Intro to Character Animator: Puppets!

Due: Tuesday, November 25 @ end of class

Open the application Adobe Character Animator from Finder > Applications. File> save as > new folder (desktop). Save project to the new file. Download the ChloeBodyTemplate puppet and move it to the same folder.

>> See the Complete Character Animator workflow tutorial to see this in action! <<

All of this tutorial depends on having your .psd file set up correctly. Use the template file as a guide.

For your own project, Create a mouth set for lip sync: Develop individual visemes, or mouth shapes, each on its own layer, for the following sounds/ emotional states. This folder should exist in a separate .psd document, and can be dragged into any character file.

W-Oo

Neutral

Smile

Surprised

File > Import puppet. In the Project pane:

Double-click the puppet - this is Rig mode
With the puppet selected, click the "clapper" icon (bottom-left) to add the puppet to a new scene. Double-click to rename the scene.

The character is usually too big for the scene. Select the scene in Project Panel to bring up properties panel to change size - should be the same size or larger than the puppet (pixel dimensions).

It's important to understand that your project is set up with dependencies, i.e., some layers are attached to other layers. Crown Icons - correspond to layers w/ + signs in PS - indicates an independent layer

You can view and change dependencies by selecting the layer or group, then check Properties Panel - you usually want “attach to” set to Auto

Switch to the Record Mode. If you're on your laptop/ have a built-in webcam and mic turned on (see image, upper-right corner, blue camera and mic icons), your puppet will automatically blink and attempt to lip sync (it's responding to audio input, not visual.) It will also be floating around, and you can't move it's limbs. To fix that, we'll work on rigging; switch back to rig mode and skip to Rigging below.

If you need to set up an external camera with one of the Mac Lab computers, plug the webcam into the Mac Mini behind your screen. Then in Animator's fly-out menu in the Camera & Microphone panel (image-right), you should be able to select the correct camera. This method requires using pre-recorded audio, outlined in the Lip Sync Guide.

Rigging

You will need to set the origin (or anchor) points for the main body parts: the head, torso, arms and legs. Use the Main Move Tool (V) to drag the position from which each part should rotate, and drop them where they should join/ connect with another body part. That part should turn green, showing that attachment has occured.

To keep your puppet from floating, select the top/ main puppet layer.

Use the Stick tool @ bottom of rigging screen. Use to drag a line where you want the puppet to be fixed (usually where the torso meets the legs; select Body layer), then tag in right panel: fixed. Also use this tool to create segments in the limbs (see image below - two segments for legs, one above the knee and one below), but don't tag them as fixed.

Note that the arms should remain independent - don't attach them to the Body, just make sure the origin point is correct.

Dragger tool - use to create dragger handles on hands, etc. Dragger should always be at the opposite extreme as the origin.

Hit enter to rename the "draggable" property (to "rightHandDrag" for example.)

To make your puppet blink, you may need to make sure your Blink layers are tagged Right and Left blink in the Tags panel at right.

To make a new swap set with multiple hand positions, drag the entire Hand folder into the trigger panel. You’ll get an option: Create single trigger or Create swap set - drop it into the latter.

Whichever layer has the filled-in finger icon will be the default.
Enter separate keyboard triggers for the different layers. Default doesn’t need one; it’s triggered when the others end.

Recording:

Overall, it's best to record your performance in stages. First, capture the lip sync performance:

Import your recorded audio file and drag it into the timeline. Then go to Timeline menu > Compute take from scene audio.

Now, in the Timeline, select the (top) puppet layer and look at the Properties panel. Everything with a red dot beside it is "armed," and will be activated when you record.

Open the arrows next to each layer to see further parameters to set and select from. For example, you can change the Eye Gaze from "camera input" to "keyboard input," and use the arrow keys to control the eyes.

You can break these out as much as you want, and I recommend doing them individually. Now that you have your lip sync track, disable it by clicking the red dot so you won't overwrite it in future recordings.

For example, in the next take you could turn on only the Eye Gaze and record that; when satisfied, turn that parameter off and work on the Dragger. Note that you can also use your triggers at this stage.

Tip: You can set the recording speed to .75 to slow down the track. This gives you more reaction time for things like eye movement, etc.

Exporting

Once you've completed your animation, you need to export your scene to a standalone H.264 Quicktime file. It's pretty simple: Highlight/ select the scene in the project panel, then go File menu > Export via Adobe Media Encoder. Navigate to where you want to save the video on your computer, and name it.

Once it does, make sure the file type in blue, under the "format" column, is set to H.264. Everything else is good to go if you did the last step correctly, so all you need to do is press the green play button at the top right!

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