How do I get the mouth of my character to be connected to the Head Symbol?

Question

Hi, I've been making an animation. I set up movie clip symbols on my character, except the mouth symbol is a graphic, and it has different shapes of mouths on different keyframes. In the lip syncing area I set up the mouths, to be for the correct sounds. Now when I press play, the mouth does not move with the character. I moved the character from one side of the screen to the middle. The mouth does not move with it, put the mouth is changing shape with the sounds (meaning the mouth is moving.) I thought maybe because I did not add the mouth shapes to layer parenting. I could not get it done with 1 go, so I went to each keyframe, and connecting the mouth shape layer to the head in layer parenting. Anyway, that did not work.

I tried maybe 10 times to add the mouth symbol to my head symbol, and I could not get it done. I was trying to add it to my head symbol, so it would move with the rest of the shape.

On my other layers, part of the body of my character, I have some classic tweens so that it moves. However, on the mouths shapes layer there are no classic tweens.

I saved a different version of the file and removed the classic tweens and keyframes except the mouth shapes layer. Because the text book said to make the mouth shapes layer a graphic symbol, with different keyframes, and different keyframes should have different mouth shapes on them, for different sounds.

Anyway, I tried to move the character and make classic tweens again, and the mouth did not stay with the rest of the character for most of the time I pressed play.

When the mouth shape graphic symbol is in edit mode, on its own timeline, all the mouth shapes are placed on top each other in the same position, so I don't know why it's not the same on the timeline.

I wend back to the file, that had the original classic tweens. I added the video below. I also added a file with my layers. Additionally, I added a file showing my mouth shapes graphic symbol, with different mouth shapes on different keyframes.

Grace5E91 · Accepted Answer

Hi, thanks I had to start over. But, I made my mouth shapes an asset, so I just had to drag it on to the character. I think it wasn't working before because I made classic tweens, and the character move, before making my mouth shapes graphic symbol.

_keyframer · Answer

As Mario said, what you want is to "nest" your mouth symbol inside the head symbol. Your mouth symbol can contain all of your mouth shapes. What I like to do is have my entire character in a symbol. Inside that symbol are all body symbols (torso, pelvis, arms, legs, etc) and a head layer that contains a head symbol. Inside that head symbol contains ALL related head/face features (eyes, nose, mouth, hair, etc).
Animation workflow: I do all my lip syncing inside the head symbol as well as facial expressions. On the parent timeline I do head rotations and body poses. All that being inside the parent symbol on the main timeline means I can scale and position the entire character's animations on the main stage.

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