I know there have been other posts similar to this before, but I don’t understand why this is happening: I’m making my hierarchies and my head is top of the first chain and I put the neck inside of the head on the timeline, the layer of the neck inside the head, but the neck went off the camera view and became very small the size was much reduced. This seems like a quirk in the application. This shouldn’t happen. I tried it several times and the same thing happened. I’ve noticed this before making hierarchies from my layer shapes. What causes this and how do I avoid it?
Thanks again!
L.
I read a previous post that you should put keyframes on the first frame of each layer on the timeline which I just did and that raised havoc too with the body parts going all over the place. Then I got rid of the keyframes and tried to make a hierarchy of the left shoulder, elbow and hand, same problems.
you have being resizing with the animate transform tool and not the select transform tool when creating your character (ie the one at the bottom and not the top).
You need to clear these. Sorry i forget how because i avoid doing it cause i am aware of the problem, but I am sure one of the toonboom staff will add that soon enough.
Sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re saying here. I hope someone can explain why this strange behavior happens.
you know the transform tool at the bottom you use for animating? you shouldn’t ever use that for setting up your (on the left in default view)character. You used that which created the issue. You need to be using the top one (first icon on the left panel of icons in default view).
Raider: I do. I use the select tool. At least I thought I did. I select the head say with the select tool and then make the pivot and go back to the Top view. The problem is when I try to put one layer within another.
Thanks Lilly. I’ll do as you say. Maybe I did use the Transform tool to some extent. I didn’t think I did. We’ll see if this works.
L.
I have done it before too. So I have been where you are (too many times!). Sometimes i guess you don’t realise because you are so focused on your art.
On a side note, I propose in documation they call them the select transform tool and the animate transform tool. I think that makes it more clear. Like when Lily said select tool, not transform tool, in my opinion(and i imagine most used to using art software) they both look and act like transform tools.
R,
You’re absolutely right. It is confusing the way it is because the Select Tool does far more than Select. It does transform as well. So, we can forget which we’re using unless we know not to use the Transform Tool for certain functions. I hope that this will stop the changing elements or me. Thanks again!
TheRaider is absolutely correct.
To correct this behaviour, what you need to do first of all is clear the keyframes on all your drawings using F7. Then after that, select all your drawing layers and do an Animation > Reset All.
Now when you do this, the size of your elements should change and become strange. So what you need to do is now select each element with the SELECT tool (not the Transform tool) and resize each element accordingly to get them to the appropriate size.
Now you should be able to drag and drop your drawing elements to make a hierarchy.
To explain as clearly as I can, when you make a hierarchy, the CHILD element (indented) inherits the Transformation (position, rotation, and scale) of the PARENT element. So if you make your Neck a child of the Head, then the Neck will inherit any scale, rotation, and transformation that was made on the Head with the transform tool.
Also you might want to think about your parenting scheme here. Generally, you would want your Head to be a child of the Neck, and the Neck to be a child of the body. You want to be able to set a pivot at the base of the neck, so that when you rotate the neck the head will move along with it accordingly.
~Lilly