Pre and post behaviors
Many buttons and functions are present on the Timeline. We will review them in this section of the user manual.
We will use the John project throughout this section.
Let's start with Pre and Post-Behaviors. The Pre and Post-Behavior settings will let you choose what should be displayed on the Canvas:
- Before a layer's images are reached by the Timeline's playhead (Pre-Behavior).
- Once the layer's last image has been read by the playhead (Post-Behavior).
These settings can be set for each layer individually using the small icons located at the beginning and at the end of a layer's Instances on the Timeline:
A left click on those icons gives you access to four options: None, Loop, Ping-Pong and Hold:
Let's review what those options do when selecting them in Post-Behavior mode:
-
None: select this setting if you don't want your layer's content to keep being displayed after its last frame has been read by the playhead. This option also lets you create new instances when chosen: move to an empty frame and draw for a new instance to be created (be careful to turn the Auto Create Frame and Auto Break Instance options on, otherwise the creation of a new instance will not be possible). -
Loop: this setting will loop your layer's frames once its last frame has been reached by the playhead. This loop will keep on being played until the last frame of the Clip has been reached. For example, an animation of 5 frames will be looped once frame 5 will have been read, just like this: 1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3-4-5... -
Ping-Pong: this setting is similar to the Loop one, but the repetition cycle will be different and akin to a round-trip. For example, an animation of 5 frames will be repeated like this, once frame 5 will have been read: 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5... -
Hold: select this setting if you want your layer's last image to keep being displayed once the playhead has already read it. This option is especially useful for background layers.
All of these settings work the same way for Pre-Behavior.