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Parent / unparent in place?

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 12:48 pm
by mrc
Hello, everyone,

is there a function, key-press, hidden menu item, setting or script that allows me to move layers into or out of groups while they maintain their position in world space?

Cheers,
Marc

Re: Parent / unparent in place?

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 1:23 pm
by slowtiger
No.

The only thing which helps is a lot of discipline while building characters: don't scale layers, don't give them a Z value other than 0, don't build stuff far from the origin point.

Re: Parent / unparent in place?

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 3:16 pm
by VĂ­ctor Paredes
Sadly there's nothing to help there, besides copying the position and scale of the original group/bone layer to a new one, for instance.
I would love to have a way to do this automatically.

Re: Parent / unparent in place?

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 4:24 pm
by Greenlaw
I agree with what Slow Tiger wrote: Don't scale your character layers. It's better to make all your art the proper scale to begin with and leaving the layers at 100% is the way to maintain that. If you're using vectors, scale the shapes instead. If you're using image layers, place them in groups, scale the layers but leave the group scale at 100%. This makes it easier to add new drawings (hands, mouths, etc.,) and scale and placement becomes less of an issue. This also makes it easier to use Styles to adjust line thickness globally and other issues that might come up during production. I can probably come up with more reasons, but it's easier to say: keep as much as you can at 100% scale if you can.

If you need to scale the entire character and rig, it's better to place the rig inside a 'master' parent group and scale and position that layer instead. Sometimes I'll nest the rig in multiple 'top' groups to which I apply my global transforms. This allows me to use multiple origins and apply squash and stretch tricks without affecting the scale of layers/groups within the rig itself.

Re: Parent / unparent in place?

Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 5:34 pm
by mrc
Thanks for your replies, everyone.

It's not about character building, it's about scene layout where I grouped layers, arranged them, then decided I needed a different hierarchy. I'll just get me another handful of that 'discipline' then ;)

Marc

Re: Parent / unparent in place?

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2019 8:20 am
by slowtiger
Sometimes it's possible to just render a certain composition and re-import that image. (Change project size temporarily for that, if necessary.)