Bones Tool and Free Transform / Arranging Components of a Bones-linked Object (Back-Forward)

[JJW83]

So, after two weeks, I figured out how to get my parts of my superman figurine to work with the Bone Tool. It took two weeks of research, watching videos on youtube, etc., before one person responded that the components must be individually made 'movie' clips. My Superman works, and is located here:

Superman3 Converted - YouTube

Here are my questions.

1)

The video I am making as a school project is going to involve a scene, up close, with several super heroes, similar to Superman above, are animated using the Bone Tool, over a background image, making hand gestures (like poses and stances). I then want to "zoom out" to show someone filming the the superior heroes, using a mockup iPhone I created using illustrator. So, in other words, the superheroes are front and center then the camera, or should I say perspective, "zooms out" to show someone filming them on a graphic iPhone.

In order to change the perspective, or "zoom out," the superheroes have to shrink, while the graphic iPhone and someone holding it moves into the stage in the foreground. I cannot figure out how to shrink an object once linked using the Bones tool. When an object is linked using the bones tool, it appears as though the first component of the object click becomes the static anchor point of the entire linked object. So, you can spin the entire object on that point, such as I did above to make superman take off and fly, but from what I have found, Superman cannot be shrunken to create the effect I am looking for.

I've tried using the Free Transform, selecting all components of the 'Bonesed' object, i.e. Superman, to shrink him but Free Transform does not shrink the link between the components. When shrunken, the smaller components--e.g. arms, legs, etc.--move idepdentently of each other based on the original link paths so they fly all over the place. Additionally, the change will not animate--so if it comes to a keyframe where the superheroes are supposed to get smaller because they were shrunken with the Free Transform tool, it just jumps to the smaller size and continues the animation with the hands and arms flying all over the screen.

How can I create the effect of the viewer's perspective moving backward, i.e., making the bones-linked objects smaller and moving them relative to the center of the state, while constraining the size of the Bones links proportionately so the 'further away,' or smaller, linked-components are still operable?

2)

Along those same lines, when the perspective moves backward and the superheroes shrink to create the perception of distance, they also need to move slightly to the right of the stage. How can I move a bones-linked object around the stage without breaking the links?

3)

I noticed that, when linking components using the Bone tool, the last component linked moves in front of the one from which it was linked. For that reason, when I move Superman's arms down they go behind his legs. If I link his legs first and then link his arms, the arms go behind the torso and because he has a cape that is attached to the torso, become invisible. Once linked -- arrange > move forward or send to front -- do not appear to work. Moving the layer that contains the actual component linked in the layers stack does not appear to work either. Is there a way to arrange objects linked together with the bones tool?

[Colin Holgate · Accepted solution]

If you copy the layers that make up the superman animation (select the layers and in the layer name area do a right-click, Copy Layers), then in the library make a New Symbol (again, right-click in the library to choose that, and make the symbol be a Graphic), and finally right-click in the layer name area of the new symbol and do a Paste Layers. You would now have a Graphic of the animation.

Make a new layer in the main timeline and drag the new symbol onto the stage. You can position it where it needs to be to play alongside the existing layers of the same animation. Once you're sure it seems right you can delete the original layers, with the armatures in them.

Now that you have superman as a Graphic you can do a tween to make it shrink and move to the right of the stage.

The arrange parts seems to work. Use the regular Selection Tool arrow and right-click on one of the body parts, and use the Arrange options to bring it forward or backward.