User Guide Cancel

Assets Panel in Animate

 

Learn how to create animation with Assets Panel.

What is Assets Panel?

Assets panel contains ready to use assets, which can be used in your animation projects. You can find Assets Panel in the tab group at upper-right corner in most workspaces, along with Properties Panel. If Assets Panel is not visible, you can enable it by selecting Windows>Assets.

To use assets from Assets Panel, drag-and-drop asset to the stage.

Assets Panel Location
Location of Assets Panel

Sections in Assets Panel

Assets Panel has two tabs:

  1. Default: Contains assets packages with Animate
  2. Custom: Contains assets exported by you

Default tab has three sections - Animated, Static, and Sound clips.

Custom tab has two sections - Animated and Static.

 

Tabs and Sections in Assets Panel
Tabs and Sections in Assets Panel

Animated section contains symbols having more than one frame. Static section contains symbols with one frame and images. Sound clips contain sample background and event sounds.

Search Assets

Type search text in the text box just below Default and Custom tabs. Animate searches for assets with names matching the search text. Search results could be across multiple sections, so make sure you expand all the sections to view search results.

Filter Assets

Assets in Animated and Static sections can be filtered for quick search. The main filter allows you to filter assets by categories such as Characters, Props, and Background. The second filter is useful if you are looking for rigging assets. It allows you to filter assets as Rigs, Rigs with Motion, or Objects.

Sound clip section allows you to filter assets based on types:

  1. Background Sound
  2. Event Sound

Background sounds are typically longer than event sounds.

Filtering Assets
Filtering Assets

Filtering for Rigging
Filtering for Rigging

Filtering Sound Clips
Filtering Sound clips

Export Assets

There are two ways you can add assets to the panel. In the Libraries panel, select a symbol you want to convert to asset. Right-click the asset, and then select either Export Asset or Save As Asset option.

Export Asset: allows you to save the asset as a file, which can later be imported in Assets Panel.

Save As Asset: allows you to directly save to Assets Panel without saving to a file. 

Choose Export Asset option if you want to use the asset in another instance of Animate, or if you want to share the asset with others. 

Both options open Export Asset dialog box.

Export from Library
Export from Library

Export Asset
Export Asset

You have number of options available when exporting Symbol as asset. You can choose to export with combination of different attributes of the Symbol. 
You can export Bones with or without motion and object, if the Symbol has an armature layer. 

You can export Object with or without Audio, if it is a not-rigged Symbol.

Motion and Audio can't be selected independently.

Depending on the options you select, Type field shows section of the Asset Panel where Asset would be placed. Also note that exported assets are saved in the Custom tab.

You can also specify comma-separated tag names, which are used during search operation.

If you have selected Export Asset, click Export to open the File Save dialog box. If you have selected Save As Asset, then exported asset is added to the Custom tab.

Import, Rename, and Delete Assets

Assets can be imported to the Custom tab of Assets Panel. Click the + button at lower-left corner of the panel to choose a file. Select asset files .ana format.

Import, Rename or Delete Asset
A - Import Asset, B - Delete Asset, C - Rename or Delete Asset

Download Assets
A - Download B - Delete C - Rename or Delete

To delete an asset, select the asset and click the icon at lower-right corner of the panel. You can also right-click the asset, and choose Delete. Rename the asset by choosing 'Rename' option from the menu.

Download Assets

You can download assets from Animate server by clicking Cloud icon at the lower-left corner of Default tab. Assets are downloaded in small batches. Click the Cloud icon multiple times to download more assets. Once all assets from the server are downloaded, the cloud icon is disabled.

Watch the video to learn how to use Assets panel

What's next?

Get help faster and easier

New user?