Last layer in CYCLE LAYER behavior disappears.

Report · Feb 06, 2019

Hi everyone! I'm trying to do a simple cycle layers animation, and it keeps disappearing when it hits the last layer. I've tried this on multiple characters.

The layer is set to visible. I add a trigger and a cylcle layer. But in the Scene panel, all layers are invisible until I push the trigger, then it plays the cycle and disappears. I can check the "Hold on last layer", and it holds, until I push my trigger again and it again disappears.

Please helpa. I know it's something simple, but I can't figure it out.

Thanks!

John D.

Report · Feb 06, 2019

I am not exactly sure how you want it to behave, but I set the hold on last frame and a reverse flag so when I push key animation plays, then when I let go it reverses. What experience are you after?

Report · Feb 06, 2019

Hey there, Alan! I was just watching one of your tips on youtube. Thank you for being willing to help everyone on here!

I have a dog with a tail. I want the tail to be still until I trigger a cycle-animation to wag the tail once, then I want it to be still again.

The typical behavior is that it makes the tail disappear completely after the cycle finishes. With the Hold-On-Last-Layer, it will pause at that layer, then resume when I press the button again, and then disappear completely after the cycle finishes.

So I have these folders/layers:

TAIL FOLDER

still-tail layer Trigger 1

WAG-tail FOLDER Cycle Layers, Trigger 2.

I load the PSD into CH. The tail is there in the RIG view, and I add the cycle layer to the WAG folder but the entire TAIL folder disappears when I switch to SCENE/RECORD view. I've tried several things. The typical behavior is that I push Trigger 2, and the tail appears and cycle animation ONCE, but then disappears. If I add the "Hold-on-last-layer" option, it cycles once, stops on the last layer, then I can trigger it once more before it disappears.

What's the simplest dumbell mistake? (tried restarting the program. Tried setting all the layers to VISIBLE.)

Thanks for any suggestions!

John D

Report · Feb 07, 2019

Happy to help. I got kicked out of my study because my youngest wants to “stream a video”. (He has 2 subscribers - friends at school.) So I cannot try it out. I don’t really quite understand cycle layers myself (how to use them well). I was hitting similar behavior the other night.

One I did was a butterfly which cycled continuously, and that seemed fine. Hold on last frame seemed useful. Putting cycle layers under things like eyes seems to be okay (so you can animate the movements). But cycle layers on their own seem... interesting.

Ideas if you want to experiment a bit. I was wondering if you could have a swapset with still tail plus another sibling (in same swapset) with a continuous cycle layer in the alternative - so you display the still tail or the wagging tail. Would be hard to line up the timing though... Maybe use the same key to trigger the swap set as triggering the cycle layer? But at end you would have to time it right (unless it automatically takes the swapset back to the original).

The other idea that I think has more chance of success is you can have a continuous cycle with Continue After Pause enabled. You can tag one of the layers with “Cycle Pause”, and then use a trigger I think to make it keep going. So if you put that tag on the first frame (or maybe the second?), with continuous cycle on hopefully it will pause, then you trigger it to allow it to continue through the cycle until it pauses again (because of the looping flag on). That would seem to do what you need? Wag once and pause waiting for next trigger?