Parenting Like in After Effects
Am I not familiar enough with Character Animator or what, but here's my problem:
I have a little experience in After Effects before. There is a thing called "parenting"
It means I can parent layer "b" to another layer "a", and hence everytime layer a is moved layer b will follow that layer a movement. However I cannot find such option in Character Animator. A layer can only parent to its own group, and cannot parent to another layer outside its group. For example say a hair in the back of the head group and body group.
It looks like this:
- Character/Puppet
-- Head group
-- Body group
-- Hair
Won't it be very helpful if we can parent the hair into the head group instead of the entire character?
That way the hair will move everytime the head moves?
And this can apply to arms and torso. I have puppets that consist of two set of arm groups. Namely the back and front arm group. The front arm group is used when the hands of the character needs to be in front of the face.
It looks like this:
- Character/Puppet
-- Front arm group
-- Head group
-- Back arm group
-- Body group
And this are only a scarce of cases. Many things can be achieved if we just have this option.
I have thought about the magnet option, but the problem with magnet is the layer needs to be independent to work effectively. Many times I can't make a layer independent for reasons.
Thanks for reading!
Hopefully you can understand what I am trying to deliver...
Ebenheizer Manullang
shared this idea
4 comments
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Ebenheizer Manullang
commented
Sorry for my long response. I don't check this regularly.
Stefan Böker
No, I cannot do that. Changing layer order will affect the puppet's appearance. Say a hair, if I change the order it can cause the hair to be in the front of the head and the body, just for example.Nate V
Yes, that's what I mean, the hierarchy is so limited right now. We need something like parent behaviour.Kyle Gordon
Right? Let the engineers know we desperately need this feature. -
Stefan Böker
commented
You can change the group order by open the puppet in Photoshop and put the layers in other groups. Or define new groups inside Photoshop.
Did I understood your point right?
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Nate V
commented
I'm an After Effects user and it drives me bonkers that I can't parent stuff outside of the nested hierarchy! Can we please do away with the hierarchy being so rigid? Maybe keep that mode, but have an "advanced" mode where you have more control of your layer order and what's connected to each other? Alternatively, there could be a "Parent Behavior" that lets you select a layer from a drop-down to be the Parent of your object. Options for enabling/disabling Position, Scale, and Rotation for the Child would also be great.
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Kyle Gordon
commented
YES, this would be very helpful in a lot of ways, including solving the shoulder length hair issue where the hair needs to be on top of the shoulder, but the hand and forearm needs to be on top of the hair.