One big and one little problem (link to the puppet)

[wojt864]

Hi guys, I need your help again.

I have two problems with my puppet. I will start with the little one. 1) Even though my puppet has feets fixed to the floor it still moves a little. This is not a big problem but it would be ideal if my puppet would stand still when I move my head. I added the pin tools to both of mu puppet's feets in the "Body group" and it didn't helped. I tried to add pin tools in my main group (name of my puppet) with the same result. I played a little with "head position strengh" and few others and still nothing.

2) This problem is a big one for me. I can't drag my puppet with the mouse even though I added Dragger tool to the main group (puppet name). When I try to move puppet its head stay in place all the time. I've set my body and head groups as "draggable" and it didn't helped. My main group is also "draggable".

Link to my puppet:

Cat.puppet - Google Drive

[alank99101739]

There is probably some good technical explanation, but I got much better results by removing the Draggable tags from the origin markers (the dotted circles) and added separate drag handles.

I know you want the "walk" behavior, but when I removed the Head and Neck tags on the origin marker, the started head moving better using draggers.

I noticed you had "fixed" on the feet - but the feet are a part of the legs which are independent groups - they are not part of the main body. This is somewhat hidden because you have the "laugh" and "jump" layers included (but hidden). So the mesh was getting pretty complicated. I deleted the laugh and jump layers for a moment, and you can see the legs are not included in the root mesh more clearly. That is why those fixed pins had no effect.

You puppet also has walk movements - so there is a question of whether you want the walk behavior or draggers to do everything.

So before making any other suggestions, I thought I would check if you wanted the walk behavior - because if so, putting fixed pins on the feet will not make sense (because they are meant to move).

[wojt864]

Thx for the answer. I will check your advices when I get back from work. About your question, walk behavior is very important for me because it can significantly speed up the my animation process.

[alank99101739]

Makes sense - in which case pins on the feet is probably not the right direction. I also removed draggers, Head and Neck tags, but kept waist, hip, and your leg tagging - and it walks pretty well. I then added a handle to your first level "Head" element (you have a nested layer also called "head") and put the Neck tag on that handle. You may or may not want that (try with and without).

I then put a dragger on the head, and could tilt the head forward and backwards, but the neck was fixed (because of the Neck handle). Removing the handle tagged with Neck means I can drag the whole body more (but the waist and hips are locked into place by the walk motion).

If you are trying to move the puppet via dragging with Walk behavior - I don't think you can. You need to adjust the Position X/Y values to do that (or set the walk speed).

[wojt864]

I tried your ideas and nothing works for me, unfortnetly. Basically I'm fu.ked... Little momement while moving head, like I sad, it's not a big problem for me but inability to drag my puppet while maintaining addded behaviors is a disaster for me...

For example if I want my puppet to walk for a while and then jump on the tree in the left corner, how can I do this with X/Y? With dragger added on whole puppet this would be very easy but without it I have no idea how to do it. Puppet can move left/right and up/down. How can I move it diagonally?

[alank99101739]

Could you consider moving the puppet using keyframing in After Effects or Premier Pro? So CH is just to do puppet guestures etc, but moving around on the screen is all done elsewhere. (Just a thought.)

I personally move puppets around using blends, not with drags. It is a bit painful, but you get smoother movements between locations. (I have also more recently started using collisions and gravity to do arc movements - it looks much more natural for a bouncing ball etc.)

To do a blend I have the puppet start at one coordinate (the default position values for the puppet in the scene). I then start recording a take and edit the Position X/Y values to the new coordinate. I then stop the recording. The result is a recording that captures verbatim me editing the X and Y values separately, which is not very useful. However, I then trim the start (left hand side) of the take so I just have the last bit of it, then extend out the right side of the take. I then end up with a take that is just the new X/Y value.  (Note: you can record a one or two frame take instead, but I just found I had to zoom in to grab the edge to extend it out - so while “cleaner” I just found the above faster to do in practice.). Now I have a take with the new X/Y coordinate, I use the blend to glide the character from the old coordinate to the new coordinate (you grab the little box at the top left corner of the take and drag it over to the right).

To do a second movement, I layer another take on top - you have to overlap them or else the next movement will blend from the default position.

It is more painful than just dragging, but it results in much smoother movements. And its only a straight line. And that way I work is to have like 10 second scenes, so I don’t have to worry about a 2 minute scene with multiple movements. So it might not work for you, but it is how I created the video at https://extra-ordinary.tv/. (One day I hope to get episode 2 done!!!). (If you look at “behind the scenes” on the site I have a few blog posts of things I do - but it basically says the same thing.)

[alank99101739]

Oh, I forgot to say, to move diagonally you line up a take of X and Y using the above technique. That gives straight line diagonal movement (not arcs).

[wojt864]

Yes, AE is probably my only hope.