Hello! This is Mana!

 

On this topic, let’s talk about setting up your workspace, I will be using my GIF Animation or Keyframe Animation workspace for this example. Setting up and optimizing your workspace depending on your work; whether that’s drawing, making comics or animation is a good practice. A clean and organized workspace makes everything faster and it looks less intimidating.

 

We will be hiding a lot of stuffs that we will not be using for GIF Animation. I’m also using the Pro version, but this is also doable on EX. We’ll also talk about how to load and reload our Workspace, how to move from one Workspace to another and some Interface guide as well; so you can set up your own Workspace.

 

This Workspace works best for those who have small monitors! I’m using Acer S200HQL (1366 x 768); which is quite small but I’m making it work~

 

If you do not want to read, you can watch the video version of this topic here:

Let’s start!

INTERFACE COLOR

This step is optional!

When I first opened Clip Studio Paint, it looked like this:

And so first, let’s change the interface color or the color of our software.

Go to File > Preference or press [CTRL + K] on your keyboard > then go to Interface

 

On the COLOR; I stayed on Dark and drag the slider to the left, making my interface darker.

*This is a personal preference. I have sensitive eyes and darker color reduces the strain on the eyes.

 

You can change the COLOR to White or LIGHT if you want and even go to the brightest intensity.

 

Again, this depends on what you want and what you’re comfortable with.

 

I will be staying on the DARK with the darkest intensity for this Workspace.

Click OK when you’re done.

TIMELINE TAB

Now let’s go here, at the bottom tab, expand that using the ^ arrow.

And this is our Timeline.

*If you had closed this, just go to Window > Timeline to get it back.

Click the header and drag the Timeline Tab to the LEFT side of our screen.

Hover your mouse (while holding the Timeline Tab) to the side until a big red line appear

Now just adjust the size of the Timeline Tab to maybe half with the space of the RIGHT side of your screen

RIGHT SIDE AREA

Now let’s arrange the stuffs on the Right side of our screen. We will be hiding a lot of things, let’s start with the Navigator.

 

Go to your Navigator > Then click the “Three lines” or the Option Box > Hide Navigator Palette

 

And now our Navigator is gone!

Now do the same with the Sub View and Item Bank.

But let’s leave Information there.

 

Information is a good tab to keep visible when you’re animating. This tab basically show the information of your system. It tells you if you still have RAM, if your workload is heavy, if your animation is rendering, stuffs like that. I always look at this area because I’m very paranoid about my system, the last thing I want is to run out of memory or have something fail on me while animating.

 

Alright, let’s continue hiding some tabs.

Hide also the Layer Property, Search Layer, and Animation Cels.

Do the same with Auto Actions as well.

 

Remember that you can access all of these Tabs that we hid on the Window

Just click [Window]; and all of those without checkmark are the hidden tabs.

 

Now we go back to the remaining Tabs on our Right.

On the Layer and History tab, stretch that out.

 

So we have more space for the Layer tab and a smaller space for the Information; that’s okay, since we only need the System information.

 

We’re almost done with the Right Side Area, now let’s expand this tab besides our Layer tabs.

Click the < arrow; this is our Quick Access and Materials Tab

 

I don’t use these tabs when I’m animating. And so let’s hide them, but rather than hiding them one by one, let’s just click the >> arrows to HIDE the tab.

LEFT SIDE AREA

We go now to the Left side of our Screen.

Now look to your bottom left; you can see our Color Tabs.

 

We don’t need those, so we’re going to hide them one by one.

Remember that this is a GIF Animation or Keyframe Animation Workspace, we animate on this workspace, we don’t draw, so we don’t need these Color Tabs.

 

Now we stretch the Tool Property tab so we get more space, leaving the Sub Tool Area with a small space.

 

Having more space for the Tool Property is ideal since that’s our main animation menu for Keyframe Animation. Leave a small space for the Sub Tool Area, just so we can see what tool we have.

 

 

TIMELINE THUMBNAIL

We’re also going to modify the Timeline tab for a bit.

Make something or load a previous animation file so you can access the Timeline.

You can see that the Timeline is quite messy. There’s too many thumbnails.

 

I prefer having no thumbnails.

So we Right Click (on the Timeline Layer Tab) > Thumbnail Size > None.

 

And this basically makes everything look clean. This setup forced me to name all my layers and I’ve been doing it since then. Naming your layers is a good practice.

But if you really want some thumbnails, maybe just for reference sake.

Use the Layer Tab at the Right Side of our Workspace.

When you click a layer on the Timeline Tab, you also highlight that layer on the Layer Tab.

 

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

This is optional, but this makes my work efficient and faster.

So let’s make some shortcuts; go to FILE > Shortcut Settings

 

The shortcuts that I use the most when I’m animating are for: Image Sequence, Duplicate Layer, Flip Horizontal, Zoom and Hand.

 

• IMAGE SEQUENCE - this is my most preferred animation export method.

Go to Main Menu > File > Export Animation > Image Sequence.

Double click on “Image Sequence” -- a box will appear.

Input your shortcut using your Keyboard; my shortcut here is CTRL + M

 

• DUPLICATE LAYER - this is for duplicating layers (especially with animations), this is good for doing mirror animations.

Still on Main Menu > Layer > Duplicate Layer

Double click “Duplicate Layer” -- until a box appears

Input your shortcut; I’m going CTRL + J

 

• FLIP HORIZONTAL - this flips the view or preview of our drawing, and not the drawing itself.

So we go to Main Menu > View > Flip Horizontal

Double click “Flip Horizontal --- box appears

Put your shortcut; I use H

 

• ZOOM - like the word itself, it’s for zooming in and out.

We go now to Tools > look for Zoom

Double click “Zoom” -- type your shortcut, I’m going Z

 

• HAND - this is for moving the canvas.

Still on Tools > Move > Hand

Double click “Hand”; my shortcut here is M

 

You can also add your own if you want

Just make sure you click OK when you’re done.

 

SAVING YOUR WORKSPACE

So now we have our Workspace, let’s save this.

Go to Window > Workspace > Register Workspace

 

Insert your label/name for your Workspace, I’m going GIF Animation

Make sure you click OK when you’re done, and now we have our very own Workspace!

CHANGING WORKSPACE

Let’s say you want to go back to Drawing and you want to change your Workspace

Just go to Window > Workspace > Illustration

 

Keep in mind that Keyboard Shortcuts don’t copy, for example, shortcuts made on GIF Animations stays there and doesn’t transfer to Illustration

RELOADING WORKSPACE

There will be times where you’ll be moving tabs

 

And so in order to return your workspace back to how your originally saved it, just go to

Window > Workspace > Reload “name of workspace”

And your Workspace will be back to how you originally saved it.

DONE!

And that’s it! That’s how you make your Workspace!

This is my GIF Animation or Keyframe Animation Workspace that I’ve been using for some small GIF for friends and stuffs. This is really ideal for me because I have a small monitor and I’m not seeing a lot of tabs so that it doesn’t look overwhelming when working.

 

--------------------------Sadly I don’t post my animations on any sites but you can find my drawings/works on deviantART:

 

Thank you for reading!

Cheers!