layers and if you add more layers, it adds a an extra layer in the next new grouping folder so keep an eye on that.

So for example like in my video I had a raster layer for colouring, a vector layer for my lineart for easy re-adjustments, incase anything should happen so I wouldn't have to redraw it (I suggest you get into the habit of vector layers for inking hand drawn animation, you will definitely make a lot of frustrating mistakes) and I also had a vector layer for my animated shadows and highlights markup. Again same reason. It's easier to edit a point than it is to constantly redraw a section.

If you don't like to animate your shadows this way I do recommend trying out the use of clipping layers above your colour layer for animating shadows but it can get really confusing with the onion skin if you don't have some kind of boundaries to colour within and then you can get very confused.

Setting up my animation grouping folder layers this way allowed me to ink and colour quickly. I made sure my bucket tool was set to multilayer referencing and once one side was coloured, I hid the shadow layer. I generally like to add the shadow layer in a folder of it's own for a bulk hide but I have found out the hard way that I often make mistakes so I've found it easier to hide and edit one frame at a time and edit them one at a time but how you handle it, is entirely up to you. Once one side is coloured it's a good idea to hide the reference lines so when you colour the other side, it colours flawlessly without gaps.

Having your folders and layers in a sensible hierarchy will allow you to animate easily and cleanly but there will be times where you need to duplicate your animation cel layers/grouping folder and specify it. Just make sure you go to your timeline, right click and enable the layer on the timeline.

The most important thing to note is if you don't use grouping folders inside the animation folder you will not be able to use them like this. If there's no grouping folder clip considers the animation as a single frame. If you use grouping folders with multiple layers, everything in that folder is considered 1 animation cel. That's something a lot of beginners seem to be struggling with.

In short the best way is the neatest way and pre planning. I highly recommend writing out what you're going to animate and if you're a beginner you should still write out what you are trying to achieve, make a storyboard, even if it's just key poses for a 2 second clip and pay close attention to your layer hierarchy.

If you do all of this in the beginning, you'll have a lot less trouble and frustration later. And if you can remember to specify your animation layers you'll be fine.

Also a quick note, anything outside the animation folder will not animate and is not recognised by clip as anything to do with animation. It will just treat it as a regular painting. So animation in animation folders, non animation outside the animation folder.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

I've been promising something more indepth so here it is though there's so much more to talk about I'm going to keep this particular tutorial short and as to the point as I can for a bigger "fuller" tutorial.

HeirarchyHeirarchy is the most important feature in ANY digital art program. It effects everything from layer clipping to hiding and unhiding portions of art with layers above and below. Taking this into consideration, the Animation folders especially, are extremely fussy when it comes to heirarchy. Thus the importance of planning.

Specifying FramesIf you do not specify your frame in the timeline, you can NOT edit your animation. Please view this deviation to see what I am talking about.

This is going to happen or become important when you duplicate your layers or grouping folders inside your animation and you think everything is lost. I showed this exact issue in the above tutorial.

Hierarchy and Specifying Frames: What's the best way?
The best habit to get into is to have two animation folders or 3. If you are using three, have the bottom folder for storyboarding. Have the middle one for sketching your draft frames to the timing you desire and your top folder for your inking and colouring. If you're using two then have the sketch below and inks on top.

You should also consider creating a separate folder on the very base of your hierarchy for your background, animated or not.

In the youtube video at the top of this page, it acts as if the first two planning and drafting folders were already done. It was specifically aimed at inking and colouring.

A great feature in clip is once you set up your grouping folder, the next one you add, adds the same amount and type of layers and if you add more layers, it adds a an extra layer in the next new grouping folder so keep an eye on that.

So for example like in my video I had a raster layer for colouring, a vector layer for my lineart for easy re-adjustments, incase anything should happen so I wouldn't have to redraw it (I suggest you get into the habit of vector layers for inking hand drawn animation, you will definitely make a lot of frustrating mistakes) and I also had a vector layer for my animated shadows and highlights markup. Again same reason. It's easier to edit a point than it is to constantly redraw a section.

If you don't like to animate your shadows this way I do recommend trying out the use of clipping layers above your colour layer for animating shadows but it can get really confusing with the onion skin if you don't have some kind of boundaries to colour within and then you can get very confused.

Setting up my animation grouping folder layers this way allowed me to ink and colour quickly. I made sure my bucket tool was set to multilayer referencing and once one side was coloured, I hid the shadow layer. I generally like to add the shadow layer in a folder of it's own for a bulk hide but I have found out the hard way that I often make mistakes so I've found it easier to hide and edit one frame at a time and edit them one at a time but how you handle it, is entirely up to you. Once one side is coloured it's a good idea to hide the reference lines so when you colour the other side, it colours flawlessly without gaps.

Having your folders and layers in a sensible hierarchy will allow you to animate easily and cleanly but there will be times where you need to duplicate your animation cel layers/grouping folder and specify it. Just make sure you go to your timeline, right click and enable the layer on the timeline.

The most important thing to note is if you don't use grouping folders inside the animation folder you will not be able to use them like this. If there's no grouping folder clip considers the animation as a single frame. If you use grouping folders with multiple layers, everything in that folder is considered 1 animation cel. That's something a lot of beginners seem to be struggling with.

In short the best way is the neatest way and pre planning. I highly recommend writing out what you're going to animate and if you're a beginner you should still write out what you are trying to achieve, make a storyboard, even if it's just key poses for a 2 second clip and pay close attention to your layer hierarchy.

If you do all of this in the beginning, you'll have a lot less trouble and frustration later. And if you can remember to specify your animation layers you'll be fine.

Also a quick note, anything outside the animation folder will not animate and is not recognised by clip as anything to do with animation. It will just treat it as a regular painting. So animation in animation folders, non animation outside the animation folder.