Studio pipeline

Shots, assets and review

Phoenix helps a show move from one long episode file to shot files, and keeps the characters and props in those shots in step with their master files. For the whole process in order, see How to run an episode.

Start from the animatic

Choose File › Import › Import Animatic... and pick the cut exported from your storyboard or editing software: a CMX 3600 EDL or a Final Cut Pro 7 XML file. Phoenix adds to the timeline:

• a Shots layer with a frame label where each shot starts, named after its clip;
• a Board layer under the art with each shot's board image, fitted to the stage, when the image is found (by the path the cut gives, or by name beside the cut file);
• a layer for each audio track (Audio 1, Audio 2 and so on), each clip placed where the cut has it and starting from where the cut uses it.

A cut counted at another frame rate is brought to the document's. Then Export Shots by frame labels splits it into shot files.

Split an episode into shots

Save the episode, then choose File › Export › Export Shots.... The shots are cut from the saved file, so changes not yet saved are left out. Pick where to cut:

• Frame labels: each named frame label starts a shot and names it, the way many boards mark sh010, sh020 and so on.
• Scenes: one file per scene.
• Camera cuts: a cut wherever the scene's camera jumps, at each camera keyframe that is not tweened into.

Every shot starts at frame 1. A tween that runs across a cut is turned into a keyframe per frame on the shot's side of the cut, so the shot plays exactly as the episode did there, and the camera is keyed where it stood at the cut. Library items a shot does not use are left out of its file. Choose whether the shots are saved as FLA files, Phoenix documents or XFL folders, and the folder they go in (a folder named after the episode with _shots, beside it, to start). The same is available on the command line as Phoenix shots (see Command line).

Linked shared assets

A character rig or a prop can live in a master file and be linked into each shot that uses it. In the shot file it is an ordinary symbol, so the shot opens anywhere FLA files open, but it remembers where it came from.

1. In the Library, right-click the symbol and choose Link to Master File.
2. Choose the master file, then the symbol in it (the one of the same name is picked for you).
3. Phoenix offers to update it from the master right away.

A linked symbol shows (linked) in the Library's Type column; right-click it and choose Change Master File to link it elsewhere. When the master changes, right-click it and choose Update from Master, or Update All Linked Items anywhere in the Library. The symbol is replaced by the master's version, and what it uses (the symbols inside a rig, its bitmaps) comes along, so the rig arrives whole. Instances of it on the stage stay where they are. An update cannot be undone; the document is marked unsaved so you can close without saving if it was a mistake.

The link is stored as the FLA format's own shared library link (sourceFlashFilepath and sourceLibraryItemHRef on the symbol), so it works in any app that reads FLA links. The master's path is kept relative to the shot file when the shot has been saved, so a whole show folder can move.

Update every shot

Phoenix links shots/sh010.fla
Phoenix links shots/sh010.fla --update --save
Phoenix batch shots/ --update-links --save

The first lists a file's links; the second updates them and saves; the third does every shot in a folder, which is how a rig change reaches a whole episode.

Review notes

Open Window > Review Notes. Add Note writes a note on the frame shown, signed with your name; it appears on the stage in the corner of the view and stays until the next note. The list shows every note by frame: click one to go to its frame, Done ticks it off (it is struck through), and Delete takes it out. Draw makes the notes layer the one you draw on, for circling a hand or sketching a correction over the art with any drawing tool.

Notes are kept on a guide layer called Review Notes at the top of the timeline. Guide layers never export, so notes travel with the file to whoever fixes the shot and never reach the picture. Delete the layer when the shot is approved.