Puppet Overlap controls

When you are distorting one part of an image, you may want to control which parts of the image appear in front of other parts. For example, you may want to keep an arm in front of the face as you make the arm wave. Use the Puppet Overlap tool to apply Overlap pins to the parts of an object for which you want to control apparent depth.

You apply Puppet Overlap pins to the original outline, not to the deformed image.

Overlap pin with negative In Front value (top), and Overlap pin with positive In Front value (bottom)

Each Overlap pin has the following properties:

In Front

The apparent proximity to the viewer. The influence of Overlap pins is cumulative, meaning that the In Front values are added together for places on the mesh where extents overlap. You can use negative In Front values to cancel out the influence of another Overlap pin at a specific location.

An area of the mesh that is not influenced by Overlap pins has an implicit In Front value of 0. The default value for a new Overlap pin is 50.

When animating the In Front value, you should usually use Hold keyframes. You do not usually want to interpolate gradually from an element being in front to an element being in back.

Extent

How far from the Overlap pin its influence extends. The influence ends abruptly; it does not decrease gradually with distance from the pin. Extent is indicated visually by a fill in the affected parts of the mesh. The fill is dark if In Front is negative; the fill is light if In Front is positive.