Simultaneous previewing in animate CC ?

[manont8448118]

Hello everyone !

I have been animating with after effect for a while, and it has something great that animate doesn't have, and it's just ( for me, as a character animator  ) too important not to mentioned here.

when we animate in after effect, we can see the preview of multiple composition ( a comp from outside + the inside. Exemple : i animate the lipsync or facial expression of the character AND i can see the animation of the body in another previewing window in real time at the same time, so i know where i am )

Now that i animate with animate CC, i realise that it simply doesn't have this option ( or does it ?? )
I have to come in and out of the comp to make the animation ok. It's long and not precise at all. take note of the numer of frame between each action...
Is there a way to preview the comps simultaneously ? a plug in or so ?

Thanks !

[_keyframer · Accepted solution]

Interesting idea.

In Animate are you using Graphic symbols? Just asking because Graphic symbols are in sync with other timelines (parent and children). If you are using Movie Clip symbols then you have to test your document to see nested animations play.

But what you are requesting is, if you are inside a nested animation, you want to be able to play or scrub that child timeline and see the parent timeline(s) play in sync correct?

[_keyframer]

Thinking through this and working in nested symbols as I type this, the only way this would work is if the child timelines had at least the same number of frames as the parent timelines. In many/most cases, the child timelines have much fewer frames than their respective parents.

I create many motion graphic animations in Animate. My main timeline can be 2-3 minutes long. At 30fps we're looking at over 4,000 frames. But most of the Graphic symbols on my main timeline hold animations that usually loop for a fraction of that many frames. So if I am editing a symbol with say 100 frames and this child timeline starts on frame 1000 of the main timeline, are you asking to see the parent timeline also play from frame 1000 to frame 1,100 from inside the child timeline?

[manont8448118]

Hello

Thanks for your answer

yes i'am using graphic symbol. most of them are in "play once" and sometime " only one image". It's quite rare that i use "loop" in my type of animation.

But i understand the problem with the different number of frame in each level parent/child. but still, it should be possible to just view the main comp at any time...
Isn't it such a obvious animator problem to be constantly getting in and out of comp ?

This feature would make thinkg really faster

[_keyframer]

I can totally see the value in it yes. I'll suggest it to the engineering team. Great idea!

I've been using Animate since it was Macromedia Flash 3 (1999) and this idea never crossed my mind for some reason. Most of the time I'm syncing animation in the reverse order, where I work on the main timeline and sync to the child timelines. But I can totally see the value of seeing parent timelines play while inside the child.

[manont8448118]

It's great that you can suggest this to the engineering CC team i'm glad that you think that this is a good idea.

thanks for your answer. I can see some hope ^^

[ClayUUID]

Right-click instance on stage, Edit in New Window. If you undock the stage view windows, you can arrange things so you can see both the main composition and the subclip you're editing at the same time.

[_keyframer]

That doesn't work for me on my end. I undock the windows and select the child timeline window but when I play or scrub its timeline the parent timeline doesn't move at all. I'll keep trying but basically what the OP wants I think is to Edit In Place the child timeline and when playing/scrubbing, seeing the parent timeline play in sync simultaneously. Clay does your suggestion work this way on your end with your Edit In New Window idea? It won't work for me.

[ClayUUID]

Well no, a child clip can't control its parent's timeline. But you can instantly preview edits to the subclip's shape, etc.