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- Importing a file lets the user modify the resulting layer. No link with the original file will be kept. The resulting layer will not be associated with an Asset (external file representation in Friction).
- Linking file allows the user to keep the link with external file : if a modification happens, it will be reflected in Friction once the Asset is reloaded. The resulting layer will not be editable in Friction.

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- Select **two Path Layers**
- In the **topbar menu**, in **Path** category, select an operation
- You can use **Union, Difference, Intersection, Exclusion, Division** operations
- You can also **Combine** or **Break Apart** to combine **separate Path Layers into one**, or **break a Path Layer with multiple Paths into separate Layers**

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- If the child animation is bigger than the scene canvas, you can use the outside pixels in the parent scene or not by toggling the clip checkbox in the layer properties, acting like a classic video layer or a procedural use of separate animation

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This is similar to pre composition or nested composition in after effect

- Create two different scenes (let's call the final one "parent" and the other "child")
- In the parent scene, right click in the viewport and use theLink Scene button
- The child animation is now in the parent scene, and acts as a classic video layer. You can toggle its Visibility Range to move animation in time

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- In the right click menu of a layer, you can toggle visibility range to activate it. The color block represents the frames of visibility for the layer.
- This color block can be adjusted (trim and drag) to set this range. Keyframes would be moved accordingly.

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- In the transform section of the child object, add transform effect Track
- Setup its Target
- The child now automatically points toward the target

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- To prevent that, you can use $value to get the user-defined value of the property, and add it to the parent's property in the Calculate section
NamedVariable = ParentName.transform.translation.x
CurrentValue = $value
return NamedVariable + CurrentValue
- Do it for both axis if needed, you should be able to control the child's property while it is still copying parent's property

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- Set expression for child's property (translation for the example)
- In Bindings section, get the parent property as a variable
NamedVariable = ParentName.transform.translation.x
- Return this variable in the Calculate section to use it as the new value
return NamedVariable
- Repeat that with both axis if needed
- Child's property is now the same as the parent's, but it cannot be changed by the user anymore

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- In transform section, add transform effect "Parent" to the child layer.
- In the effect, setup the target (parent).
- The layer is now a child of the selected parent layer.

If two "Parent" effects are used on the same layer, only the last one is taken into account.

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- Animate
- Go to curve editor
- Select a setting to show its curve
- Select points (nodes)
- By default, curves are segment lines (no handles available to smooth)
- Turning the curve into a segment curve will allow smoothing its nodes by manipulating handles
- Symetric node and Smooth node allows to have both tangent of a node aligned, automatically smoothed or not
- Corner node makes tangent of a node independent

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- Create a text, add a text effect to it
- Change some text effect parameter to affect selected text (opacity for example)
- Enter point mode to be able to change diminish points to select text to affect
- Smooth text selection with upper diminish points to create a falloff
- Different kind of effect can be added to affect selected text, raster effect like blur, for example
- Diminish points can be animated