Moho Forum

I have 16 png files of a butterfly (Top view) from open to close. I don't understand switch layers and how to them. ( I tried a few times) I've gone through a third of Anime Studio Pro 7 book. I just want to create a wing animation using three butterflies at the same time. I tried to create an action, to switch the layers between the png files, but no image came up on in the timeline and when I did nudge an image all of the other layers were not in sync. Very frustrated. THERE HAS TO BE AWAY TO switch out the images in the timeline using an action so I can just draw a line and have the butterfly follow the line with the wings moving. How hard can it be?

Put all png files into a switch file. Shrink the switch file. Go to frame 1. Right click on the switch file and select the one you want. Go to frame 3. right click on the switch layer. Select the next png.

To make the butter fly follow a path you can translate the switch layer or you can put the switch layer in a bone layer and add a bone and translate the bone or you can use the follow path tool.


The Frames numbers I suggested are just an example.

Thanks for the info. I have a mac so I have to use the control key to get the switch layers to work. That was a big help. Do I have to add a bone to each layer and if so can I copy and paste the bone to the new layer? Also do you know about creating an action, so all I have to do is use a script? I am not too sure about how to use a action/script. Here is a better way to say it, can I create a script using actions?

Not related to your specific question, but I made a bird with a psd some days ago.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54411/AS8/gorrion.rar

Just create one bone layer and move the switch layer into it. Now add one bone to the bone layer, It really does not matter the size of the bone. Now click on the switch layer so it is blue and click on the bind layer tool, now click on the bone and now all pngs will move together.

To make this an action. while on the bone layer, open up the action window and create a new action. Right click on the word 'mainline' in the action window and insert copy. Go to the main time line and move to frame 1, for example, and click on insert reference from the action window.

You don't really need to use actions at all for what you're trying to do... the switching will all be handled by the switch layer itslef, then you can just move that around on a path or whatever...

Selgin, thanks for the file - that bird looks great... your work and techniques are inspiring.

Butterflies are not exactly flying slowly. Their wing flap should have a cycle somewhere between 2 and 12 frames (open - close - open), anything longer will not give a realistic effect. Small butterflies (and any other insect) work best with just 2 drawings (open and close) on one's and two's (mix the pace) and a very erratic path of flight (not straight, and with pauses).

I'll try mixing it up in the flight. Thanks.

Thanks Everyone. Here is a test of the wing animation. This isn't the real background image, which will a have more moving parts, but it does give you a good idea of the effect I was going for. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s82MQ5-RMj4 The video will be up for about a week. It's not really the quality I'm shooting for.

Not bad.

But for something this simple, have you tried to first animate the body, with wings attached, then animate the wings on the fly, sorta speak, with the Rotate Layer XY tool, might have been simpler and give a nice 3d look to it!

I heard that it could be done, but when I looked into it, it didn't look promising. I am still learning the program so I could of misunderstood. How does it work?

(There will be 3 to 5 butterflies running across the video at the same time in the final version.)

Looks good enough.

But of course you can spend time endlessly to improve this ... I just noticed when testing myself. See result: http://www.slowtiger.de/examples/motte1.mov (you can stop the Quicktime and flip through the single frames).

I tried to do a nice moth with just 1 wing image. Setup:

- moth group
- - wing 1 image
- - wing 1 image (flipped)
- - body image

I dragged the wing images into position relative to the body, then set each origin directly at the center of the body - because I wanted the wing to rotate (Y) around that axis.

Problem #1: I could not animate 1 wing and then just duplicate and flip that - because flipping a layer means a 180° turn around Y, exchanging top and bottom! I had to animate each wing for itself.

Problem #2: when I translated the whole moth a bit to the side, the wings distorted! Turns out I had to disable 3D camera in the prefs. (If you need to build a complex scene with bugs and 3D, you'll need to render the bugs separately first without 3D camera, then import into new scene and do 3D stuff.)

Problem #3: the inbetweens of Up and Down position looked too similar and appeared as standing still and just flickering. (Note that the position with outspread wings is just an inbetween in flying, the extremes are really over and below the moth's body.) I tried to make the inbetween positions different for the up- and downbeat, but that wasn't enough. So I decided to colour the wings according to position: darker for down, lighter for up.

New setup:

- moth group
- - wing 1 group
- - - wing 1 image (transparent)
- - - wing 1 vector shape (colour)
- - wing 1 group (flipped)
- - - wing 1 image (transparent)
- - - wing 1 vector shape (colour)
- - body image

Of course now I had to animate the wing group instead of the wing image. The vector shape beneath got a nice colour animation from dark to light and back again. All animation needed to be cycled the same length of 8 frames.

Problem #4: since I positioned the origin of the wings over the moth body's center it looked funny now to have the Down position still on top of the moth. So as a last touch I animated layer order with putting the body on top or below the wings in the middle of the flap. Cycle again.

I only did a perfect circle flight with this moth, but you can imagine how much more naturally any irregular path would look like, especially with smaller bugs. The smaller the bug, the more irregular the path of flight!

Conclusion:
- It takes more time than expected.
- Concentrate on how it looks, not on perfect mechanics - these will only look slow and artificial.
- Less keys and shorter cycles give a better impression.
- Don't forget shading/colour changes, these will be more important than any perspective distortion which is barely visible in this scale.

Thanks for the advise and you are right I need a downward stroke on the wings. I'll change up the colors too. Great example by the way.