I hate to keep asking questions, but there’s nothing else I can do.
I’m trying to select individual symbols, a calf, thigh, etc., and I’m not able to select the thigh which is my foremost layer, I can select the foot which is the back layer for the figure. Can’t I select individual units/symbols so that I can rotate and move them? I know I can, but I can’t figure this out. Please help!
asking questions is good. If you need to ask somebody else too.
That sounds strange. Are you sure you haven’t accidently locked the layer you are trying to select (there is a little padlock next to the layer which goes red when locked, click it to unlock)?
Thank you.
No, I didn’t lock the layer. Or any layers.
What is happening is this: I can click on the foot and select it. I can click on the calf and select it, but whenever I try to click on the thigh the other two are selected as well, so I can’t pivot or rotate the thigh. The thigh is the top most layer and the other two are imbedded, so the thigh I guess is the parent of the other two, or the other two are inside the thigh because this is how the tutorial was done. Could that be why I can’t move the thigh independently? it doesn’t make any sense. The parts should be able to move on their own, right?
Niceee ;D
Niceee ;D
Thank you Lily. I expected as much. But, I’m a little overwhelmed with what you’re saying here. Do I select each symbol/layer and go to make a peg? and how does this work…I’ll try it and look at the help files and if I get lost I’m cry out aide moi! help!
I really don’t think the support materials are the greatest. In my opinion they are too generalized and aren’t detailed enough. One needs to be taken through all of the steps to make things work. I know because I taught for many years and I could never assume that everyone in the class was “with me” all of the time.
Lily,
I made the pegs for the drawing layers as you suggested, but if I click on the left thigh which is the parent layer, and I’m clicking on the left thigh peg layer, it still selects the thigh, the calf and the foot. However, I can double click on one of these symbols and then it is selected. I just can’t see the movement with the other parts visible. So, still not able to do this.
Another thing is in reading about pegs I’m a little confused because I don’t know what the advantage would be to using the peg layers to animate over using the drawing layers?
Okay thanks, but why should I use a peg then?
Pegs are good for keeping all the animation data for an object.
If you make it so the peg isn’t visible all the animation disappears.
What Lilly means if in the layers box if you select the peg then the whole parent child chain is selected.
However if you select the drawing layer you can readjust the object relative to the chain. So select the drawing in the layer box rather than the peg to achieve what you are trying to do.
Thanks.
If I decide to add features, say a different mouth expression or eyes closed, etc. should I make a symbol for each and then make the head the parent? I’ve been having a little trouble with that.
yeah I definitly prefer making the features of a face the child of the head. It makes perfect sence because you want them to move with the head and makes it easy for drawings subs.
I been experimenting with just drawing all of the heads on one layer (new layer for each view) with the mouths. SO when I go to run the Auto Lipsync I name the heads accordingly.
I made a list, sort like an xsheet, and on every 15th frame I start a new expression.
I have the basic expressions down like Neutral, angry, surprised, Neutral looking up, down, ect ect ect.
It might be a foolish thing to do, but I am just experimenting with this, and to tell you the truth, I think it might work. We will see.
Well, you’re way ahead of me Alex! say, I don’t want the action/speed to be fast and I’m not sure how many frames I should allot for each new gesture. Any tips with that?
storyboard, even if stick figure sketches too get an idea of pace.
Alex - Why a new layer for each head view, and not just a new layer for every mouth view. I do it the second way.
The positive for your way is you can just fold away the head your not using quicker I think, but the negative is you are going to have 5 head layers.
I have several variations. The amount of layers does not matter because I am making templates out of each head view, so i will be removing them after I turn them into Templates.
Their is one layer that has all of the mouth positions and expressions, that will be a template as well.
If for whatever reason I need to swap a head (although I cannot think of a reason why I would ever need to), i can just drag the appropriate head template onto the stage. This makes it very simple to swap heads, and you will not have all those millions of layers for eyes and nose, whites for the eyes, pupils, ect.
I think this way of setting up my characters will work for me because of the way I like to work. In the user guide it states for us to find what methods and techniques that work for us individually, and the way I see it, it is up to us to experiment and see what we can come up with.
Having said that, It is very difficult to visualize what will work and wont work. So after I am done I will do a test animation and see how it goes.
Hi,
The Rigging training video that will be released this Friday should cover and explain a lot of the questions raised in this thread.
Hopefully it will be helpful! 
Marie-Eve
Now you are getting into the “Timing and spacing” topic. Something I have yet to master.
A good place to start is Jason Ryan webinar kind of backs up what raider mentioned regarding using stick figures/
Jason uses stick figures to take care of the “performance”/ timing, then he takes it into Maya for the final animation, only thing is you will be taking it into Animate.
Do let me know how it goes.
I am interested in all the different methods 
I admit i basically use stick figures in my storyboards. They are super easy to work with.
This is so great to get this thread going. But, how on earth do you think I could tell about the speed of my scene/clip by doing stick figures on a storyboard? I don’t work that way. And, I don’t see how it would work. You’ve got me totally nonplussed here. When I create a scene I decide that I want to make it 300 frames say, 10 seconds, and then I know how long it should be. But here with the figure I’ve made I’m just not sure how many frames to do for say standing front, then she looks up at the sky, then she slowly turns to the right, etc…this I’m not sure of. Should it be 10 frames before the next movement, 3 frames, I know 1 frame is really fast. So, I’m confused here.
I use stop motion and use 3 frames for each still.
Lily, so glad you’ll have a new tutorial soon. I’ve been watching one on character rigging.
Lucin