I want to start by saying-

1: Ralph has done so much for this community and this app and deserves a break so it makes sense if neither he sees this or it gets drowned and ignored
2: I’m entirely grateful for this update and though I’m asking for more, I’m not demanding. Only suggesting due to experiences I’ve had and difficulties I’ve had with the app

Now having said that. Here’s why I think that layers are beneficial towards the good/ease of sticknodes animations-

A lot of animation programs have layers as a part of their programs for differentiating and making different effects/backgrounds/sketches/colors. Now I know we have colors as part of our figures and their are essentially no need for sketches but, what about for those who animate multiple characters at a time. Surely lots of people who’ve done animations with complex angles and perspectives can agree that the more characters you add to a scene, the more difficult it is to animate them all.

Like most I animate starting with key frames then in betweens then breakdowns. However this process when animating 2-5 characters at the same time while managing things such as trees, bushes, walls, floors, or anything that gets in the way of the camera is difficult when I only can do it on one singular layer. I recently tried animating a scene with 3 characters fighting together, however I quickly realized that doing this takes a lot more effort than it does on other animation programs and as I tried to figure out why, I noticed that I couldn’t watch a layer individually because there ARENT any.

Maybe I should call them “pages”?)

Back to my point about backgrounds as well as foregrounds, scenes move. At least in my animations they do, spinning shots are already hard but, they’re even harder when you can’t easily change the layer of sometimes hundreds of stick figures (extreme example yes I know)

Counter claims: Why not just use movie clips?
Movie clips require you to either pre make that set up or make it right when you need it. Both sometimes aren’t able to always account for the motion you’re trying to do.

Point is, certain types of animation are hard given the apps limitations. Maybe there would be a possibility just like infinite nodes to turn layers/pages on and off for people with lower end devices?

Idk. I just really hope that if not added officially. Some god at modding decides they want to mod sticknodes to have layers… pages..? Layers…