Is it possible to parent an animated (puppet tool) pre-comp?

[Michael Szalapski]

It would depend on how your project is structured. If your body is in a precomp (you could precompose it, if needed) you could put the head in the precomp.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

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[Gary Jarvis]

Yes Michael, I did try that but, there was a fact I seem to have omitted. The head needed to be actually attached, at least optically to the body to share the movements the body was going thru, That is why I was thinking of the parent tool, as mentioned in the subject title.

If the child does what the parent does then, by making the head the child is there away I can manipulate, to have the head do as the body does?

Or, it’s funny how, that when one writes, idea’s present themselves, hmm.

The thought I just had is, being that I am creating the heads in PS and they just happen to be the same size and shape, if I place them directly on top of each other. I can therefor leave the arms out the equation (they are moving in the animation) and reverse the heads out of the body.

My next step would be to import them into AE, create the body animation pre-comp then, duplicate that pre-comp. I would then place the first head anchor point on the nose, add a few keys by doing a few minor rotations in line with the body movements, then, loop and pre-comp the head with the body. But, before I do that being that all the heads are in the same position, I would copy and paste the keys (loop) from the anchor point and rotation transforms to the next head.

It seems a little simplistic but, I am going to give it a try. I am also still open to responses regarding any other way, as i.e. heads are not always same shape and size.

Tks