A shared whiteboard with a timeline is an invaluable communications tool for animators
The SyncSketch Whiteboard feature is surprisingly powerful and useful. It's a collaborative whiteboard with a timeline and playback controls. Using it with other SyncSketch features multiplies its flexibility.
Creating a New Whiteboard
New whiteboards can be added like other media; Whiteboard appears at the end of the drop-down menu in the Project Overview:
In the Review Player it reads Add Whiteboard as shown below.
The default whiteboard that is created has an 18% Gray background so that you can sketch with any of the colors in the default color palette. It starts with 100 blank frames, and has a default resolution of 1024x768. (See below for details of how to change these defaults.)
Changing the defaults
To change default values for new Whiteboards:
- Open the Review Player:
- Reveal the Shot Item List pane on the left (if isn't already visible)
- Open the Add Items menu by clicking on the + icon above the shot list. (This is not available on free plans.)
- Select the Preferences menu button "•••" next to Add Whiteboard. The Whiteboard Preferences dialog will appear:
Change any of these settings to your liking and click Create. The newest item at the bottom of the Shot List will be a Whiteboard with these options. Any subsequent whiteboards created will also use these settings until they are changed.
Sketching in a Whiteboard
The first time you sketch on any frame it will add a sketch marker in the timeline. Navigate the timeline, sketch and leave comments as you would a video timeline.
The playback framerate is controlled by the framerate control on the lower toolbar. See the following short video for details:
Advanced features
The Ghosting feature (onionskinning) is an incredibly useful animation tool in the Whiteboard. (See Ghosting (Onion-Skinning) for details, or just watch this brief video:
One great way to use the Whiteboard is to experiment quickly with animatics. Sketch your keyframes in place on the Whiteboard timeline, and use the Hold Sketches feature in Add New Sketch mode to preview the animatic's timing. See Is there was a way to have a sketched drawing last for multiple frames? for details, or just watch this brief video:
To adjust the timing of the keyframes, use the Move Sketches tool. The following video illustrates this:
Tip: If you're looking for a way to have video faintly in the background, your best bet is to use the Tracing Paper function over the uploaded video. See this article for details about the Tracing Paper feature.