Character animator CC 2018-Puppet

[samh19821728]

Hi,

I made my puppet on photoshop as an original, and I was trying to make it move, but it isn't do you have any ideas?

[KJerryK]

Need more details -- the puppet details, how you rigged it, how you are trying to move it, etc

[samh19821728]

In terms of the puppet, I created it from scratch in photoshop, using simple shapes and tools such as the ellipse tool. i am trying to move it like any other automatic template puppet would move its face, such as the"Blank Face" puppet template. I have made them all on seperate layers. I have a body and a face layer, and a mouth, eye, and pupil layer also. (Seperate Layers) I also have a body layer.

[alank99101739]

Can you share a screen shot of the hiearchy in the rigging panel? Are you trying to use a dragger to move it, or head movements? For dragging, have you added Draggers in the “rig” mode? If trying to use head movements, did you call the head layer “Head” etc? CH will tag specially named layers with “tags” (visible in the puppet property panel). Things like head movements look for these tags to work out the structure of the puppet. Showing a screen shot of the hierarchy is the quickest way to have a look.

This blog post https://extra-ordinary.tv/2018/04/21/debugging-character-animator-eyess/  is beyond what you probably need at the moment, but shows a sample screen shot and talks about layer names and tagging in amongst lots of other stuff you probably don’t need yet (!!).

[samh19821728]

[alank99101739 · Accepted solution]

Perfect, thank you. the layer hierarchy needs some more work. You typically want a single root layer called something like “+Frog”. Put body under that. Also put a layer called Head there and put the eyes and mouth on the head. The lack of Head layer is why the face movements is not working (Most likely).

[samh19821728]

You're a life saver. Would you have any idea as to how I might go about making the mouth move even though it has been pre drawn in photoshop? (This is so I can make the puppet lip sync?)

[alank99101739]

Inside "Mouth Group" create a "Mouth". Inside "Mouth" create a picture of the mouth for each of the official Vizemes. I normally do this by finding an existing demo puppet and making a copy of the "Mouth" group from that puppet. But you can also set it all up yourself by checking the mouth position tags. If you get all the layer names right, it will start lip-syncing after that.  I would suggest grabbing one of the puppets like Chloe and see how they do the mouth layers. The names are critical to get right.  See also Adobe Character Animator Help | Control puppets using behaviors  - scroll down to the Vizemes section to see what they all are.

Regarding your second puppet, that blog post I mentioned talked about the layer structure for eyes. Getting the layers right there again matters. You also have lots of things marked independent - that may be correct, but if you click on a layer check the properties panel to see how the layer is attached to the parent. It should be "Auto". If not, strange things can happen.  Normally you would have a "Head" element with "Eyes" under it, then "+Left Eye" and "+Right Eye" under that. See the blog post for a summary of the correct structure for eyes. Your eyes are very simple, (for now), so you can probably leave lots of bits out - but if you want the eyes to blink later, then get it close to the right structure now to save effort later.  The eyes are one of the trickiest to get right, then mouth positions - at least for basic puppets.

[samh19821728]

Was just wondering how I make a fireball that comes up when I make a keyframe for it?

[alank99101739]

Just a side note - its often better to create a new thread - people might not notice a comment added to the end of an existing thread, especially a thread marked as resolved. If its a new topic, just create a new thread.

Oksamauri had a video showing flame throwing from a puppet - you might like to try and find that one. But could you provide some more details what you are trying to? Are you trying to have a character throw a fireball? (Have a look at the particle system and collisions/dynamic properties for that.) Or just make a fireball appear in the puppets hand? (Triggers and swapsets are good for that.) Is it animated? (Cycle frames are good for that.) Or do you mean have a fireball as a separate puppet that appears in the middle of a scene? (You can just drag the edge of the puppet in the timeline, or adjust the opacity in the puppet properties.)

I just was not sure what you meant by “comes up”.

[alank99101739]

For fireballs/flamethrowers, try 8 mins into Character Animator Tips & Tricks (August 2017) - YouTube  for one fireball in the hand effect.  This old (archived) video Making Your First Character - ARCHIVED (Adobe Character Animator Tutorial) - YouTube  about 22 mins in is the one I was thinking of - older version of CH.

[samh19821728]

In terms of the puppet, I am having trouble with a second one that I made, the circle is moving, but the eyes are not.