Key frames + new objects

[Cloak 'n Dagger]

I was animating a sprite last night and finished it, then realized I hadn't dragged in a simple .png of a still shadow underneath my sprite.

What seemed like something that should have been very easy (drag in stationary shadow under sprite, don't add any keyframes to it, it should remain still) turned out to be a monumental task that I couldn't overcome. I couldn't add the shadow without it shaking and dipping in correspondence with everything else, and more importantly the key frames for the other parts were added into its own animation timeline.

Is there a way to add a part to an already existing animation, and have it remain independent of all other objects/movement/key frames?

[Mike at BrashMonkey]

Hi Cloak n' Dagger,

Have you watched the Spriter tutorial videos?

Specifically this one:

Long story short, Make sure you're at the very first key frame, then add and position your shadow, THEN select the shadow sprite and press Cntrl+C to copy, then choose Paste to all frames from the edit menu or press Cntrl+Shift+V. This will paste it to all frames in the exact same location, scale, angle, opacity etc.

To fix your current issue, do nearly the same. Go to the very first key frame, make sure the shadow is exactly how you want it. Select it and press Cntrl+C, then select paste to all frames. This will change every aspect of the shadow spriter to be identical across all frames.

As for it's key's being intermingled with other keys, I think it might just be a misunderstanding of how the timeline(s) work in Spriter. The keys of each object are completely independant, BUT if any object has a key at any point, it's shown on the main timeline as a key frame in general...but this has no effect on the keyframes or tweening of any of the actual objects...it just lets you know something has a key there and allows you to get to it quickly with the time-line minimised.

I hope this helps,

cheers,

Mike at BrashMonkey

[Cloak 'n Dagger]

Thanks for the tips. Sorry I didn't see your reply to my earlier question!

[Cloak 'n Dagger]

Okay, followup question:

Now that I know how to leave something still in, is there anyway to animate it from that point?

For instance, say I had 5 Key frames of an animation. I put in a still object, copy-paste it into the all the keyframes as described above. Now, any animation done between frames 1 and 2 has no bearing on frame 3. Once it hits the next keyframe it snaps back to the position it was originally in.

How can this be resolved?

Thanks.

[tombmonkey]

What do you mean by "any animation done between frames 1 and 2 has no bearing on frame 3"?

Frame 1 is interpolated to frame 2, frame 2 is interpolated to into frame 3, so anything done before frame 2 will in fact never affect in any way frame 3.

What are you trying to do? It's hard to understand what problem you are having without knowing.