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Creating Printed Material
Wouldn’t it be useful to have a printed version of character model sheets that you can place next to your computer for reference? Or maybe you want to create a printed animation reference book. You may even want to make a portfolio of your work for interviews or to show to prospective clients. Well, with Toon Boom Studio it’s possible to export your designs or still frames and then print them out using a third-party software!  Preparing your Model in Toon Boom StudioOpen the file you want to export and resize it so that it fills the 12 field guide space. Remember, that because you want to print your work you will need to export it in bitmap format instead of vector. The downside of this is that you cannot scale a bitmap to a larger size if it is too small. To get around this, you must export your work at its largest size and then rescale it in the third-party software if it is needed.  Changing the Size of your ProjectBefore exporting your character, you need to know what size it must be to export it. To make things easier we have given you the correct pixel dimensions for a sheet 8.5 x 11 inches in size a little bit later in this section. If you want to know the size of any sheet of paper you can open a blank document in Photoshop, or a similar third-party software, and then set the image size to the size of paper which you will print on, for instance, letter (8.5 x 11 inches), legal (8.5 × 14 inches), A4 (8.3 × 11.7 inches), etc. Once this is set, you can read off the pixel dimensions and note them down, this is the size you will set the camera size to in the Toon Boom Studio Animation Properties dialog box. In this example, you want your model sheet to be letter size 8.5 x 11 inches and the resolution to be at 300 DPI (dots per inch). For your character to be at the same resolution you need to take note of the size of the sheet in pixels: 3300 x 2550 pixels.  In Toon Boom Studio you need to set your project to be at a similar pixel size. Go to File >Animation Properties.
 The project is currently at 720 x 540 pixels. This is clearly not enough to be able to print our model sheet. Change the camera size to the same as the pixel dimensions for the 8.5 x11 inch sheet which is, 3300 X 2550 pixels. Click OK to apply those changes.  Exporting Your WorkNow you have set the correct size you are ready to export! Go to File > Export Movie. Make sure to change the path accordingly and select which frames you want to export. Click on the Option button to change to format to PNG. The PNG format will keep the transparency of the frame making it easier to transfer the characters to your model sheet later on.  Once you are ready, click on OK and Toon Boom Studio will export your frames. Creating Your Model SheetOpen your PNG file in the third-party software. Now you need to make some changes before copying it to your model sheet. Go to the image size properties and change the DPI of your file for 300. Make sure that options like Resample Image are deactivated before changing the DPI. Then apply the changes  Next you can copy your character to the model sheet. Resize the character if it is still too large to fit on the page.  Once you are satisfied with your Model Sheet, you can use the third-party software to print it out. You can add the sheet to your portfolio, reference book or just use it as a drawing guide by placing it next to your computer as you animate.  |
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