Can't fix my puppet's feet

[hellopaul4]

Hello,

I have a puppet which I created out of the standard "new puppet in Photoshop". The default layers Chest, Draggable Right Hand.....Fixed Left Foot seem to do nothing, and are empty. I'm havnig a prticular problem with fixing the feet - I do not want my character to walk around, so need to keep the feet planted firmly in one place, but when I animate the character, the whole puppet floats around a bit. These shape layers do not show up in Character Animator at all.

Anyway, if I create a new project with the default lbue guy puppet, his feet remain stuck to the floor, despite there being no Fixed modifiers.

So basically - how can I fix my puppet's feet to the floor?

[oksamurai]

In the blue guy, he has fixed layers in the PSd. CH sees this and makes those auto-tagged as fixed. But he's being phased out; that's an old way to do it. The better way is to select your puppet's body in CH, and add two fixed handles at the feet with the thumbtack looking tool in the puppet panel. If you download the examples you'll notice this is how a majority of them were fixed: Character Animator Examples

[Red Brent]

I too am unable to fix the feet to the floor? I've selected the 'body' group in the Scene window, added two 'fixed' pins to the feet, but the feet continue to move?? Also, the feet have some sort of weird crazy distortion?

[Inventsable]

Can you upload your puppet file, or give a screenshot of your Rig with the Body hierarchy open, like this?

Is your body layer Warp Independent? If so, that's likely the problem. I'd really have to see your puppet or have more information (pictures are the best) to help out though.

[Red Brent]

Thank-you PortablePawnShop - here is a screen shot:

[nicolenarbs]

Hi oksamurai -- could I get your help with my puppet?  I am having trouble fixing her feet.

What have I missed?

THANKS!!!!!

[Red Brent]

Again, unable to fix feet to floor:

[Inventsable]

It looks correct from here with exception to the body anchor being tagged as Left Heel and Right Heel. Also, what is "Layer 1" in this puppet? This Layer 1 may be changing the size of the distortion mesh and causing those bad morphs even if it isn't set to visible.

I notice that you haven't used the Staple tool to attach your right and left arms to the body, but otherwise I can't tell what's going wrong. Can you highlight your puppet in the Project panel, and do File > Export > Puppet, then upload that file for me here so I can take a look inside for myself and try to diagnose the problem?

[Red Brent]

By unchecking the 'crown' icon, I've managed to make things work, but not before following your advice and adding staples to body parts. Thanks so much for your direction ! Here is a pic of my Photo Shop hierarchy

[Inventsable]

Cool! Yeah, the crown icon means "Warp Independent" and will likely be the root of any movement issues you'll have--I always toggle my Warp Independence on or off if I have any problems to see if I can't figure out what's going wrong. Looks good! Let me know if you have any more trouble.

A few things to note too, in seeing your PS layers. The "instructional bg guide" and "Layer 1" shouldn't actually be in this file, as Character Animator uses every layer within this file to create the distortion mesh and calculate the movement of your puppet. You actually need to save the background as a separate file and import it as if a new puppet, then place it below your puppet in the scene. Otherwise you may find your puppet moving strangely or having unexpected distortion (which is caused by these hidden layers not physically attached to the body but being calculated as if they're supposed to be attached). For your puppet file, I've found it's best to only have the literal body parts or things physically connected to the puppet and to delete everything else.

[oksamurai]

One small fun fact / easter egg: any layer with "guide" in the title won't show up on import into CH.

[Climberfx]

I had the same problem here, but for me, it was that i was without the handle fixer on the character. I just ad that behavior and voila...