Skip to main content
rnbutler87
rnbutler87
New Participant
April 16, 2020
Question

Unexpected stroke scaling inside clips using Animate CC 2020

  • April 16, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 2728 views

Hi,

 

I'm a long time Flash user but haven't used it in about 5 years. I've come back to it now and so have just downloaded the latest Adobe Animate CC 2020 trial and am playing around with it. I'm loving a lot of the new features like the camera and layer depth and parenting. 

 

BUT

 

What's going on with stroke widths? It's a bit hard to explain so I've recorded a video:

 

https://www.loom.com/share/526c4fc551d143bd8087bfac5d703c20

 

If the stroke scale is set to 'Normal', the symbol behaves, for the most part, as expected. When you zoom on the stage or camera, or scale the clip proportionally, the strokes scale proportionatlely. However, if I just want to scale an arm symbol along one axis, for example, the whole stroke scales.

 

Doing some digging, I can see that I could set the scaling to horizontal. But then I would never be able to stretch the arm in the vertical axis without the artowk stroke width increasing. You can see the problem because it means that different parts of the rig will have different stroke widths over the course of the animation (note the differing thicknesses of the stretched sleeve to the hand) or limit me in not being able to squash and stretch limbs - one of the major principles of successful animation!

 

The solution online seems to be to set the scaling of the stroke to 'None'. BUT then strokes don't scale at all in any scenario, whether zooming in on the stage or zooming or out using the camera; they stay at a fixed width. Which is an even less desirable solution!

 

Am I missing something? Because this seems pretty obvious but I can't find a setting in preferences or anywhere to get this working as expected.

 

I'm not harking back to the 'good old days' but rather trying to find the solution to a problem now when animating in this program using a character using strokes for outlines. 

 

The other solution which is an obvious but undesirable fix is just to not use strokes as outlines for my character - outline everything using the brush tool. However, this is not a good solution because it is a lot more work, introduces the management of a lot more verticies, and it precludes you from being able to change line thicknesses for a whole character as the scene demands it, e.g. for far away or closeup shots, with other characters or scenes etc

 

If any one can help point me in the right direction I'd be really grateful!

 

Many thanks.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    A
    Andrea5CB5
    New Participant
    February 15, 2021

    Hello,.

     

    Select your lines and set it at "Expend to Fill"

    🙂

     

      P
      Pawan36367252to5d
      New Participant
      April 3, 2024

      Life saver dude, I only started using Adobe animate like 3 days ago, was stuck on this problem, thanks!

      n. tilcheff
      n. tilcheff
      Brainiac
      April 16, 2020

      Just don't use the camera, mate, and all will be well!

      Sooner or later you will end up running into one of its bugs and then you'll be annoyed at wasting so much time, making your project dependent on an unreliable feature.

       

      Nest your animation inside a Graphic Symbol, sync it to the main timeline and use that as camera - error-proof and tested for decades.

      An example of how to do it can be downloaded here:   http://flash-powertools.com/edapt-movie-template-free-download/

       

      You won't be able to use Layer Depth if you work one level deep, but hey, no sane person works on the main timeline anyway. It's a path to disaster and devs know that very well. So Layer Depth is out of the way too. 

       

      What's left? Layer Parenting. Good luck in the mine field.

      Welcome to Animate in 2020, where each new feature is in contradiction with all the rest!

       

      Nick - Character Designer and Animator, Flash user since 1998 | Member of the Flanimate Power Tools team - extensions for character animation
      rnbutler87
      rnbutler87Author
      New Participant
      April 16, 2020

      Hi, appreciate your reply.

       

      I'm disappointed now with your review of these new features! And indeed, I can see that layer depth does not work inside symbols, which is disappointing because I was hoping this would provide a neat solution for getting limbs to go infront of and behind body parts without having to key them on a new layer.

       

      In terms of the line weight issue, am I missing something then when zooming in and out of the canvas (using regular zoom tools, not camera zoom)? For example, when stroke weight scaling is set to none (which is great, so you can squash and stretch your symbols without the line weight changing), when you use the zoom tool to zoom in and out of the stage the strokes seem to remain the same size in relation to the viewer.  See the video to see what I mean:

       

      https://www.loom.com/share/38d6364584d142a08af214be4d28122c

       

      As a result, when you zoom out, the thickness of the line weight looks so thick in relation to the character, so much so that it actually obscures the character!?

       

      Is there are setting I'm missing to rectify this bizarre functionality?

       

      Many thanks.

       

        n. tilcheff
        n. tilcheff
        Brainiac
        April 16, 2020

        I did see the first video, mate. It all made perfect sense.

        And also thought your post was very well written and all points you made were valid, that is why I said what I said.

         

        'None' would have some limited application in some limited scenarios (where sizes stay the same) and it is a welcome feature, but for anything practical you would just have to use 'normal'.

        Zoomed out view is a minor concern as the outlines will still render fine, but if you scale the character down or up, you will experience the same effect and it will not look good. 'None' is 'none'. And you want proportional, but with intelligent compensation, which is not available. 

         

        (If I try to formulate the logic about how such compensation could be implemented, I'd say the only thing I can think of as a point of reference for the scaling would be nesting the character two levels deep and getting the scaling from the outer wrapper; then you would be able to distort your internal symbols as much as you like and stroke scaling won't change. But if you scale the whole, it will scale proportionally. I doubt that such approach will ever be even considered by the devs as it requires an advanced structure to function. Professional software Animate may be, but they are trying to appeal to the novices and still promoting bad practices such as animating on the main timeline, not registering your symbols properly and even using Movie Clips for animation as they seem to consider this 'easier' to do.)

         

        If you don't do too extreme squash and stretch and if you don't hold any of these extreme poses, 'normal' should be fine.

        If you need to hold them, you'll have to add frames inside the symbol and give it special attention.

         

        I've personally developed a taste to design characters without outlines or with only partial outlines as it's more functional this way. I know it's a stylistic preference and won't argue against outlines.

         

        Nick - Character Designer and Animator, Flash user since 1998 | Member of the Flanimate Power Tools team - extensions for character animation
          Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
          Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices