Building a Character (Doc Chapter 10)

I have a rotational series of AI files for a character. Each is an independent file. I have imported each into my global library in an attempt to replicate the steps outlined in chapter 10 for rigging. There seems to be some discrepancies that I cannot rectify.

The manual leads me to believe that each rotation could be a series of frames in the timeline for one layer. For instance if I have 7 degrees of rotation for a character from front to back, each could be 10 frames for a total of 70 or so frames. 1-10 would be the front, 11-20 a slight turn to the right and so on up until the reverse angle. The screenshots (specifically on 371) seem to make me think that Ballerina_Model is 5 poses.

I cannot recreate this type of scenario with templates. At best, I can drag my first tpl to the timeline, build the layers, the drag a second tpl to a new layer and split it up to those named layers as suggested.

If I try to put tpl1 on frames 1-10 then drag tpl2 to 11-20 it only extends the frames of tpl1 to 1-20.

In other words… I see no way to put my tpls on the same layer for the purposes of splitting like is shown in the docs.

I have a workaround obviously, but am puzzled if I’m missing something obvious.

I think you can do this by pressing the ALT key while drag and droping the second tpl in the Timeline layer. This will open the Drag and Drop Paste Special window. In this window choose Always create drawings instead of the default drag and drop paste option which is Only create drawings when the do not exist.

Be aware that changing this option will affect all subsequent drag and drop in the work session. If you reopen Animate it will go back to the default drag and drop option.