uncle808us wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2019 8:51 pm
What is the placement of the reference layer?Above or Below the Main character folder or,
above or below the view layer if the view layer which one?
I read the manual and the tutorials for reference layers but they don't mention this usage.
Layer order shouldn't matter. As a matter of fact, the layer that's being referenced doesn't even need to be in the same project. (i.e., when you use Import By Reference.)
Change one view layer like Front view Head move points then have all other views change the head points like in the front view head. So each head in each view is changed.
But you are saying that as soon as I manipulate a bone it the animation these changes will be lost?
Not exactly.
Let's go back to the original example you described where you wanted to give a character a bigger belly and have this reflected in each view.
This probably doesn't make sense for the front view for most characters, but it probably depends on the character design. Where using a reference layer might make more sense is when you need to edit a drawing to be more or less identical to another drawing, so, I think left and right views might be better candidates for using a reference. For example, draw a complete left side view in one layer and then reference that layer and rename it as the right side view. Make sure the origin is set to the character's spine so it mirrors correctly when you horizontally flip the layer or group.
Now, if later you decide to make the character fatter, leaner, more buff, or whatever, edit the left side drawing and the right side drawing will automatically update with the changes.
Some changes won't come automatically, like when you add a point to the original. In this case, you'll need to manually choose Update Layer Reference and enable Replace Mismatched Vectors. There are other things that won't automatically update, so it's a good idea to experiment with this feature before committing too deeply to it.
If things do get really messed up, like after you've added and deleted a lot of points in the original, it's usually easier to just delete the reference layer and create a new one than to try and fix the problem directly.
Re: your question with the bone, this only applies if it's the bones layer that's being referenced. If you change the bones animation in the original bones layer, the skeleton in the referenced bones layer will receive the changes automatically. But if you start animating the skeleton in the reference directly, the animation will become different from the original. if you decide that's not what you wanted, you can use Sync All Channels To Original, which will replace the animation with what is in the Original. Naturally, this will wipe out any changes you made to the Reference.
Now, if what you really wanted is to keep the new animation you have in the Reference, I think you can just copy and paste the changed keyframes from the Reference to the Original. Then you can use the Sync All Channels command on the Reference so it becomes an exact copy of the Original again.
Of course, it's best to avoid messing up the Reference in the first place. To help me with this, I like to rename and color code my Reference layers. For example, if I have a 'Head' group that I wish to reference, I'll rename the reference version 'Head REF' and maybe color code it red to make it really obvious that I shouldn't edit this layer.
This is when I wish Moho had the option to lock a layer from editing. If the re-naming and color coding doesn't keep you from making unwanted changes to a reference layer, Wes (Synthsin75) has a useful script that will let you lock a layer. You can download it elsewhere in these forums.
Hope this helps.