how to reuse layers/animation?

after exporting a character canves from the scene (scene_1) I needed to reuse it in a different scene (scene_2) in a different synfig file so I simply copied it’s layers to the new file, sadly I was no longer able to animate it, receiving the message: “The value you are trying to edit is in a composition
which doesn’t seem to be open. Open that composition and you
should be able to edit this value as normal.”

luckily I had saved the original file (scene_1) as a different name (scene_1a) so now I can animate my character in scene_2 (while opening scene_1) without affecting scene_1a.

as long as I know there’s no “unexport canvas” feature in synfig yet, so what is the best way to reuse layers without creating unnecessary mess of files?

I think organizing your files will help you in organizing your animations in general.
All you need I think is to learn use the timeline layer.
So you import you character and you group him in a new group layer and add a timeline layer over your imported group layer and play what ever you wand from the file.
So you will have one file for you character with all the animations for all the series. You will just add and reuse animations in the process.
Also don’t forget that you will have to keep your character in the origin.
What I mean is for example in a walk circle animation in you character file your character will stay in place and in your scene file you will animate layer depented to your scene file.

Hello,

I’m very interested in this subject and I tried to use your solution.However, I can’t find a timeline layer. Where can I find the layer? I tried all the submenus Unsuccesfully.

Regards,
Manuel

Have you tried this? wiki.synfig.org/Doc:Reuse_Animations

I used for one of my short animations. Anyway, I must say that I have some strange issues using this method. So, test it first of starting with a complex animation.

Thanks for the tip! I tried it but when I open the new canvas I neither get the timeline nor the icon to enter into animation mode. I can’t create keyframe either as all the functions are grey out :-/. Any ideas what’s happening?
Regards,
Manuel

As I remember, you must enter in the configuration of the animation and set the time. When you create a new canvas you get an animation of 0f… so, you can create anything in timeline. : )

If you have change the size of the animation, checks it, too… because the new canvas get the Synfig size by default.

I put an issue to make the time and size of the new canvas as the parent.

Not sure, but it maybe the same thing as “free time” in new synfig. Anyway, free time does allow reusing animations, without touching original canvas/file. It’s not very friendly as you have to type numeric time values instead of some kind of keyframes or something, but otherwise it does it job.

However, it only allows to reuse animations, not poses (as the tweening happens on time value, not objects). So it seems that

is still true.

Or am i missing something and there is way to avoid storing all animations in one file? What i want to do is to have a character file which would only store poses, import it from other files and construct animations from those poses there. Is it possible?

I thought that wiki.synfig.org/Doc:Reuse_Animations provides a method to do that, but apparently was mistaken: it shares the same timeline between importing and imported files.