Moho Forum

I am practicing head turn tutorials. I am getting better at it, however I have run into a few things make it hard.

If I have everything in different layers (face layer, eye layer, hair layer, ear, nose, etc.) is there way to have the layers swap their order of appearance in the action? For example, my right ear layer needs to go behind the head when it turns right, however, given that I need to have the right ear layer come to the front to turn the head left. Is it possible to achieve this?

Yes

There is a checkbox for group and bone layers in the "Depth Sort" tab of the layer properties called "Enable animated layer order". Check this box and you can key frame layer order within the group or bone layer.

On any frame simply change the order of layers in the layer palette and a key will be created for the parent group layer. You won't see the keys on the individual layers. The key channel for layer order is always on the parent/group layer's time line, not on the layer that is changing. So when moving the layers around you will need to select the parent or group layer to see the keyframe locations.

I mention this because I often get confused when animating layer order. I forget that I have to select the PARENT layer to see where the layer ordering keys are in the time line.

Also, if you animate layer order in a smart bone action, you can no longer change layer order in the main time line. Smart bone actions will take over animated layer ordering. In my opinion this is not a problem with "head" or "face" layer ordering for turns, but is a problem with BODY TURN smart bone actions.