Animating with Strokes Help

[ThePerseverer]

Hey,

I need some help on creating animations with strokes. Obviously if you animate without strokes, it is fairly easy as everything just blends together when you move it, but with the use of strokes, are there any methods to avoid stroke edges becoming disconnected as you move them. I'm a beginner, so this may be something simple I'm missing.

I have separate layers for my rabbit's bicep, forearm and paw, and these disconnect when I move them. Is there a way I can keep them together regardless of movement? I know I could just make the strokes have no gaps in them, but then each body part looks individual, and I kind of want it all to look as one.

[synthsin75]

Looks like you're using v11 or older. If you have them, patch layers would work. If not, you could place fill-only shapes on top of the limb layers to cover the stroke where you want, leaving each part fully outlined. This works for flat color fills, like you show.

[slowtiger]

There's several ways to tackle this problem:
- do stuff in just one shape - not very practical.
- welding shapes. This is good for stuff that doesn't bend into angles.
- overlapping shapes - this is where most problems occur. You can:
- - have additional points in the area of the overlap, so you can move the end of the stroke where you want it. Additionally you can bind individual points to certain bones.
- - create the overlapping stroke part as a separate stroke, attached at only one end.

[ThePerseverer]

Thank you both, I will give these a go and report back

[ThePerseverer]

I managed to do it somewhat. I think I may be able to mask the stroke gaps and oversized strokes more with different movements, when I add fur layers to the Rabbit too.