After Effects and Character Animator

[joeh87907460]

How do you use Character Animator with After Effects?

Here is what I want to do. I want to create a video with a puppet overlaid over the original video. I need to be able to animate the puppet and add audio during segments of the video. It's impossible to create a scene separately in Animator then import it into After Effects and have them perfectly synced up. I even tried that and the puppet from Animator just sits there and does nothing, no animation, no audio... nothing.

Is there a tutorial that anyone knows about that shows how to create a puppet in Animator, link it with after effects and in after effects as the video plays, be able to animate and add audio to the puppet so that the finished render has the puppet talking and moving as the video plays?

[Vishu_Aggarwal]

As per my knowledge & understanding you can not animate & add audio for lip sync to the Character animator puppet inside of After Effects. You can only create a dynamic linking between the Animator & After Effects , so that if you make any changes in animator till will be reflected inside the AE.

Also the puppet need to be created inside the photoshop and import it into character animator for creating the rig & animation.

For details on Character animator you can look at following links  -

Bringing 2D characters to life with Adobe Character Animator | Adobe Creative Cloud - YouTube

Getting Started with Adobe Character Animator CC

or you can create the animation of puppet within AE using Puppet tool & some free tool explained in Adobe blog - character rigging and animation series from Daniel Gies | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe

[joeh87907460]

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

I have made a puppet in photoshop, used it in Character Animator and it works. However, when I link it via dynamic link in After Effects, the puppet does nothing. There is no way to lip sync and move the arms while the video  plays in AE. The puppet just sits there still with no animation. I even exported a scene from audio from the CA and then linked that with AE and, nothing worked. It was like importing a graphic, it was just there, with no movement or any sound whatsoever.

[Vishu_Aggarwal]

So, you mean that you recorded the animation in CA and when you import it in AE using dynamic link than there is no  animation playback in AE??

I tested dynamics linking of CA & AE CC 2018 and it worked perfectly fine. I made changes in CA than saved the project & I was able to see the changes reflecting in AE.

[joeh87907460]

Yes, that's what I did. It didn't work. I can't find any way to manipulate the puppet in AE.

[Vishu_Aggarwal]

Ok you can't manipulate the puppet in AE, you can only manipulate in CA than save the project and it will update in AE.

[Vishu_Aggarwal]

If you want to manipulate in AE than use the puppet tool in AE on the puppet created in Photoshop.

[joeh87907460]

Well that's what I tried to do also. I opened the AE and the CA, put the CA on one monitor, AE on the other so I could see both. When I drag the arm of the puppet in CA nothing happens in AE, nothing changes. As far as saving in CA that is grayed out and in () it says (always saved). Thanks for trying to help. I'll keep trying different things and see if anything will work.

[joeh87907460]

Update.

I tried what you said. With both programs open on different monitors I manipulated the puppet in CA while it was recording. Then it updated when I stopped the recording. It worked, somewhat. It's kind of hard to sync things up when you are animating on a blank screen in CA while watching the video in AE and have it come out like wanted. Maybe after a few tries I'll be able to get it right. It's trying to do several things at one time. Is there a way to render the video from AE in .mp4 instead of .avi? I had to run it through Any Video Converter to convert to .mp4 before it would play right.

Thanks for all the help and pointing me in the right direction. I appreciate it very much!

[Vishu_Aggarwal]

You can also import the audio you have in After Effects in CA to sync is better.

"Is there a way to render the video from AE in .mp4 instead of .avi? I had to run it through Any Video Converter to convert to .mp4 before it would play right."

For this you need to have Adobe Media Encoder, so you can add your composition to Adobe Media Encoder Queue from main menu under composition.