I am having difficulties putting my character BEHIND a hill. The character goes behind the trees, but not the hill! I have 4 layers(sky, foreground, and two hill layers). It isn't letting me using any of the tools on the character, save for the translate, scale, and rotate layer, and set the origin.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Aside with a few other problems, I like this software. I'm trying to make a 2 minute animation for a contest this Monday. First time using the program and it is stressfull to learn(for me at least). The depth in the program is astounding and I know I will like it, once I get the hand of all the different things.
goto your preferance settings under the edit menu and make sure the drawing tool enabled on frame zero only option is not checked . you should be able to re-order your layers the way you want then or make sure you are on frame 0
jonbo wrote:goto your preferance settings under the edit menu and make sure the drawing tool enabled on frame zero only option is not checked . you should be able to re-order your layers the way you want then or make sure you are on frame 0
Thank you for the response! I went to the preferance settings like you said and I'm not seeing the drawing tool enabled on frame zero option. Is that only on Anime Studio 6 and 7? I have 5.
Version 5 doesn't allow for layer order animation and it doesn't have the option for drawing on frame 0.
However you should still be able to put the character behind the hill, you just can't animate this process. Drag the character layer UNDER the hill layer in the layer palette. You say you have 4 "layers"? You mean separate vector or bone layers?
More a question than help... Can he use a mask that turns on and off to help make it look like the character is behind a hill? I'm guessing he's moving from in front of the hill to behind it.
Actually there is a way to key frame layer order changes in version 5 using z-axis translation.
Here's how it works...
In the project settings turn on "sort layers by depth". Additionally you could turn on "Enable 3D camera" but it is not neccessary for this to work.
You can also set "sort layers by depth" in the LAYER PROPERTIES on the "Depth Sort" tab. Not sure but I don't think using "Sort by true distance" will work or help with this. I didn't use it.
When you turn on the "sort layers by depth" this means that a layer translated in the z axis (front to back) will appear in front or behind another layer that is higher/lower in the z axis.
The trick is to set all the layers z translation values of the layers you want to change layer order. For the layer you want to change the order just key frame the z translation value, + or - of the "default" value you set.
For example a "hill layer" would have a z translation of 0. The character is behind this layer in the layer palette and it's z value is ALSO 0. Later in the time line you want the character layer to move in front of the hill. Key the layers z axis translation value to 1 (or any number higher than 0). Even though the layer is still under the hill layer in the layer layer palette order it will appear in front of the hill layer because its z axis translation is higher than 0.
Set the keys to "step" other wise the layer order will change half way between keys. By using a step key frame interpolation the layer order changes exactly at that key frame.
Enable 3D camera
If you have Enable 3D camera turned on in the Project Settings it creates "perspective". This allows you to have layers appear further away or smaller when they are translated in the z axis. It's a "true" 3D effect.
If you need this turned on and still want to change layer order but DO NOT want "perspective" effects (for example changing the order of arms and legs of a character to move in front or behind the body) then you must use much smaller z translation values. Like, 0.001, otherwise an arm or leg will appear to "shift" or change size due to perspective. Even a very small value will create a slight shift. With Enable 3D camera turned off the 3D perspective isn't shown and larger amounts can be used for z translation.
Keep in mind that if you have a lot of layers that need to change order and you use the enable 3D camera, even using a small value could cause shifting because one layer might be -0.001 but the top layer might be 0.005. To move the lower layer higher requires a larger change in the z translation.
heyvern wrote:Version 5 doesn't allow for layer order animation and it doesn't have the option for drawing on frame 0.
However you should still be able to put the character behind the hill, you just can't animate this process. Drag the character layer UNDER the hill layer in the layer palette. You say you have 4 "layers"? You mean separate vector or bone layers?
-vern
Well, I have version 5.6, and I can do layer order animation with it. You just have to remember to put all the layers you want to swap around inside a Group layer.
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
or make sure you are on frame 0
