lmaooo!!! yes I am also glad the official dzjames account was seen! Thank you for the shout out & live tutorial on how to fix my question. You're the best man!
11:42 I do admit that I could've worded that question a little bit better. By touching his face with his right hand I meant something like doing a facepalm with his right hand😅
Ahahaha! Well yes, in that case you would want to make sure his arm was above his head group, which would take re-rigging his arm, and then drag it to look like it's smacking the head. You would probably also need a new hand swap to be more upright at that angle. So a bit of manual work but doable!
Is there a way to change the face of an existing puppet without losing all of the triggers. I have a puppet that I want to use but just want to change the face.
Part 3 of the triggers tutorial talks about this, changing face elements: ua-cam.com/video/WzYJbZYhxmk/v-deo.htmlsi=tYISqutEKULfgQG_. This is how I would do it. If you wanted a whole face swap, I would use the Head Turner behavior or a triggered swap set for the different head setups. You could have the same triggers for each, so pressing 1 could make all your faces angry, for example.
To clarify, I want to put a new face on an existing stock puppet with Character Animator. This way I don't have to recreate all of the triggers, etc. I want to just change face and maybe clothing.
Ah ok that's even easier. If you edit the layers in Photoshop or Illustrator and don't change the layer names or hierarchy, it should update correctly and keep the rigging. But you will need to edit it piece by piece instead of just swapping in a single flat image.
Alright DW, it's time to address the elephant in the room.... SKIRTS AND DRESSES on characters... we need to figure out a behaviour or technique to achieve some decent results!!!
Agreed, this is a current shortcoming and the best examples I've seen are the ones I posted in the Walk tutorial by Tiffany LaBelle. But full cloth physics would be awesome.
I really appreciate this quick answer format. The longer tutorials are so helpful but then there are situations like these after you’ve been in the middle of a project. I would love to see you do more from time to time. Thanks.
Hi Dave, not sure if this is the question to you regarding feature request for CA. I messaged it in Adobe CA ideas page but not sure of anyone would care about it ((. My request is - it would be great to make transform sliders under the Track Behaviours (the ones with percentage value now) larger and more convenient to drag. They are very important part of animation to move the subject in the scene. But they are a real pain right now to operate. I'm really crying for making them larger. So inconvenient as they are now (((. Really struggling to move and scale subject around in the scene when recording.
Hey! I have two questions. Firstly: I want to do a hopping style walk animation, kinda like South Park. So the legs are basically non-existent. I managed to tweak the default walk animations so the characters are hopping, but it warps and bends their sides. I want to keep their shape as it is. Is there a way? Secondly: When I import my puppet from Illustrator, the layers where I filled the shapes with textures don't get cut off at the edge of the shape, they continue outside of the puppet. I know there is a workaround, but it's really messy, I have a lot of them, and I have to screw up the puppet's look in Illustrator in order to do that, so it looks correct in Character Animator, but not in Illustrator where I'm editing their looks. Are there any plans for implementing this feature just like for Photoshop? Thanks!
Usually you can tweak the amount of warping with some well placed sticks. So if the body is warping too much, try adding a big stick with the stick tool through it and see if that helps. Sometimes I even put multiple sticks to fix problematic areas. For textures and Illustrator - yes, this is a known limitation and ideally it would just work as you would expect. No current plans to deal with this but thanks for the feedback. I have had to do similar things in the past with clipping masks and setup - my puppet PSD or AI files always look a little weird/messy!
Hi Dave - If you divide an arm into bicep and forearm, can you place the bicep layer behind the torso layer, and the forearm layer in front of the torso layer, and then tag each portion as an arm, and put the elbow hinge in the same spot on each arm layer, and still have a functional arm? I’m making a relatively realistic character who’s skinny, and the torso is a narrow V; and the biceps need to be behind the torso to maintain the integrity of the shirt lines, but the forearms have to be in front of the torso to make a wide variety of gestures. Thanks - Eric
Hi Dave I have 2 questions, 1) can I put all audio files for one character on one audio track and 2) can I export transparent background ,I heard you mention it as a gif animation, but I don’t want export as gif
1. Unfortunately audio tracks can only have one "bar" per track, so we recommend doing any audio editing in other programs like Premiere and then bringing it into CH. 2. You can only export with a transparent background as File > Export > PNG Sequence and WAV or Video with Alpha.
Yay, I am featured in my favourite UA-cam channel. You made my day. By the way, my name is Vietnamese and it's interesting how you pronounce it lol. Thank you so much, Dave.
Hello Dave, a quick question. Can I create a character with Adobe Character Animator and then import this character in to Adobe Express for using animate from audio tool? Thank you.
There is no way to currently do this. This is what I'm addressing at 8:17 - you can set up your triggers to make the recording/editing process a lot easier.
Haha, I love squigglevision, we should call it that. Check out the character Scribbles on okaysamurai.com/puppets/ - he has a link to a video that shows how to do it via cycle layers.
Hi! Would it be possible to make more head turns available so head and body turns could be more smoother and even 360 body turnaround’s could be possible?
Hi Dave! how are you? i have a question how to put something in hands e.g like cotton box, and also one morec question how plz make a video about advance animation of character
Hi Samurai! I got a question. Why does the Lip Sync computation not detect W's at the start of a word? (i.e. for what, when, where). Idk if it is just me who notices this, but it's just consistent. I would have to go back to timeline to fix the w's because of this. I just find it weird that this specific thing is not detected by Char Animator's solver. Thanks! (Also, sometimes, the "woo" in "You" is not detected (it should be like Ee-woo, but sometimes it would just be "Uh" or "Ee". This one is not that consistent compared to the mentioned problem above tho) (Another also (sorry lol), The Ah-Ee in majority of words like "Day", "They", "Hay", etc. are messed up by the solver. It would leave out the "Ee" (i.e. They would be like "Th(L)-Ah" without the Ee)
I find that W, F, and L are transitional/quicker visemes that can sometimes have a hard time triggering. Speaking with a louder input signal and/or changing your lip sync preference sliders to be more frequent can help with this. The transcript based lip sync feature should help a little with better detection: ua-cam.com/video/pOBM098PiAw/v-deo.htmlsi=Z_W10shbdPbysl9q
@@okaysamurai That's actually my settings already. My lip sync slider is already cranked all the way up, and I also use .srt transcriptions, but the problems still exist
Mouth(happy) And AltMouth(Sad) lip sync It only works when recording with a webcam.But I have an mp3 file, It has both sad and happy Audio Truck. And while doing lip sync with this mp3 it is not happening, Happy and Sad lip sync are not getting along here, Can someone tell me how this is possible,
Check out the lip sync tutorial about using multiple mouth sets: ua-cam.com/video/sc9S65Zn9XQ/v-deo.htmlsi=WiVJ02sjHZ4Q-4IC&t=906. It doesn't matter if the audio is prerecorded or recorded, the same technique should work - you only need one audio track and one mouth shape / viseme track, and then have the happy and sad triggers determine which mouth set you are seeing at any given time.
I notice the voice and image sync perfectly. For a pc, which camera and microphone do you recommend? Would a webcam with built in mic be enough? or will the sound wont be good enough
I think built in stuff typically works pretty great, but you'll definitely get better quality audio with a USB condenser mic. For anything professional I'll always use my USB mic. For video it's not as important - as long as you are well lit and have a modern HD webcam, you should be in good shape and extra quality doesn't add much.
Hi Dave, is there a tutorial on how Red Monster has his body sway? I can't find one anywhere and can't work it out inside CA by looking at Red Monster's rigging. I must be missing something. Can you help please? (PS: thank you for all the tutorials!)
I don't know if there is a specific tutorial about his rigging, but IIRC I think his head basically only consists of his face pieces and those are put over top of the Body group containing the body artwork. In CH the head movements also move the body if rigged properly, so those facial elements are basically pulling the body along for the ride if that makes sense!
Why does every time I record, my fps varies and lowers? I have a MacBook with 16gb ram, which is what the support team told me to get a while ago, now I got it, and it still moves slow and weird
If you try the simple "Chad" puppet from the homepage I would expect you should get a much better framerate than a complex one with more bells and whistles. You can improve recording performance sometimes by turning off realtime elements you don't need, like Physics, and turn them back on later for playback. Or if it's possible to optimize the puppet that can help as well. If the problem persists, please upload a screenshot, video, or your File > Export > Puppet file to the official forums at adobe.com/go/chfeedback so we can take a closer look.
Hello. I have a question too. I've noticed that most characters, when they speak, are happy. If I want to have a version where the character speaks while being sad, do I need to add a folder with the mouth positions for sadness? And how is the transition made from happy to sad?😢
HI there i have a question is there any way we can use limb IK and walk at the semi profile ? When i use both behaviors and press the button to make the character walk it feet's and elbow create problem
IIRC Walk and Limb IK can run into issues when used together because they're basically fighting for the same tags. The best way to use Limb IK + walk is when you're using the 3 view walk approach and you only have the Limb IK behavior added on the standing view, but not the two walking views.
This is GREAT! Sometimes we don't know...what we don't know....and hearing the answer to other questions is so extremely helpful. I've learned some things today. Thank you for adding to my "tips and tricks" resources.
Can the adobe team try to put a speed graph editor in the software itself in future updates? It would be really helpful for showing exaggerated motions.
I liked that last tutorial. Personally I feel that can work as a make shift parent system that is done similarly in after effects. Honestly I feel like finger posses can be dove into more. One thought was having a pop up window dictating each finger. However I feel this process would not have an advantage in live recording and more manual editing. One thing I’ve wondered is if a system where you can swap between the planes on a puppet. Example being having a character in profile view his bg arm is going behind the body. However what if you want his arm to go in front of his body? I think this can be pulled off by a swap set trigger but it would also require having to make sure the limbs you control bend in a similar fashion when dragging them. Sorry I know that was all over the place. Let me know what you think.
I made this for another user a while back for the arm swap stuff, hope it helps: drive.google.com/file/d/1RMsqJ_HtI7IjQ0tj-gAIuQMAEk9i3jSB/view?usp=sharing
Question. Hi, when creating a scene with 2 characters, should I import each character's audio as One file and then keep that all on one layer on the timeline? or should I bring in each sentence separately and create a linear back and forth scene with different audio files, cutting the 2 character conversation in Character Animator? Thanks much
Yes, typically I have each character's voice as its own layer, and I time them out in Audition. This video shows my process: ua-cam.com/video/VhCKD5vl848/v-deo.htmlsi=_ied0oP8TlTRp9J5
Follow-up question to my question below: Or, as an alternative, can you make arm swap sets in which one arm layer is below the torso layer, and a second arm layer is above the torso layer?
I have an issue with the character animator 2023. When I go to file and click on new project, nothing happens. I need help with this please. Never experienced it on the previous versions.
As long as you meet the minimum requirements (helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/system-requirements.html), I would update to the latest version 2024 and see if that helps.
Hi, i need help. Lot of my exports are glitched everywhere. Portions of the puppet go blank, it creates random hole in the arms or legs. theses Glitches aren't visible in the preview pannels, only on the export files. I can run multiples export of the same scene, and have glitch all around the place each time, but not necesseraly on the same frams. Is there an export setting that minimise that ? or anything else i could do ?
Hmmm, that's very strange and I don't remember ever hearing about holes in characters randomly appearing. Hard to fix here...I would say please upload a video or screenshot of your issue to adobe.com/go/chfeedback and we'll try to help you out.
@@okaysamurai thanks, i found a solution, this dosen't happen when i export with media encoder as oppose to doing it straight out of adobe CH. And i suppose this happens also bacause my puppet is really heavy
I am planning a little project with a dance class, where I want each of them to create a character first, then I want to capture their movements via character animator on a pre existing model. At the end I would like to put each of their dance performances on their own character. Is it possible to copy paste tracking data on other characters, because I havent found a video about that yet? Or should I record their dance moves as replays?
Great questions. In general it is near impossible to copy animations from one character to the next, because each character has slightly different rigging and would look pretty wonky (arms moving less/more, parts becoming detached because of different proportions, etc). One idea might be to use Puppet Maker and have the students customize a character with full body tracking and then use that for tracking / recording. You may have to dig in and modify a little - so like the Mo character is full body enabled but the feet aren't tracked by default. You would need to go into Body > Tracked Handles and make sure to at least check the left and right heels. That's the most streamlined process I can think of for a project like this - good luck and have fun, sounds awesome! My daughter is a dancer too!
As long as you have a working webcam the face movements should work. The mouth has very little to do with your own mouth movements, it is almost entirely audio based. For more audio settings check out ua-cam.com/video/sc9S65Zn9XQ/v-deo.htmlsi=xgCDWWwSdY_DEQ9w&t=546.
On the off chance that you might read 'some more' comments at a later date, I'd appreciate your expertise. Is it possible to import a PNG of a toon character into Character Animator and then break the character down into arms, legs, eyes, mouth, etc.? If not, could it be done in Photoshop and/or Illustrator? Again, if so, do you have any videos you could link that show how this is done, please? To be clear, I don't mean using one of the templates that have already been functionally designed. An imported toon character, which is then - maybe overlaid on a template - rigged with Character Animator. Thanks Dave. Rock on the Cloud!
Yes you can I usually do this with photoshop. I try to find a art file on google called a turn sheet it shows the character in different views you can search it up to better understand. Than I draw over it in photoshop because the picture you imported from its probably not good quality hope this video helps he doesn't show you the turn sheet but he draws the character from scratch give it a go : ua-cam.com/video/BLP4RWdLEI0/v-deo.html
Yeah, to do something like this you have to bring it into Photoshop and do some surgery on it, basically separating it out into named groups and parts as much as possible. The blank templates on pages.adobe.com/character/en/resources are great for this kind of thing. I went through a similar process taking a kid's drawing and turning it into a character a while back: ua-cam.com/video/-wQZBZQMfLs/v-deo.htmlsi=xvkFbj4ulAqGguIw&t=1117
@@okaysamurai Perfect! Thanks so much for that, Dave. Cameron is adorable (and an Oscar-worthy actor in training, to boot 😄). The new ai tools in Photoshop regular and beta will make this so much faster too, which is a bonus. Can't wait to begin. Thanks again. 🙏
@@okaysamurai aww ok thanks for letting me know, I do all my editing in CH currently but I guess based on that I will need to learn after effects. Thanks again!
Hello, and thank you for the tutorials! I have a problem that I can't find the solution.. I have three characters in my scene that I want at some point to shoot particles from their hand in various directions and I want it to be the same motion for every character. So I have the particle in their palm and the mode at point and shoot. But when I copy the recorded action to another character that I have moved it through space the mouse and touch input is not relative to the character (as it happens with the dragger of the hand) so it doesn't change the direction of the particles the way I want.. Is there a way to change the order of operations so that first to shoot particles and take the correct mouse input and then translate through space? or can I use nested comps so that I can animate each character at the center and then translate the hole comp? thank you!
Good question. First I probably wouldn't copy and recorded actions between characters - there are usually so many rigging differences between characters that this rarely seems to work unless they are identical. Recording each character individually is probably the way to go, although I know that might be harder to sync up timing. And yes, I believe the order of behavior operations is set and can lead to conflicts, although I guess you could try seeing what happens if you change the level that the particle and dragger behaviors are and see if that makes any difference. If the problem persists, please upload a video or screenshot of your issue to adobe.com/go/chfeedback and we'll try to help you out.
@@okaysamurai Hi, and thank you for your response! I tried to change the level of the particle behaviour but it didn't work.. Im new to character animator so maybe I did something wrong.. So I recorded them seperately.. Thank you very much though! Happy new year!
Thank you for this FAQ!! Super helpful!! I wanted to inquire if character animator had any plans for leaning more towards twitch vtubing / streaming with the program- more specifically allowing triggers to be activated by twitch chat or through stream deck support? Ive found ways to do it possibly but itd be cool if the program itself was more integrated into all that stuff !
Best place to get answers and communicate with the community is adobe.com/go/chfeedback. Hugging is tricky - I would probably make two separate puppets/scenes with outstretched arms and composite them together in a new scene or in AE/PR. You may have to mask out an arm or two to feel like it's going in front of / behind another character but seems doable.
@@okaysamurai Thank you During the walking movement in the first second, there is a rapid backward movement of the foot, then it returns to its place. Secondly, the hand does not move from the elbow, but from the shoulder, as if it were one piece, and it is in an unnatural shape.
Hard to diagnose here - If the problem persists, please upload a screenshot, video, or your File > Export > Puppet file to the official forums at adobe.com/go/chfeedback so we can take a closer look.
Dave! Can we get a mouth behavior like a robot mouth that the mouth just changes colour based on amplitude? Higher amplitude sound makes the mouth more red (or whatever colour) and the quieter the speaking (lower amplitude), the more normal it looks.
Oooh nice! I think the under utilized Layer Picker behavior would be the way to go here. You can cycle through layers in a group with the amplitude of your voice as one option! It's kinda like Cycle Layers with more options on how to trigger stuff.
I hear you. We are a small team and the Express web work has taken a lot of our priority recently. We are still trying to push out updates where we can fit them in, like the recent editable replays, and an upcoming multilingual lip sync feature. Hopefully more to report in the future!
When will adobe character animator ever have mesh deformation? secondly im trying to make my cartoon walk with a skirt but there is no place for cloth movement or mest movement. The body is more like a stick
CH does use mesh deformation - if you turn on the "show mesh" polygon icon in the lower right corner of the scene panel you'll see how this works. But cloth dynamics is a whole other story, and CH doesn't have great built-in tools to emulate cloth physics, although I've seen some people try with dangle handles.
@@okaysamurai I have been using ch for over 3 years now. U should remember me. 🤔 u made me not give up when my pupils were pulling away. If there is mesh deformation how come they have never been a tutorial on it. How will someone believe me when I say I haven't seen or used such feature. I'll check it out
I mean just basic mesh deformation, like when you attach a dragger or dangle handle to something, it will deform the mesh, aka the artwork group or layer (cut up into triangles). I don't think there has ever been a tutorial about this specifically, but that's how a lot of CH works by deforming and warping the artwork.
If you rig it exactly like I show working here, it should work like my example. If the problem persists, please upload a video or screenshot of your issue to adobe.com/go/chfeedback and we'll try to help you out.
We have an annual budget for those and work with several CH freelance artists to make them. Right now we are not open to external submissions, but if we ever do I will let the community know!
@@okaysamurai thats awesome thanks for the insight. 1 more question. would working with Adobe in the future on projects like this or community spotlight require one's adobe ch content on their own page to be clean? as in rated G, no crass language, adult themes, blood and guts etc?
I have a question about very large puppets dropping frames. My puppets are very large with lots of layers, usually about 1800. I have lots of mouth groups, heads, hands etc. and many layers that are set to dangle. The puppets are usually around 160MB to 200MB, photoshop canvas size 2300x4200. Also I have lots of triggers, takes up the whole keyboard and even expands onto my Midi keyboard. My frame rate is around 16-19 FPS with these puppets, which is not ideal. If I had my way my puppets would be even bigger, upwards of 7000 layers so I could combine all of my body views, but when I do this CH pretty much becomes unusable, frame rate is around 2 or 3FPS and often even crashes. I just upgraded my computer in an attempt to fix these issues from a 2022 iMac M1 with 16GB if RAM to a brand new 2023 M2 Ultra Mac Pro tower with 192GB of RAM, 8TB of internal memory, of which I’m only using about 2TB, so my system is very fast. I figured getting a faster computer would solve these issues but it has not improved CH performance much at all from my iMac. Also my CH is up to date with the latest version. I have found the only way to fix my frame rate issue is to delete layers in photoshop. I’ve tried reducing the scenes resolution and it has no effect on performance. Exporting and importing puppets into and out of CH also takes a long time, about a minute or 2. Is there anything I can do other than to delete layers to make very large puppets work better? I really hope you can help me
Yeah, that's a very large size for a puppet and you're probably running into the limitations of what CH can handle in realtime. I believe most of our example puppets are under 20MB. If it's not set to 72dpi, make sure to do that as it will help a ton. Anywhere you can merge layers to simplify, try to do that. Dangle will also eat up a ton of processing power, so turning off the physics behavior temporarily should help as well. Basically, the smaller the file size snd the less intensive behaviors like physics are turned on, the better the puppet should run.
@@okaysamurai thanks for the reply! I definitely know I’m pushing CH’s limits, my puppets are quite ambitious, 10 heads and 5 mouth groups in each head. I do have them set at 72dpi and I have removed and or merged all the layers that can be merged and I don’t have any smart layers. That said removing physics seemed to help a ton, which I think is definitely preferable to removing layers for me, so thank you so much for the suggestions, you’ve saved me quite a bit of grief!
Hi Dave - thanks for all your awesome CA tutorials, I rely on them for everything I learn in CA! My puppets are all created in Illustrator and they all have a basic upper arm/elbow/forearm/wrist/hand artwork/hierarchy so the demo of how to add hinged arms looks cool, but when I tried it, things went all crazy with the forearm being independent and draggable, the hands did not follow and before I totally broke things I aborted. Can you maybe create a tutorial on the hinged arm technique that includes hands?
Hmmm good question and hard to diagnose here - I'm out on vacation now but I would post a screenshot of your rig to adobe.com/go/chfeedback and see if the community can help you out. My guess is something needs to be different about the hands, like being included in a single non independent group with the rigging applied to the group including the hand and forearm part.
Tried what you suggested and things are not moving naturally. I posted the puppet on the CA community forum. I think I may punt and go back to the standard arm rigging. @@okaysamurai
Good question! I guess I might do something similar to the ears or the hair pieces, tagging them as a nose and giving them their own behavior to adjust the parallax. And maybe then a clipping mask on the edges so the sides of the glasses don't float off the side of the head? With some trial and error I'm sure there are some good results to be had!
lmaooo!!! yes I am also glad the official dzjames account was seen! Thank you for the shout out & live tutorial on how to fix my question. You're the best man!
11:42 I do admit that I could've worded that question a little bit better. By touching his face with his right hand I meant something like doing a facepalm with his right hand😅
Ahahaha! Well yes, in that case you would want to make sure his arm was above his head group, which would take re-rigging his arm, and then drag it to look like it's smacking the head. You would probably also need a new hand swap to be more upright at that angle. So a bit of manual work but doable!
@@okaysamurai Okay thnx!!
Is there a way to change the face of an existing puppet without losing all of the triggers. I have a puppet that I want to use but just want to change the face.
Great question Im curious about that too
Part 3 of the triggers tutorial talks about this, changing face elements: ua-cam.com/video/WzYJbZYhxmk/v-deo.htmlsi=tYISqutEKULfgQG_. This is how I would do it. If you wanted a whole face swap, I would use the Head Turner behavior or a triggered swap set for the different head setups. You could have the same triggers for each, so pressing 1 could make all your faces angry, for example.
To clarify, I want to put a new face on an existing stock puppet with Character Animator. This way I don't have to recreate all of the triggers, etc. I want to just change face and maybe clothing.
Ah ok that's even easier. If you edit the layers in Photoshop or Illustrator and don't change the layer names or hierarchy, it should update correctly and keep the rigging. But you will need to edit it piece by piece instead of just swapping in a single flat image.
Thank you so much. I will try that.
Alright DW, it's time to address the elephant in the room.... SKIRTS AND DRESSES on characters... we need to figure out a behaviour or technique to achieve some decent results!!!
Agreed, this is a current shortcoming and the best examples I've seen are the ones I posted in the Walk tutorial by Tiffany LaBelle. But full cloth physics would be awesome.
Could you imagine, it be magic!
I'm gonna rewatch that now thank you.
@@okaysamurai ok DW, I watched her videos... And I don't know how she did that, but they look incredible. I need to find that tutorial!
I really appreciate this quick answer format. The longer tutorials are so helpful but then there are situations like these after you’ve been in the middle of a project. I would love to see you do more from time to time. Thanks.
Hi Dave, not sure if this is the question to you regarding feature request for CA. I messaged it in Adobe CA ideas page but not sure of anyone would care about it ((. My request is - it would be great to make transform sliders under the Track Behaviours (the ones with percentage value now) larger and more convenient to drag. They are very important part of animation to move the subject in the scene. But they are a real pain right now to operate. I'm really crying for making them larger. So inconvenient as they are now (((. Really struggling to move and scale subject around in the scene when recording.
Another great vid Dave. Really like this format - answering questions.
Hey! I have two questions.
Firstly: I want to do a hopping style walk animation, kinda like South Park. So the legs are basically non-existent. I managed to tweak the default walk animations so the characters are hopping, but it warps and bends their sides. I want to keep their shape as it is. Is there a way?
Secondly: When I import my puppet from Illustrator, the layers where I filled the shapes with textures don't get cut off at the edge of the shape, they continue outside of the puppet. I know there is a workaround, but it's really messy, I have a lot of them, and I have to screw up the puppet's look in Illustrator in order to do that, so it looks correct in Character Animator, but not in Illustrator where I'm editing their looks. Are there any plans for implementing this feature just like for Photoshop?
Thanks!
Usually you can tweak the amount of warping with some well placed sticks. So if the body is warping too much, try adding a big stick with the stick tool through it and see if that helps. Sometimes I even put multiple sticks to fix problematic areas.
For textures and Illustrator - yes, this is a known limitation and ideally it would just work as you would expect. No current plans to deal with this but thanks for the feedback. I have had to do similar things in the past with clipping masks and setup - my puppet PSD or AI files always look a little weird/messy!
Hi Dave - If you divide an arm into bicep and forearm, can you place the bicep layer behind the torso layer, and the forearm layer in front of the torso layer, and then tag each portion as an arm, and put the elbow hinge in the same spot on each arm layer, and still have a functional arm? I’m making a relatively realistic character who’s skinny, and the torso is a narrow V; and the biceps need to be behind the torso to maintain the integrity of the shirt lines, but the forearms have to be in front of the torso to make a wide variety of gestures. Thanks - Eric
I don't think there's a way to do this? But it may be worth experimenting with.
Hi Dave I have 2 questions, 1) can I put all audio files for one character on one audio track and 2) can I export transparent background ,I heard you mention it as a gif animation, but I don’t want export as gif
1. Unfortunately audio tracks can only have one "bar" per track, so we recommend doing any audio editing in other programs like Premiere and then bringing it into CH.
2. You can only export with a transparent background as File > Export > PNG Sequence and WAV or Video with Alpha.
Yay, I am featured in my favourite UA-cam channel. You made my day. By the way, my name is Vietnamese and it's interesting how you pronounce it lol. Thank you so much, Dave.
Haha thanks! Your English is way better than my Vietnamese! :)
Hello Dave, a quick question. Can I create a character with Adobe Character Animator and then import this character in to Adobe Express for using animate from audio tool? Thank you.
There is no way to currently do this. This is what I'm addressing at 8:17 - you can set up your triggers to make the recording/editing process a lot easier.
Could you point me to how to achive "squigglevision" with CA? Seems like I saw it addressed in a previous video but can't locate it.
Haha, I love squigglevision, we should call it that. Check out the character Scribbles on okaysamurai.com/puppets/ - he has a link to a video that shows how to do it via cycle layers.
Hi! Would it be possible to make more head turns available so head and body turns could be more smoother and even 360 body turnaround’s could be possible?
Technically you can already do this with cycle layers! ua-cam.com/video/thDlCEuLzuY/v-deo.htmlsi=qL_eFZRC6TReKjP_&t=352
Hi Dave!
how are you? i have a question how to put something in hands e.g like cotton box, and also one morec question how plz make a video about advance animation of character
For something in the hands, I like the Pickupbot example from okaysamurai.com/puppets/ - that's still how I do it to this day.
Hi Samurai! I got a question. Why does the Lip Sync computation not detect W's at the start of a word? (i.e. for what, when, where). Idk if it is just me who notices this, but it's just consistent. I would have to go back to timeline to fix the w's because of this. I just find it weird that this specific thing is not detected by Char Animator's solver. Thanks!
(Also, sometimes, the "woo" in "You" is not detected (it should be like Ee-woo, but sometimes it would just be "Uh" or "Ee". This one is not that consistent compared to the mentioned problem above tho)
(Another also (sorry lol), The Ah-Ee in majority of words like "Day", "They", "Hay", etc. are messed up by the solver. It would leave out the "Ee" (i.e. They would be like "Th(L)-Ah" without the Ee)
I find that W, F, and L are transitional/quicker visemes that can sometimes have a hard time triggering. Speaking with a louder input signal and/or changing your lip sync preference sliders to be more frequent can help with this. The transcript based lip sync feature should help a little with better detection: ua-cam.com/video/pOBM098PiAw/v-deo.htmlsi=Z_W10shbdPbysl9q
@@okaysamurai That's actually my settings already. My lip sync slider is already cranked all the way up, and I also use .srt transcriptions, but the problems still exist
Mouth(happy) And AltMouth(Sad) lip sync It only works when recording with a webcam.But I have an mp3 file, It has both sad and happy Audio Truck. And while doing lip sync with this mp3 it is not happening, Happy and Sad lip sync are not getting along here, Can someone tell me how this is possible,
Check out the lip sync tutorial about using multiple mouth sets: ua-cam.com/video/sc9S65Zn9XQ/v-deo.htmlsi=WiVJ02sjHZ4Q-4IC&t=906. It doesn't matter if the audio is prerecorded or recorded, the same technique should work - you only need one audio track and one mouth shape / viseme track, and then have the happy and sad triggers determine which mouth set you are seeing at any given time.
I notice the voice and image sync perfectly. For a pc, which camera and microphone do you recommend? Would a webcam with built in mic be enough? or will the sound wont be good enough
I think built in stuff typically works pretty great, but you'll definitely get better quality audio with a USB condenser mic. For anything professional I'll always use my USB mic. For video it's not as important - as long as you are well lit and have a modern HD webcam, you should be in good shape and extra quality doesn't add much.
Hi Dave, is there a tutorial on how Red Monster has his body sway? I can't find one anywhere and can't work it out inside CA by looking at Red Monster's rigging. I must be missing something. Can you help please? (PS: thank you for all the tutorials!)
I don't know if there is a specific tutorial about his rigging, but IIRC I think his head basically only consists of his face pieces and those are put over top of the Body group containing the body artwork. In CH the head movements also move the body if rigged properly, so those facial elements are basically pulling the body along for the ride if that makes sense!
@@okaysamurai Thank you for responding. That's what I thought. I'll keep trying! :)
Why does every time I record, my fps varies and lowers? I have a MacBook with 16gb ram, which is what the support team told me to get a while ago, now I got it, and it still moves slow and weird
If you try the simple "Chad" puppet from the homepage I would expect you should get a much better framerate than a complex one with more bells and whistles. You can improve recording performance sometimes by turning off realtime elements you don't need, like Physics, and turn them back on later for playback. Or if it's possible to optimize the puppet that can help as well. If the problem persists, please upload a screenshot, video, or your File > Export > Puppet file to the official forums at adobe.com/go/chfeedback so we can take a closer look.
Hello. I have a question too. I've noticed that most characters, when they speak, are happy. If I want to have a version where the character speaks while being sad, do I need to add a folder with the mouth positions for sadness? And how is the transition made from happy to sad?😢
This video explains all of that: ua-cam.com/video/sc9S65Zn9XQ/v-deo.htmlsi=xrQtsQ20cgkUyn0I
HI there i have a question is there any way we can use limb IK and walk at the semi profile ? When i use both behaviors and press the button to make the character walk it feet's and elbow create problem
IIRC Walk and Limb IK can run into issues when used together because they're basically fighting for the same tags. The best way to use Limb IK + walk is when you're using the 3 view walk approach and you only have the Limb IK behavior added on the standing view, but not the two walking views.
This is GREAT! Sometimes we don't know...what we don't know....and hearing the answer to other questions is so extremely helpful. I've learned some things today. Thank you for adding to my "tips and tricks" resources.
Can the adobe team try to put a speed graph editor in the software itself in future updates? It would be really helpful for showing exaggerated motions.
There actually is a graph editor, but only for keyframes. ua-cam.com/video/isL-NZ00QaM/v-deo.htmlsi=OJekj725EFGF-PeI&t=427
Is there any way to add a shadow to the character without importing in After Effects. Can we do it in the Character Animator itself?
Yep! ua-cam.com/video/IKQi3Anuhlc/v-deo.htmlsi=VhacL3YMGUgEyQAG&t=141
Hello sir can you show me how to make character go up to stairs and down and show how to move characters to anywhere we want . Thank first 😊
For moving characters I would check out the Walking tutorial: ua-cam.com/video/gv_2Upvtm-M/v-deo.htmlsi=a8lS6om5vMSAUNC6.
Can i use full body motion for my own character also?
Absolutely! pages.adobe.com/character/en/body-tracker
I liked that last tutorial. Personally I feel that can work as a make shift parent system that is done similarly in after effects.
Honestly I feel like finger posses can be dove into more. One thought was having a pop up window dictating each finger. However I feel this process would not have an advantage in live recording and more manual editing.
One thing I’ve wondered is if a system where you can swap between the planes on a puppet. Example being having a character in profile view his bg arm is going behind the body. However what if you want his arm to go in front of his body? I think this can be pulled off by a swap set trigger but it would also require having to make sure the limbs you control bend in a similar fashion when dragging them.
Sorry I know that was all over the place. Let me know what you think.
I made this for another user a while back for the arm swap stuff, hope it helps: drive.google.com/file/d/1RMsqJ_HtI7IjQ0tj-gAIuQMAEk9i3jSB/view?usp=sharing
@@okaysamurai love it! so much value packed in thsi comment section
@@okaysamurai never thought about that have to try it out
Hi Dave glad found your channel thanks for teaching us ❤
Question. Hi, when creating a scene with 2 characters, should I import each character's audio as One file and then keep that all on one layer on the timeline? or should I bring in each sentence separately and create a linear back and forth scene with different audio files, cutting the 2 character conversation in Character Animator? Thanks much
Yes, typically I have each character's voice as its own layer, and I time them out in Audition. This video shows my process: ua-cam.com/video/VhCKD5vl848/v-deo.htmlsi=_ied0oP8TlTRp9J5
@@okaysamurai Thank you so much
Follow-up question to my question below: Or, as an alternative, can you make arm swap sets in which one arm layer is below the torso layer, and a second arm layer is above the torso layer?
Yes, this seems much more possible to me, and I've seen other users do this before.
@@okaysamurai Thanks!
Thank youu dave Love your channel. I learn so much from your videos. ❤😊
Great video, Dave! Thank you so much 🙌🏼🙌🏼
how can i animate a horse walking?
Check out the Intro to Rigging pack at pages.adobe.com/character/en/resources - there is a 4 legged template character there.
Please do more of these that last question was something I have been trying to figure out thank you
I have an issue with the character animator 2023. When I go to file and click on new project, nothing happens. I need help with this please. Never experienced it on the previous versions.
As long as you meet the minimum requirements (helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/system-requirements.html), I would update to the latest version 2024 and see if that helps.
@@okaysamurai Alright. Thank you for the feedback...
Hi Dave, I noticed that when I start to make a lot of triggers, I don't have enough keys left on my keyboard. Is there a way to fix this problem?
If you have too many triggers, consider using an external MIDI device, which I believe can go up to like 127 triggers.
Oh amazing, thanks you so much😊
Hi, i need help. Lot of my exports are glitched everywhere. Portions of the puppet go blank, it creates random hole in the arms or legs. theses Glitches aren't visible in the preview pannels, only on the export files. I can run multiples export of the same scene, and have glitch all around the place each time, but not necesseraly on the same frams. Is there an export setting that minimise that ? or anything else i could do ?
Hmmm, that's very strange and I don't remember ever hearing about holes in characters randomly appearing. Hard to fix here...I would say please upload a video or screenshot of your issue to adobe.com/go/chfeedback and we'll try to help you out.
@@okaysamurai thanks, i found a solution, this dosen't happen when i export with media encoder as oppose to doing it straight out of adobe CH. And i suppose this happens also bacause my puppet is really heavy
I am planning a little project with a dance class, where I want each of them to create a character first, then I want to capture their movements via character animator on a pre existing model. At the end I would like to put each of their dance performances on their own character. Is it possible to copy paste tracking data on other characters, because I havent found a video about that yet? Or should I record their dance moves as replays?
Great questions. In general it is near impossible to copy animations from one character to the next, because each character has slightly different rigging and would look pretty wonky (arms moving less/more, parts becoming detached because of different proportions, etc). One idea might be to use Puppet Maker and have the students customize a character with full body tracking and then use that for tracking / recording. You may have to dig in and modify a little - so like the Mo character is full body enabled but the feet aren't tracked by default. You would need to go into Body > Tracked Handles and make sure to at least check the left and right heels. That's the most streamlined process I can think of for a project like this - good luck and have fun, sounds awesome! My daughter is a dancer too!
@@okaysamurai I see, seems more conplicated than I thought :D Thanks for your suggestions! I will try it with the Puppet Maker
Why is the animation with my face not working? Is it because I am german? Is ist only for english?
As long as you have a working webcam the face movements should work. The mouth has very little to do with your own mouth movements, it is almost entirely audio based. For more audio settings check out ua-cam.com/video/sc9S65Zn9XQ/v-deo.htmlsi=xgCDWWwSdY_DEQ9w&t=546.
@@okaysamurai thank you very much! I will try it again 🤗
On the off chance that you might read 'some more' comments at a later date, I'd appreciate your expertise.
Is it possible to import a PNG of a toon character into Character Animator and then break the character down into arms, legs, eyes, mouth, etc.?
If not, could it be done in Photoshop and/or Illustrator?
Again, if so, do you have any videos you could link that show how this is done, please?
To be clear, I don't mean using one of the templates that have already been functionally designed.
An imported toon character, which is then - maybe overlaid on a template - rigged with Character Animator.
Thanks Dave.
Rock on the Cloud!
Yes you can I usually do this with photoshop. I try to find a art file on google called a turn sheet it shows the character in different views you can search it up to better understand. Than I draw over it in photoshop because the picture you imported from its probably not good quality hope this video helps he doesn't show you the turn sheet but he draws the character from scratch give it a go : ua-cam.com/video/BLP4RWdLEI0/v-deo.html
@@godximroz7892 Thanks so much for the link. Looks promising so far. 😀
@@godximroz7892super helpful reply
Yeah, to do something like this you have to bring it into Photoshop and do some surgery on it, basically separating it out into named groups and parts as much as possible. The blank templates on pages.adobe.com/character/en/resources are great for this kind of thing. I went through a similar process taking a kid's drawing and turning it into a character a while back: ua-cam.com/video/-wQZBZQMfLs/v-deo.htmlsi=xvkFbj4ulAqGguIw&t=1117
@@okaysamurai
Perfect!
Thanks so much for that, Dave.
Cameron is adorable (and an Oscar-worthy actor in training, to boot 😄).
The new ai tools in Photoshop regular and beta will make this so much faster too, which is a bonus.
Can't wait to begin.
Thanks again. 🙏
the mouth movements on your character look more accurate than mine....🤔
This video talks about how I set up my audio settings: ua-cam.com/video/sc9S65Zn9XQ/v-deo.html
@@okaysamurai Thank you.🙏
Hello Dave, I would really appreciate it you could answer this.
Is there a way that you can make the scene camera smaller than the canvas?
No - the Camera in CH can zoom, pan, etc - but it will always be restrained to the scene size.
@@okaysamurai aww ok thanks for letting me know, I do all my editing in CH currently but I guess based on that I will need to learn after effects.
Thanks again!
Hello, and thank you for the tutorials! I have a problem that I can't find the solution.. I have three characters in my scene that I want at some point to shoot particles from their hand in various directions and I want it to be the same motion for every character. So I have the particle in their palm and the mode at point and shoot. But when I copy the recorded action to another character that I have moved it through space the mouse and touch input is not relative to the character (as it happens with the dragger of the hand) so it doesn't change the direction of the particles the way I want.. Is there a way to change the order of operations so that first to shoot particles and take the correct mouse input and then translate through space? or can I use nested comps so that I can animate each character at the center and then translate the hole comp? thank you!
Good question. First I probably wouldn't copy and recorded actions between characters - there are usually so many rigging differences between characters that this rarely seems to work unless they are identical. Recording each character individually is probably the way to go, although I know that might be harder to sync up timing. And yes, I believe the order of behavior operations is set and can lead to conflicts, although I guess you could try seeing what happens if you change the level that the particle and dragger behaviors are and see if that makes any difference. If the problem persists, please upload a video or screenshot of your issue to adobe.com/go/chfeedback and we'll try to help you out.
@@okaysamurai Hi, and thank you for your response! I tried to change the level of the particle behaviour but it didn't work.. Im new to character animator so maybe I did something wrong.. So I recorded them seperately.. Thank you very much though! Happy new year!
Have you been on vacation? Lol
Yep! ua-cam.com/video/aoMGGbG5RCg/v-deo.html
Thank you for this FAQ!! Super helpful!! I wanted to inquire if character animator had any plans for leaning more towards twitch vtubing / streaming with the program- more specifically allowing triggers to be activated by twitch chat or through stream deck support? Ive found ways to do it possibly but itd be cool if the program itself was more integrated into all that stuff !
Nothing to announce today but yes, we've heard that feedback quite a lot.
What is the method of communicating with you and sending a person to you? Secondly, the method of hugging between two persons
Best place to get answers and communicate with the community is adobe.com/go/chfeedback. Hugging is tricky - I would probably make two separate puppets/scenes with outstretched arms and composite them together in a new scene or in AE/PR. You may have to mask out an arm or two to feel like it's going in front of / behind another character but seems doable.
@@okaysamurai Thank you
During the walking movement in the first second, there is a rapid backward movement of the foot, then it returns to its place. Secondly, the hand does not move from the elbow, but from the shoulder, as if it were one piece, and it is in an unnatural shape.
Hard to diagnose here - If the problem persists, please upload a screenshot, video, or your File > Export > Puppet file to the official forums at adobe.com/go/chfeedback so we can take a closer look.
Dave!
Can we get a mouth behavior like a robot mouth that the mouth just changes colour based on amplitude?
Higher amplitude sound makes the mouth more red (or whatever colour) and the quieter the speaking (lower amplitude), the more normal it looks.
Oooh nice! I think the under utilized Layer Picker behavior would be the way to go here. You can cycle through layers in a group with the amplitude of your voice as one option! It's kinda like Cycle Layers with more options on how to trigger stuff.
Thanks, but what about some new features? It’s been awhile..
I hear you. We are a small team and the Express web work has taken a lot of our priority recently. We are still trying to push out updates where we can fit them in, like the recent editable replays, and an upcoming multilingual lip sync feature. Hopefully more to report in the future!
@@okaysamuraiWhen can we expect the multilingual lip sync feature to be released? Thankyou.
I'm actually not sure of the timeframe, but I know we're internally testing it now. Maybe early next year?
When will adobe character animator ever have mesh deformation?
secondly im trying to make my cartoon walk with a skirt but there is no place for cloth movement or mest movement. The body is more like a stick
CH does use mesh deformation - if you turn on the "show mesh" polygon icon in the lower right corner of the scene panel you'll see how this works. But cloth dynamics is a whole other story, and CH doesn't have great built-in tools to emulate cloth physics, although I've seen some people try with dangle handles.
@@okaysamurai I have been using ch for over 3 years now. U should remember me. 🤔 u made me not give up when my pupils were pulling away.
If there is mesh deformation how come they have never been a tutorial on it. How will someone believe me when I say I haven't seen or used such feature. I'll check it out
I mean just basic mesh deformation, like when you attach a dragger or dangle handle to something, it will deform the mesh, aka the artwork group or layer (cut up into triangles). I don't think there has ever been a tutorial about this specifically, but that's how a lot of CH works by deforming and warping the artwork.
@15:37 not working
If you rig it exactly like I show working here, it should work like my example. If the problem persists, please upload a video or screenshot of your issue to adobe.com/go/chfeedback and we'll try to help you out.
how does someone go about aubmitting their own work to be feature amongst the other customizable rigs featured on the puppet maker page?
We have an annual budget for those and work with several CH freelance artists to make them. Right now we are not open to external submissions, but if we ever do I will let the community know!
@@okaysamurai thats awesome thanks for the insight. 1 more question.
would working with Adobe in the future on projects like this or community spotlight require one's adobe ch content on their own page to be clean? as in rated G, no crass language, adult themes, blood and guts etc?
Not really, we work with all types and don't want you to censor your creativity just for our sake.
@@okaysamurai Awesome. Thanks. looking forward tothe next vid
I have a question about very large puppets dropping frames. My puppets are very large with lots of layers, usually about 1800. I have lots of mouth groups, heads, hands etc. and many layers that are set to dangle. The puppets are usually around 160MB to 200MB, photoshop canvas size 2300x4200. Also I have lots of triggers, takes up the whole keyboard and even expands onto my Midi keyboard. My frame rate is around 16-19 FPS with these puppets, which is not ideal. If I had my way my puppets would be even bigger, upwards of 7000 layers so I could combine all of my body views, but when I do this CH pretty much becomes unusable, frame rate is around 2 or 3FPS and often even crashes. I just upgraded my computer in an attempt to fix these issues from a 2022 iMac M1 with 16GB if RAM to a brand new 2023 M2 Ultra Mac Pro tower with 192GB of RAM, 8TB of internal memory, of which I’m only using about 2TB, so my system is very fast. I figured getting a faster computer would solve these issues but it has not improved CH performance much at all from my iMac. Also my CH is up to date with the latest version. I have found the only way to fix my frame rate issue is to delete layers in photoshop. I’ve tried reducing the scenes resolution and it has no effect on performance. Exporting and importing puppets into and out of CH also takes a long time, about a minute or 2. Is there anything I can do other than to delete layers to make very large puppets work better? I really hope you can help me
Yeah, that's a very large size for a puppet and you're probably running into the limitations of what CH can handle in realtime. I believe most of our example puppets are under 20MB. If it's not set to 72dpi, make sure to do that as it will help a ton. Anywhere you can merge layers to simplify, try to do that. Dangle will also eat up a ton of processing power, so turning off the physics behavior temporarily should help as well. Basically, the smaller the file size snd the less intensive behaviors like physics are turned on, the better the puppet should run.
@@okaysamurai thanks for the reply! I definitely know I’m pushing CH’s limits, my puppets are quite ambitious, 10 heads and 5 mouth groups in each head. I do have them set at 72dpi and I have removed and or merged all the layers that can be merged and I don’t have any smart layers. That said removing physics seemed to help a ton, which I think is definitely preferable to removing layers for me, so thank you so much for the suggestions, you’ve saved me quite a bit of grief!
This type of format is helpful. I also miss the community updates!
I have a huge list of stuff to feature from this year - just need to find the time to put it all together!
Hi Dave - thanks for all your awesome CA tutorials, I rely on them for everything I learn in CA! My puppets are all created in Illustrator and they all have a basic upper arm/elbow/forearm/wrist/hand artwork/hierarchy so the demo of how to add hinged arms looks cool, but when I tried it, things went all crazy with the forearm being independent and draggable, the hands did not follow and before I totally broke things I aborted. Can you maybe create a tutorial on the hinged arm technique that includes hands?
Hmmm good question and hard to diagnose here - I'm out on vacation now but I would post a screenshot of your rig to adobe.com/go/chfeedback and see if the community can help you out. My guess is something needs to be different about the hands, like being included in a single non independent group with the rigging applied to the group including the hand and forearm part.
Tried what you suggested and things are not moving naturally. I posted the puppet on the CA community forum. I think I may punt and go back to the standard arm rigging. @@okaysamurai
14:55 was a gem
Hi, thank you for your tutorials, the amount of detail is really appreciated !! How would you deal with glasses and parallax ?
Good question! I guess I might do something similar to the ears or the hair pieces, tagging them as a nose and giving them their own behavior to adjust the parallax. And maybe then a clipping mask on the edges so the sides of the glasses don't float off the side of the head? With some trial and error I'm sure there are some good results to be had!
@@okaysamurai Thank you ! Honestly I gave up and drew multiple faces, but might try this some day 🤗
MORE MORE MORE!
Hello !