Moho Forum

Hi, Tony here.

I have a bone layer with several vector layers in it. I made a second bone layer and copied some vector art into the new bone layer. I copied the vector art by means of select all/copy then pasted the copied vector art into an empty vector layer in the second bone layer.

The problem is, the copied vector art arrived smaller than the original.

Is there a way to paste vector art into a new layer without that art getting scaled? I want it to arrive exactly the same size.

Thanks,
Tony M

Normally the copied parts have the same size as the original. If you did any vector layer scaling operation, those are not copied with the vector artwork. If you scaled a parent laye, like your bone layer, this scaling will not be copied as well.

You can test for this easily if you just duplicate the vector layer and put it outside the bone layer. If this gives a different size, you did a scaling operation with the bone layer.

That's exactly what I did. I wanted everything a little bigger in the original bone layer so I could see more detail when doing renders.

Is there a way to transfer that scaling to the new bone layer? Or strip away the scaling from the original bone layer?

I tried copying the frame 0 keyframe for "scale layer" and pasting it into the frame 0 spot for the new bone layer, but it didn't work.

Am I stuck with having to scale-up each and every copied shape that I paste into the new bone layer, to keep them the same size?

Tony M

Why don't you just duplicate the first bone layer? It will duplicate every layer which is inside of it, as well as every keyframe you created so far.

Oh, I was staying away from doing that because I have switch layers in the bone layer, and it's my understanding that a bug manifests when duplicating layers in a bone layer that possesses a switch sub-layer. The bug causes the application to crash when attempting to delete a bone. I had this problem recently, in fact, and had posted about it to this forum.

If there's a way to undo the scaling, I'd prefer to do that. If it's possible. Or some other nifty trick.

(I never should have scaled the bone layer; I should've zoomed. Ugh.)
Tony M

I've come up with a good work-around.

I made a green square under the original bone layer, then I copied/pasted the square into the new bone layer. It arrived shrunk, of course. So I selected the new bone layer and translated and scaled it until the copy of the square fit perfectly over the original. Being squares, it was pretty easy to get them perfectly aligned.

After doing that, all the vector art I copy/paste from the old bone layer into the new bone layer becomes resized to match the original.

Ta dah!

Tony M

Just copy the scale values of one layer to the other.

Click the scale tool and at the top you should see the values. You can just copy those values to the new bone layer.

You can do the same with translation if the layer was moved as well.

As far as that "bug" goes... are you sure it applies in this situation? I read the sequence to duplicate it and thought it involved a more complex sequence of events. I duplicate bone layers with switch layers inside all the time without any problems.

-vern

Cool! I'd never noticed those scale values before. Thanks! Using them is waaay better than my scaling-the-square method.

Regarding the bug question...I'm not 100% sure about the cause. I thought duplicating a switch layer in a bone layer was the culprit, because somebody else thought it was. But I don't really know.

I'll make a back-up copy and test it real quick. Be right back.

Hm. The bug didn't manifest. Possibly several quirky events must be done in a certain order within a duplicated bone layer containing a switch layer in order for the bug to appear?

It's a nasty bug, if your bone rig ever catches it. No bones can be deleted in the affected rig, even new bones. And if you duplicate any vector layers and drag them into a different bone layer, that bone layer will catch the bug, too.

Thanks for helping me with that scaling problem! I had a feeling I was missing the sensible solution. This application has so much capability, it can almost do anything I can think of.

Version 6 will probably be a robot that will do my animating for me. Whoa!

Tony M

I think the "bug" requires moving layers out of a switch with bones and into a new bone layer... I read Genete's description when he first documented it and realized it was possible to do in the course of working with AS but... not something that would happen a lot of the time.

I think that maybe I have only encountered this once myself and just went back to a slightly older version of the file. I am not sure my encounter was the same thing but I do remember not being able to delete a bone once.

I would have to say... duplicating bone layers with switches is normally perfectly safe... I do this so often myself I can't imagine that is all it takes.

-vern

heyvern wrote:I think the "bug" requires moving layers out of a switch with bones and into a new bone layer... I read Genete's description when he first documented it and realized it was possible to do in the course of working with AS but... not something that would happen a lot of the time.

Oh. Well, that's not so bad as I was thinking. Whew!



Tony M

Although it is off topic please follow the instructions of this post and tell me if it really crash or not.
-G

heyvern wrote:Just copy the scale values of one layer to the other.

Click the scale tool and at the top you should see the values. You can just copy those values to the new bone layer.

You can do the same with translation if the layer was moved as well....
-vern

I, too, made the common mistake of thinking I could use Layer scaling while building a character. Now, when I need to move an arm or leg layer to a different place in the Layers palette, the layers I move suddenly change their size and position.

This looks like a good tip for repairing characters after making that mistake.

Before I get too deep into it, I want to ask: do you have any other tips, or a better, quicker way?

I only have 2 characters to worry about, this time, so I'll go with Vern's tip for now.

Seems to me the best approach, since I'm going through 2 characters and about 50 layers is:

Make sure each layer shows all zeroes ["0"], and each layer shows all ones ["1"] for scale.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Others will benefit even if your tip comes too late to stop me. I'm going to try that.

Right now I have to animate characters which were build by someone else. Now in one scene after doing a lot of animation I noticed some parts were missing. I got an improved rig mailed, imported the part I needed, and put the corrected layer inside its place in the layer hierarchy. The amazing part was that it got its correct size and position instantly!