Today I will be teaching you everything you need to know to get started with auto actions in Clip Studio Paint! It’s really simple once you know the basics, so let’s get started.

What are Auto Actions?

An Auto Action allows you to record multiple operations into a singular action (the auto action) and then run this action, with all the commands within it (the steps in your process), in one go. You can then manage your recorded commands.

What does this mean?

This pretty much means that if you have a process that you repeat constantly or every now and then, that you use to achieve a certain look or setup etc. - for e.g. Creating a line art folder with a vector layer inside; instead of having to do that whole process over and over again, you can record all the steps in this process, create an auto action for it and rename it (for example “Line art folder”), which you can then run with the press of a single button. This will then do that entire process of creating a line art folder with a vector layer inside it, in quite literally, about a second or two.

How to find it

Now to locate your Auto Action Palette. You can find the palette by going the Main menu’s, [Window] tab > [Auto Action].

Understanding the interface

A, B and C: Action Setting Bar

 

A - Auto Action Sets. When starting out you are given a default set.

 

B - Create a new auto action set

 

C - Create a new auto action set from your materials.

 

D - List of auto actions in the current auto action set

 

In the bottom bar of the palette, you have the [Command Bar] contains 4 icons: start and stop (insert image and label), play, create new auto action, and delete auto action (NOT delete command)

 

And last but not least we have the hamburger menu indicated by three horizontal lines, which opens to a menu of options for using the palette.

 

 

Right click or go to hamburger menu to see all options available when it comes to using the Auto Action Palette.

1. Button mode - when checked the interface becomes much simpler, as the auto actions are turned into buttons for ease of use, especially when you are to trying to change any part of the process.

2. Add an Auto Action -Create a new auto action

3. Delete an Auto Action - Deleting an auto action means you are deleting all the commands within it. Too many times I have accidentally deleted an auto action when I meant to delete a command from within the auto action

4. Change an Auto Action - To Change an auto action means to change the name

5. Duplicate an Auto Action - Duplicate means to simply create a copy of that auto action

6. Move an Auto Action to a different set - A set is a grouping of Auto Actions. This allows you to move an AA from one set to another set

7. Copy an Auto Action to a different set - Allows you to copy a AA from one set to another

8. Delete Command - Delete the selected command from within an auto action

9. Duplicate Command - Delete the selected command from within an auto action

10. Edit Set - In this window you get the options create new set, delete a set, duplicate a set, rename a set and reorder your current sets

11. Switch the Set - Allows you to select another set to switch to.

12. Start to record auto action (self-explanatory)

13.Play auto action (self-explanatory)

14. Export Set (self-explanatory)

15. Import Set (self-explanatory)

16. Register set as a material (self-explanatory)

17. Add auto action set - Add a downloaded auto action set from in your Materials to the palette

18. Show action setting bar - hide/show the top bar you see under your set name on the palette

19. Show command bar - hide/show the bottom bar on the palette

Creating An Auto Action Set

First thing you will have to do is to create a Set a.k.a. an Auto Action Set. Clip Studio Paint comes with one by default with a few premade auto actions that you can look at.

There are 3 ways to create an auto action set:

1. Import a set from material

2. Import a set from your files

3. Create your own set which when created, automatically adds a blank auto action to get you started

The new set will be added to the drop down set menu in your palette.

Create your auto Action

In order to create your auto action, you will first need to know what an auto action can record and what it cannot record, the most important one being that:

 

1. An auto action cannot record the movement of a layer. That said, when creating your auto actions, you need to plan it out to some extent to ensure that it runs smoothly. In a way auto actions are quite similar to coding.

2. Auto actions will remember the name of a layer. This is very important to know for when you want an auto action to affect a specific layer. I will speak more on that later.

Now let’s make an auto action:

1. Ensure that button mode is not selected as we want to be in an “edit mode”. The button mode should be disabled by default.

2. Press the Create auto action icon on your command bar. This creates a new command in the current set.

3. Press the red circle to begin recording. Any action done after it has been pressed is being recorded, including any mistakes you may make, so have your process ready for easy recording

4. Hit the red square to stop recording.

And now you have created your first auto action!

 

Let’s go into the details of an auto action.

How to Manage and Edit your Auto Actions

The dropdown arrow on the left hand side of the auto action hides/shows the processes being recorded. You can have it open while you are recording to see what commands and their information are being recorded.

Double tapping on a command, runs the auto action from that command, onward.

Auto Action Boxes

The left most box of an auto action is a check box which can enable and disable a command/action. If you disable the Auto Action itself, everything within it is disabled, however, if you only disable a command/action within an auto action, you can still run an auto action excluding the disabled command. This meaning that it will skip the command and continue with the rest if it can. All actions are enabled by default.

[The action to create a new raster layer was disabled therefore, a new raster layer was not made when the auto action was played]

The second box is to enable/show a dialog box. In your auto action, there are some commands/actions where a dialog box can be enabled, for example naming a layer or using Gaussian blur. This can be seen if you look into your auto actions; some will have another box next to them and some will not (see below).

[Dialog boxes are enabled for Gaussian blur and Hue/Saturation/Luminosity, but disabled for Change Layer Name and Merge with layer below]

In recording, you can provide/select data for these dialog boxes which will give that specific result when you run the auto action, as the option to have it show up are disabled by default. Enabling this box will allow for you to change what you put in/select these dialog boxes of the command every time you run the auto action. You can disable all dialog boxes in the auto action by disabling the box directly next to the name of the auto action.

Re-doing an Action

If you made a mistake while recording a step in your auto action, you can redo that portion of the recording. First you must stop recording, open your auto action and go to the step where you would like to make the change and delete that step. Now go to the step before it; depending on what it is you need to do you can either recreate the steps in the auto action up until that step to ensure everything stays the same and then record your new step, or you can just simply go ahead and record your new step and it will be added in. Don’t forget to stop recording once the step(s) is complete.

Here I wanted to change what the layer would be named after it is created. I deleted the old step after I rerecorded the process of me changing the name for the replacement step

Button Mode Hovering

Hovering your mouse over an auto action in button mode, shows you a popup of all the processes in the auto action in full details.

[reordering the actions; In the example above, I reordered the Layer colour label to happen before I create a new layer instead of after]

Renaming Layers for the Auto Action to Reference

As mentioned prior, auto actions register the names of layers and actions during the recording phase.

If not properly thought out, this may cause issues further down the line if you are not paying close attention.

 

Changing the editing layer refers the specific layer name that you are making the active editing layer.

In order to ensure that the auto action refers to the correct layer in a situation where you need to change the editing layer, record a change of the layer name during the making of the auto action, and set those specific names for those layers, so that it always refers to those specific layers' names in regard to that action.

[Blue blocks show the names being assigned; Red blocks show the names being referenced in order to make a change to them]

Ensure that in your file, more than one layers do not have the same name if you plan to use an auto action that requires referencing a specific layer, as it may jump to a layer that you do not necessarily want to affect.

I know that this part can be a bit confusing so if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below where I can then answer. ☺You can also watch the video attached where I go over this issue with an example.

 

 

That will be all for auto actions today! If you want to see a video where I make a few auto actions step by step, stay tuned. If you found this post useful feel free to leave a like and or share the share post. Thank you!