How do I select the drawings of multiple keyframes to change them all simultaneously?

[maicacelli]

I need to change the color of a series of drawings (or animation, lol) but can't figure out how to select all drawings at the same time.

Also, as a bonus question, i'd like to know if there is any way to program "envelopes" or automations to, say, change the opacity of a layer along time. Would I need to do this in After Effects?

[n. tilcheff]

First question: You can use Find and Replace color to search and replace a colour in the whole document.

Second question: To tween values you need to wrap everything inside a container - Graphic Symbol - and tween its properties using Classic Tween.

If you do serious work, you can use Symbol Palette Control panel.

[maicacelli]

Woah thank you so much!! I didn't know the adobe community was so active. I'll check that out and mark your answer as correct if it works

EDIT: I was actually looking for a way to select a whole layer, because suppose I've drawn with the same color on different layers, I wouldn't want everything to be replaced. Is there a way to do this?

[n. tilcheff]

Hi again, mate, 

With the available tools there is no way to restrict colour replacement to one layer only.

What you can do, however, is to copy the layer to a new document, do the color swap there and then paste it back.

To copy a layer right-click on its name and from the context menu choose Copy Layers.

As a general production advice I would say: When designing your character palettes make sure you use different colours everywhere so that you can target them individually. For example, if eyes are always white (255,255,255) and you have two characters with white T-shirts, use different whites there - 255,255,254 and 254,255,255 will do just fine.

Hope this helps!

[maicacelli]

Ok, thanks for the advice. So, in your experience, what would be the best way to go about animating to avoid this issue? I assume that if you need to be creating new documents or avoiding certain colors it's not a very smart workflow.

For instance, what if I need to move an entire animation a couple of pixels to the right? I feel like there should be a way to at least group all keyframes to be a ble to manipulate them as a single object.

[n. tilcheff · Accepted solution]

If we talk about edits other than colour swaps, there are dfferent methods.

One is Edit Multiple Frames.

The other as mentioned before is keeping your stuff nested inside Graphic Symbols, so that you can go on the outside and treat it as one.

It is always a bad idea to work on the main Timeline.

More information how to organise flies for animation:

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

http://flash-powertools.com/character-rigging-for-flash-animation/

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

[maicacelli]

Thank you so much!

[n. tilcheff]

You're most welcome, mate!