Pivot points

[Daft_Wullie]

I know how to move pivot points...that's the easy part. How do you lock them into place. Not that I want to use them this way, but I see where some Flash cartoonists make walk cycles using seperate graphics (torso, arms, legs, etc). How does one anchor a pivot point of one graphic onto another graphic? Is that possible?

Thanks

[Ashley davison]

Not that I know of inside the basic Flash pack. If you can I woud love to now!:D There are a few third party plugs though, such as IK motion which is only something like £30.

[flashcartoons]

im not sure what you mean by anchoring it but here is a good tutorial on animating in flash

http://www.flashdevils.com/tutorials.php?id=492&Limited%20Animation.html

[Daft_Wullie]

That's a good tute, but not exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks anyways.

What I meant by anchor, I guess, is like when you have a side profile of a torso as one symbol and a leg as another. Now, the pivot for the leg has been moved so it is at a position where if the leg is rotated, it looks natural. So you place the leg so that the pivot is over the hip area of the torso symbol. Now it looks like the leg pivots at the hip. Now, is there anyway to lock the leg's pivot point so that it can't move from the spot on the torso. IE if you move the torso, the leg follows with it but can still rotated around the pivot.

Did that make sense? Ugh! Sorry if it didn't!

[rindolphus]

Yes you can. this is done by simply, on the first frame that your character will appear, placing each body part (preferably each made into a symbol) in its place. This is where you'll edit your centers with the free transform tool. Now that your centers are where you want them, you go ahead and group the whole thing, and edit its center as well, right there on the first frame. For example a leg would have a thigh, a leg and a foot. The grouped leg would have its center on the hip or highest part of the thigh. You probably knew that. now you go ahead and hit F6 where your next frame will be. This will create another keyframe with the symbol in the same place. Now, if you left the freetransform tool on it will appear as though your center is at the default center and not where you put it. Simply click outside the group to deselect it and select it again. It will be as you left it. Now you can feely move the whole leg naturally. Double click it for individual movements, for example. You can make such a "leg" into a symbol, just make sure you hit break apart every time you place it onto the stage, because you don't want to edit the symbol, but a grouped individual leg. It will remember all its centers.

[rindolphus]

This is indeed a difficult thing to explain. I just read my post and don't understand it. Heh heh. I made a .fla with a simple stick figure comprised of two parts that balances back and forth, made with the principle I just explained. You can click on every frame to see the center of the whole leg and double click it to see the individual centers of each body part. Take a look at the library where I made one part that serves as the two body parts into a symbol, and the whole leg as well.

This is the final output. (http://www.freewebs.com/rindolphus/Animations/kinematics101.html)

...and this (http://www.freewebs.com/rindolphus/Animations/kinematics101.fla) is the downloadable .fla. I hope you have Flash 8.

[rindolphus]

This will create another keyframe with the symbol in the same place.

Not "the symbol", but the "group".

Go ahead and from the library bring the leg to the stage and then click on break apart to see how it becomes manageable in a kinematic way. Double click it to move individual elements.

The same principle applies to a complete character. Grouping and editing in double click mode (I just made that last term up).

[rindolphus]

Hope you find this useful.

[maxuser]

catch, hope it is help:
http://www.kosmokrator.com/download/flash/commands/move_regpoint.zip
this is extention for flash 8

[Daft_Wullie]

Hey, thanks! I'll check this out when I get home.

Man! I forgot about this post. Glad you found it!