Actions + Animated Layers

[DK]

Have I gt this wrong or is it only possible to have one action per layer?

EDIT:
To be more specific. I am experimenting with point animation and actions to make a head turn. I have all my shapes spread over several layers under the main group. I want to be able to animate points on several layers at the same time, switch the layers around when appropriate, then record the resulting animation to an action but it appears I am only limited to creating actions for one layer at a time. So for point animation and actions it appears that the animatable switch layers are useless as I am limited to animating points on only one layer at a time????
Does this make sense?

D.K

[synthsin75]

As long as you create your action while the group layer is selected, and then alway reselect it before changing sublayers, your actions will include every layer you add keyframes to.

Enless you are just trying to copy animation from the main timeline into your actions. In that case, I do believe you are forced to copy each into the action separately. If it is feasible, you could keep everything on one layer, and then split it up after you've made the actions.

Hope that's helpful. (as opposed to making it more confusing)

[DK]

Thanks for te reply sythsin75. I'll try again but for some reson i'm having difficulties with it. I might try animating all the objects on one layer then splitting them up.

Cheers
D.K

[DK]

Hmmm....this is more comlicated than I thought. I have to insert an action for every layer in the group then insert an animated switch key for the group so that the layers swap at the correct time. This can get terribly confusing with 20-30 actions. What layers do I swap where? Why can't we have a function that will simply copy/paste a block of animation layers keys and all???

D.K

[synthsin75]

Uh, creating an action for a group layer also creates it for its sublayers.

But yeah, the timeline could really use some work.

Perhaps an example would help me understand what you're trying to do.

[DK]

Ohh...my fault synth....I was'nt creating the actions correctly
It's starting to all make sense to me now. It would be nice to be able to jst copy paste blocks in the timeline though

Thanks for the ear synth

Cheers
D.K

[mkelley]

You were probably running into the old "select another layer, dump out of the action" syndrome. It's extremely annoying to have to keep selecting the action whenever you change layers, but as long as you are careful to do so it will work.

This is actually my number one peeve with AS -- actions are such invaluable timesaving tools and yet this can trip you up to have to keep selecting the topmost layer and action you're working on. Arrrghghghh!

[Genete]

When editing an action between several layers of a group you can move up and down in the hierarchy but not from side to side (between same hierarchy level). If move from side to side you return to the maintime line and exits the current action edition. Using partner terminology if you want to travel from a child to other child you must need to select the parent first.
Try to watch DarthFurby's Head turn Video tutorial #1 and see how he also make same mistake. Funny and illustrative. It's worth to watch.

[DK]

Hi Genete. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but I just watched Darths video. Firstly it appears to me that actions are not really meant for point animation. All my point animation action keyframes, when entered on the actions layer acording to Darths video ,appeared not on the main timeline but on all the main groups sub layers? I followed the video very closely.

After this I went back to the AS manual actions tutorial and began getting more sense from actions by using bones parented to all my objects shapes and assembling the character as per the AS default example. But when using point animation the actions again appeared in sub layers however when using the bones to move the shapes around it restricted the inserted actions to the bone layer only.It was much easier to apply the animated switch layer feature this way.

Totally agree with you there mkelley.

D.K

[DarthFurby]

Hey DK, actions are basically a place to store keyframes so you can copy/paste them to a timeline. As long as you put all your layers under one master group/bone folder, and only create actions on that master group/bone folder, you can paste keyframes to any and all sublayers. It's a great way to paste keyframes across multiple layers at the same time in one click.

To automatically copy keyframes from the mainline into an action first create or enter an action timeline, make sure you're not on frame 0, then select "mainline" in the action window, and click "copy".

I'm not sure if that solves your problem but hope it helped.





Side note: in the first video I didn't know how to properly move between sublayers in an action timeline until I created the second video. Thank God Genete came to the rescue.

[DK]

Hi Darth.
I was hoping you would respond so I could ask you a couple questions re: Actions?

1. Problem I have with actions being created across multiple layers is that when a character has 20 or so layers it becomes a massive effort and near impossible to delete or edit the keyframes in the middle of a complicatd animation. Is there a way to confine the keyframes to one timeline or must the keyframes always sit across these multiple layers?

2. The only way I've found to confine the amount of keyframes to 1 timeline is by parenting all objects on 1 layer only to bones. This way all the keyframes are created on the Bone Layer timeline. Is there a better/easier way?
The problem with this 1 layer technique is that you can't use the animated switch layer feature ?


D.K

[DarthFurby]

The ability to edit/copy/delete keyframes over several layers at the same time is not just a limitation of actions but a serious limitation of Anime Studio in general, making it difficult to work on large multi layer projects. It's on my top 10 list of feature requests.

Having said that I know of two work arounds:

1) Create your entire character on one layer(which you've already mentioned) - this approach makes it extremely easy to modify keyframes and animate your character without having to jump around from layer to layer. For animated layer re-ordering just separate the necessary parts into layers after general animation is complete.

2) Create your character on multiple layers and use scripts to edit your animation -

Delete All Keyframes from a Single Frame Tool created by Touched:

viewtopic.php?p=37679

And,

Key All Keyframes to a Single Frame Tool created by Julien Steigler:

http://animatic.no-ip.com/pub/dev/moho/

These tools really come in handy on multi layer projects, but generally it's better to limit the number of layers in your project wherever possible.

[DK]

Hi Darth.
Thanks for the tip on those scripts. I'll give them a shot.

Cheers
D.K

[DarthFurby]

I use the Delete all Keyframes script quite a bit, but I'm still hoping for the needed feature updates.

[chucky]

="DarthFurby"]Hey DK, actions are basically a place to store keyframes so you can copy/paste them to a timeline. As long as you put all your layers under one master group/bone folder, and only create actions on that master group/bone folder, you can paste keyframes to any and all sublayers. It's a great way to paste keyframes across multiple layers at the same time in one click.

To automatically copy keyframes from the mainline into an action first create or enter an action timeline, make sure you're not on frame 0, then select "mainline" in the action window, and click "copy".

Thanx Darth this is something I have been looking for but , try as I may I can't do it. What am I doing wrong?