Moho Forum

Hi, everyone.
I haven't had Anime Studio for very long, and I'm not actually sure how to word my question, so I wasn't able to find any results using the search bar, even though I'm sure this has to have been asked before.

I'm using ASP 9.5, and I'm mostly just experimenting with it so I made a cube using the method of drawing one of those old optical illusion cubes, where you just connect 2 squares together.
By moving the points around I'm able to get it to look almost like it's a 3D cube turning around, but I'm having an issue I can't find any information on.
All of the object fills for the cube are on one layer together, and I need them to shift forward and backward in front of each other DURING the animation.
Sadly, if I use object select and use the arrow keys to rearrange them, they don't keyframe, so moving one in front just affects it across the entire timeline.
If anyone has any help they can offer me on getting this to work how I'm attempting, I'll be grateful.

Edit: After flipping through the manual, it looks like they word it as shape stack order. So I guess that's what I'm going with.
Wasn't able to find any information in the manual on how to animate the shape stack changing order during an animation though.

the short answer is that you can't animate shape order with native AS.

but IIRC there is a script over in the VIP section of the other forum -- might be worth heading over there and asking the question there ...

I'm not sure what you mean by other forum.
Could I trouble you for a link?

sorry -- just too used to saying "the other place" .. it's http://www.kelleytown.com/forum/animators/default.asp

BTW when I'm there this forum is "the other place"

I'm at work so I don't have Anime Studio in front of me or a manual to reference. By the way you can do animated shape stack order is by separating the "two squares" that you use to combine to make a cube and putting them into two separate layers than make a group folder and drag them into the folder. So kinda like this...

Group Folder
- Square 1
- Square 2

and then from their if you double click your group folder in the layer order list it will bring up it's properties and their is an option to check "enable animated layer ordering" or something like that and that allows you to change the "layer order" not the "shape stack order" in the time line.

Don't know if that is the answer you want, but hope it helps

-McCoy

@ hayasidist: Thanks for the link.
Only problem is, I'm looking here and it says you need 50 posts to enter that area. I'm not much of a forum poster, so it'd take me months to get in there, unless I made a bunch of pointless posts. Which I don't want to do.

@ mtbuck24: It's actually 6 squares, made up of 12 connected lines.

You can simulate shape sorting by stacking shapes and animating their opacity. There's a trick to stacking shapes on the same vector outline. Just add an extra line (with one point if connected or two if not) and select this when creating the next shape. You can then delete the extra line after each new shape is created.

You'll need 12 shapes, two for each face.

Is this the sort of thing? I did it with only 4 shapes, no order changes - i have a simple cycle for a single face rotation, and then I cycle the colour changes (4 times to make the colours cycle back to the start position...

Much less labor intensive than my example.

That example is pretty cool, and achieves what I wanted the cube turning to look like.
But the cube turning wasn't really meant to be a result on it's own. I was using it as an experiment as a basis for a possible animation technique.
But without the ability to dynamically change the order of the shape stack, the technique idea I had isn't viable.

I'd like to thank you all for your helpful input though. It's much appreciated!

animated shape order is a much requested addition to AS (I think first asked for back in 2009?!) - but I believe it's still not likely in the near term...

but you CAN animate layer order, so if you put the shapes you want to reorder in their own layers you have no problems (put the layers inside a group or bone layer and in its properties select 'enable animated layer order' (or whatever it's called)

well yeah... but the thing about real animated shape order is that shapes can share edges - and that's the motivation: keeping things connected that are connected and being able to change shape stacking order in the timeline as well as on frame 0... makes animating the "whole thing" much easier if it's all on one layer

(the first ref I've found to wanting this goes back to 2005 not 2009!! viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1240&start=15 )

true, I've always been a huge fan of using a single layer - but now that we have smart bones I think it's far less an issue, as you can do your animation on multiple layers once but recall it with a simple bone twist from then on...

funksmaname wrote:but you CAN animate layer order, so if you put the shapes you want to reorder in their own layers you have no problems (put the layers inside a group or bone layer and in its properties select 'enable animated layer order' (or whatever it's called)

I'm trying to work out a similar thing, i know its a stupid question but what do i do after i've done that to make the layer order change? I'm trying to do it within a smart bone dial for a body turn, any help much appreciated