Copy Particle Layers.

[ekulis]

Hi,
I have a particle layer with arrows moving down to indicate flow in a pipe. The pipe has a valve and when the valve closes the arrows dis/re-appear at various times during a looping animation. This is working fine in 2 particle layers that I created from scratch. The dis/re-appear occurs differently for each of the layers.

The pipe makes a 90 degree turn. I'd now like to to copy a particle layer and rotate it 90 degrees shorten the length of travel of the arrows and have the arrows come on and off just as the layer they were copied from.

The trouble i'm having is that I can't seem to find a "Select all" meaning some way to select the entire layer, timepoints, visible and invisible an all other settings, and rotate it 90 degrees. (I'm just thinking now that maybe I enclose each layer in a group. ( parts of brain only engage when your talking))

I've gone to time zero and tried selecting, particle layer and the vector layer, all the keyframes. But what always seems to happen is the it acts as if I've just selected one key frame and the arrows move all over the place.

Let's call all the elements of the particle the "Particle Object" ( if Anime has a better name let me know).

My question is: How to duplicate the Particle Object(group ), translate it, rotate it, and shorten the distance that the arrows travel?

(If my group layer idea is the right one, maybe responses can help with other cool things re particles. (You need an expert when you don't now the question to ask so please answer any questions I haven't asked.))

[slowtiger]

Duplicate a layer: in the layer palette. See the icon with the + sign?

If you rotate a particle layer, everything inside should be rotated as well, however, if gravity is involved, it will show different effects on the particles, naturally.

[ekulis]

Hi slow tiger.

Dup / move layer is helping me. It's behaving better but it's still whacky in my hands or something about rendering and in Anime 7.

No need to try and fix what I'm about to describe since I'm ugrading to 8 later today.

Seems like after a T0 shift the partcles remeber the previous state.

T0 > Select layer arrows disappear so you rotate without seeing them > start animation > arrow pops up in the old position. Dissapears arrows in new position. This is really feeling like a bug.

But like I said 8 later today ....


ttyl

[Distinct Sun]

without seeing exactly how you have the particles set-up. I may be off.
but I if I wanted to move arrows down a pipe I would use follow path.

[ekulis]

Hi Distinct,
I'm good now. My initial problem was that I didn't realize the importance of remaing at T0 most all the time.

I had had invisible sections where the particles were wild but I didn't see them until I changed the key frames. It's newbie stuff and I'm getting much better now.

Also I don't know if it's 8 or not but it seems that there's much more clickable control of key frames in the timeline now.

I'll try the follow path for other purposes.