Building Character Parts & Saving
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Building Character Parts & Saving
When creating parts of a cartoon character & saving them, how does an animator place these parts onto any other character ?
Re: Building Character Parts & Saving
Copy Layer and Paste Layer work well for me. Open the two character project, source and destination files, and then copy and paste the layers between them.
Copy Layer also works with Groups. So, for example, you have a bunch of hand shapes in a Switch Layer, use the command on the Switch Layer rather than on the individual hand drawing layers. This way you can move all the hand drawings in one pass.
Alternatively, you can import the 'source' character to your new character's project, and simply drag the parts from one character to the other.
There are some pros and cons to each approach--you should experiment to see which works best for you.
Also, note that when you copy and paste layers like this, you may also be transferring actions and styles. If you change any styles, be sure to rename them, otherwise, you may run into conflicts when you bring the characters into the same scene during animation.
If the parts are something you expect to re-use frequently, you might want to put them in the Library.
Hope this helps.
Copy Layer also works with Groups. So, for example, you have a bunch of hand shapes in a Switch Layer, use the command on the Switch Layer rather than on the individual hand drawing layers. This way you can move all the hand drawings in one pass.
Alternatively, you can import the 'source' character to your new character's project, and simply drag the parts from one character to the other.
There are some pros and cons to each approach--you should experiment to see which works best for you.
Also, note that when you copy and paste layers like this, you may also be transferring actions and styles. If you change any styles, be sure to rename them, otherwise, you may run into conflicts when you bring the characters into the same scene during animation.
If the parts are something you expect to re-use frequently, you might want to put them in the Library.
Hope this helps.
D.R. Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | Little Green Dog Channel on Vimeo | Greenlaw's Demo Reel 2020 Edtion
Lead Digital Animator, DreamWorks Animation
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | Little Green Dog Channel on Vimeo | Greenlaw's Demo Reel 2020 Edtion
Lead Digital Animator, DreamWorks Animation