Line Problem

[Epicz]

Hey I need some help, I've recently got into flash and I've attempted to animate a stick-man running - I'm using the line tool. My problem is that when I move the limbs and they over-lap they sort of join together. The only way I've found to stop this is putting the limbs all on separate layers, which I think wouldn't be a good idea because that would be 5 layers per 1 thing. So is there anyway to turn off the joining of lines?

Picture in-case you don't understand what I mean:

[MickHarrison]

5 layers is hardly any at all
i think the new version of flash goes up to 8 layers

[Epicz]

xD I was probably just being a tad pathetic, 20 layers for just 4 sticks just seems bit daunting.

[MickHarrison]

you can make them with 5 layers then cut the frames and paste into a symbol
voila... 4 layers

or use the folder facility

[maficmelody]

You could use Onion-skinning and just redraw the stick figure. That's what I would do if I did stick figures.. which I don't. But I would =)

[Epicz]

At 1/23/11 03:45 PM, maficmelody wrote: You could use Onion-skinning and just redraw the stick figure. That's what I would do if I did stick figures.. which I don't. But I would =)

I did that at first but it was taking me 50 mins to do 20 frames :S, moving them was much faster and i could make them look less choppy. Thanks for the advice tho.

[HizuPlague]

Why not just turn all of them into graphics? Then they wouldn't "join together."

[Nae]

Turn on Object Drawing (J) ...it's at the bottom left of the tools panel when you have the drawing tool selected.

This way things won't intersect when layered on top of each other ...and unlike a 'grouped' object, you can still bend and modify drawing objects as if they were plain lines.

To convert an already drawn shape into a Drawing Object go to Modify > Combine Objects > Union. There isn't a hotkey (as of CS4), but you could always assign one (Flash > Keyboard Shortcuts).

It can still get confusing though (as seen below), so you'll still want to use layers ...you just won't need as many ;)