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Start a walk midway through a scene

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 10:34 am
by petefc
I'm a relative newbie - and it may show. I have a scene where a character is centre stage, performs actions, turns and then is required to walk off. I'm okay up to the turn but when I get the character to walk they start the action from frame 1 instead of frame 74 which is where the turn finishes. I've tried shifting the Translate Layer keyframe on the timeline without success. What am I doing wrong ?

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 12:19 pm
by slowtiger
You forgot to tell AS where to start the action. It can't know automatically. So you always have to place keyframes at the last still moment of your character before any action starts, otherwise the software assumes that you want to start the action from frame 0.

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 6:12 pm
by petefc
Sorry slowtiger, but then I did say my newness might show. As I said, the previous actions end at frame 74. Following your reply, I have studied the manual more closely and experimented. It has been a struggle but I think I have solved my problem. The key it seems is in the sequence of my actions. I first highlight the character's Switch Layer, and then the Translate Layer command. Next I advance the timeline to frame 100 followed by the character to it's new position. I then go back to frame 74 on the timeline. At this point I go to the Actions Window and select Walk, followed by the Insert Reference icon. The result is not quite what I want but I can experiment further. The reason I was failing was that I invoked the Actions Window at frame 100 instead of going back to frame 74. That was pretty much what you told me, I realize that now, but I could not see it at the time. Thanks for your help.