– The selection control of a hierarchy seems very ‘uni-centric’, it doesn’t readily allow navigation on more than one layer at a time. I’d like to -
select L and R thigh
rotate them simultaneously
step down to L and R shin
rotate them simultaneously
step down to L and R feet
rotate them simultaneously
that handy step-down function (Animation → select child) doesnt work when more than one layer is selected. I’m looking at coding something for this, but am I missing a setting/preference/hotkey that allows this already?
The (Animation → select children) command selects all descendants - handy for keying the entire sub-hierarchy of a layer, but it’d be nice to have a ‘select immediate children’ command as well.
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– Selection of multiple, non-adjacent layers would be useful also. I’m trying to -LMB or -LMB on multiple layers, either selecting their timeline row or the actual artwork in the camera, to no avail…always resets the selection to null before it selects the new layer.
I reckon that this is done easily in node-based animate Pro, but even so, I’d rather not use my (potentially changeable) node-connecting UI for control/layer selection.
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You can use the Rotation tool instead of the Transform tool and then use Ctrl + Shift to multiple select in the Camera view. Then you can rotate your elements. Or do a lasso to visually select both parts.
When using the Rotate tools don’t move the pivot points because it’s not a temporary offset like the Transform tool, it will offset the pivot for the whole duration of the scene and mess up previous animation.
to Lilly-
Currently I can select (in timeline/layers editor), three descending layers in a hierarchy - upper_arm, lower_arm, hand - then pose their rotations all at once…clocking the rotation control will cause the entire arm to sort of ‘curl’, in that all three will rotate at the same time, by the same relative amount, and they all work off their respective pivots, all is good. Can be very useful; though it typically needs reposing, it gets me N-percent of the way there.
Following Steve’s selection I can do the selection in camera, but it’d be nice to have the same select feature in the timeline editor. Selecting in cam view can be tricky, not so predictable when elements are stacked upon one another.
(sorry for delayed responde)
Hmm you know, I think this is kind of a tricky thing to do. Problem is, when you use multiple-select, it takes the pivot point from the first selected layer, I think. You’re much safer off rotating one limb at a time, and I find this very intuitive. As soon as you start using multiple-select, you risk rotating things from the wrong pivot points, and then you can get strange interpolations, because it will use the pivot point of the actual drawing layer when calculating interpolation.
How are you using this in your workflow?
~Lilly