A layer is a level of animation in a scene. You can have multiple layers in a scene and make changes to one layer without affecting the others.

Layers can be used to adjust data without altering the original data. For example, you could have your original animation in the base layer, then add a layer for translation animation, creating a second level of animation (AnimLayer1) on top of the base layer (BaseAnimation).

You can access layer functionality through FBTake and FBAnimationLayer, both of which inherit from FBPlug. All of the funcitonality available in the user interface is exposed to the SDK, except merge.

You can access layers through FBAnimationLayer and FBTake, for example, in the following Python commands:

>>> System = FBSystem()

>>> System.CurrentTake.GetCurrentLayer()

0

>>> print System.CurrentTake.GetLayerCount()

2

>>> System.CurrentTake.CreateNewLayer()

>>> print System.CurrentTake.GetLayerCount()

3

Only the current layer receives keyframes, and there can be only be one current layer. You get and set the current layer with FBTake::GetCurrentLayer and FBTake::SetCurrentLayer.

By default there is a base layer (called BaseAnimation) and a Layer 1 (AnimLayer1), which you can access by their index, or pLayerID. Note that the index varies according to the position of the layer in the layer hierarchy (called the stack inthe UI).

The following UI functionality is accessable through the SDK:

• Layer locking: the attribute FBAnimationLayer::Lock.
• Layer muting: the attribute FBAnimationLayer::Mute.
• Parent and child layers: functions to get and set child and parent layers are in FBAnimation.
• Layer weight: the attribute FBAnimationLayer::Weight.
• Mode: set with the attribute FBAnimationLayer::Mode.
• Accumulation modes are set with the attribute FBAnimationLayer::LayerRotationMode.
• Copying is accessed through FBTake::DuplicateSelectedLayers.

Sample code:

• MultiLayerKeying.py
• AnimationLayers.py

The following UI functionality is not exposed to the SDK:

• Merging