Here I've taken https://www.furaffinity.net/view/62594000/ a bit further by adding another character sprite into the scene to figure out how the layer stacks interact with each other, and how to move elements or assets around before adding transform masks to them to get precise control over their animations.

The overly fast movement of my Ludibrium Ratz Summons is due to not expanding on my initial loop's start and ending keyframes. Had I cloned my group and extended Max my Ratz movements to make full use of the 24 frames, he wouldn't be so overly fast and jerky but this experiment was only to test group placement. Fine tuning of loops and inbetweening is for later.

My next experiment after this, is to use a full size canvas of Henesys hunting map, drop Yuki and Max in the scene, place their starting positions, create their transform masks, and set up their start and ending keyframes for animation looping. The intent is to have Yuki drop max down as a summon prior to jumping up on the hay bales to shoot the slimes or orange mushrooms while Max the Gat Rat assists by running the length of the platform while shooting everything up with his Gatling. xD

Of course the next level of experimentation will require a LOT more layers involved, since there will be the slimes or shrooms to animate, as well as their damage FX and their dropping health bars from being attacked by either Yuki or Max or both, while other monsters continue to close in on Yuki as well.

So yeah, a lot of chaos and mental planning.... and this experiment is in 2D with only U and V axies to contend with... the real goal is to animate this https://www.furaffinity.net/view/62545354/ with all hand drawn stuff. xD

Tangent~ Why am I torturing myself? xDDD

Ah well, all worth it I think.

Anywayz... Maple by former Wizet and currently Nexon
Animation baby steps and learning by  NezumiYuki