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Automating Arrangement of Layers?
I am animating a show in After Effects with basic puppet characters using parenting. I also use background elements within the same comp as the characters. For many scenes, I need the characters to interact with certain background elements, and also with other characters. Specifically, when the order of these layers change within a scene, like a character starting in front of another character, then going behind him, within the same scene. Or maybe JUST that character’s arm going behind the other character’s body. The only way I feel I can do this right now is, for example: Let’s say a character is walking around another character in circles as he talks to him. The camera is facing their profiles, street fighter style. For the character that is moving, when he is in front of the other character, all of his layers (arms, legs, head, eyes, eyebrows, etc) are over all of the other character’s layers. Then when he moves behind him, I activate a copy of every single one of his layers that are BELOW the other character’s layers in the comp, while turning off the other “front” layers. I then proceed to animate with those “behind” layers. Is this the only way to approach this? Or is there a way to somehow automate the arrangement of layers, or groups of layers, so that I can just work with one set of body parts instead of copies?
I’ve also considered making each character its own comp, but that leaves issues such as, not having the rest of the scene elements to work with as reference while animating, and if I wanted to isolate individual body parts, like an arm as previously mentioned.
Thanks, Matt
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5 Replies
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If you worked in 3D instead of 2D, you could animate the Z-position instead of worrying about the layer order. Moving something back or forward just 0.1 pixel in depth would be enough to change it from foreground to background, but not so much that it would noticeably change the size or positioning of the object in-frame.
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I was going to say what Walter said. But if you feel you want to stick with 2D, you definitely should have a character be in its own nested comp so you’re only having to ”turn off” a single layer and then “turn on” another single layer when switching from in-front to behind. Regarding your concern about not having the other comp elements visible while animating the character in a precomp, this is where UI customization comes in handy. You can use the padlock icon to keep a comp window open on screen (the comp that has the background and other comp elements), while you work in the separate precomp window that shows the active comp and timeline where you are animating your isolated character. Meaning you can have two comp windows open at once, seeing real-time updates in the main comp while you animate elements in a precomp.
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Alright, all of these options sound great to choose from. Thank you Walter and Terry for your help.
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You might pre comp your characters and use the essential graphics panel to compile a list of channels for animation.
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Shift-Command-D will split a layer into two.
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