Help needed with fashion changes, ref: Character Animator Live Episode 3

[christopherb24509435]

Hi,

My puppet has a basic female body shape and then over that i would to be able to have different clothes, fashion changes.

I would like the clothes to morph along with the puppet as one would expect.

If Im correct, In this previous episode #3 (see time 22 min) this exact mock-up is displayed, there is rigging on a body group and within that is a dress group that contains the fashion changes.

The demo only slightly moves the puppets arms so it's hard to know if it actually worked.

I would like my puppets rigging to work as suggested in this video( see Time: 22 minutes)

Obviously it is possible to overlay different outfits and affect them with keystrokes without any dragging rigging involved.

I hope this demo (Ep.3 CH Live) just didn't  have time to show this small but impossibly important detail.

If it is possible that would be awesome!!!

I did rearrange groups in order to re-create the same structure as in Ep. 3 (see Time 22min)  but had no success.

My puppet is built in illustrator.

Thanks,

[oksamurai]

Yep that's totally possible! I'm pretty sure that character is in one of our example packs (scroll halfway down this page) if you want to wake a closer look at how they did it: Character Animator Examples

I think she was made before we had stapling so if I remember correctly her arms aren't independent (like we currently suggest). However, you could still do it - in each arm group and the torso I'd just make a group of key-triggered switch "sleeve" and "outfit" layers with hide others in group checked.

More info on key triggers:

[christopherb24509435]

Here's the example I am referring CH Live Ep 3 at time 21min15 sec..:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc8kD1rn8ds

I looked at the link as suggested, downloaded, loaded into CH but was not

able to locate an example puppet with this structure.

Yes, making the arms independent is the culprit here, but don't her arms

need to be independent so so can dance ect,,,?

I am not sure that the puppet in the youtube video example had

independence but it looks as if it was rigged for movement.

Currently my puppet's body is separated for independence ( i.e.. L arm, L

leg) with a shirt layer separate (over the body layer).

I tried rigging the body as parent group as suggested in the clip but that

didn't work.

Only after trying several things and lots of different builds ...did I

finally reaching out for help regarding this hurdle...

Thanks as always for all your help

[oksamurai]

Ah right, that was a user example, not one of ours. I was thinking of the "Gina" puppet we have, who can change outfits.

Arms don't have to be independent - see the blue example guy Stannie from the Welcome panel - but making them independent means they won't pull on the body, which is usually what you want. So it's a stylistic decision.

Check out this quick example I made with Stannie and independent arms - press R and everything turns pinkish red:

https://adobe.ly/2n3qxQ4

[christopherb24509435]

Got it, put the body I didn't part up on the head and it works and as you

say the warping of the arm pulls...

but that can be a work around when recording..i guess... careful not to

pull..

Still ..wondering,,

I can't seem to wrap my head around having a parted (L/R Legs and Arms) up

body with a costume layer on top so as to not see the cuts (each individual

separation) and have the independence functional and still have the

costumes layer movement synced correctly.

Is there a way to do this?

[oksamurai]

Right - if the arms are independent, one costume piece probably won't look great - you have to have something in the arm group that will move the same as the arm. One thing you can try is slicing the arms / sleeves and using sticks and/or fixed handles to hold an arm socket in place more. Or the other choice is to make the arms non-independent. Currently there aren't any pull constraints but it's a common feature request.

[christopherb24509435]

Got it.

Now that that is working,( well partly right?).

Here's another related issue. Now I have added the draggers to arms and

legs, sticks ect..

As you can imagine, she is floating which if this character was a ghost or

angel would be great, but she is terrestrial.

So how can I pin her feet down so she stays planted, and still grab her

feet/legs and drag them at will?

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 10:19 AM, oksamurai <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[christopherb24509435]

How to manage her gravity?

Pinning her feet ..won't work since she needs to dance and walk ect..

Any ideas?

sidenote:

So maybe a puppet "gravity" feature in the future, seems like that would

be easy since it's already included in part.

Just make that a puppet feature and problem solved.

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 10:33 AM, Chris Bejole <bejolemusic@gmail.com>

[oksamurai]

You could add a dangle tag to the top level +Character puppet and adjust the gravity settings there.

The other option would be to have a switchout group of fixed legs and draggable legs.

[christopherb24509435]

OK, tried the dangle gravity , that works sort of... maybe I will try the

leg switch.

One last thing regarding this issue.

Dragging arms in front of costumes, layer order.

So as you can imaging when an arm is dragged across the front of the

costume the arm is not seen in front, because of layer order. Since the

clothes layer sits on top of the body layer...

What do you suggest for this?

I have a similar issue with an owl I made where the wings ( which because

of the design were located in a layer behind the body) I could not get the

wings to be in front of the owl correctly..

This is something I can not figure out at all.

Design verses function.

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 11:31 AM, oksamurai <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[oksamurai]

Yes, this is a common request: Make hands go in front and behind of | Ideas for Character Animator

Currently layer order is all you've got. The only thing I can think of now is having identical front and back variations and be able to switch between them.

[christopherb24509435]

Here's an option for the floating feet.

I set the dragger option to hold in place and bam feet and solid, as well

as the arms. So now the questions is, is there a way the set different hold

settings (i.e.) hold arms but not legs ect?

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 12:06 PM, oksamurai <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[oksamurai]

I don't think so - even if you added multiple extra dragger behaviors on each limb group I think it's going to run into issues.

[christopherb24509435]

Between the hold in place and the pins option I can make this work for now.

Although these are all work arounds and not actual fixes for the actual

issue which I hope in some way may be addressed in the future as we can all

see the how great CH could one day be.

I guess the biggest hurdle now is this layer/ arms / front and back issue

that everyone agrees on.

If you have a suggestion example to look at that features the body switch

enabling the arms in front/back I would appreciate that.

Big, Big Thanks again for all your help, God Bless.

[oksamurai]

Sounds good. I have never seen the front/back thing done, it's only in theory - most people pick one and stick with it. Thanks for the feedback!

[christopherb24509435]

The front / back myth... Someone else from the forum suggested it as well,

without an example