Saving and Opening Puppet Stage Projects (New in version 5.3)

More than just saving a project that stores animations, saving Puppet Stage projects also includes applied and referenced effects from the animation cards in the Puppet Stage panel.

Saving Puppet Stage Project

1. Create a project with a scene and an object (character or prop).
   
2. Add animation cards for the character in the Puppet Stage panel. Notice that these animation cards are only references points to the actual animation-related files.
   
3. Save the entire project to Puppet Stage Project library.
   • Click the Save Project button on the toolbar.
     
   • Click the Save button to save the Puppet Stage project to the custom library.
     
4. Cartoon Animator will save not only the project, but also a "Trigger Motion" folder.
   
   In the folder, it contains all the real files referred by the animation cards of the object.
   
5. For sharing the Puppet Stage project, you need to not only share the Puppet Stage project (*.ctPuppetStage), but also the "Trigger Motion" folder.
   

Opening Puppet Stage Project

1. Apply the Puppet Stage project to Cartoon Animator.
2. If the "Trigger Motion" folder or any files within are missing, then a dialog box will appear and request the missing files.
   
   • Auto Search: Selects the folder containing the lost files.
   • Browse: Connects the real file to the selected item in the list one by one.
   • OK: Closes the panel.
3. The project will be open and the Puppet Stage panel with the animation cards will be launched automatically.