SmartBone Layer Order Bug?

[DK]

Hi.
I've rigged a character turnaround with a Smartbone and set it to flip layer order, ie,
a right eyeball layer over the left eyeball layer as the head turns. I then rigged another
layer to flip the right leg layer over the body in the same turn.
For some reason now when the smartbone is tweeked for the character turn, the right eye
layer will not flip????
It's as if when I rigged the right leg to flip layer order, it over rides the right eye layer.
I cannot post the file as it's for a commercial project but can anyone offer advice on how
to overcome this? Is it a bug?

Thanks in advance.

D.K

[synthsin75]

You cannot have two competing layer orderings by SB, just like you cannot have two competing switch keys by SB. Layer ordering keys account for all the sibling layers in that group. So if one smart bone tells the layers to be in one order, another cannot tell them to be in a different order. You should be able to work around this by either having one bone control the order of everything or isolating the head in its own group for layer ordering.

[DK]

Hi Wes.
Thanks mate! much appreciated for the advice on a workaround.

Cheers
D.K

[heyvern]

To get around this limitation for body turns I've been creating a smart bone and use step keys to do layer ordering for things like arms and legs.

In most cases there is not an infinite number of layer ordering combinations required. Usually you only really need to move a few things up or down the layer order. I create a smart bone with those combinations and use step keys in the main time line so the layer ordering doesn't "cycle" through as the bone turns. I can set up my smart bone for as many "combos" as I need and not be limited. Of course all layer ordering has to be in one smart bone.

It might seem easier to simply keep layer ordering in the main timeline but this is actually working really well for me. It makes layer order control simpler because I don't have to worry about it in the main time line. Changing layer order for a bunch of layers is quicker and easier because it's just a rotation of a single bone instead of dragging multiple layers up and down in the layer palette. I keep the smart bone action keys in a very short set of frames at the beginning of the timeline because they are simply step keys and don't need a lot of frames. I can control the layer ordering in the bone layer and don't have to constantly open up a huge bone layer to move things around.