FRAMEFORGE®

STORYBOARD™
STUDIO
QUICK START

FOR macOS® &
Windows®
©2003-2017 INNOVENTIVE SOFTWARE, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE
TRANSMITTED, REPRODUCED, STORED IN ANY RETRIEVAL SYSTEM OR
TRANSLATED INTO ANY LANGUAGE OR COMPUTER LANGUAGE IN ANY
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SOFTWARE, LLC.
THE SOFTWARE DESCRIBED IN THIS BOOK IS FURNISHED UNDER
LICENSE AND MAY BE USED ONLY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TERMS OF
SUCH LICENSE. THE QUESA LIBRARY (WINDOWS .DLL AND MACINTOSH

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SHARED LIBRARY) IS DISTRIBUTED UNDER THE BSD PUBLIC LICENSE
AND IS COPYRIGHT 1999-2003, QUESA DEVELOPERS; ALL OTHER PARTS
OF THE PROGRAM ARE COPYRIGHT 2003-2009, INNOVENTIVE
SOFTWARE, LLC UNLESS SPECIFICALLY SPECIFIED OTHERWISE. FOR
FULL LICENSE TERMS, SEE THE FOLDER LICENSES WHICH IS INSTALLED
AS A SUBFOLDER OF FRAMEFORGE ® STORYBOARD STUDIO.
FRAMEFORGE® STORYBOARD STUDIO, ITS LOGO TEXT AND GRAPHIC
ARE ALL TRADEMARKS OF INNOVENTIVE SOFTWARE, LLC. ALL OTHERS
ARE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE HOLDERS.

Disclaimer
INNOVENTIVE SOFTWARE, LLC MAKES NO REPRESENTATION OR
WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE CONTENTS HEREOF AND
S P E C I F I C A L LY D I S C L A I M A N Y I M P L I E D WA R R A N T I E S O F
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
FRAMEFORGE® STORYBOARD STUDIO IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT
WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.
INNOVENTIVE SOFTWARE, LLC SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY OR
RESPONSIBILITY TO YOU OR ANY PERSON OR ENTITY WITH RESPECT TO
ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE CAUSED BY FRAMEFORGE® STORYBOARD
STUDIO, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY LOSS OF PROFITS,
INTERRUPTION OF SERVICE, LOSS OF BUSINESS OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS PROGRAM.


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 VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION
For WINDOWS Users
FrameForge Storyboard Studio is a cutting-edge previsualization program
that will use your graphics card to its utmost capability. This sometimes
has the unfortunate tendency to find flaws in the graphic card’s driver that
hadn’t previously affected your use of your computer.
If, while using FrameForge Storyboard Studio, you experience an access
violation in module atioglxx.dll (ATI Cards) or nvoglnt.dll (nVidia Cards)
or something similar sounding, it is almost certainly an issue with your
graphics card’s driver and you will need to update that driver to resolve it.
To update the graphics driver you will need to either go to your computer
manufacturer’s site or directly to ATI or nVidia’s support sites as
appropriate:
AMD (formerly ATI): http://support.amd.com
nVidia: http://www.nvidia.com/download
More information and instructions can be found on our site at
http://support.FrameForge.com
Finally, you can also go to a site like drivershq.com which sells a special
utility program to find and install the most up to date drivers for all of the
hardware in your computer.

VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION

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 Table of Contents
Installing FrameForge Storyboard Studio-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6
Running FrameForge Storyboard Studio for the very first time --------------------------------------------------------7
Registering/Validating FrameForge Storyboard Studio -------------------------------------------------------------------- 7
How many computers can I install the program on? ------------------------------------------------------------------------8
Your (potentially Underpowered) Video Card -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------8
What should you do if your Video Card is reported as being “Underpowered?” -------------------------------9
Your First Previsualization --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9
Welcome to the Main Interface: The Control Room -----------------------------------------------------------------------10
The Multi-Throttle Controls------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 12
The Live View (and how to change what it’s displaying) ---------------------------------------------------------------- 13
Sets (Interior and Exterior Locations) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13
Thinking about your Storyboard (or “This ain’t your Grandpa’s Storyboarding Program”) --------------14
Earth, Wind and Fire (a.k.a. Ground, Sky & Sun)-----------------------------------------------------------------------------15
Changing the Sky (it’s not this easy on location) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------16
Changing the Ground ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------17
Changing a Set’s Geographical Location (Pro/Stereo ONLY) ---------------------------------------------------------17
Finishing with Editing a Set’s Parameters --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18
Selecting your Camera’s Parameters ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18
Building an Interior with Room Builder™ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------20
Dressing your Set (Interior or Exterior) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------21
Placing Actors and Other Objects on the Set ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------22
Finding an Actor or Object using a Keyword Search ----------------------------------------------------------------------23
Nearly 4000 Objects but not the ONE I want! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------23
I’ve dragged in an Object and it’s glowing and has these Spheres Floating Around it...----------------- 24
Posing Actors & Objects (yes, you can Pose Objects) -------------------------------------------------------------------26
Don’t tell me I have to set the pose of every bone in an Actor to get them to do something! --------28
Texturing in the Live View --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------28
Customize an Object or turn an Actor to a Character ---------------------------------------------------------------------29
Bringing an Actor or Object into the Green Room --------------------------------------------------------------------------30

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Saving a modified Actor or Object as a Virtual Object -------------------------------------------------------------------31
What's this “FrameForge Community Site?” -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------33
Moving Objects around on the Set -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------34
What happens when an object that you’re moving collides with a stationary one? Magic! ------------35
Relationships (If only they were this easy in real life) --------------------------------------------------------------------37
What do I do when I am dragging an actor and it goes into a relationship I don’t want? (or How to
break up a relationship in three easy steps) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------38
Manually Applying Relationships ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------39
How are Poses and Relationships different? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------40
I dragged an object into a relationship with my Actor and now I can’t get the Actor to drop it! -----41
Creating your own New Relationships -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------41
Free Position Mode ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------42
Selecting and Deselecting Objects ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------44
Orienting Objects On Set ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------46
Control Orbs Revisited -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------46
Facial Expressions, Look At... and Reach For... -----------------------------------------------------------------------------47
Available Camera Types -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------49
Adding Cameras to your Set ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 50
Controlling Cameras ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------52
The Lighting Mixer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------53
Ambient Light & Fill Light ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------54
Snapping a Shot ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------55
The Shot Preview Area -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------56
What is Stored when you “Snap a Shot” -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------57
Reloading a Shot for Editing --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 58
The Shot Manager -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------58
Printing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------63
Exporting ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------65
Exporting Storyboard Images, HTML & Shot Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------------66
In Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------67

5.
Welcome to FrameForge® Storyboard Studio

Jumping Right In
We know that most software users never actually read manuals, so this
Quick Start is designed to help you jump in and get started and as a Quick
Reference Guide to the basic features of what is an extremely powerful
program. Please be aware that this Quick Start is just scratching the
surface of the capabilities of the program so if you find yourself saying
“there must be a faster/other/better way to do something,” there very
often is, and you should refer to the full searchable PDF manual which is
always accessible from within the FrameForge program simply by
selecting the HELP menu then clicking the menu item FULL PROGRAM
MANUAL.
This Quick Start also assumes a basic familiarity with general computer
usage and terms like click, control+click and click and drag. If you are not
comfortable with this kind of terminology, then we recommend that you
instead use the Full Manual as it goes much slower and in a much more
spelled out, step-by-step manner.

Installing FrameForge Storyboard Studio

It’s fairly self-explanatory: you insert the CD, if the installation program
doesn’t start up automatically, navigate to the CD and double-click the
appropriate setup program/app and follow the on-screen directions. You
will need to enter your serial number which will be located on a sticker on
the back of this manual.
At the end of the installation program, it will ask you if it should check for
updates on the web. Unless this computer is not connected to the internet,

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you should ALWAYS answer YES to this question, even if you just bought it
today. We are constantly fixing bugs, adding new features and objects,
and if you ever call tech support the VERY FIRST QUESTION they will ask
is “Have you updated to the most current version?”

Running FrameForge Storyboard Studio for the

very first time
After you’ve installed the program, when you run it the first time you will
see a series of prompts asking you how you would like the program to be
configured. Exactly which prompts will depend on whether you have
installed the CORE, PRO or STEREO 3D Versions, but most of them should
be fairly self-explanatory, and there are no “wrong” answers.
If you choose one thing and later think you’d rather have made the other
choice, simply go to the PROGRAM OPTIONS (Windows) or the
PREFERENCES (Macintosh) Dialog found under the TOOLS Menu on both
platforms.

Registering/Validating FrameForge Storyboard

Studio
Nearly the first thing you’ll see when you first run FrameForge is a prompt
asking you to Register and Validate the program. To prevent software
piracy, we require that the program be validated with our online database
before you start using it. This is normally done over an internet
connection, but if your computer is not connected, you can call us toll-
free within the U.S. or Canada at 877-322-7733, or internationally at 858
866-3399 to validate the program over the phone.

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We never share your email contact information with other companies, and
when you validate, you have the choice to opt out of any emailing or
contact from us.

How many computers can I install the program

on?
When you purchase a license to FrameForge Storyboard Studio, you are
given the right to install the program on up to three computers at a time,
with the condition that only one copy will be running at any given time.
For example, you’re authorized to install one copy on a desktop computer,
another on a laptop, and the third at work–but you are not permitted to
install three copies on computers at work where you and two coworkers
would use simultaneously. Purchasers of the Academic License are only
authorized to install FrameForge Storyboard Studio on a single computer
at a time.
If you are going to get rid of a computer or want to move FrameForge
Storyboard Studio to a more powerful computer, make sure you run the
UNINSTALL program rather than just delete the program files so that you
get an installation credit returned back to our site. More details on this
can be found in the Full Program Manual.

Your (potentially Underpowered) Video Card

In order to access the full power of FrameForge Storyboard Studio, you
need an OpenGL hardware accelerated Graphics Card with dedicated
RAM. How you do you know if you have this card? When you first run the
program it will automatically run a check on your video card to see what
it’s capable of and give you a report of its capabilities. You can also
select Recheck Video Card Capabilities from the Tools menu at any time.

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What should you do if your Video Card is
reported as being “Underpowered?”
Don’t panic. Calmly read the prompt and it will explain what program
features will be disabled or limited by the graphics card limitations. If this
is a desktop computer into which you can put an upgraded card, we
sincerely recommend you do so. You can typically find decent cards in the
$100-200 range, and you want one that says it is an OpenGL Hardware
Accelerated Graphics Card with a minimum of 256MB of Dedicated RAM.
And yes, the more dedicated RAM it has, the better it is.
If this is a laptop, in 99% of all cases, you cannot upgrade the graphics
card and the program may be limited in some of its lighting or shadowing
capabilities. The one semi-exception is when you have a dual switchable
graphics card, as some Sony Vaios do, in which case it must be set to
speed rather than battery life or “stamina.”
NOTE: Even if this computer’s graphics card can’t render High Resolution
Lighting or Shadows, you can still work on a previsualization using it, and
then if you take this file to a more powerful computer that does have
these capabilities, the lighting and shadows can be added automatically
to its images during exporting or printing, so even in the “worst case,” all
is not lost.

Your First Previsualization

After you’ve gotten through registration and the initial setup prompts,
you’ll find yourself facing a dialog that looks like this:

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For the moment, simply click NO HELP – I WANT TO BUILD IT MANUALLY
because it’s important that you understand the main control room in which
you’ll be spending most of your time in FrameForge Storyboard Studio,
and that you set up your camera’s aspect ratio and medium (35mm, HD,
3/4” Pro Video... whatever) before you get too far in.

Welcome to the Main Interface: The Control

Room
In order to make the program as user-friendly and intuitive as possible,
we’ve modeled the main interface around a television control room, an
annotated image of which appears on the next page.
In brief, at the top of is a row of monitors showing the views through all
the various cameras on the set, (including a top-down “blueprint view”), in
the middle is the Live View where you’ll do all your work, to the right is the
Object Library from which you’ll get the actors and objects to populate
your sets, and left and bottom of the Live View are controls to manipulate
objects and cameras respectively.

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These monitors along the top show the overhead blueprint view of your
set on the far left and next to them are monitors showing the views
through each of the cameras on the set. If there are more cameras than
monitors, you can simply scroll through them using the small circular
buttons found on either side.

This is the LIVE VIEW where you’ll add,

move and otherwise manipulate actors
and other objects...

It can either be a top-down blueprint
(as it is now) or the view through any
camera on the set.

To change the live view’s display,

double-click the monitor you want to
become active (or the small blue- print
in the upper left hand corner as
needed) and it will become the new
LIVE VIEW...

The list of categories & icons on the right make up your Object Library.
This is the source from which you drag all actors and objects onto the set.
You can add objects and actors in both blueprint and camera views
though it is often easier to do it in blueprint view because you can see
more clearly where the actor/object will be added.
These Multi-Throttle Controls set the active camera’s position, orientation
and height each according to their label, while the controls on the left do
the same thing for the selected objects.

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The Multi-Throttle Controls
The circular controls for Cameras and Objects (found along the left and
bottom edges of the Control Room) are called Multi-Throttle Controls
because they allow you to access them as either buttons or throttles,
where buttons give you more fine control and throttles make large
adjustments more quickly.
You will use these controls to adjust your camera’s position, zoom, height,
etc., so it’s important that you know how to use them.
The Dolly Multi-Throttle, for example, is found along the bottom with the
other camera controls. Normally, it’s labeled with the word “dolly” on it and
four small gray arrows as shown in the left image below: Put your cursor
over it and the four arrows turn black and it splits into buttons which you
can click, as shown in the middle image. Finally, you can click and drag or
click and hold and a throttle (slider) will appear as shown on the image to
the right.

normal mouse over it dragging throttle

You can also increase or decrease the amount that a button click or
throttle affects the given camera or object by pressing the CONTROL KEY
for smaller/slower increments or the ALT KEY (Windows) / OPTION KEY
(Mac) for larger/faster increments. If you forget this tip, just hold the
mouse above any Multi-Throttle control and a hint will appear after a
couple of seconds.
You’ll notice there is also a button in the center of a multi-throttle control.
If you click this central button, it will show a dialog window in which you

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can enter numeric values for whatever the throttle affects. In many cases
you can also right-click the central button (also called "secondary click" if
you use a trackpad) to perform a “reset” function. For example, if you
right-click the central button on the camera pan/tilt multi-throttle, then the
camera is reset to an untilted state.

The Live View (and how to change what it’s

displaying)
The Live View is the large view in the center of the Control Room. It
always starts out as a top-down Blueprint View and the upper left hand
“monitor” always shows this blueprint.
The monitors to the right show the views through all the cameras on the
set and you can scroll them (if needed) simply by clicking the small
circular scroll buttons which will become visible when you have more
cameras than visible monitors.
You can make the Live View display the view through any camera (or have
it return to the top-down Blueprint View) simply by double-clicking on the
monitor whose view you want it to become.
The Camera Controls always affect the camera through which you are
viewing if the Live View is a Camera View, otherwise they will affect
whatever single camera is selected in the blueprint view.

Sets (Interior and Exterior Locations)

FrameForge Storyboard Studio works in terms of “sets” which, by the
program’s definition, is any location, be it an exterior or interior where you
have one or more scenes.

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The set is where you are going to place objects (be they walls and
furniture for interiors, or trees, cars and buildings for exteriors) and where
you’ll position and pose your actors, frame your shots and then store
frames for your previsualization.
This brings us to a very important and perhaps surprising note:

Thinking about your Storyboard (or “This ain’t

your Grandpa’s Storyboarding Program”)
To get the very most out of FrameForge Storyboard Studio, you need to
stop thinking of the storyboard or animatics or animation that you get out
of it as the only goal of using the program.
Yes, the storyboards can be an incredibly valuable result that comes
naturally out of the process of previsualization, but the process itself has
a incredible amount of value when you think about it as a chance to
explore your sets (locations) with your camera equipment but without the
pressures of cast and crew.
Thinking about it this way not only encourages you to give yourself the
time to explore shots and discover better, more interesting ways of doing
things, but keeps you focused on your real goal, which is to make better,
cheaper, more efficiently shot movies (or commercials, or tv or whatever).
So what does this really mean in terms of using the program? Probably the
biggest process change you need to think about is completely building/
dressing your 3D space before you start snapping storyboard frames. This
is important for a number of reasons:
• It forces you to deal with the realities of shooting rather than just the
abstracted final image that a storyboard gives you.

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 • Because you have a complete representation of the actual space in
which you’ll be shooting, you can experiment, explore and
troubleshoot, all before you set foot on set.

• If you start snapping frames on only a partially built set, if you go

back to edit those frames–even if you finish the set later–the
program will restore the set to exactly the state it was when you
snapped the shot... which in this case would be unfinished.

Earth, Wind and Fire (a.k.a. Ground, Sky &

Sun)
As you have probably noticed, the initial set is an infinite green field with a
beautiful cloudless blue sky. This can very easily be changed simply by
going to the SETS Menu and selecting EDIT SET PARAMETERS. You will
see a dialog much like the following, though of course the exact values
may be different:

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At the top left is the Set Name, where you can enter a more descriptive
name for this location. FrameForge Storyboard Studio uses this Set Name
in a number of different places to help group sequences (all the shots in a
given location) for simpler printing, exporting and management of shots
so giving it a good descriptive name is often very helpful.
The rest of the items on the left should be fairly self-explanatory and if
you want more information on them you should see the Full Manual.
In the center is a rendering of the dome of the sky over the ground, and to
change the color/texture of either of them, look to the right panel.

Changing the Sky (it’s not this easy on

location)
To turn the sky from bright blue to dark and stormy, or gray or anything
else, simply first select the SKY SETTINGS radio button, click the APPLY
TEXTURE button (and the program comes with several sky textures), or
click the REMOVE TEXTURE button and then select a solid color as
desired.
NOTE: The sky will automatically be tinted by the sun’s color–which itself
can automatically change based on the height of the sun over the
horizon–so if you are simply trying to make the sky lighter or darker, you
may want to change the sun rather than the sky. (And don’t try THAT on
location!)
There's another way to change the texture of the sky, which is quicker but
offers fewer options. See the later section Texturing in the Live View.

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Changing the Ground
Likewise, you can change the ground’s texture from a grassy field to
bricks, carpet, dirt, a solid color or anything else you need. Follow the
same instructions for changing the Sky except make sure that the
GROUND SETTINGS radio button is first selected.
NOTE: Unlike the Sky which is typically a texture applied once to the whole
sky dome–and for more details on the various options for how that works,
see the Full Manual–the ground is generally a small texture which is
repeated (or “tiled”) numerous times to fill up the ground.
To set how many times the floor texture is repeated, simply drag the
REPEAT TEXTURE slider until you’re happy with how the ground looks. You
can also place an INSET FLOOR onto the middle of the set which allows
you to put a single location texture (such as an intersection or lake or
something which is non-repeating) on your set. See the Full Manual for
more details on Inset Floors.

Changing a Set’s Geographical Location (Pro/

Stereo ONLY)
If you’re running the Pro or Stereo Versions (i.e. not the Core Version) of
FrameForge Storyboard Studio, you will have a button labeled CHANGE
SET LOCATION on the bottom right of the Edit Set Parameters dialog.
Clicking it will pull up a world map where you can specify the exact
geographic position where this set is located.
The advantage of doing this is that you can then specify the date and time
of any given shot (based on your production schedule) and FrameForge
Storyboard Studio will automatically put the sun in the sky exactly where it
will be on that date/time/location while also reporting the exacts times

17.
when sunrise, midday, and sunset will be on that day and place. Sorry, no
guarantees about cloudiness and weather though.
More on this when we get to the Lighting Mixer Panel.

Finishing with Editing a Set’s Parameters

Once the set’s sky and ground are to your liking, simply click the APPLY
button and you’re good to go. If you want these settings to become the
standard (or “default”) for all new sets, then simply check the checkbox
USE AS DEFAULTS FOR ALL NEW SETS.
NOTE: If you’ve shot a bunch of shots in a given set and then make
changes to the sky or ground or any other of the set parameters it will only
affect the currently open set, not any stored shots. If you want it to be
applied to existing stored shots then go to the SETS Menu and choose
PERCOLATE SET STATE. For more details on this (and a lot of other
percolation functions, see the Full Manual).

Selecting your Camera’s Parameters

In order for FrameForge Storyboard Studio to accurately reproduce (or
should that be “pre”- produce?) the exact framing at any given focal length
for the camera you are going to be using on set, you have to first identify
what it is, and it is very important that you do this before you start
snapping shots or the program will have to re-render them which can be a
quite time consuming process.

NOTE TO PRO & STEREO USERS:

Even though the “physical cameras” function as real cameras and are
modeled after specific camera models, they are basically just “shells”

18.
whose optical properties are still controlled by the Set Film/Video Frame
Size Dialog and you MUST also follow these instructions to have the
camera accurate mimic the one you’ll be using.

Go the CAMERAS Menu and

choose SET OPTICAL
PARAMETERS. You will be taken
to a dialog which looks like the
one at right, though the initial
selections may be slightly
different depending on your
program settings.
First you select the format that
you’re using, be it 35mm, Video
Pro, HD Video or any of the other
available formats, then you select
your aperture’s size, which defines
the aspect ratio that you’ll see
through the lens. Pretty much all
standard cameras are pre-defined
here though if you have something
very new and cutting edge, you
can always directly enter the
parameters of the camera using
the CREATE NEW SIZE button. As always, see the Full Manual for more
specifics if needed. Press OK when you’re done and you are now finally
ready to start dressing your set.

19.
Building an Interior with Room Builder™
If your set/location is an interior then the first thing you’ll want to do is lay
down the walls, and the easiest way to do that is with Room Builder.
When the live view is showing the blueprint view, you’ll see a pair of radio
buttons near the upper right corner of the blueprint, named Standard
Blueprint Mode and Room Builder Mode. Click the Room Builder Mode
button, and the central part of the control room will change to something
like the following, though obviously unless your editing an existing room, it
will be initially empty rather than having the walls, doors & windows
shown below.

The top left button is the SELECT button and the next five are WALL
CREATION buttons that create a rectangular room, horizontal or vertical
“hallways” or a single straight or curvable wall, each as shown on the
appropriate button.

20.
To create your walls, simply click the desired WALL CREATION BUTTON
then click and drag out the walls on the grid. It will automatically show
you the size of the walls as you drag and you can turn on or off snapping
to the grid as desired. Repeat as desired until all walls have been created.
To add a door, doorway or window to a wall, drag one of the window or
door icons from the left and drop it into a wall. You can then reposition or
resize the opening by clicking and dragging the opening. In the case of
doors, you can change its hinge orientation so it opens left/right, in or out
simply by clicking the dot at the end of the door and dragging it until the
hinge is oriented as desired.

Dressing your Set (Interior or Exterior)

Regardless as to whether you are shooting in an interior or exterior, in
FrameForge Storyboard Studio we talk about “Dressing a Set” as the
process where you add objects onto the set to create a real location.
You do this by dragging them from the Object Library–which we’ll get into
in the next section– and you’ll want to find a good balance between
creating a full environment and not bogging down your computer with so
many objects that the whole program slows down.
In general, it is better (i.e. faster/more efficient) to dress your set
sparingly to convey the overall look and sense of a location rather than
have every book and pencil in a professor’s office, or every bush and tree
in a forest.
In the case of highly complex objects like trees and cars there two
categories, prop/background versus picture/foreground. The former are
lower polygon (i.e. simpler) objects that are great for making a fuller
forest or filling a parking lot, while the latter are designed for actors to
actually interact with.

21.
Wherever there’s a category split like this, choose thoughtfully based on
the role and importance of the object on the set.

Placing Actors and Other Objects on the Set

All Objects in FrameForge Storyboard Studio (with
apologies to the Screen Actors Guild, for the
purpose of this discussion Actors are also
considered “Objects”) come from the Object
Library. This is the mix of category names and
icons found on the right hand side of the control
Room when either the Actors or Props Tabs are
selected.
To add an Object onto your set, simply drag its
icon (i.e. the picture of the object/actor) from the
Object Library to the position where you want the
object to go in the Live View.
This is often simpler to do in when the Live View is
displaying the top-down Blueprint View because
you can more easily control where the object is
going to land, but it can also be done in any
camera view.
Before you can drag a desired object onto the set,
you first need to display its icon in the Object
library. You do this by clicking Actors or Props if
needed, then selecting the desired category, such
as Men in the category list above. Icons for the objects in that category
will appear and you can scroll through them as needed and drag in the one
you want.

22.
Finding an Actor or Object using a Keyword
Search
At the top of the Object Library Window is a Keyword Search field where
you can type in keywords such as car or bed or whatever you like, and then
the Object Library will display the icons for all objects which either have
that keyword associated with it, or have a keyword that starts with it.
If you want to make it require the whole word so that bed doesn’t show an
alarm clock that has the keyword bedroom in it, then either add a space at
the end or put the keyword in quotes.

Nearly 4000 Objects but not the ONE I want!

You’ve exhaustively searched through the object library, typed in every
keyword you can think of, and you still can’t find that double-breasted
sneeze-whopper you need for your scene.
What should you do? Well, that depends, of course, on how important this
specific object is. If we do have a single-breasted sneeze-banger that’s
close enough, you can use that instead and just stretch or color it to make
it look more like the double-breasted whopper rather than the single-
breasted banger it actually is.
Another option is to click the button with the ellipsis (the three little dots)
next to the Keyword Search field at the top of the Object Library. This will
take you to our online community site where someone may have already
built and posted the object you’re looking for to share. If not, and you ask
nicely and say you’re looking for the object, it is not uncommon for
someone to share one they already have or even be willing to make it for
you, often for nothing more than a heartfelt thanks.

23.
You will need to have a free registration to the community site to post
messages and to download and install objects from it, and more details
on that can be found on the site itself or the Full Manual.
Similarly, you can do a search on Google Warehouse for the desired object
in Google SketchUp format (https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com) which
can be imported directly into FrameForge Storyboard Studio by going to
the OBJECTS Menu, selecting IMPORT 3D OBJECTS then GOOGLE
SKETCHUP FILES. Full details on that process are, as always, in the full
manual.
If one of our Themed Expansion Packs contains the object you want, you
can purchase a copy of that expansion Pack from the same place you
purchased your copy of FrameForge Storyboard Studio. You can also get
more information on the Expansion Packs by going to http://
www.FrameForge.com.
Finally, you can build it either within FrameForge Storyboard Studio itself,
or within any true 3D Modeling program that exports VRML, FBX or SKP.
More details on Object Creation and Importing can be found in the full
manual.

I’ve dragged in an Object and it’s glowing and

has these Spheres Floating Around it...
This glow is a Selection Glow and it identifies what object or objects are
selected and will be controlled by the Object Controls along the left side
of the Control Room. This glow slowly cycles from yellow through orange
and can be quite hypnotic to stare at, so no, that’s not your imagination.
These floating spheres are called CONTROL ORBS and they are context
sensitive, meaning that exactly which ones appear depends on the object,

24.
its capabilities and what view you are looking through, either Blueprint or
Camera View.
We’ll go into them in greater detail in the Full Manual, especially those for
physical cameras and lighting fixtures which are only applicable for the
Pro and Stereo Versions of the program. For this User Guide, however,
we’ll focus on the main ones that you’ll see and use most often, shown in
the graphic below labeled All Versions. In this graphic we’ve also added
labels for each Control Orb which actually will only show up in the
program if you move your cursor over an orb.

All Versions Pro and Stereo Versions ONLY

As you may notice the Control Orbs pretty much mimic the functionality of
the Object Control Multi-Throttles, but the big advantage of using them
over their corresponding Multi-Throttle is that you don’t have to move
either your focus or your mouse away from the object that you want to
manipulate.
The one advantage the Multi-Throttles have over the Control Orbs is that
you can make small incremental changes of spin or tilt, for example with
single clicks, rather than the more free-form control that mouse-dragging
gives you.

25.
So, in general, you’ll do most of your object manipulation with the control
Orbs, but may want to do some final fine-tuning with the Multi-Throttles. In
any case, we’ll get into how to use the very powerful Control Orbs in the
section Orienting Objects On Set, for now, let’s return to the object we just
dragged in.

Posing Actors & Objects (yes, you can Pose

Objects)
True, one doesn’t typically think of “posing” objects, but anything with a
movable part–and that covers a very large part of the object library–can
be posed. You’ll see a Pose control orb next to the selected object if it
can be posed. If you click the Pose orb, FrameForge goes into a special
posing mode, with posing controls instead of object multi-throttles to the
left of the live view.
The way you pose a Non-Actor Object is different from the way you pose
an Actor because non-actors are “hinged” while actors use what’s called
skeletal deformation. When you’re posing a non-actor object, control area
on the left shows a number of buttons corresponding to the various
hinges in the object, and a slider above them. Click a button to select a
hinge, then use the slider to move the hinge.

26.
When you're posing an actor, the control area shows a skeleton diagram
and other controls, but usually the important thing is the set of three
control wheels forming a “cage” around a joint.

If you click and drag one of the wheels, the body part (in this image, the
left arm) rotates around an axis through the center of the wheel. There is
literally no difference between the colored wheels, the only reason they
are colored is to make it easier to see the three dimensionality of the
wheels, and so that the corresponding controls on the left can identify
which axis the buttons will manipulate. You can also click and drag any of
the white balls at the intersections of the wheels, for more free-form
rotation.
When you're done posing an actor or object, you can click again on the
Pose orb, or click the red close button in the corner of the posing control
area, or just click on the floor.

27.
Don’t tell me I have to set the pose of every
bone in an Actor to get them to do something!
Since you asked nicely we won’t. There are literally thousands of preset
Relationships and Poses to do the hard work for you so you can focus on
shots, framing and just relatively minor tweaking of a character’s position
to get them to “act” as desired.
Also, there are quick functions to Look At, Reach For and Match Eyelines,
all of which automatically show up as buttons right under the Live View
when appropriate. We’ll get into how this works later in the various
sections about Relationships and Posing, but rest assured, it’s a snap.

Texturing in the Live View

In most cases, an object or part of an object can be painted with an image
or pattern, which we call a texture. Textures can be changed quickly
without leaving the live view. In the object library area, just under the
Actors and Props tabs, you will see a two-way switch with the labels
Objects and Textures to its left and right. If you click on the right-hand
part of the switch or the word Textures, then the lists below change from
showing objects to showing textures.

One way to use the texture library is to browse and find a texture you like,
and then drag it and drop it… on an object or even the ground or sky.
However, in many cases, FrameForge knows where to find textures
appropriate for a particular item, and can simplify the process. For
example, if you click on an actor’s hair, the texture library will select one of
the categories of hair textures. Then if you double-click one of the hair
textures, FrameForge applies it to the object part you previously clicked.

28.
Customize an Object or turn an Actor to a
Character
Once you’ve dragged any object onto the set, there is typically a lot of
customization you can give it to make it more specific to the scene. A
couch can be given a floral pattern or made into hot pink leather. Walls
can be “painted” or given wallpaper, Actors can be given haircuts, have
their clothing changed, the shape of their face modified, their body made
fatter or sexier... and in the case of adult men and women, actually aged
from anywhere between 20 and sixty years old.
The key to all this is a little place we call the Green Room.
The Green Room is a kind of “limbo” where you can manipulate your actor
or object off the set. You can rotate and view it from any angle with
impunity, and select among part options (such as having the top on or off
for a convertible, or an actor’s hairstyle), change a part’s color or texture,
and even adjust the object’s pose.
When you exit the green room, the actor or object on set will have the
changes you made to the object–including any pose changes–except their
original tilt and orientation will remain unchanged regardless as their
rotation or tilt in the Green Room.
You can also use the Green Room to save whatever modifications you’ve
made to an object or actor as a User Object or Character so that it will
appear in your Object Library and you can drag it out onto the set with all
the color, texture and part choices already set for you. We’ll explain how to
do that in the section: Saving Characters.

29.
Bringing an Actor or Object into the Green
Room
In order to bring something into the Green Room, it has to have been
dragged on set from the Object Library. Once there, simply double-click it
in the Live View and the Green Room will open with the object visible in it.
The Green Room looks like the dialog below, though of course the object
and available options will vary.

The first tab in the upper right of the Green Room will be labeled Actor
“Look” if it’s an Actor, or Part Options if it’s another kind of Object. On this
tab are optional “parts” like hair, pants and shirt styles for an actor, or
whether an optional tensor lamp should be present or not on the drafting
table.

30.
If you click and drag in the view but not on the object itself then it will
rotate and spin so that you can more clearly see the various sides of the
object. Again, all rotation and spin will not translate back to the Live View
when you exit, though all other object manipulation will.
Use any available items on this tab to change the general look of the actor
or object simply by clicking the appropriate drop-down menu, and
choosing among the available options.
NOTE: Take special notice of the Shape & Size area which will only be
available for Actors (including our animal actors) and which allows you to
change facial and body shape in humans and various other things such as
male vs. female body size and antler size or claw length and so on
depending on the animal’s type.
Under the Colors/Textures/State tab, you'll find some texture and color
options beyond the previous section Texturing in the Live View. For
instance you can tint a texture, or remove the texture and replace it with a
plain color, or make a part translucent.

Saving a modified Actor or Object as a Virtual

Object
A “Virtual Object” is a modified Character or Object that appears with its
own icon in the Object Library and which you can add to your set and have
it instantly appear with all of the modifications intact.
This is particularly useful for Actors as you can set up each Character in
the script with their own “look”–hair style, clothes, part options, colors,
textures, decals, facial and body morphs and so on–and then save them
as a virtual object so that when you want Frank or Melissa you can just
drag them out from the Object Library.

31.
The process is the same for both Actors and Objects with the one
difference that Actors who are made into Virtual Objects will show up in
the Characters category under the Actors tab of the Object Library while
Objects, such as Melissa’s fire-red convertible, will show up in the User
Objects category under the Props tab.
In either case, to make a virtual object, you bring the actor or object into
the Green Room and make all the modifications to them that make them
the unique object you want to make easily accessible. If you need more
information on how to do that, read the previous sections starting from
Customize an Object or turn an Actor to a Character.
Once you have the actor or object to your liking, use the button controls
along the top left of the Green Room in order to frame them as you would
like its icon to appear in the Object Library. Next click the Color, Texture
and State Tab and towards the bottom right is a button labeled STORE AS
VIRTUAL CHARACTER if it’s an actor or STORE AS VIRTUAL OBJECT if it’s
not an actor.
Click this button and you’ll be taken to a new screen with a field to enter
the name of this virtual character/object, a checkbox which can be used
to turn glued together objects into a single true FrameForge Object (see
Full Manual) and a Keyword field where you can enter Keywords used to
describe this new virtual object and which will be used by the Keyword
Search function to decide when to display it in a search.
There’s also a drop-down menu which should currently be set to SIMPLE
MODE and which you can set to ADVANCED MODE for more control,
details on which are in the Full Manual.
But for now, all we care about is the Virtual Object/Character’s Name and
any keywords you want to enter for it. By default, anything you enter in the
Name will automatically be entered into the Keywords for you.

32.
When everything is filled out and set up to your satisfaction then click the
button which will be labeled either STORE CHARACTER or STORE OBJECT
as appropriate.
If you have several words on a single line in the Keywords field, it will offer
to split them up for you so that it will be found for any of the significant
words. It will then save the virtual object, tell you where you can find it and
then ask if you’d like to share this virtual object on the FrameForge
Community Site.

What's this “FrameForge Community Site?”

The FrameForge Community site is just that: an online community of
FrameForge Storyboard Studio users who share objects, sets, poses and
relationships they’ve created. There are also forums to share tips and
tricks they’ve discovered, free additional objects from Innoventive
Software, LLC, trouble-shooting help and much, much more.
We highly encourage you to become a member, share any cool characters
or objects you make, and it’s completely free. So, if you think what you’ve
just stored as a virtual character/object is sufficiently useful, cool or
unique, please say yes to this prompt and share it on the site.
If you agree to share the virtual object, the program will automatically
package it up for you and place it and an image of it on your desktop and
take you to the appropriate forum on the community for you to post it.
How’s that for service?

33.
Moving Objects around on the Set
By now you should know how to add Actors and other objects onto the
set, bring it into the GreenRoom, perform customization on it and build the
walls of your interior in Room Builder.
If not, then you’ve missed a lot and should probably go back and read
some of the previous sections because you’ll need at least some of these
skills from here on out.
We’re going to assume you’ve dragged out at least one object onto the set
and you want to move it around. FrameForge Storyboard Studio makes
this extremely easy because it uses what we call “Chessboard Movement.”
While we live in a three dimensional world, and the FrameForge virtual set
is also a computer generated 3D world, you are controlling it with a 2D
input device: your mouse. Yes, your mouse itself has height but it only has
2 degrees of motion along the plane of your mouse pad.
You move an object simply by clicking and dragging it where you want it to
go. And when you do this, FrameForge translates your 2D movement of
the mouse into motion across the floor of the set, as if you were sliding a
piece along a chessboard.
If the Live View is showing the Blueprint View then you are always looking
down at the scene from a fixed view where North is at the top of the
screen, East to the right and so on around the compass. Anything you drag
simply follows the position of the mouse.
If the Live View is the view as seen through a Camera, however, then the
mouse’s motion get’s “projected” onto the virtual floor as you are currently
seeing it. In this case, if you click and drag an object by pushing the
mouse away from you, the selected object moves will move directly away
from your view deeper into the computerized world.

34.
Pull the mouse towards you and it moves closer to your view. Left and
right also perform equivalent actions making dragging objects extremely
predictable.

What happens when an object that you’re

moving collides with a stationary one? Magic!
Actually there are four basic possibilities depending on what the two
objects are, whether either of them have been scaled or elevated (more on
that later) and how things are setup.
So let’s go from simplest to most complex:
1. You’ve dragged out a desk and telephone from the object library and
they are both on the floor. You click and drag the phone until it collides
with the desk.
At this point, the phone will automatically hop onto the desk and remain
on it until it is dragged completely off the other side where it will return
back to the floor.
The basic rule is: unless the two objects have a pre-defined Relationship
(more on that in a moment) the moving one will hop onto the stationary
one.
NOTE: While the program “understands” the concept of one object being
on top of another object, it does not understand gravity, weight or mass.
What this means is that it will be equally happy to drag the desk on top of
the phone or perch the phone with 90% of it hanging off the desk. That
kind of real-world detail is up to you.
2. The next possibility only happens if the stationary object is a wall. In
this case when you drag an object so it collides with the wall, rather than
having the object being dragged hop onto the wall (which you’d almost

35.
never actually want) there is some “resistance” and then it will jump
entirely to the other side of the wall, if you continue dragging, or be left
cleanly butted up against the wall if you stop dragging at this point.
The rule here is that in every room there are typically a lot of furniture
butted up against walls and that is most commonly desired result in this
case so it happens automatically. If you DO want something embedded in
a wall or on top of it, that’s certainly easy enough to do and we’ll cover it in
the next situation below.
3. The two objects pass into and through one another as if they weren’t
sharing the same space. This will happen in only two cases: (1) If you’ve
temporarily turned off collision checking (which you can do from the Tools
Menu) or (2) if one or both of the objects have been elevated.
The rule here is that if you’ve elevated an object, it is effectively floating in
mid-air. Just as it will no longer fall to the ground, neither it nor anything
that collides with it will jump up either. By floating, it is no longer bound by
the standard on-top of rule.
4. The moving object jumps into a pre-defined relationship with the
stationary object. This happens most often with Actors and other objects
in the Object Library. For example, if you drag an actor to a chair, they’ll
automatically sit as shown in the drag progression image below. Note that
the ghostly images of the teenager are the intermediary stages between
his starting position on the left of the screen to where he’s been dragged
onto the chair, at which point he automatically sits, straddling it backward
since the chair was facing that way.

36.
The rule here is that if there is one or more Relationships defined between
the two objects that are set to be automatically applied when the moving
object collides with the stationary one, apply the most appropriate one
based on the two objects’ orientation and relative position instead of
applying the normal on-top rules.

Relationships (If only they were this easy in

real life)
A Relationship in FrameForge Storyboard Studio is how two objects
interact. They are always between exactly two objects, and are things like
a man sitting in a chair, a woman carrying a briefcase, or a teenager
holding a basketball. There are literally thousands of pre-defined
relationships between actors and all appropriate objects in the Object
Library, and many of them have multiple relationships.
What do we mean by an “appropriate” object? Well, there’s no particularly
obvious action that a person would do with a gravestone, for example, so
we haven’t pre-defined a relationship between the actor and this object. If

37.
you think there should be one, such as kneeling and weeping in sorrow,
you can easily create one, and this is all covered in the Full Manual.
Similarly, while there are relationships between the actors, there is no
obvious single relationship that should be applied when a man and a
woman meet, for example. Should they hug, shake hands, kiss, waltz or
something else?
In this case, no automatic relationship is applied but you have the option
of manually applying any of the available relationships between them.
More on that soon.

What do I do when I am dragging an actor and

it goes into a relationship I don’t want? (or
How to break up a relationship in three easy
steps)
If you DON’T want the actor to be in a relationship with this object at all–
such as him sitting down in a chair you’re simply trying to get him around–
then simply ignore it and keep dragging. As soon as you get far enough
away from the object, he’ll resume his previous pose and continue
onwards.
If you DO want the actor to be in a relationship with this object, but it’s
selected a relationship other than the one you wanted, you can often
continue dragging until the desired relationship is applied. Alternatively,
you can stop the drag in the undesired relationship and manually apply the
desired relationship as described in the section Manually Applying
Relationships below.
If you DON’T want the actor to be in a relationship with this object, but DO
want them right next to it or on top of it then rather than dragging them all

38.
the way to the object, get them close and then use the MOVE Multi-
Throttle Control to get them the final distance near to or onto the object.
When you use the MOVE Control the “on-top-of” rules are in effect but the
automatic relationships will not be applied.

Manually Applying Relationships

You can manually apply a relationship whenever you have two objects
selected (or touching) that have one or more relationships defined for
them. You will know when you have relationships available because the
status box to the left of the camera controls will tell you, as shown below.

NOTE: Depending on your screen width, the status box may be

significantly further to the left than shown here.
Assuming that you have available relationships, click on the
RELATIONSHIPS Menu and select APPLY RELATIONSHIP and select the
desired one from among those listed. Alternatively, you can CLICK AND
DRAG or CLICK AND HOLD on Pose orb next to the selected object, and
you’ll see a pop-up menu whose last section (below the dividing line) lists
relationships.

39.
How are Poses and Relationships different?
In FrameForge Storyboard Studio, a POSE is defined as a stored set of
positions of some or all of an actor’s limbs or an object’s hinged parts.
When applied, it will restore the actor or object’s limbs/hinges to those
positions.
There are two types of poses. A Full Pose sets all of the hinges/bones in
the affected Actor or Object and may also apply a tilt or elevation to them.
These full poses are indicated by the name of the pose being surrounded
with angle brackets such as <base pose>.
A Partial Pose, on the other hand, only sets some of the hinges/bones in
the affected actor or object, leaving the remaining ones unchanged. These
are identified by having an asterisk after their name like the actor’s peace
sign* pose which only affects one arm and hand.
This allows you to “layer” poses by applying full poses first, like
<running>, then a partial pose like peace sign* and you have an actor
flashing a peace sign as they run.
So how do Poses and Relationships really differ, as they both define the
settings of the hinges or bones of objects?
A Pose affects only a single object, while a Relationship can be thought of
as two poses–one for each of the objects in the relationship–that are
applied simultaneously and which ALSO include a spatial positioning of
one object in relationship to another.
In other words, when a relationship is applied, not only are the hinges/
bones of both objects set, but one of them will also move into a pre-
defined position relative to the other object. Examples of this spatial
positioning include a man being moved into the driver’s seat of a car, a
cup jumping into a woman’s hand, or a chair having slid itself under a
desk.

40.
I dragged an object into a relationship with my
Actor and now I can’t get the Actor to drop it!
One of two things is going on. When objects go into a relationship where
they end up in the actor’s hands they are typically GLUED there so that as
you later pose the actor, the object in their hand will remain in their hand
and move with it.
If this is the case, then when you select the actor the Status Box to the left
of the camera controls will say 1 Object Selected rather than 2 Objects
selected. If so, then, with the actor selected, go to the OBJECTS Menu and
select UNGLUE OBJECTS at which point you can drag it out of their hand
or delete it.
On the other hand, if the issue is that when you click on one object, more
than just that object gets selected then you need to read the section
Selecting and Deselecting Objects for easy instructions on how to deal
with it.

Creating your own New Relationships

Let’s say you’re doing a ballroom dance movie and you have a lot of cha-
cha dancing in it. You’ve set up your two actors into a standard cha-cha
dance position and now you want to save this as a new relationship so
you’ll have it available for later choreography in the project.
All you do is select them both (see the section Selecting and Deselecting
Objects if you need help), then click the RELATIONSHIPS Menu and
choose STORE NEW RELATIONSHIP...
A dialog will come up which allows you to give the relationship a name
and allow you to set various parameters, such as when the relationship

41.
should be applied automatically when one object collides with another,
and if so, which one has to be moving–or only manually and so on. If you
need help with this dialog see the Full Manual for more specific details.

Free Position Mode

When you want to get an actor in position relative to another object, either
to put them into a relationship you’ll want to store or just to make them
“act” in a shot, it can often be extremely useful to be able to rotate them
from all angles without having to worry about how that is going to affect
your cameras and the rest of the set.
FrameForge Storyboard Studio has the perfect “place” to do this: Free
Position Mode.
To get to Free Position Mode, you simply need to select the objects you
want to work with (see the following section Selecting and Deselecting
Objects for help with this if needed) and then go to the TOOLS menu and
select FREE POSITION MODE. While this is really covered in the full
manual, here’s a brief overview.
The Main Control Room will change from its normal look to Free Position
Mode. Free Position Mode is somewhat similar in concept to the Green
Room except that you can have multiple objects and manipulate them in
relationship to each other without the distractions of the rest of the set.

42.
The Blueprint View now shows JUST the objects in Free Position Mode.
A set of “Compass” Buttons allow you to instantly view the objects from
different angles using a special lens that minimizes distortions and gives
you a truer picture of the object’s relative positions
Much like the Green Room, if you click in empty space (i.e. not on an
object or control ball) and drag, you can freely rotate the view around the
objects without it affecting any of the cameras or their orientation in the
Live Set.
Note, however, that if you select an object in Free Position Mode and then
directly rotate, tilt or otherwise manipulate it (rather than rotating or tilting

43.
the View itself) then unlike the Green Room those changes will affect the
object’s orientation on the set when you return to the Control Room.
When you’ve made all the changes you want, simply click the APPLY
Button and you’ll be returned to the Control Room with all changes you’ve
made here applied to the objects on the set.

Selecting and Deselecting Objects

Normally, you’ll select an object simply by clicking on it. It will get a
selection glow around it and usually control orbs will appear–the one case
when they won’t is if you have multiple non-touching objects selected.
To deselect it, just click somewhere in the live view where there is no
object, such as the floor or the sky, and after a brief pause, all objects will
become deselected.
You can also select multiple objects by clicking on an empty spot in the
live view where there is no object and holding the mouse down and
dragging a selection rectangle. Only those objects that are completely
enclosed by the selection rectangle will become selected, as shown in the
image below where the tree and dog become selected but the man
doesn’t.

44.
There is also a SELECT tab/ button over the object library that, when
pressed, will display a list of all objects on the set, shown by name. You
can select and deselect any of them simply by checking or unchecking the
box by their name. More details on that are in the Full Manual.

AN IMPORTANT SELECTION “TRICK” TO KNOW

If you click an object and more than just it becomes selected, then what
happened is that FrameForge identified the other objects as being on top
of the one you clicked or embedded in it, and automatically selected them
too. It does this so that if you click and drag a table, for example,
everything on top of it will move with it.
To deselect on or more objects you don’t want selected, press and hold
down the SHIFT key and click on the first object to be deselected. Repeat
as needed. The SHIFT+CLICK actually acts as a toggle, so you can also
SHIFT+CLICK on something that isn’t selected, and it will become
selected but the program won’t automatically select anything on top of it
as it would normally.

45.
Orienting Objects On Set
So far we’ve selected objects and dragged them around the set, in and out
of relationships. If you don’t know how to do any of this, particularly how
to select and deselect just what you want, please read the previous
sections.
So what do we do if you want to rotate, tilt, spin, elevate or scale an object
rather than simply move it?
First you need to select the object or object’s whose orientation you want
to change. If you have selected a single object or multiple objects that are
touching, they will have one or more Control Orbs appear around them,
and this is the simplest way to manipulate them. Note, if you are in
Blueprint View then fewer Control Orbs will appear as you can’t see the
effects of things like elevation or facial expressions.

Control Orbs Revisited

As mentioned earlier, a selected object is surrounded by several control
orbs. Each Control Orb has three distinct functions, accessed by slightly
different mouse usage.
Click and Drag on a Control Orb and the program will go into a mouse-
control mode for that function. For example, click and drag upwards on
the Elevate Control Orb and the selected object or objects will move
upwards. Click and drag left on the Spin Control Orb and the objects will
spin, and so on.
Single Click on a Control Orb and a dialog will appear where you can enter
a numeric value for that function. For example, single click on the Elevate
Control Orb and you can enter an exact elevation height you want the
selected object(s) to have. Similarly, clicking on the Spin Control Orb
would allow you to enter a spin value in exact degrees.

46.
Right+Click (or “secondary click” if you use a track pad) on a Control Orb
and it will reset the controlled function to an unmodified state. In other
words, right+clicking on the Elevate Control Orb will cause the selected
objects to drop down to the floor or whatever object is beneath them. Do
the same to the Spin Control Orb and the selected object will revert to the
direction it originally faced when first dragged onto the set.
NOTE: The Right+Click to Reset Spin only functions when there is a
SINGLE OBJECT selected. The reason for this is that when multiple
objects are selected, the spin function spins them around a common
center rather than spinning them individually, so the program has no way
of knowing what to consider as the “original” orientation for this group of
objects, and it thus does nothing in this case.
While Control Orbs offer great power and functionality, they have two
disadvantages compared to the Object Multi-Throttle Controls, found to
the left of the Live View in the Control Room. It is harder to make
extremely small, precise adjustments with the Control Orbs, and when you
have widely separated objects they won’t display at all.
In either of these cases, you’ll want to use the Object Multi-Throttle
Controls which were covered in the section, The Multi-Throttle Controls
earlier in this guide, and in even more detail in the Full Manual.
NOTE: For even more control when clicking a Multi-Throttle’s buttons,
press and hold the CONTROL key and then keep it down as you click,
which will make the button function in even smaller increments than it
normally does.

Facial Expressions, Look At... and Reach For...

While these functions are really covered in the Full Manual, here’s a quick
and dirty overview to get you started.

47.
Actors also have three special capabilities that other mere objects do not
have, and buttons for them will appear under the Live View labeled SET
EXPRESSION, LOOK AT... and REACH FOR... when a single actor is
selected and the Live View is a Camera View, not the overhead Blueprint
View.
All actors (animals included) have the Set Expression (though exactly
which expressions are available vary by species) and Look At... functions,
though only humans have the Reach For... capability.
The Look At and Reach For functions work fundamentally in the same
way. You click the button for the desired function (and in the case of the
Reach For... button you can specify which hand to reach with from a pop-
down menu on the right of the button), the cursor turns into an EYE for the
Look At... or a HAND for the Reach For... function and you click on the
place you want them to look or reach.
The Set Expression button takes you to the Expression Editor dialog where
the Quick Set expression circle lets you choose from a number of
Expressions to apply. Simply click and drag the cursor on the wedge
labeled with the expression you want. The farther away from the center of
the circle you get, the stronger the expression is applied.

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If you want to blend expressions, use phonemes (mouth position based on
the sound being said) or create new expressions, click one of the other
tabs and drag sliders to apply expressions, mouth, eye and facial
positions as desired. It should be fairly self-explanatory, but for more
details, see the Full Manual.

Available Camera Types

There are two general “types” of cameras in FrameForge Storyboard
Studio: Floating Cameras and Physical Cameras. The Core version only
has Floating Cameras while the Pro and Stereo Versions have both
Floating and Physical Cameras.
Regardless of the type of camera, however, all cameras use all the
parameters that are specified in SET OPTICAL PARAMETERS.
All cameras also show up in Blueprint View
with a colored Icon representing them, and
have a Camera Monitor with the same
corresponding colored icon underneath it. If
you have more cameras on set than monitors
displayed, you can scroll to find the appropriate
monitor by clicking on the circular scroll
buttons on either side of the monitors as
needed.
FLOATING CAMERAS (all Versions) – This type of camera does not have
any physical “shell” and thus does not appear in any other camera’s view,
nor do they collide with anything. They are very useful for quick
previsualization as they don’t require any other camera equipment and you
can add as many as you like to a set without being concerned that they’ll
appear in the other cameras’ shots.

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They are also a useful supplement to the physical cameras if you just
want to get a different angle on a set without having to deal with adding a
bunch of physical camera equipment.
PHYSICAL CAMERAS (Pro & Stereo Versions ONLY) – This type of
camera is an actual object with an embedded camera inside it. Because it
is a physical object, it is visible to other cameras and it can be attached to
physical camera equipment such as tripods, heads, dollies, cranes and so
on.
Using physical cameras (and all their associated grip equipment) takes
your previsualization to the next level of reality as you can see how much
dolly track you’ll need to lay, discover if you can swing your jib in a tight
areas, or where equipment (especially dolly tracks!) might become visible
during camera moves.
NOTE TO PRO & STEREO USERS:
While the physical cameras were modeled after specific camera models,
they are still “shells” whose optical properties are controlled by the values
in the Set Optical Parameters dialog. Thus if we don’t have your specific
make or model, simply choose something of approximately the same size
as the camera you’ll be using, and set the optical properties to mimic its
specs and for all intents and purposes it will be the same as your camera.

Adding Cameras to your Set

To add a Floating Camera, the Live View must be displaying the Blueprint
View and then you simply double-click on the bare floor where you want
this new Floating Camera to be added. Make sure you double-click on the
bare floor, because if you double-click on an object, it will instead bring
that object into the Green Room.

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All newly added Floating Cameras automatically point at the currently
selected object if there is one, otherwise it will start pointing due north.
If any or all of the above did not make sense to you, then read the section
The Live View (and how to change what it's displaying).
To add a Physical Camera (Pro & Stereo Versions ONLY) the Live View
can be either a Blueprint View or a Camera View though it is often easier
to add objects in Blueprint View. Simply click the Props tab/button above
the Object Library, and if the category Camera Equipment is not already
selected, select it and then choose the subcategory Cameras.
NOTE: If you have not yet read the previous section Available Camera
Types and in particular the note at the bottom, please do so now.
Next, select the physical camera you want to add to your set and drag it
out from the Object Library to where you want it to appear. Once you do
so, a new monitor will automatically be created and you’ll see the camera
listed by name.
In addition, if you drag out other grip equipment such as dollies, tracks,
tripods and jibs, and so on, all you need to do is drag them together and
they’ll intelligently snap into place automatically.

A COMMON “DUH” MISTAKE WHEN USING PHYSICAL CAMERA

EQUIPMENT
Although you’ll kick yourself for doing it, many a time even the program
designers have dragged out a tripod or dolly, selected their physical
camera and dragged it onto the other piece of grip equipment. The only
problem is that it doesn’t snap onto the dolly or tripod as advertised. It
kind of hops on top but it doesn’t auto-center and glue itself there as it
should.

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The item that we’ve forgotten, and which will make us all slap our
foreheads and do our very best Homer Simpson “Duh!” when we realize
our error, is the camera head.
Clearly you’d never attach a camera to a dolly or a tripod without a head,
but at one time or another, I can almost guarantee you’ll try it. When you
do, try and remember this word to the wise and you’ll get to the “Duh!” part
(and back to work) much quicker and with much less frustration than you
would otherwise.

Controlling Cameras
With the exception of being on the blueprint view with several cameras
selected and dragging them across the set, you’ll always control just one
camera at a time.
Regardless as to whether it is a Floating Camera or a Physical Camera,
most of the time you’ll use the camera controls at the bottom of the
screen to control the camera view that is currently displayed in the Live
View. If you are in a Blueprint View and have a single camera selected,
then the controls will affect that camera, otherwise they will be disabled.
While there are quite a number of alternative methods to controlling
cameras, from using specialized camera Control Orbs (on Physical
Cameras only) to ALT+MOUSE KEY combinations and even a Game Pad’s
Joysticks, these methods are too “advanced” for this Users Guide and you
should see the Full Manual for details.
All of the camera controls are labeled using standard industry terminology
such as roll, dolly, zoom and so on, and they are the usual Multi-Throttle
Controls.

52.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE WHEN USING PHYSICAL CAMERA EQUIPMENT
When you put a physical camera on physical grip equipment such as a
tripod or dolly, the camera becomes subject to the capabilities and
limitations of that other equipment. A key example is if you use a 2-axis
head (as is typical for professional camera heads used on tripods) then
the roll control will become disabled completely as this camera head only
supports movement in two axes, pan and tilt. Or if you put it on a dolly,
then the crane range will automatically be limited to that of the actual
dolly.

The Lighting Mixer

The Lighting Mixer is accessed by pressing
the Lights tab found over the Object Library.
If you are running the Core Version then only
the top section of the Lighting Mixer where
the Sun, the Ambient and the Fill Lights
controls will be active.
Pro & Stereo Versions Only: If you have
dragged out any Lighting fixtures (from the
Camera Equipment / Lights category) onto the
set, they will appear on the lower half of the
lighting Mixer (as shown in the image above)
and you can control all the lights from one
place. Also, if you have set the geographical
location of your set, instead of the sun
controls you will have a clock and a date
button where you will set the date & time and
it will then calculate the sun’s position for you

53.
automatically, as shown below.

Ambient Light & Fill Light

In the real world, regardless as to how many light sources a room has, due
to light reflecting off surfaces and bouncing around, there is a non-
localized, diffuse light which doesn’t cast noticeable shadows. This is
called Ambient Light, and unfortunately desktop computers aren’t yet
anywhere near powerful enough to calculate this light bounce fast enough
for a real-time program like FrameForge Storyboard Studio.
So, since we can’t calculate this light bounce, we allow you to control the
Ambient Light brightness directly with a slider under the sun direction’s
compass. Since this Ambient Light is completely diffuse, however, it casts
no shadows and if it’s the only light source on the set, the image will look
completely flat and two-dimensional.
An easy solution is to use the camera’s “virtual” Fill Light to punch up
details which might be otherwise lost. We call this light “virtual” as it
doesn’t have any physical representation on the set, and it is the ONLY
light visible to only one camera. Yes, it’s a complete cheat, and if you’re
trying to design a lighting plan in the Pro or Stereo Version, you may want
to set the fill lights’ brightness to zero.

54.
NOTE: Lighting in FrameForge Storyboard Studio is extremely powerful,
but due to the necessity of doing it real-time, the program does not mimic
real-world lighting with the same exact reality as it does cameras. So, if
you are going to do any serious lighting in FrameForge PLEASE read the
Lighting Chapter in the Full Manual.

Snapping a Shot
You’ve built and dressed a set, positioned actors & cameras, framed your
shot and adjusted the lighting to your liking. Now you want to store it into
your storyboards.
If the Live View is a Camera View then there is a large button labeled
STORE SHOT right in the center under it. Each monitor also has its own
STORE SHOT button and you can click any of them as desired to store this
shot.
At that point a Store Shot
Data dialog will appear for
you to enter any desired
data about this shot.
The top left field is for a
Shot Number, the next field
is Shot Type (and it contains
the standard shot types of
L.S., M.S. and so on) and the final field on the top allows you to type in a
short description of the shot such as Sally Slaps Tom.

55.
You can then write as much description in the main edit field as you like,
or even have it automatically paste in text from your script (though for that
you’ll need to read the Full Manual). When you’ve finished entering
whatever data you want about this shot click the APPLY button. Note that
clicking DISCARD THIS DATA will discard any data entered into this dialog,
but will not discard the stored shot.

The Shot Preview Area

Whenever you “Snap a Shot” by
clicking the STORE SHOT button, the
shot you just stored will appear in
grayscale in the Shot Preview Area in
the lower right hand corner of the
Control Room.
This Shot Preview Area shows you
not only two shots that you’ve
snapped, but also where the
insertion point will be for the next
snapped shot. The image below
shows the basic three possibilities:
In the top image, the next shot to be
snapped will be inserted between the
two shots.
In the middle image, the next shot to be snapped will replace the shot
shown on the left (as is shown by it being on top and covering part of the
Insert Shot box). If it were going to replace the shot on the right, it would
be on top of the center Insert Box.
Finally, the bottom of the three shows its state when the next shot to be
snapped will be stored at the end of the storyboard.

56.
To switch among the first of these two states, simply click on the frame
you want to be replaced or the center box. To append at the end, simply
click the END button at the bottom right of the Shot Preview Area.

What is Stored when you “Snap a Shot”

More than you could possibly imagine! Okay, maybe you have a good
imagination, but when you “snap a shot”, the program not only stores the
image of the shot as seen through the selected camera, but also stores:
• All the information needed to recreate this shot exactly as it was
snapped

• All the camera information such as focal length, height, roll, angle of
view etc.

• The top-down Blueprint View showing the active camera with an

“angle of view” triangle that visually shows exactly what the camera
will see (particularly useful for gaffers in helping to know where they
can place lights)

• All the actors visible in the shot

• All the Physical Camera Equipment on the Set (Pro & Stereo
Versions ONLY) 

Some or all of this information can be printed out or exported to
Shot List as desired. See the appropriate Printing and Exporting
Sections for more details.

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Reloading a Shot for Editing
If you ever decide that you want to go back and change something in a
snapped shot, perhaps to frame it tighter, or change the exact expression
on an actor or for any other reason, you can reload the shot. You do so by
double-clicking on the grayscale image of the shot in the Shot Preview
Area. It will reload the shot with all camera settings, object positions,
actors etc. exactly as they were when the shot was snapped.

NOTE: When you reload a shot, the program automatically sets the Shot
Preview Area so that the next shot you snap will replace the shot that you
just reloaded. The reason for this is that we assume the most likely
reason you had for reloading a shot onto the set was to make some
change to it and thus we set it to be replaced. If this is NOT what you
want, simply click the INSERT or APPEND SHOT box in the center of the
Shot Preview area to change where the next shot will get stored prior to
snapping it. See the section, Shot Preview Area for more details if
needed.

The Shot Manager

While the Shot Preview Area shows the shots immediately next to the shot
you’re about to store, that only takes you so far. If you want to view, edit,
rearrange shots or add motion arrows, framing boxes or even text labels
to them then you need to go to the Shot Manager. Open it by clicking the
TOOLS Menu then Storyboard Shot Manager or by clicking either of the
SM Buttons in the Shot Preview Area.
The Shot Manager dialog is a very powerful area whose full functionality
is more powerful and flexible than can be covered in this Quick Start. For

58.
all the details see the Full Manual, but in the meantime, here is a quick
overview.
The Shot Manager is divided into three general horizontal areas, all of
which can be resized in relationship to each other by clicking and dragging
the resize bars that separate the three areas.

Shot Sequencer

Shot Editor

Shot Data

The top area is the Shot Sequencer which displays the storyboard itself
with every shot that has been stored, in the order that they are to be
presented. You will use this area primarily to:
• Reorder Shots

• Select a shot for the Shot Editor so that you can manipulate it in one
way or 

another

59.
The shot sequencer supports selection of shots by SHIFT+CLICKING on
them or by dragging a selection rectangle around them and then you can
drag’n’drop them from one position to another within the Shot Sequencer.
There are three sets of buttons in the Shot Sequencer, the first three
control what’s displayed in the Shot Hierarchy Tree which automatically
groups shots by scene, which is defined as all the sequential shots in a
given location. You can use this Shot Hierarchy Tree to collapse or hide all
the shots in entire scenes in order to more easily focus in on just the
scene or sequence you’re working on.
Next there is a pop-up menu to control the size of the displayed shots in
the Shot Sequencer, then there is a scroll bar to scroll what is visible in the
sequencer. Finally, there are several more buttons, including Show
Deleted, Print, and Create Tweens.
When you replace a stored shot (as described In the sections The Shot
Preview Area and Reloading a Shot for Editing) it actually isn’t completely
removed from the storyboard but is instead “flagged” as having been
deleted. Pressing the Show Deleted button allows you to restore shots
that you’ve inadvertently replaced or just decided you want to put back in.
Deleted shots (or frames) are shown with a yellowish haze to identify
them, and if you select one or more deleted shots in the Sequencer, in the
Shot Editor you’ll have a button labeled Restore Deleted, which you can
press to do just that.
PRINT is a convenience function which displays the print dialog with all
the shots selected in the Shot Sequencer already selected in the Print
Dialog.
CREATE TWEENS is a very powerful function where the program will
create new, averaged shots “in-between” two or more existing shots, thus
automatically creating animation or animatics for you. Tweens handle
posing, object and camera movement and can be a fast way to generate

60.
animation, so if this sounds interesting to you, click it and see how it
works, or read up on it in the Full Manual.
The Shot Editor is the middle area of the Shot Manager, and it shows the
active shot. To the left is a column displaying ARROWS or FRAMING
BOXES (depending on which option is selected in the drop-down list at the
top) and you can drag them out onto the shot currently displayed in the
Shot Editor to add motion arrows and other visual notations to the scene.
There are eight additional buttons along the top of the Shot Editor:
EDIT IN PAINT PROGRAM – click this to have the currently visible shot
opened in the paint program of your choice so you can literally draw on
the image. Note that anything you draw will be added to the shot as a
“layered mask” so if you subsequently blow up or export your shots at
extremely high resolution, the painted imagery will get pixilated.
EDIT ON SET – this simply reloads the current shot into the Live View so
you can make further edits to it and re-snap it. You can also simply
double-click on the shot itself in the Shot Editor to do the same thing.
MARK AS CONTINUING – this button will flag this shot as being a
continuation of the previous shot (such as when the two shots show the
beginning and end of a camera crane, but it’s really just one camera move
and one shot that you’ll do on set). When two shots are flagged as
continuing the slide show display and animation exports will do dissolves
between them rather than straight cuts.
SET AS TWEEN/SET AS NORMAL - this “flags” the shot currently displayed
in the Shot Editor as a Tween. This can be useful because tweens are
typically used for generating animatics and animation for presentations
but are often not exported or printed. Since the exporting and printing
functions both have an option to hide all Tweens, it may be that you’ll run
into a circumstance where you’ve manually stored a new shot but want the
program to treat it as if it had been an automatically generated Tween. If
the selected shot is already a tween, the button will say Set as Normal.

61.
DELETE – this button will delete the frame currently visible in the Shot
Editor. If additional shots are also selected in the Shot Sequencer then it
will ask if it should delete them too.
MOVE – this button is somewhat equivalent to a CUT function as it takes
all the currently selected shots in the Shot Sequencer and then allows you
to scroll to where you would like them to go and click on the Shot in the
Shot Sequencer where they should be moved to. You’d typically use this in
place of the normal drag’n’drop functionality if you wanted to move one or
more shots to a radically different position in the storyboard. Seethe Full
Manual for more details if needed.
DUPLICATE – click this to make an exact duplicate of the shot currently
displayed in the Shot Editor. You may want to do this if you want to
intercut a shot with a different shot.You might duplicate the shot which is
now going to be intercut then insert a new shot, such as a reversal,
between them.
RETURN TO SET – clicking this button is equivalent to clicking the close
button in the title bar of the Shot Manager’s Window. It simply returns you
to the Control Room’s set as it was when you launched the Shot Manager.
At the bottom of the Shot Editor are another nine buttons, the first three
and last three of which are simply movement buttons. The difference
between a triangle and a triangle with a bar is that the single triangle will
move you left or right by one shot, while a triangle with a bar will move you
to the beginning or end of the scene, respectively.
The Middle three should be fairly self-explanatory, but if you need more
information on them, the Full Manual is the place to look.
Finally, the Shot Data area is where you can enter the Shot Number, Shot
Type (L.S., M.S., C.U. etc.), a short description and a duration for the shot
(which will be used by the Slide Show and Movie/Animation/Animatics
exports. Under that is a large area where you can type as much
information as you like about this shot, notes, description, whatever you

62.
like. With the exception of the Shot Duration, then this is exactly the same
information you could have entered when you stored the shot, in which
case it will already have automatically appeared here.

Printing
Once you’ve got all your shots stored you’ll probably want to print them.
You can do so by clicking the FILE Menu then PRINT from the Control
Room or by clicking PRINT from the Shot Manager. The only difference
between them is that when you click PRINT from the Shot Manager, the
Print Dialog will show up with all the shots then selected in the Shot
Managers’ Shot Sequencer already selected in the Print Dialog.

The Print Dialog will be displayed with all the shots grouped by scenes in a
collapsible tree hierarchy along the left of the dialog.

63.
You can select and deselect individual shots by clicking on the shot
images themselves, or entire scenes by clicking on the scene/sequence.
When some of the shots in a scene are selected, then the scene’s check
box will have a minus sign in it, otherwise it will have a checkmark if ALL
the shots in that scene are selected, or be unchecked if none of them are.
The Omit Tweened Shots checkbox beneath the Shots allows you to hide
Tweened Shots as you most likely won’t want to print them. If it is
checked, then tweens will neither be displayed in the shot list nor printed.
The following three options allow you to override some of the settings
that were stored with the shots when they were snapped, but you’ll need to
read the Full Manual to get more details if desired.
To the top right of the shot selection area is a group labeled Shot Text to
Print. In this group are a large number of check boxes where you can
specify what additional information about each shot you would like to be
printed. Note that the last check box in this group shown in the graphic
above is only available in the PRO and STEREO versions of the program.
Underneath them is another group, Print Layout. In this group, you can
specify the page layout, how many columns and rows of storyboards you’d
like to be printed on each page, and where (if at all) the Blueprint View
should be printed. A graphic mock-up of your current selections appears
in the right of this group.
Of course, the more shots you fit on a page, the smaller the individual
images will be and the less text will fit in the area along with it.
The last thing in this group is a drop-down list where you can select the
quality of the printing. Draft Quality is extremely fast as it literally is just
the images stored in the Shot Manager, while High Quality requires the
program to re-render each shot at a higher resolution for the printer. Note
that on Windows, this drop-down list will also have options for printing to

64.
PDF while on the Mac PDF printing is selected after you have clicked
either PRINT ALL SHOTS or PRINT SELECTED SHOTS.

Exporting
There are six basic things you can export from FrameForge Storyboard
Studio:
• Storyboards (and this includes both the images of the storyboard,
the associated blueprint view and all information associated with
them)

• Movies / Animatics (in QuickTime, Flash or AVI formats)

• Sets

• Poses
• Relationships

• User Objects

The last five are only covered in the Full Manual, as they are considered
“Advanced” features though in practice they’re all pretty drop-dead simple.
You just need more background information than we’re getting into here.

65.
Exporting Storyboard Images, HTML & Shot
Lists
To get to the Export dialog where you’ll choose exactly what of this you
want to export simply click the FILE Menu, choose EXPORT... then
STORYBOARDS / SHOT LISTS...
You’ll be taken to an Export Dialog that is identical to the Print Dialog in
the way you select what shots you want to export.

Immediately under the group heading Export Format is a drop- down list
where you select the basic format of what it is you want to export.
On this drop-down you can choose to export HTML Web Pages which can
include all the same information you can get on the printed page (defined
here in the group Shot Text to Export) but also include quick links that
allow you to jump directly to any scene, or move to the previous or next
frame’s page with a simple button click.

66.
You can also choose to Export Images only, and can further decide
whether to export just the Shot Images or Shots & Blueprints. When you’ve
selected to export images, then all the check boxes in the lower group
Shot Text to Export automatically become disabled because you’re not
exporting any information, images only.
Finally, you can also export Shot Lists in either RTF Tables or Tab
Delimited Format for importing into Microsoft Excel or any database.
When you choose either format of Shot List, then all the Image Options
(size, rendering style etc.) will be removed as you aren’t exporting any
images with Shot Lists.
When you are exporting in any format other than Shot Lists, however, you
can specify the rendering style and size of the exported images, though
any changes you make will require the program to re-render the exported
images. This can be a quite time consuming process if the export size is
particularly large, especially if the images have depth of field or are
rendered in a user style as both of those features require additional
processing passes.

In Conclusion
We hope this Quick Start has helped you jump in and made you feel
confident with FrameForge Storyboard Studio. But please don’t forget that
this guide is really no more than a very fast overview of all the power and
ease of use lying under the hood of FrameForge Storyboard Studio.
As always, the Full Program Manual goes into all this and much more in
far greater detail and we sincerely hope you’ll spend the time to read it, or
at the very least use it as a first reference if you run into any issues or
confusion.

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