Animating a static image

[avillageofbigheads]

I started with the " Walk animation " hands on tutorial. i modified it a bit . Works as expected. Added a motion tween to the Background as explained in the tutorial. It all works as expected. So far so good. I then added a static image,  School_girl_side  ( as can be seen in the attached image) . Linked the static image to the background. It appears like the boy is walking towards the girl. Still working as expected . At this stage, i wanted to animate the School girl frame by frame while the rest remained the same. So on the School_girl_side "layer" , i did the "Convert to frame by frame Animation" and selected the option " Keyframe every fourth frame" . at this point if i move the girl to a new position in a particular frame, she remains in the original postion in the other frames, but at the new position in that particular frame where i moved her. But if i move/alter parts of her , her eyes or mouth in one single frame, the changes get applied to all frames. i also tried the options " break apart" / "distribute to layers" , but i still can't change individual portions of the girl to be different in multiple frames . How can i accomplish this ?  Thank you. 

[n. tilcheff]

Start learning the basics of symbol nesting here: https://helpx.adobe.com/animate/tutorials.html

A good video turorial with some basic stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtlVx-dNHcw

[kglad]

the girl is in her own layer

the bench is in its own layer

they both tween (similar to the background) until the boy stops walking

is that correct?

[avillageofbigheads]

The girl is in her own layer. I've attached (linked) the girl to the background layer ( the bench is part of the background layer). The motion tween was created on the background layer. Since the girl is linked with the background layer, she moves along with the background, making her appear stationary. 

[kglad]

is she going to be linked throughout the duration of your animation? 

if not, move her to an unlinked layer.  otherwise, create keyframes in her layer where you want her change posture.

[avillageofbigheads]

yes. she's going to be linked through the duration of the animation. I did try creating keyframes in her layer where i wanted to change her posture . I can move her as a whole to different positions in different keyframes and that works. But if i try moving only say, her hand or her eyes, then all the keyframes end up with the moved hand/eyes. that's whats bothering me 

[kglad]

she should be a graphic instance. you can then coordinate her timeline with the main timeline. ie, if she's offstage and unchanged for the first 300 main timeline frames and then at frame 301 her eyes should look to her right, put a keyframe on her timeline at 301and edit her to look to her right.

[avillageofbigheads]

I did try what you said. she's unchanged for the first 150 frames and at 151st frame, i created a new Keyframe and then made her eyes look to the right, but frames from 1-150 also change. I tied another approach. I comverted her into a graphic symbol. i created a new layer at which i added the graphic symbol. changed the eyes of her direction, but the eyes in the original layer also change . How is that possibke? It doesnt mattter what i do, any change on the girl character at any frame/layer changes the original as well. I'm not sure what else to do. I'll add the animation file. You could give it a try if you'd like to as well. i think its a fairly simple problem, but this being my first attempt, i'm not able to solve this issue (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KxC11cg5l8hN71E2X60kRp-swxDkgGjh/view?usp=sharing)

[kglad]

you didn't do what i suggested.

here she is looking to her right at ~frame 90

https://www.kglad.com/Files/forums/Test_animation.fla

[avillageofbigheads]

yours does work. Im still confused about what is it that i didnt do . i made a graphic symbol. is that different from graphic instance. I think i should do some basic courses before i carry on. Either way, thank you for your help. 

[kglad · Accepted solution]

i think you have graphic on the main timeline, but then nested inside that graphic as a movieclip and nested in the might have been another movieclip.  everything from the main timeline instance to most nested object should be graphic symbols.  also, i think there were some timeline/frame count issues with one or more nested object.

[avillageofbigheads]

ok. got it. thanks a ton. 

[kglad]

you're welcome.