“My Smart Magnet Rig works well at Keyframes, but elements float during Tweens as if it is not rigged at all. Is this a bug?”
No, it is not a bug.
This is how Classic Tweens work in Flash / Animate. Elements tween from point A to point B in a straight line.
SMR tools assist posing at keyframes in unthinkable ways, but tweening is still handled by Flash / Animate.
So how do we deal with this and how to make the elements move along arcs?
Since the number of new users has exploded after the release of v.6, and many of them are super excited and impatient to start using SMR right away, we thought it would be appropriate to compile a couple of articles that will give quick answers to questions that seem to be common.
We understand the excitement and impatience, which discovering the wonderful world of Smart Magnet Rigs can cause, esp. to people who have wrestled for years with Adobe's less-than-ideal implementations.
Clean Up, LP Toggle, IK Clean Up
Historically, in the previous decades when Flash was used extensively for broadcast animation production, this process of fixing the arcs was done manually during a 'clean up' pass, when all posing and timing were complete to a satisfactory level. Keyframes were inserted in the middle of tween spans and the positions of the elements were adjusted manually.
This is why many years ago, when we created our 'arcs' command that deals with this issue automatically, we called it Clean Up.
In Flash Clean Up (SMR) is the only way to automatically move tweened elements along arcs.
In Animate 2019 and newer, users also have the alternative of toggling Layer Parenting on. Depending on the specific situation this may be more or less suitable than using Clean Up (SMR).
When using SMR Inverse Kinematics, and feet or hands are pinned, we also have IK Clean Up, which deals with these specific situations.
Below are some videos, which demonstrate various usage scenarios and applications of Clean Up, Layer Parenting Toggle and IK Clean Up.∎
Fundamentals
TransPoser workflow
Super depressing to find out the smr doesn't stay connected in the tweens, just the posing…
How I've done things from Flash 8 – CS6 without SMR or parenting layers:
1. Lets say I have a Leg (3 symbols: Thigh pivoting at hip, Calf pivoting at knee, Foot pivoting at ankle) we want to go from strait, to a pose that requires all 3 of those leg parts rotated on their own arc. And you have your two key frames and a classic motion tween in between them.
2. While on on the keyframe you want to be the next pose: shift+click each of the 3 layers to select all of them. With all selected, we see 1 new (temporary) white circle pivot point appear at the center of the selected symbols as if it was all one thing (at least while they're all selected).
3. Move that temporary white circle to the pivot point of the thigh/hip and it will snap into place, and rotate the whole leg around that pivot point.
4. Deselect all of it. Then shift+click the calf and foot, snap the temporary white circle to the knee, rotate.
5. Deselect again. And rotate just the foot. Done
Now between the two keyframes throughout the entire tween (unless you have easing that doesn't match all the parts), you should have smooth arcs at unbroken pivot connections down the whole leg as it plays in the tween.
CC has Parent options to do this automatically, but only if you use AS3 (not HTML5 Canvas), and even then I have had arcs break for one reason or another.
I was really really hoping smart magnet basically automatically set up the parenting for this exact thing. That said, using a combination of parented layers with SMR does look to be like a viable thing if you're exporting non-interactive animations or don't mind still exporting interactive stuff in the defunct format.
I'm beginning to think that there's not a way to have the new features CC offers (parenting, asset warp animation), not exporting to an obsolete format, and easier rigging like with SMR. At best I can have 1/3 or 2/3 of those…