Character Animator Tips & Tricks (June 2017)

Dig into the latest Adobe Character Animator tips, including community examples of a self-made broadcast TV animated show and a design tutorial narrator, tricks with using the new walk behavior like using it on multi-limbed characters or getting 3 views from one piece of artwork, a behind-the-scenes look at our recent "Meet the Team" livestream and how to set up multiple streaming puppets with alpha channels, and finally dissecting a complicated puppet with deep nested triggers and cycle layer timers.

0:00 Intro
1:21 Community Spotlight
7:28 Walking Tips
15:23 Multi-Puppet Livestream
18:31 Dissecting a Complex Puppet
32:34 Outro

Show Links:

[funnysquirrelu]

Great video! I loved the segment on the new walk behavior. Thanks to Look Studios UK, Chico has taken his first steps in the 4th Episode of the series. I played around with the different walk behaviors. I made his "run" into a source of humor because the character is so out-of-shape. I can see him being comically faster in a future episode. I love being able to have Chico walk around the stage during his 2nd Q & A. Involving Furface kept it faster and funnier.

[therobotandjj]

Congrats on the Evans mural in the new office space! And thanks man, this was a huge help.

[yoyoemmyjo]

Thanks Dave! Really liked the tip for using a walk cycle in Character Animator even for characters whose legs aren't visible on screen. (Or something that's not a character - like maybe my characters are bouncing a ball to each other.) I would have key-framed that out in After Effects without even thinking about how I could save the time just recording the bounces in Ch instead. Thanks!

[mattking]

Hi Dave - Your tip about a fixed walking pose starting at 8:48 in this video is excellent, but I might be missing a detail. I've duplicated my character group, turned off independence for both legs, tagged the head directions, and added a stick to the feet of the body layer. This all works great, but then in Record mode I now see both instances of my character, fixed and walking. It is showing both at the same time layered over each other. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong? I can't thank you enough for your tutorials!

[RoyceRemix]

11:42 An interesting issue! The only working solution I found was to also duplicate the default right standing-pose with a left pose, and having each of those triggered with L & R keys. So after releasing the left arrow key I'd have to hold the L key and it'd have him still facing left. I tried automating (with Keyboard Maestro) having the release of the left arrow key press and hold L, but the KM software's listening seems to keep Ch from hearing the arrow being pressed, so he wouldn't walk. I also tried forcing left arrow to then repress left arrow, which walked him, but L holding nor latching are working... Surely this will be solved natively at some point down the line?

[TehKristy]

I look forward to these videos so much! I'm so impressed with where Character Animator is going and I'm excited to get my personal project going with it.

So, I do have a question--I'd like to incorporate multiple mouth styles into a single character. I have my normal mouth cycle, but I'd like to create cycles that are, for example, smiling--so that way, the character can continue to smile while talking, instead of flashing between the smile frame and the normal mouth cycle. Does that make sense? I know how to swap in cycles in general, but for something that actually uses the face rig, I'm not sure if it's capable of doing something like this?

In this month's video, I saw that in order to set up the robot's face for rigging, you had to tag it to a view. I'd like to be able to use all of my views for my character, so would swapping mouth cycles not be an option?

[OArtevista]

I followed exactly the same steps as you, searched in the whole internet for the answer, did everything the way it meant to be and still my walk behavior does not work within head turn behavior. I really hope CH improves the compatibility of Walk Behavior + Head Turner in the next releases.

[farsounski]

you need to add 1080p its a must specially in your tutorials, letters arent clear

[joshuachaulk]

Love your videos. Very Helpful! Wondering if someone has an answer for a problem I'm having. I'm working on my first Cartoon and I used your Green Dragon character as a template. But I can not get the Heads to appear on the walk cycle. The head just disappears when you walk. I have them labelled properly as far as I can tell. Also, the heads all appear at the same time on resting position. I Shouldn't have to make keyboard triggers for the left and right profile head should I?

[maehughes]

Hi! I don't suppose you have any tutorials on how to make a 4 legged character walk? I need to animate a dog walking & am quite new to this! Thanks! :)

[studiovanzwet]

Love your video's. 👊😀👍 Where can we get de NDI plugins?

[znike]

Hi Dave !
Thank you very much, i have a little question :
For the robot Evans, what makes the second face to wait for the end of the reverse (closing) animation before to disappear ? It's not a cycle layer but it's not instant ? I don't get it :).

[Wizastudios]

Question. For multiple puppet streaming do you need more than one Adobe license? I don't want to get one for each member of the stream. What if have guests? I have to get them to download it and use a license?

[askwhy]

OkaySamuri I appreciate these videos a lot. I have a question that u may or may not know the answer to. Is character animator going to be a part of after effects in the future or will it become it's own thing? I only got the month by month subscription of after effects because I thought once it's out of Beta, it might not be included with after effects.

[eladkalif]

hey there!
no hate just asking
the quallity of the animtions in this app just keeps getting better and better!
will the quallity ever be as good as the hand drown animtions? i mean.. is that even possible?

[ezarago]

Love your tutorials. I'm curious: there's so much lag going on in Al the Alien and the Ronin character while you were talking that it took me a while to realize it was supposed to be live lip syncing. Is that normal? Or is it just the screen cap software slowing things down? Thanks again!

[OMTheVASYA]

I like that smooth head turns, and I've made the same but... when I turn to one side - it's ok, cicle layer works, but when I turn back (to frontal) it's jump. why? I've set "forward and reverse" - nothing. So now it seems like I moving to the Left Quarter - it's awesome, next to Left profile - awesome, back to Left Quarter it jums to first frame of Left Quarter (almost to Frontal) and play to the end frame of Left Quarter, and when move to Frontal - it jumps to Frontal. Is there no playback animation in CH now? thx

[sgolan]

Is it possible to use walk behavior for parental layers. For example, a layer of thigh, a layer of an ankle and a layer of a foot?
I try to avoid the foot deformity of the puppet tool

[spikyfurball]

How were they eyes done for the Design Dojo Character? Getting the Pupils to go behind the eyelids?

[ravenloh]

Hi Dave, I've been watching your tutorials and I'm just wondering about using sound effects in either Adobe After Effects or Character Animator. For example, if I have a character munching carrots, do I add the audio file of munching food into Character Animator or put that audio file into After Effects?
Do other sounds like my character throwing something or him washing dishes are imported to After Effects or Character Animator?
Also, when I record my voice on my PC, my voice sounds too deep and low, how do I fix this?

Kumiko