Cloning Elements

You can clone elements when you want to reuse the contents of an element, but create a different effect, like with the timing of the same drawings or with an element’s placement in the 3D space.

Unlike duplicated elements, cloned elements and their original are linked. They both refer to the same content files in the animation set folder. When you modify one, the other is also modified.

Let’s say you want to create the skyline of a city. Rather than drawing hundreds of buildings, you could draw a few, clone them and then reposition the clones in space and flip them, to create a dense scene from few drawings.

You can clone the following element types:

Drawings
Images
Media
Sounds
Pegs
Color Transform Effects

The contents of the cloned elements are shared, but you can change some of the properties of the clones without affecting the other clones.

Drawing and Image Elements: the original and the cloned element both reference the same directory of files. Cloning drawing and image elements does not increase the file size of your final animation.

If you change a drawing or image, all clones are updated with the new drawing or image.

If you add new drawings or images to the clones, they do not appear in the other clones. However, they are available to the other clones by renaming a cell with the name of the drawing or image.

You can change the exposure of drawings and images without affecting the clones.

Media: cloned media share the same content. You can reposition and change the start frame of media elements without modifying other clones.
Pegs: the cloned pegs share control points and keyframes, and you can change the position of the peg in the 3D Sceneplanning space without affecting the clones. Cloning peg elements does not increase the file size of your final animation.
Sounds: cloned sounds are exact copies. You can change any property in the sound clones without affecting other clones. Cloning sound elements does not increase the file size of your final animation.
Color Transform Effects: clones are exact copies of the original, with the same keyframe and values. Changes to the keyframe values in any clone changes all other clones. You can change the start time of any clone without changing the others.

To clone an element:

1. Select the element you want to clone. You can only select one element at a time.

2. Select Element > Clone Element.

A clone of the selected element appears in the Exposure Sheet window and in the Timeline window.