How can I raise or lower the layers?

[Tricka]

I've created a layer for each part of my character body (left arm, right leg, head.....). When I join the layers in order to make the character entire, the left arm goes under the body. How can I raise that layer more than the body layer?

[slowtiger]

You can select a layer, grab it and drag it to where it should go. Mind you, this is not animatable, so a layer stays where you put it for the scene's duration.

[Tricka]

You haven't understood me. I wont to place a layer BEHIND another layer.

[slowtiger]

You already created several layers, right? Now the layer ordering is like this: the top layer in the layer palette represents the foremost layer. Any layer behind that is under that layer in the layer palette. To create the correct order of shapes in front of each other, you have to arrange the layers in the layer palette.

[Rasheed]

Well, there is a method to order layers during animation, but I don't think it is what the original poster wanted to know. Using the layer panel and ordering the layers in there is probably what he wanted to know.

The trick for animating layer order is to set the bone layer's Depth Sorting on (however, keeping the true distance option off), and move the vector layers (or image layers) that are bound to the bone layer in the Z-direction. If you only move by a small amount (let's say 0.0010), the size of the shapes in the vector layer will not change, but the order of the layer, relative to the other layers bound by the bone layer, will.

[mkelley]

Supposedly you will be able to animate layer ordering in 5.6, but in the meantime what I do is to dupe the layer and animate the visibility (that is, put the duped layer above or below the layer I want to change position with, and turn off the visibility of the one layer and turn on the visibility of the next).

This will be a lot simpler when animatable, obviously.