Selecting Parent and Children

When animating, large movements that are made at the root (parent) of a chain cause secondary movements throughout the rest (children) of the chain. For example, when you rotate the arm of a character from the shoulder, the forearm and hand will follow. However, in order to make the movement appear natural and graceful, the forearm and hand should not move at the same speed or angle. As a result, animators often need to move up and down a chain, intermittently selecting parent and children, in order to make both large and fine movements.

How to select the parent or child of the selected layer

1. In the Tools toolbar, select the Transform tool.

2. In the Transform Tool Properties view, make sure the Peg Selection mode is deselected.

3. In the Camera or Timeline view, select a layer or object attached to a hierarchy.

4. From the top menu, select Animation > Select Parent or press B to select the parent layer. Select Animation > Select Child or press Shift + B to select the child layer or Animation > Select Children to select all child layers at the same time.

NOTE: These keyboard shortcuts ignore any effect node encountered in the Node or Timeline view. Only drawing and peg nodes are considered. If you want to navigate the hierarchy including the effect nodes, you can create a custom keyboard shortcut in the Preferences dialog box for the Select Parent Skipping Effects and Select Child Skipping Effects commands on the General tab. Refer to the Harmony Preferences Guide to learn how to create custom keyboard shortcuts.