So that's how I change layer name in Manga Studio Ex

Sometimes to answer of a problem is so obvious that you almost want to chock yourself.

So I was trying to figure out how to change layer name in Manga Studio EX 3. I right clicked on the layer in Layers windows and couldn't find an entry called property. Fustrated, I went to the Net, and eventually find out that there's always a Properties window available. All you need to do is bring it up by pressing [F7]. There you are change the layer name is whatever way to want.

Personally I think 2 things need to be changed in Manga Studio regarding to this issue:

• Add a property menu in right click menu on layer in Layer window.
• Renew Property to "Layer Property"

But then at least I found the answer.

Common mistake when using Toon Boon Studio 4

During my re-learning process, I found out that I made some mistakes here and there when trying to create a cut out animation. So I think I better write down those tidbits cause I may probably make the same mistake next time I pick it up several months later.

• When animating your cut out animation, make sure that either "Tranform" or "Rotate" button are selected. Otherwise the movement you made will be just on the first key-frame.
• Check the preference and make sure that "Create Constant Keyframes" checkbox is OFF, unless you totally don't want the in-between automatically generated for you. After all, you can always set and reset the in-between nature by first selecting the in between area, and then right click to select the segment nature (constant or non-constant)
• Animation only happeneds on the peg. So make sure you set the hirechachy so that everything you want to animate is sitting inside a peg.
• You may wonder why all the parts do not show up on the screen after you have the hireahacy set up. Mostly that's because you are at the "Drawing View". Switch to Camear view and you will see all the parts.
• Save frequently. My Toon Boom Studio 4 still crashes very once in a while.
  

Here's a typical work flow of creating a cut out animation using Toon Boom Studio 4:

• Create a new document. I use 800x 600 camera size
• Go to Exposure Sheet. For each part of your cut out, create a new "drawing" at Frame 1. Remember to name your drawing properly. That makes organizing hireachy much easier.
• Create Peg, put drawing into the peg, with right hireachy. I name peg with "P-" prefix
  
• With "Rotate" selected, select each Peg, and move the pivot to the proper location (make sure indicators are all green.
• Save, before animate anything (that way you have a base to go back to)
• Collpase all hireachy. On the very top Peg, drag the first frame all the way to the final frame. Now the timeline should fill up by a blueline, with all the cutout part.
• Go ahead and animate. But make sure that (1) you select the peg instead of the drawing (easier to be done on the timeline), (2) Make sure either "Rotate" or "Transform" tools are selected (3) Use the solid black square handle to move the rotation.

Finally, try create a static drawing to layout the route of the motion to make sure that it's smooth.

Relearning Toon Boom Studio 4

I opened Toon Boom Studio 4 and tried to do some simple animation, and found out that I already forgot a lot of basica concept of how Toon Boom Studio works. Fortunately I downloaded some tutorial video back then. And those video really helps me to pick up what I left off all over again.

Manga Studio 3 EX blue, and then a happy ending

I haven't been using Manga Studio 3 EX for a while. The last time I used it was way before I got the ATI HD 4850 graphic card and the DELL 24 inch UltraShape display as my second displace. So when I found out that Manga Studio went nuts when I tried to use my Wacom Graphite 4 8" x 6" tablet with it. I wan't too surprise. What surprised me was the solution.

The moment I encountered the problem, I went ahead and downloaded the driver to update the Wacom driver to 5.0.8.6. Well, does NOT solve the problem.

Then I went to Smith Mirco's site and found that there's NO UPDATE on Manga Studio 3 EX... great.

Finally I found my rescure in CP Forums. Someone found out that by removing Wacom Tablet Perference, reboot, and set the preference again, it will resolve the problem. But how do I remove the preference?

Well, Wacom provided instruction to remove the Wacom tablet perference. I basically followed it, but went 1 step future by removing both Tablet.dat and Pen_Tablet.dat. After removing all these perference files, reboot, and then set the Tablet setting, Manga Studio works again. In fact, I am continue using my dual screen setting with no problem.