Can Edapt let me control a symbol with multiple variables?

Question

Is there a recommended workflow to achieve this? I am new to Edapt and unsure which features would be best for this.

 

For example-

I have a mouth symbol with different mouth shapes for speaking and facial expressions.

There are three different versions of this mouth symbol - one for each direction: left, right, and center.

I have a head symbol with a frame for each direction: left, right, and center.

When I turn the head to the left, I only want to see the left mouth shapes, or to the right and see only right mouth shapes, etc.

Thank you
 

Answer 1

From your description, if I understood it correctly, I get the impression that the mouths are external to the head symbols.
A good practice in Flash animation is to run heads as synced timelines and keep the facial features inside.

Here is a video which demonstrates this approach:

You can control the mouth with Smart Graphic Control and symbol swap the instance with the view which you need. For swapping you can use Prev Or Next Symbol In Library or a First Frame RC Slider.
If the three mouth symbols are put inside a Library folder, symbol swapping will only cycle between the three of them.

To better understand the various techniques and tools I would suggest spending some time reading the documentation and watching the relevant videos in context of the respective articles.

All tools have their own help entry: https://flash-powertools.com/category/commands/

Rig architecture is discussed at great length here: https://flash-powertools.com/advanced-smr-2-rig-architecture/

TransPoser workflow and the use of Transformers is another area which might deserve some attention as it was specifically designed to streamline facial animation: https://flash-powertools.com/transposer-workflow/

We also provide some sample rigs which you can play with and study: https://flash-powertools.com/tag/free-download/

Hope all this will point you in the right direction!
Good luck!