parts of puppet disappear when adding cycle layers to element

[an_zie]

So I created this octopus puppet and I wanted it to spurt out ink when triggered by a key. It consists of 10 layers so I added the cycle layers in Character Animator but when I trigger it the head disappears. What can be done to avoid this? I want both the puppet and the ink to be seen.

[oksamurai]

Just uncheck "Hide others in group." The only time you want to do that is if it's in a folder of other stuff you do want to hide, like several different hand positions.

[an_zie]

Thank you! Been having trouble with this for so long, can't believe it was so simple.

p.s. your tutorials on youtube are absolutely wonderful, I've never learned so much over a span of 45 minutes.  :---))

[cartoonfix]

Hello. I have ran into a bit of an issue with my puppet. For this puppet I'm doing animation poses by only using cycle layers- not draggers. Then assigning triggers to the layer. It works expect when the character is in idol the arms disappear as seend in the screenshot. Not sure if there is a solution. Is it possible to do this?

Thank you! Huge fan! 

[alank99101739]

I am guessing you have the following set up (based on screen capture).

- You have 3 layers in the cycle (arms at side, arms half way, arms crossed)

- You have the cycle reverse when the trigger is released

If this is correct, I suggest the following change:

- Create a group that holds the the first of the 3 layers and a cycle layers group

- The cycle layers group only has two layers now, (arms half way & arms crossed)

- Put a swapset on the top group where the "arms-at-side" is the default for the swapset

- Put the trigger on the cycle layers

The idea is hitting the trigger switches from the default arms-at-side image and starts playing the cycle layers for the non-arms-at-side images.

The other thing I wonder if possible is to use the cycle layers pasue capability somehow. You can mark a cycle layer as "stop on this layer". If the cycle repeated automatically you hit a trigger to let it play the next few frames. In this case I think you would put 4 in the squence: arms-at-side (with pause), arms-half-way, arms-crossed (with pause), arms-half-way. Each trigger would make the cycle keep going until the next pause layer. But this would not work with different sets of arms - the swap set you can add multiple different positions (arms up in air etc) with the arms-at side being the default pose you return to.

[cartoonfix]

Hello thank you for the quick reply. Let me test your theory and see if I'm following you correctly. 

[cartoonfix]

alank99101739 

I'm messing up some where. I think I'm almost there, lol. When the trigger activates, the arms-at-side somes at the same time the cycle layer does. Thank you, again! 

[cartoonfix]

I WORKEDDDD!! THANK YOU SOO MUCH!!! HAHAHA!

[cartoonfix]

I just had to make sure over in triggers, the cycle layer (Trigger) was within the same swap set as the arms-at-side. Thank you so much!