Synchronize multiple characters so they all do the same movements

[Matthew3458065379f7]

Hey!

I am doing a simple 2D animation in Animate and, in this particular video I have what amounts to backup dancers. I'd like to synchronize their movements and am wondering if there is a simple way to do this. I have animated one character, and then copied the character (all the layers that make up the character) to create a clone.

Now the clone is directly on top of the original. I tried moving clone to one side, but this only affects the frame I'm on, so once the frame passes to the next keyframe, the clone returns to its first position, beneath the original.

I tried selecting the entire timeline, and moving the clone to the side, but that didn't work either. Anyone have a good way to do this? Thanks!

[kglad]

drag layers to change the layer's depth on stage.

if you use graphic symbols, not movieclips you don't need to copy and paste layers from your symbols to the main timeline.

[Matthew3458065379f7]

Thanks! Not sure I understand though. Each body part is a separate symbol. So, I selected all the body parts (they are in a folder) and copied them. Then I selected the clone and dragged it away from the original, but that only moves the clone for the key frame selected, not the entire timeline. Thanks again.

[kglad]

what kind of symbol are the body parts?

[Matthew3458065379f7]

They are Graphic symbols. If it helps, I attached an image of my project.

[n. tilcheff]

The proper way of doing this is to put your dance animation (all the layers which define one character) inside a graphic symbol (container) and have as many instances of your character on stage as you need.

If there are differences in design you can create duplicates, but still all animation should be done inside those containers, which you can easily reposition, rescale and tint, or even offset with one-two frames to achieve a more organic-looking final result.

https://flash-powertools.com/keeping-cycles-flexible-for-easy-re-timing-by-using-service-frame-and-w...

[Matthew3458065379f7]

Worked like a charm you are the best! Thank you!

Would you recommend turning the original dancer into a symbol after I animate it the whole way through, or does my order of operations not matter?

[n. tilcheff]

The order of operations does not matter, however, setting up the proper nesting structure at the start is a good practice, and makes the process easier to control.

The trouble with 'good practices' is that they are usually based on past experience, which is difficult to have, when you're new to any kind of activity.

As a general rule, one should not work on the main timeline.

If it is of interest, this is a description of how things should be organized:

https://flash-powertools.com/workflow/

And here is a sample FLA, showing the application of these good practices:

https://flash-powertools.com/edapt-movie-template-free-download/

Good luck!

[Matthew3458065379f7]

Ok this is awesome. It's obvious but I'm new at this. I definitely have found a few best practices the hard way so far, and really appreciate the workflow links. I'll go through them this weekend. One more thing Nick if you don't mind! Animate appears to not have certain shortcuts. The big one for me is zoom in/out on the timeline. I'm on a Mac, and I can't even create a shortcut because the commands are not listed in the menu, so they can't be assigned to a keyboard. Is there a shortcut for this I'm missing? I hate having to drag the slider. Thanks again!

[n. tilcheff]

Hi Matt,

Originally, in Flash there was no slider at all - only several predefined sizes of which the only two I have ever used were "Normal" and "Small".

What I tend to do is keep my timeline undocked, so that I can resize the panel to see more layers or more frames, depending on what I need.

You can save different workspaces with the different dimensions of the timeline and switch between those with keyboard shortcuts.

[Edit: Sorry! They seem to have removed the option to assign shortcuts to specific Workspaces in Animate. You can do it in Flash.]

Also, you can open a second view of your file via Window > Duplicate Window, so that you don't need to constantly jump in and out of symbols.

[Matthew3458065379f7]

Thank you again Nick! Went through the tutorials above and I definitely have a lot to learn. I don't have a great feel for how to organize my workflow into symbols. I'm employing a mix of folders and working on the timeline, except when I have an animated figure I then want to duplicate. This works ok, but I am running into a situation where once I turn an animated figure into a symbol, and I want to animate that, the initial animation no longer shows up. For example, I animated a lipsync for a character that I wanted to duplicate. I turned him into a symbol for duplication. Then I animated the symbol "hopping" up and down, which caused the lip sync to no longer be visible. Very strange. Thanks again for all your help!

[n. tilcheff]

Hi Matt,

It took me about two years to get to a point where I could intuitively set my nested symbol structures as I go without making mistakes and stopping to re-think and rework my setup from time to time.

As long as you have a good understanding of the principles that guide your decisions and how graphic symbols work, you will get there. It takes time.

Symbols only exist in the Library. On the Stage we are dealing with instances of those symbols. When we transform an instance on the outside the symbol itself is unchanged, so other instances will be unaffected. It we enter the symbol for editing, however, and make changes inside, all instances will reflect those changes.

So sometimes one needs to duplicate a symbol and only edit the duplicate. Or refer to different sections of the symbol's timeline to show different animations, when using the same symbols.

A typical way of handling a head symbol is to run it as a synced timeline, where every frame in the head symbol matches a frame on the character timeline. Then if you have the character talking for 200 frames at first you have the lipsync on 1-200. Then you have the jump and since the head is synced you show frames 201 to 230 where the mouth stays closed.

You can achieve anything with the Single Frame, Play Once and Loop properties and nesting symbols. Nesting will become second nature with practice.

[Matthew3458065379f7]

Thanks Nick! It took me a bit to digest this, but I have made some strides with my setup. I learned to use multiple scenes as a way to construct things like loops away from the main timeline, so if I make a mistake it's easier to source and contain. I learned to paste loops on the timeline and start them on different frames if I wish. I had a bigger project that called for a background loop couple with several other loops, so that helped me get a better feel for it. I think I figured out why I was having issues animating symbols that I had already animated (lipsync a dancing person). I was using "paste and overwrite" when pasting sequences later in the timeline, but switched to "paste" and it seemed to help stop the conflict. Maybe "paste and overwrite" pastes deeper into the symbol?

Questions! And thanks again for your guidance! I'm sometimes use images (png) for "heads". Like South Park when they have a celebrity in the show. I'm noticing sometimes the image gets all distorted (almost zoomed in and blurry). If I zoom in on the stage it becomes clear again. But when it exports the image is distorted. Do you think this might be becasue the images I'm using are too large? I'll attach an image. In this case, a few seconds in, the image corrects itself. Thanks!

[n. tilcheff]

I'm glad to hear you're making progress, Matt!

Yes, it is very likely that Animate will not be able to scale bitmaps beyond a certain range. 

You can try to alleviate the issue by having a 'hi-res' and a 'lo-res' version of your bitmap and switch between the two depending on the type of shot you need.

[Matthew3458065379f7]

Thanks again Nick!

[Nicktendo28]

Agreed, you want to give Powertools a try. 

[Vladin M. Mitov]

You need to turn on Edit Multiple Frames and then select the entire layers of the cloned animation
in order to move it to another position on the stage.