Animation Layer

Animation layers allow you to create and blend multiple levels of animation in a scene. You can create layers to organize new keyframes, or to keyframe on top of existing animations without overwriting the original keyframes and curves.

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The active layer is highlighted by a yellow box. Layers can be muted or locked. PixCap has two types of animation layers: override (OV) and additive (AD).

Override Layers (OV)

The default layer behavior is Override. If an Override layer is at the top, that layer’s animations take priority and “override” the animations of layers below it. How much the layer overrides and blends with the others depends on the layer weight (range from 0 to 1).

• If a top override layer’s weight is set to 1 (maximum), the animation will be based entirely on that layer.

• If the override’s layer is set to 0, that layer’s animation will not be in effect.

• Any value between 0 and 1 will cause the system to blend between the animation on the override layer and the animation of all layers underneath it.

For example : AnimLayer1 and AnimLayer2 are both in Override mode, and AnimLayer1 is on top. The positionX value on AnimLayer1 is 10, and on AnimLayer2 the positionX value is 15.

• If AnimLayer1 has a weight of 1, the final value will be 10.

• If AnimLayer1 has a weight of 0, the final value will be 15 (assuming AnimLayer2 has weight of 1).

• If AnimLayer1 has a weight of 0.5, the final value will be 12.5 (combined 50-50 from AnimLayer1 and AnimLayer2).

There will always be a layer at the bottom called the “Base Layer”. The Base Layer is an override layer with a weight of 1 and cannot be deleted, reordered or changed.

Additive Layers (AD)

Additive (AD) animation layers behave very differently from override layers. An additive layer adds its animation on top of the animations of layers below it, instead of overriding them.

For example : if AnimLayer 1 and AnimLayer 2 both contain the positionX property, the resulting positionX value will be the sum of the positionX values from both layers.

Override vs Additive (Use Cases)

Override layers are best used for creating alternative poses of animation, such as character running vs walking. Since running and walking are quite distinct, override layers can be used to store the two different animations as separate layers.

Additive layers are best used for adding animations “on top” of the existing animation. A good example is an arm waving animation, which can be added on top of a running or walking animation.

Tip Instead of deleting keys in an existing layer to make way for a new animation, a new override layer can be created to store the new animation, thus preserving the old animation in a separate layer.

Mute Layer

When layer is on mute, the animation on that layer will not play, and the keyframes in that layer will be locked (cannot be adjusted).

Lock Layer

When layer is locked, the animation will still play the animation of the layer (unlike mute). However, you can not move, delete or select key nodes or keyframe makers.