How to select on single parts in imported image (png)?

[Xzeit99]

Hello.

I'm very new to Adobe Animation.  I made my characters in pieces (head, legs, arms etc.) in one canvas in Photoshop, then saved as PNG.  I have imported into Adobe Animate and I wanted to selected one piece the arm.  I used the lasso tool, but it keep selecting the whole thing or showing the box.

Any idea how to select only one piece at a time?

[Gooneybird12]

You'll need to save each piece as a separate PNG file to work with them this way. But it would probably be easier to just import the PSD file, as it will maintain the separate layers automatically.

[n. tilcheff · Accepted solution]

Hi mate,

With a PNG it won't be as straight forward as you'd expect, since PNG is flat.

Maybe if you keep your elements as layers in Photoshop you would be able to import as separate elements and then convert each one to a Symbol to animate independently.

It is not impossible to break apart a PNG and then individually convert pieces to Symbols, but this will be a very bad idea to give to a novice.

Good practice requires you to actually create your character in Animate, not in Photoshop or Illustrator.

Here is how you should do it if you want hassle-free animation process: http://flash-powertools.com/character-rigging-for-flash-animation/

And here is how to organise production: http://flash-powertools.com/workflow/

Good luck!

[ClayUUID]

It's not working the way you expect because Animate is inherently vector-based (like Illustrator), NOT bitmap-based (like Photoshop). For most purposes Animate treats bitmaps as a single atomic object.