Two objects work together with animations?

[Settle for Pocky]

So I hope I didn't make life really hard for myself here.

So my characters have their head and bodies "sewed" together to save space so there are only 26 different heads and not 26 full bodies.

Now through the fun xalign/yalign I've been able to have them be at certain locations on the screen and look normal.

Now in terms of animation/transitions
(specifically dissolve, move"in/outs," moving towards screen, and a little pop forward (to make it show the player knows who is talking)
Is it easier just for me to scrap the body/head thing for this?

I also had trouble having the character exiting the screen slightly and pop back up (I wanted the lower body slightly cut off so it can pop up a little bit when moving forward or scared and popping straight up)

I know those are loaded questions but these are big things that I've having trouble with that have me at a stand still.

It's complicated so I'm willing to donate through paypal if it's a lot of trouble here

take care and thanks again,
Patrick B.

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So to make it easier to read.
I'll use this ddlc as reference to certain things for what I'm looking for

- body/head separate and sewed together good idea? If so how to make them work together for animations/transitions (especially dissolve and move"in/out"screen)
- have body cut off at times for moving up and forward for talking (1:08:57-1:09:06) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh2ae4a9JPE&t=3106s

[DannX]

You may want to look into layered images. There's a detailed tutorial here.

[Settle for Pocky]

Thanks!

[rames44]

As DannX says, what you probably want to look at is combining your individual heads and bodies together into composite images. There is a Composite type (formerly LiveComposite) class that will do that, however the new LayeredImage approach can be more powerful and efficient depending on what you’re doing.

Once you’ve defined your composite images, then they’re easy to move, scale, etc, because you’re manipulating the composite - the individual component pieces within will maintain their alignment with respect to one another.