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Character creation alternative to Illustrator?

Engaged ,
Aug 10, 2017 Aug 10, 2017

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After a lengthy evaluation, I find Illustrator to difficult to create characters for Character Animator.  There is too much a learning curve with Illustrator and it falls apart when you start creating sub group layers needed for Animator. For example, creating new layers in sub-groups and moving new objects created in sub-groups with a mouse is not possible (At this level, objects can only be moved and positioned with keyboard arrow keys). This makes for a difficult workflow.

Does anyone know of any vector based programs more suitable to draw characters and import them into Character Animator?

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Adobe Employee ,
Aug 11, 2017 Aug 11, 2017

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Currently CH only supports PSD or AI files.

You could use smart objects in Photoshop - they won't get imported as vector into CH but would allow you to resize inside PS without worry of pixelation.

I agree - I find Illustrator's grouping structure pretty wonky at times, which is why I typically go PSD if given the choice. But it's a personal preference.

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Engaged ,
Aug 11, 2017 Aug 11, 2017

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Thanks, I do need to resize so AI is the tool.

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Explorer ,
Aug 12, 2017 Aug 12, 2017

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I've been fighting with Illustrator myself.

My best option has been to line and color out parts of the character on the ipad using the "Adobe Draw" app.

Here is what I do:

  1. Draw out character on a piece of paper with a good ol pencil.
  2. After I'm done doing a rough sketch - I take a picture of my sketch using my ipad.
  3. I load the image into "Adobe Draw"
  4. Create a new draw layer - and do the head outlines
  5. Create a new draw layer and paint  under my head lines.
  6. I do this with all my character body parts in the ipad app.
  7. When I'm done - I click the icon "load into photoshop or illustrator if I want to drive my self crazy
  8. The layers load from the ipad on to my desktop computer and I clean up as needed in photoshop - and re-label my layers.

I've found that I can draw better on the ipad than in illustrator and come out with a decent looking character.

Hope this helps.

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Engaged ,
Aug 13, 2017 Aug 13, 2017

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Thanks, I did try this but CA is not relevant for me anymore. I want to use an existing audio track to sync the mouth to but CA can't handle this as of yet (Attempting to do so crashes my computer). I suppose I can play the audio track into my microphone from a speaker but this is a pain. I Know CA is still in beta so I suspect the next release will allow importing audio.. Until then, it is a very limited tool.

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Explorer ,
Aug 13, 2017 Aug 13, 2017

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Are you running Nvidia Experience?

Character Animator Crashes if the Shadowplay is running - it's a pain to kill the process but once you do no crash.

I've never actually had CA crash for any other reason beside the Shadowplay bug.

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Engaged ,
Aug 13, 2017 Aug 13, 2017

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My computer didn't only crash, it went crazy randomly opening other programs willy nilly. At first I thought someone took control over my machine remotely. I had to do a hard shutdown. I ran a complete scan and found nothing. However, it is possible that a hacker got into my machine through CA. Anyway, I'm not going to risk my machine over unstable software. 

I'm not sure if I am running Nvidea Experience. I am running Premiere Pro 2015 and it works on my system so I'm not going to change anything. I'm also on Windows 10 which may be less stable than Mac OS. Who knows. In any case, I'm done with Character Animator and will check it out again if and when it gets out of Beta..

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Adobe Employee ,
Aug 14, 2017 Aug 14, 2017

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I've never heard of something like the random program opening happening before - seems really strange. I don't believe that's related to CH.

For the audio crash, see:

Lip Synch Crash

Charactor Animator announces error when importing sound file

Lip Sync Computation stopping at 3 minutes on a 3 1/2 minute audio recording

Basically:

1. Make sure you're running the latest version (Beta 6).

2. Try different audio formats, bitrates, etc. to see if any work.

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Engaged ,
Aug 26, 2017 Aug 26, 2017

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Hi,

I'm thinking that Character Animate doesn't support my Nvidia GPU very well when it comes to syncing pre-recorded sound files. I found another program that does support my GPU so I'll stick with that for now and revisit CA when if comes out of Beta stage.

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Explorer ,
Aug 26, 2017 Aug 26, 2017

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Did you check to make sure you're killing the Nivdia Shadowplay before running CA? That crashes Character Animator if it's running for sure. The Shadowplay always runs in the background.

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Engaged ,
Aug 26, 2017 Aug 26, 2017

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Thanks but I have a pretty old Nvidia card, a GeForce GTX 960 M that doesn't have the shadow play option so that isn't the issue. 

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Explorer ,
Aug 26, 2017 Aug 26, 2017

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I do as well  - it's part of the Nvidia Experience if you've installed that.

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Engaged ,
Aug 26, 2017 Aug 26, 2017

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I did install Experience but there is not an option to access the Shadow play. Like I said, I have an old card. Anyway, I'm using another program so this is no longer an issue on my end.

Thanks

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Explorer ,
Aug 26, 2017 Aug 26, 2017

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Did you also go into task manager and check to see that the process in not running?

That's the only way I've figured out how to stop it from running myself.

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Engaged ,
Aug 26, 2017 Aug 26, 2017

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I just checked. Shadow play doesn't appear to be running. Very strange.

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