Bones and Objects Tutorials Question

[baskervils]

At the end of the Basic tutorial, you can import a beach ball into your animation. I did it! Unfortunately, when I try to move the beach ball to a different location on the screen, the bones don't move with it.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance!

Rob

[alano]

Are you moving the bone or the layer? If your moving the layer, the ball will move without the bones. You want to move the bone and the ball should move too. Hope that helps.

Alan

[baskervils]

It's weird. The bone either moves by itself or the beach ball moves by itself. I've tried every tool and can't seem to get them to move together!

I'll keep plugging away.

[alano]

Did you assign the beach ball to the bone? I forget the tutorial now but you have to either assign the ball layer to the bone or the ball points to the bone. If you forgot to press the space bar, you didn't assign anything to the bone. Retry it.

Alan

[Adam Taylor]

I am very new to animation all together. I am haveing the same issue.

If I open a new document and import the beach ball and try to move the bone and ball togeter they dont. The layers are already setup when I import them. if I try to make the ball bounce across the screen the bone wont move with it. I don't unstand how to link them togeter. I am using the beach ball sample because every one using the software will have the exact same setup as me.

Thanks in Advance

[baskervils]

I've moved on to the next tutorials and everything else seems to be fine.

I've tried everything in the world to bind this bone to the ball but nothing seems to work. I'd say skip it and move on to the next lessons. I'm half way through tutorial lesson 3 and everything has been OK.

It seems like some of the tutorials leave out steps, assuming we novices know more than we do. Especially when it comes to layers.

[Adam Taylor]

I need to understand this to move objects acroos the screen. I am currently building a stick man that walks from off camera right to off camera left. He walks perfectly off camera but I cant get him to move across the screen and keep the bones with him. He move and the bones stay put. I can move the bones across with out him but then the animation goes nuts. It need to be one movement.

[baskervils]

Have you done the bones tutorials? They show you how to combine the bones and pictures.

[Adam Taylor]

I did all the tutorials but none of them have you move an object across the screed. When you do the bones with frank you only animate the bones them self. If I want to make frank jump up and down like in the tutorial or the beach ball and have it move across the screen from right to left keeping the bones with the object. I am lookin at it right now. If you open a new document import the beach ball it is in the middle of the screen. How do I make it bouce from the right of the screen(Frame 1) to the left of the screen?

[heyvern]

The bones can control either the points of a mesh or a layer.

If you move the child layer of a bone layer (not moving the bones)... the bones won't move... they are not "linked" to the ball. The ball layer is linked to the bone or the balls points are linked to the bone.

In the case of having a character walk across the screen but the bones don't go with it... you are animating the movement of the layer or the points... if you do this the bones won't follow becaue they are PARENTS of the layers UNDERNEATH.

If you animate a layer or control points that you THINK should be controled by a bone or bones... you would be moving them away from their original reference position to the bones. Moving or rotating bones will based on that "offset". The bones are parents to the vector layers they influence. Moving these "child" layers independantly of the parent bone layer will effect this relationship.

This can be a bit frustrating at first. At some point it will "click". You need to keep plugging away... experiement. That is how I got the hang of it. I just kept doing all kinds of stuff experimenting with bones... and layers... binding layers to bones... points to bones... and redoing the tutorials etc etc ad nauseum.... until I finally saw the light.

IMPORTANT!
Don't try "animating" on frame 0... that is the "setup" frame. Stuff done here is different than moving things on later frames. If you move bones on frame 0 nothing really happens. Frame 0 is for the "set up" of characters and stuff.

-Vern

[heyvern]

To make the beach ball "bounce" from one side to the other and still have the bone "controling" it...

Two ways...

Translate THE BONE LAYER to either side on key frames... the bone layer controls the ball layer... it is the parent.

... or

Translate the bone that CONTROLS the beach ball layer or points.

If you move the beach balls points or the layer... then the bones relationship to the ball layer is changed. You have changed the balls point position in relation to the controling bone.

You can move points independant of the bones but this would be for tweaking the motion rather than large movements across the screen. If you use bones for motion then... use them for big movements... moving the sublayers or points will in some ways defeat the purpose of using the bones in the first place.

If a character is walking across the screen... then... you need to either do a walk cycle with the bones... and move the bone layer for movement across the screen... or move the base bone of the skeleton (hips? Which ever bone is at the top of the hierarchy) across the screen.

-Vern

[Adam Taylor]

I got my stick figure to walk across the screen.

Thanks

Adam