In this video I am merely showing how to playblast animation. If you're interested in learning how to set up the editable motion trail in Maya, you can look at my video from the Bouncing Ball animation in Maya at kzbin.info/www/bejne/hae8qnuEe914btU Also know that in the most recent version of Maya, the 2025 version, the motion trail editor is different since it's been updated. However, it still functions similarly. I hope this helps.

Depending on what you want to show in the playblast, you have 2 different options to hide the widgets or ornaments in the video. If you don’t want any *HUD* (heads up display) elements, like the axis and camera name, you can simply uncheck the *show ornaments* option in the playblast options. That will also hide the gate mask if you’ve enabled it and the grid in the scene. If you want some of the *HUD* elements on, and others off, use the *Playblast Display* menu from the viewport *Show* menu. Enable the *Override Viewport* and check any of the elements to show. This, as it indicated, will override what elements are checked in the viewport menu. I hope this helps.

Thanks!

Happy to hear it helped.

Wonderful! Thanks for letting me know it helped you out.

Pardon the delay in my response. If you are still looking for an answer to this, to be able to adjust the tangent length by dragging them out, they need to be *Weighted* and unlocked (free). When the tangents are non-weighted the handles will be displayed as diamond shapes in the Graph Editor. The handles will appear as squares if the tangents are weighted. To change tangents to *Weighted* in the Graph Editor, right-click on a keyframe and choose *Weighted* from the contextual menu. You can also set the default weighting for all tangents by choosing *Curves* > *Default Tangent Weight* > *Weighted Tangents* (from the Graph Editor menus). If the tangent handles will not move (are locked) free them by choosing *Tangents* > *Free Tangent Length* which will unlock or free them. Non-weighted tangents are always locked.

Great to hear I could help!

No problem!

The *Style* drop-down menu is still in the *Properties* window (Tool tab) in Animate 2024. Make sure you are using the *Paint Brush Tool* (Y is the shortcut for the tool) or the *Pencil Tool* and not the Fluid or Classic brush. Let me know if that helps.

Are you using Windows 10 or 11? If so, when playblasting, are you choosing avi as the format and IYUV as the encoder? If not, try that combination. If you already have, do you have VLC installed? If not, download and install that and open your playblast in VLC. Let me know if any of that works.

You are very welcome, happy to hear it helped. It's been some welcome changes since Flash 8.

Happy to hear it was clear and helpful! I do enjoy Toon Boom, and I believe Adobe started caring more about this software after Flash was no longer necessary on the web. Which is why they rebranded it as Animate. It's good to see further development of this to attempt to make it useful for 2D vector-based animation.

Happy to hear that!

Wonderful, thanks!

Hi @BabyChokoRabbit, while you can merely add the brush stroke to an Animate Document, save the document, and then share it with everyone, I'm assuming you are looking for an easier solution though, or you may want to share a lot of brushes that everyone will have access to. If that's the case, I would suggest using the Creative Cloud Library. If you create a custom brush and draw it on the stage (in a *scene* or a *symbol* ) and select the stoke using the *Selection* tool, then open the *CC Libraries* panel (Window > CC Libraries). With the stroke still selected, click the plus sign at the bottom of the CC Libraries panel. A menu will give you options based on what you have selected to save in the library. With the stoke selected, you should see that you can save the stroke color, the brush, or the entire animation, or all. You can then rename it, create a folder for the vector brushes, and then share that folder directly from animate, or from the Creative Cloud desktop application. You have now given me a great idea for a new video though. I think this workflow may benefit others. For more information on the CC Libraries, check out: helpx.adobe.com/animate/using/library.html

I'm happy to hear that! Thanks.

You are welcome, great to hear it was helpful. As for the keying of all the orientation coordinates on the motion path (Front Twist, Up Twist, and Side Twist), first I must ask, are you pressing s on the keyboard to key all when the object is selected along the path? If so that can cause the object to have 2 different "drivers", the motion path and the keyframes. If that's the case, the background of the *translation* and *rotation* values in the *ChannelBox* will be green if they are. If that's not the case, then I assume you are right-clicking on *Front Twist* in either the *ChannelBox* or the *Attribute Editor* and choosing *Key Selected* right? If so it can seem a little odd but it is probably that the Motion Path itself is selected which means all the orientation coordinates get keyed together. So keying the *Front Twist* with the motion path itself selected causes the values to get stored together in the orientation marker as one combined key. This may seem like a very slight difference, but a key will be applied to all the orientation coordinates if you move along the time slider then immediately right-click and choose *Key Selected* on the *Front Twist* channel since it's then stored as an orientation marker and all the values stored together. Try this, first make sure the *Graph Editor* is open, then select the object that is keyed along the path in the *Outliner* or in the *ViewPort* then in the *ChannelBox* click on *motionPath* in the *Inputs* below (I assume this is similar to the way you had keyed it before though), this will cause the *motionPath* to show in the *Graph Editor* with all the "twists" shown below. Select the *Front Twist* channel in the *Graph Editor* then move the Current Time Marker (the yellow bar or playhead) to where you want to add a key, *select the animation curve first* and then right-click in the Graph Editor window and choose *Insert Key* this will add a key along the animation curve where the playhead is positioned for the *Front Twist* only. If you are curious about what is different with this method, it will add the value and frame of the keyed animation curve to the motion path *Anim Curve Time Attribute* (animCurveTA) node only and not create an Orientation Marker on the motion path. Orientation Markers along the path hold all three twist values for that marker and lock them as a key on the motion path as well as store the values in the animCurveTA nodes for all the twists. Adding the key to the single Front Twist attribute will not place an orientation marker, but will add the value to the animCurveTA for the Front Twist. Hopefully, that will all make sense. I recorded a video about this specifically and will upload that soon.

I assume you are asking about the display of vertex information and selection details in the main viewport, right? If so, from the main Maya menus, choose Display > Heads Up Display and check on Poly Count to display current selection info in the HUD. If this is not what you were looking for, let me know.

​@@StephenAnimates Hi Stephen, thanks for your reply! not that but it's useful to me :) I meant, the details of each vertex and the animated frame numbers on the curve, the letter Y on the leaf as the direction of the axis. I've looked everywhere but I don't know how to view them, it's probably a simple operation but maya is maya :) Thank's a lot!

I think I know what you mean now. If I understand correctly, t's not a vertex, although I suppose it may look like one. It's called a *position marker.* They show up when you keyframe the *U value* on the *motion path.* If the markers are not showing up, try the following: 1. Make sure the *U value* is keyed I am assuming that you have already keyed the U value at 1 and 0 at different times. For example, the U value keyframed to 0 on frame 1, and U value keyframed to 1 at a later frame. These should show the frame numbers for frame 1 and then at the frame where the last keyframe. Then maybe a keyframe somewhere in-between. 2. Show *Locators* in the main viewport In the main viewport *Show* menu, make sure that *Locators* is checked (enabled). In more recent versions of Maya this is now in *Show* > *Viewport.* 3. Check Marker visibility Open the *Outliner* (if not already open) and click *Display* > *Shapes* (check to enable). The click the plus sign next to your curve to show it's children. You will see a *shape* node underneath, and that should have a plus sign to expand, and will show the position markers underneath. They will be ordered by the sequence number they were added. Select one marker, open the *Attribute Editor* (ctrl+a) if not already open, in the *Transform* node for the position marker go to *Display* and check *Visibility.* Look at the shape node (positionMarker) and make sure that *visibility* is checked in the *Object Display.* I know that was a long explanation, but let me know if any of that helps.

@@StephenAnimates Ah ok, now I understand what is it! after your post I checked on autodesk guide some specific detail about position marker. Thank's a lot for your patiente

I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you refer to the "strange default thing Animate is doing". Is this in the video, or something you see in animate when you are drawing?

Hi, it's seen in both. You know when drawing a stroke on the artboard you don't see your brush stroke as you draw, but rather a weird "ladder" type trail until you lift your pen off the tablet to reveal the brush stroke? That's what I mean. In photoshop for example you see the stroke as you draw, in real time, but in Animate you don't see it until you lift the pen from the drawing tablet. Does that make more sense at all? @@StephenAnimates

Oh, okay, I see what you mean now. When using the Paint Brush Tool, you see lines crossing the stroke until you stop. Unfortunately, I do not think you can do anything to change that. The "weird ladder type trail" represents the angle of the points along the stroke as they are perpendicular to the line. It is intended to show both the direction of each vector point along the path and how close they are together. Since animate is a vector-based animation software it doesn't behave quite like Photoshop. I will say though, that the Paint Brush Tool is a legacy brush from the pre-animate Flash era. If you have the Fluid Brush, use that as it's much more like using a Paint Brush in PS. I know that's not the answer you were hoping for, but I do hope it helps.

Hey thanks so much! YeahI love Adobe and wanted SO badly for Animate to be my go to animation program, but I just can't get over the feel of drawing on it, it just feels so far removed from pencil to paper and can't keep up with my hand really. I might look into Clip Studio, I bought that also and seems like it may have what I need. Thanks for talking me through that man. Appreciate it!@@StephenAnimates

Yes, no problem. I do wish that Adobe would either create 2D animation software or add a better animation process to Photoshop or add bitmap based tools in Animate. I've never used Clip Studio, and have heard from some that it is not ideal either, but I have been using TVPaint and have used Sketchbook Pro that contains a Flipbook (animation) interface. Both have a lot of tools that mimic traditional 2D animation. Something to look into if you're interested.

Make sure that the Render Offscreen option in the Playblast Options is checked (enabled). Without that, the playblast will be limited to the size of the viewport. A few other things to check: Display Size is set to From Render Settings, and the Scale is set to 1. Let me know if this helps or not.

@StephenAnimates ok, I'll see if it will work 👍 Thank you, and I apologize for my writing, I was very exchauted and out of luck after searching for a simple problem on the internet for so long

I completely understand. Technology is great when it works the way we want it to.

😎 Happy to help!

Thanks. Happy to hear that it was helpful.

When exporting to FBX, and converting the working units as mentioned, it does not matter what Working Units you have set in Maya since you are converting whatever it is at to Centimetres. You can see what the Working Units are set as in Maya, which is mentioned in the video, in the "File Units Converted to:" option of the FBX export settings. The Maya default Working Units are usually in cm. In the export settings, the units displayed in the "File Units Converted to:" drop-down menu in the FBX export window will show the current Maya Working Units. This is mentioned in the video at 3:29. When the "Automatic" option is turned off, the units for the exported FBX will be set to units in the dropdown menu. In more recent versions of Substance Painter, you can now change the Physical Size in the New Project window to adjust the units. This should essentially eliminate the need to convert the units in the Maya FBX export window.

I'm happy it was helpful!

Pardon the late reply. Currently there are no settings for the incremental save to change the location or naming of the files. The only way to do so would be to dig into the MEL script code or write a script that modifies the location and name.

@@StephenAnimates thank you for your reply, im very flattered! yup youre right - if somwthing is absent you can fullfill it easily! im glad and hope you are doing well! looking forward to see more of your dives into the new MaYas features videos!

I have a tutorial on this KZbin channel showing how to animate a swinging pendulum using Autodesk Maya 2020 (and will work in more recent versions of Maya) kzbin.info/www/bejne/jqmvhKakZruMpa8

Once you get used to animating, it will become easier.

No problem 👍

I don’t always have the opportunity to respond on the same day, so I hope you were able to complete your exam. The link for the ball rig is in the description for the tutorial, if you still need it.

You can add a moving hold for follow-through, depending on how the movement is used. Thinking about this as an arm swing you could add a moving hold to the hand (wrist) at the end of the swing so it’s slows down before returning. Hopefully that helps.

@@StephenAnimates Yeah that makes sense. Thanks

Pardon the delay in responding. The "Increment & Save" command from the Maya File menu acts differently than enabling the Incremental save in the Save Scene Options. There's no direct way (that I am aware of) to change the suffix (the version number and convention). If you really want to modify the convention, the Increment & Save command is handled by the FileMenu.mel procedure. If you edit that procedure and search for the "$newVersionString" which sets the length of the string to at least 4 (so that it will alphabetize ordering to sort the first 9999 increments). It then sets the variable "$newSceneName" with a dot (+ "." + ) which you can change to something like an underscore. Since this is hardcoded in the script, this is the way to modify changes to that convention (unless you find a script that can change that). Personally, I just enable the Incremental save in the Save Scene Options. This always keeps the same file name as the most recent one and creates a backup file in an "incrementalSave" folder in the scenes folder. Then when I save, it saves the backup and keeps the same file name as the current and active scene. It's a lot of info, but hope it was helpful.

@@StephenAnimates Hey, cheers for the response. I'm a programmer, but I've never delved into the code for Maya; maybe this will be a good opportunity to start, thanks for the info mate!

Pardon the delay in responding. Great to hear this was helpful. Since the brushes in Animate are vector-based, and not bitmap-based, you are not going to be able to mimic a watercolor style very well. You could change the opacity (alpha) brush strokes, but the edges will not be able to feather (soften the hard edges) around the perimeter of the shape. You can also turn on the Object Drawing mode (shortcut key j) which allows the shapes to overlay when they are semi-opaque. Without drawing object mode enabled, the shapes will combine when they are drawn over one another on the same layer. I hope this helps.

Glad to hear it helped!

You're welcome!

Are you wanting to hide the resolution gate in the play last while it’s showing in the main viewport? If so, from the viewport’s Show menu, choose Playblast Display, then make sure Override Viewport is checked (enabled) then in-check HUD (disabled). Then when you playblast the resolution gate will not be included, but still show in the camera in the viewport. Personally, I prefer seeing the resolution gate in the playblast so I can see what happening outside the frame. This is probably because I come from a background in live action filmmaking where the camera footage includes actions outside the frame and I know that what will be rendered eventually is inside the resolution gate. However, I understand that this is not everyone’s preference. I hope this helps.