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Known Participant
August 29, 2025
Question

Adobe Animate 'Layer Depth' - Not working inside symbols only on root timeline

  • August 29, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 309 views

For those who do not know, Adobe Animate Layer Depth feature is awesome for animation.
The ability to move layers up and down the stacking order as part of an animation is great.
Eg: Put an arm in front or behind the character as they gradually turn.

Unfortunately it only appears to work on the root timeline which is very short sighted to say the least and not at all useful. Probably due to a technical constraint hopefully ?

When inside a symbol the Layer Depth panel is active but none of the layers can be moved up or down the layer stack? The individual layers in the symbol are visible they are just not working. This is where it makes the most sense to be functional when animating cleanly inside a symbol.

So to make my long-winded point.... when will this be enabled fully within a nested symbol?

    2 replies

    kglad
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    August 29, 2025

    just drag the layers up and/or down on the timeline.

    Toby5C93Author
    Known Participant
    September 4, 2025

    No thats not a solution, the ability to swap layer depths during an animation INSIDE a symbol's timeline is crucial.
    The fact that it works on the root timeline, but not work inside a symbol despite the layer depth panel showing all the active layers inside the edited symbol is clearly a bug. Obviously the intention is for it to work on any active timeline.

    Just needs to be fixed or disabled.

    kglad
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 4, 2025
    n. tilcheff
    Legend
    August 29, 2025

    So to make my long-winded point.... when will this be enabled fully within a nested symbol?


    By @Toby5C93

     

    Never.

    Just like all other Advanced Layers-based features, this one was dead from inception.

     

    If you want a working system, switch to Smart Magner Rigs (SMR) while you still can:

    Nick - Character Designer and Animator, Flash user since 1998 | Member of the Flanimate Power Tools team - extensions for character animation