patch layer: not working when under bone

[ashess0]

hi guys im new or back. I'm very excited to start working with patches. But after setting up my character and adding all the patches, the top layer patches seemed not to work?
it's very odd. they work fine until I put them into the bone hierachy. Also they seem to work when I'm dragging the patch. and work again when I remove the layers from the bone structure? it seems only the top layers are effected. am I doing anything wrong or is this a bug? I cannot find anything about i anywhere.

[Greenlaw]

A Patch layer needs to be in the same group as the layers it's 'patching'. When you move the Patch layer outside of a character's bone group, for example, it will break because it can't access any of the layers inside that bone group.

The proper way to use a Patch layer is to place it above the two layers its 'patching' and set the Patch layer's target to the bottom layer. For example...

- bones layer
-- patch layer (set to target 'arm lower' layer)
-- arm upper layer
-- arm lower layer

BTW, a Patch layer is super convenient but it's possible to set this up using a mask. The setting up a 'Patchoid' using a mask is more complicated but it has some advantages as described in this old thread...

https://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewto ... atch+layer

One advantage with this method is you can use it to 'patch' with artwork nested inside groups. I've actually been able to trick a Patch layer to work with artwork nested in sub-groups but it's not reliable. The manual 'Patchoid' setup however does work reliably this way.

Also, you can use an irregular shape as a 'Patchoid', which in some situations can be more suitable than the Patch layer's circle shape.

Hmm...I just read through that thread. It's too bad the old links and images are broken now, and to be honest I'm not 100% sure how we did this. Looks like I'm gonna have to play with this idea tonight after I'm done work and figure it out again.