Adobe Character Animator: 40 Secrets
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2024
- Here's a roundup of 40 secrets that you might not know about in Adobe Character Animator. Did you know you can control an animated fire sequence with your eyebrows? Edit lip sync without ever touching a mouse? Keyframe arm movements instead of using draggable handles? Add new customized workspaces to the header bar? You'll learn about all this and more here!
1. Right-click a trigger to assign a color.
2. In Rig mode, click the menu icon next to any behavior to rename it.
3. Select a handle Rig Mode and press Enter to rename it.
4. Hold down Command (Mac) or Control (Win) when clicking arming dots to turn them all on or off.
5. Go to Window - Workspace - Save as New Workspace to add your own custom workspace.
6. In the History panel, click the menu icon and go to Show Auto-Saved Versions.
7. Drag any group or layer from the Puppet panel onto a button in the Controls panel layout mode to change the art.
8. Hold down Command (Mac) or Control (Win) + the 1 or 2 key to record a 1 or 2 frame take.
9. Timeline - Enable Work Area or clicking the light grey rectangle above the timeline activates a work area. Command (Mac) or Control on (Win) + the 3 key records for the work area duration.
10. You can copy a replay and paste it directly into the timeline.
11. Select a trigger or replay and press Command (Mac) or Control (Win) + the 1, 2, or 3 keys to record it.
12. Command + B (Mac) or Control + B on (Win) to auto-blend.
13. Command (Mac) or Control (Win) and press the Up or Down Arrow keys to reorder takes.
14. Above Behaviors in Record mode, click the “push parameter changes to source puppet” button to make new puppet defaults.
15. For viseme editing, press the Left or Right Arrow keys to move to the previous or next viseme, and the Up or Down Arrow to lengthen or shorten the currently selected viseme. The first letter of a
viseme like A or O changes the mouth to that shape.
16. Scene - Take Snapshot makes a transparent guide.
17. Timeline - Add Marker will add a marker to your timeline to identify key spots. Press Enter to rename.
18. Option on Mac or Alt on Windows while dragging groups of keyframes time-stretches them.
19. Double-click into the blank part of the Project panel to import.
20. Right-click an asset in the Project panel to reveal it in Finder or Explorer.
21. Add commas between search terms in any of the panel search filters.
22. If you enable Timeline - Link Recording Selection, then everything that was recorded at the same time will be selected together.
23. In Preferences - Lip Sync, if you turn up Camera-based Muting towards Strong, a character will only talk if your mouth is open.
24. Create a cycle layers animation and allow the last held frame to be one you can manipulate with Dragger.
25. When added to a group, the Layer Picker behavior it will cycle through that group’s contents.
26. The Wiggler behavior makes the lines in your character feel wavy and alive.
27. In Adobe Animate, go to File - Publish Settings, and check SVG Image and the option inside to Optimize for CH.
28. Drag any scene from CH into the Project panel of PR or AE to dynamic link it.
29. In PR, select your CH scene and go to Sequence - Render Selection to remove red lines.
30. Assign a MIDI note to a control in the Controls panel by selecting the control and then touching the MIDI control on an external device.
31. You can override timeline snapping by holding down Command (Mac) or Control (Win).
32. You can drag a scene over top of another to add it as a nested scene.
33. If you hold down Option (Mac) or Alt on (Win) while clicking the scene refresh button, it will clear cached files.
34. In the CC desktop app, there’s a category called “Beta Apps,” which lets you get access to prerelease versions of CH.
35. Under Face - Replacements, there’s a checkbox to disable eyes blinking together.
36. In Controls Panel layout mode you can drag anything on the right with a dotted line on it to make a slider control. You can also group multiple sliders.
37. You could add a Transform behavior to each segment of an arm and keyframe the rotation to get keyframed arm movements.
38. Under Face, if you change pose to pose movement to 90% and Smoothing to 50%, you can get a traditional pose to pose look.
39. If you want to reuse character parts, just right-click and choose to make it shareable.
40. Click Character - About Character Animator while holding down Option (Mac) or Alt (Win) for a surprise.
Download Character Animator: www.adobe.com/products/charac...
Get free puppets: adobe.com/go/chexamples (official adobe puppets) / okaysamurai.com/puppets/ (okay samurai puppet pack)
Check out the official forums: adobe.com/go/chfeedback
Share your creations on social media with #CharacterAnimator!
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Twitter: / okaysamurai
Website: okaysamurai.com - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
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Thank you sir, another great video, I wrote out all the tips below:
CTRL on Windows = COMMAND on Mac:
#1 - Right click a trigger and you can add a color to it.
#2 - In rig mode click the hamburger menu icon next to any behavior to name it whatever you want.
#3 - In rig mode click a handle and press enter to rename it.
#4 - CTRL + click on the arming dots, or recording buttons, will turn them all on of off.
#5 - To make your own workspace layout go to Window > Workspace > Save as new workspace.
#6 - In the history panel, click the hamburger menu icon, and click 'Show Auto Saved Versions'.
#7 - Drag any group or layer from the puppet panel onto a button in the controls panel.
#8 - To record a one frame take of your scene hold CTRL and hit 1.
#9 - Go to Timeline > Enable Work Area to enable the work area.
#10 - You can copy and paste a replay directly into the timeline instead of recording it.
#11 - If you highlight a trigger and hold CTRL and press 1, 2, or 3, it will record that trigger directly to the timeline. Replays too.
#12 - Highlight a take and press CTRL + B and it will blend the ins and outs of the take.
#13 - If you have multiple takes in the timeline, CTRL + up/down will reorder the take.
#14 - Click 'Push Parameter Changes To Source Puppet' button to save changes you may have made while in record mode.
#15 - To edit visemes without a mouse, highlight one, left and right arrows to move, up and down arrows will shorten/lengthen a viseme, to change a viseme type the first letter of it.
#16 - To make a transparent still frame on your screen, go to Scene > Take Snapshot.
#17 - Go to Timeline > Add Marker to add a marker, click and hit enter to rename it.
#18 - Hold ALT / OPTION and drag groups of key frames to time stretch them.
#19 - Double click into a blank part of the project panel as a shortcut for importing files.
#20 - Right click a file in the project file and choose 'Reveal in Finder' to go to the source file.
#21 - In the puppet search bar separate words with commas to search for multiple terms.
#22 - Enable 'Timeline > Link Recording Selection' to group things that were recorded at the same time.
#23 - In preferences, turning up 'Camera Based Muting' towards strong will ensure the puppet only talks when your mouth is open.
#24 - Combine the Cycle Layers and Dragger Behavior to have both frame-by-frame animation and draggable animation at the same time.
#25 - Add Layer Picker behavior to a group to do something like play a sequence when you move your eyebrows very high.
#26 - Only works on vector art, check render as vector, and add the wiggler behavior. Gives a wavy line effect.
#27 - If importing from Adobe Animate go File > Publish Settings > Check SVG Image and check 'Optimize for Character Animator'.
#28 - If After Effects or Premiere Pro are open just drag your CA scene into them to dynamic link them.
#29 - If you dynamic link a scene into Premiere Pro and see a red line in the timeline, go to Sequence > Render Selection to render it.
#30 - Go to Layout mode, select a control, and hit a MIDI button to connect that MIDI button to the control, it will turn green if done successfully.
#31 - When dragging selections in the timeline they will snap to other selections, to override this hold CTRL while dragging.
#32 - Drag a scene onto another scene to add it as a nested scene.
#33 - Hold ALT/OPTION and clicking the scene refresh button will also clear any cached files.
#34 - In Creative Cloud Desktop App go to the Beta Apps section to try unreleased versions of Character Animator.
#35 - Under 'Face > Replacements' if you un-check blink eyes together it will allow your character to wink.
#36 - In Control Panel Layout mode you can drag anything on the right with a dotted line into it, to make a slider control. Also, you can highlight multiple sliders and select group to group them.
#37 - If your puppet has the arms segmented onto different layers, add a transform to each segment, and then key frame movements to get key framed arm movements.
#38 - Change 'Pose-to-Pose Movement' to 90% and 'Smoothing' to 50% and now your character will only move their head when there is a major change, giving it a more traditional pose-to-pose animation style.
#39 - To reuse a characters eyes or mouth right click on it and click 'Make Shareable' and it becomes it's own puppet and can be added to other puppets.
#40 - Hold ALT / OPTION and click 'Character > About Character Animator' for a little Easter egg.
Gerg Animation Tutorials Thank you for this outline! I was going to suggest someone please number the suggestions - Us newbies want to learn! Lol 😂 Thanks a bunch for sharing.
Thank you for doing this!!
Thanks for this! 👌🏽👌🏽
Hey Dave! Just wanted to say how much I appreciate you, this channel, and the CA. I made an animated project for my school's 150th anniversary contest (which we're likely going to place in) and I'm going to be using this for my senior thesis, an animated short with original sound! YOU'RE THE MAN!
I love Adobe Character Animator - All my cartoons are done with Adobe Character Animator.
Wonderful Dave. I'll need to go through some of these one-by-one. Good stuff. Easter egg was a nice surprise. Appreciate everyone in that group!
Your channel has be a godsend for me. Been working on a fully animated sasquatch band for a music project I have been able to start doing some gaming live streams on twitch in character as the singer! I would have never been able to get started without CA and your Channel! Thank you! I'm finally able to bring together my three favorite things: music, art and games.
NIce job ! I never used the layer picker, nor did I know about some shortcuts, thanks ! Also, the arms-transforms is a good one too !
Excellent tips Dave. Didn't know the software had so many hidden, but great, time savers.
I love your work Dave! Thanks for making it so easy to understand this program. I saw your tutorials, got a wacom and started making my artworks come to live thanks to CH! Thanks!
Love this!!! Looking forward to more of these in the future! Thanks a million!!
YOU'RE SPINNING MY BRAIN!!!! :)
I saved it & will review, section - by - section. :)
But thanks for the list! That is a blessing.
Stay safe with you & yours.
The "flying" shots with your kids inspired me into getting green sheets.
You are the reason i'm able to make such great animations! Thank you dave!
Again - excellent work and tips!
Thanks Dave - Great video as always! Be well
Best lessons on Adobe Character Animation. Thanks!
I watched your "Evan flamethrower- Robot detective".... It's awesome man... I really liked it....The scene progression, script, voice over, concept........All are great... I've become a huge fan of you....Really looking forwards for more robot detective episodes...😊🤘
Thank you for this one Dave. This was a good informative nice video on CH, loved it. Even if I feel I have a good overview on the program from before there was some nice trick that i didn't know about. Going to be nice to give that away to my students in next class ;) Thanks ;) Keep up the awsome work!! 😇😎🤗
Dave! You are amazing!!! Thank you!!
Awesome Dave, thanks
Hello Dave... You are truly inspirational and remarkable personality. Thanks for being selfless and too nice
Everything is brilliant as always, thanks so much Dave and the Team! Love the surprise too! 😀 The only little suggestion I have is, I'd love a keyboard shortcut to jump to the beginning of the timeline... I keep using Ae's shortcut when I'm in Ch for this hehehe
39 is incredible!!!!
Love your vidz madz hehe if you see this I would be soo 😊 happy
DUUUUUDDDEEEEEE!! Best video ever of all time!!!
This Tips help me a lot =D, Thanks Dave
Good god dave, I worship you.
OMG I think the only one I knew already was 14 haha. Thank you so much for this!
Your the best Dave
I'm 14 and I want to create a career our of CA and start animation which I already have on my yt hope I succeed thanks Dave hope you see this and know that I love 😍 your personality since the old days( even the days when you were in a band) 😂
Thanks! Good luck!
thx DAV for this secrets !!
You’re the best Mr. Samurai!
Just a quick question, I have a super high end PC setup for After Effects & price is not an issue. Do you recommend 720p webcam or 1080p? And 30fps or 60fps? (For best results)
Please feel free to keep it as short as you’d like as I feel confident in your reply^^
We've found that webcam quality is not a major factor for CH performance capture. Anything HD should be fine - it's more about how close you are to the camera and how well lit your face is (moreso than pixel resolution or framerate). Good luck!
Okay Samurai okay thank you so much^^
wow so amazing
Thank you so much
Hi Dave! Love your vids - they have single-handedly enabled us to visualise our dream and create an animated webshow! I was wondering if there were any plans to import videos into character animator? Would love to be able to add a video as an animated background in character animator. Currently the only way to do this that I know would be to export from CA with an alpha layer then add the videos in with premier - the only problem with this is the camera zoom on CA wouldnt be picked up on premier so the video background would always remain the same unless manually changed?
Infact you answer this around number 30 I probably just need to get after effects thank you so much!
Yeah, I would do PR or AE for this - CH doesn't allow for video backgrounds yet. For this kind of work I would leave the cameras out of CH and use PR or AE instead.
I love your videos they're really great,, but I was wondering if you could put up any videos in character design in general
I have a few videos where I go through creating a puppet at character.adobelanding.com/tutorials/, but you might also want to check out more general character design illustration tutorials elsewhere.
@@okaysamurai 1.thank so much
2. Omg i cant believe you replied
Love u Dave 🤗
In loving memory of Jenny Neiretier... Nice one Dave.
Thanks dave
hi dave which version of this software are you using to create you brill designs you a very good trainer
I'm using CC 2020 version 3.4.
Great Video! I have a question. If I have two puppets on a scene and I only want one talking, is there a way that I can make one puppet not lip sync to my talking? 🤔
Yes - whichever one you have armed in the timeline will talk. If you only want one to talk, disarm the second one.
As always wonderful Adobe CA video. Question: With secret #39 'Make "TalkContents" Shareable' is it a single head position mouth that's reusable or does it include all head positions with the varying mouth groups that go with it?
You can share whatever you want. So for example, the Brooklyn Buddies on adobe.com/go/chexamples have a shared "Head" group with head turns, mouths, eyes, etc that they keep reusing for each of the walking views!
@@okaysamurai Great to know. Thank you!!
Thanks Dave
Hey Dave, do you guys plan on having smearing functions on character animator? How about more vesimes? Thanks!
There are no auto-smearing functions now, but I have seen people add manual triggered ones in sometimes, which seem to work well. No current plans for more visemes but again, I have seen people make their own custom ones to trigger if they need a particular extra shape somewhere. So the short answer is, yes you can do that stuff, it's just a manual process right now!
This program is amazing with all of its functions, hopefully before too long it can map to body in a separate function from the face, in a way to make your character dance and do funny movements.
This is happening already in the beta that I mention in this video!
@@okaysamurai WHAT?! maybe i heard it when i wasn't paying attention and then thought i came up with it haha, that's amazing!
I didn't mention it specifically in the video, but it's currently in beta testing. :)
@@okaysamurai oh great! i'm super excited!
Speaking of shareable puppet, unfortunately you won’t be able to edit it (for example to add a new mouth state you have to create whole new puppet and export it again). I wish you fix this later.
Yes, shareable puppets do have some limitations. Typically that's why I do most of my stuff in the original PSD or AI file. But we know of a few broadcast productions who use it and swear by it! I too hope we can get rid of some of the limitations in the future.
Is it possible to download a ‘Shortcut’ list of keystrokes including the ones in this video ?
I don't believe we have one of those out there, but if you go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts you'll see everything (and can make your own custom ones!).
Dave, do u have a tutorial on how what files and folders can we delete? like Ch Data folder, CH Media etc?
I don't think I have a video on it all but - CH uses all of that to help it run a project. The only thing you can safely delete is the temp.noindex folder inside Ch Data, which are temporary files to help thing run smoothly in realtime. If it gets deleted CH will just make it again when it starts back up.
Okay Samurai thank you Dave! Thank uuu
I love your videos they are very helpful and they inspired me to try my hand at being creative. In one of your past videos,I think you mentioned a place that people can post anything that I might have created from Adobe Character Animator. Can you share that location please. I would love to share what I made and get opinions from the community. Thanks In advance!
I think reddit.com/r/characterAnimator/ is a pretty great resource. Also using #CharacterAnimator on Instagram and Twitter is a good way to get out there!
Can I copy the time line animation from a puppet to another puppet? That's will save for me alot of time
Yes, you can copy takes from one puppet to the next. Note that some behaviors like dragger will only look good if the body structure is the exact same between characters.
Hii Dave love your videos I use character animator for my channel and want too grow to be a big TH-camr like you
question: can i add more mouth shapes for smoother mouth animation? or i just need to stick to the default phonemes? (sorry i havent tried the software yet)
Yep! You can add cycle layers to any mouth to show multiple frames if you want. Take a look at Chloe from the home screen and look at her Aa, Oh, and W-Oo mouths, each which have multiple frames.
@@okaysamurai cool! i did not expect an immediate reply. thanks for your vids! i appreciate your content. 😍 already subscribed with my 2 accounts! lol. u deserve 1m!
Thank you so much, Dave . Can you please tell me How can I import a character From Adobe Character Animator in Adobe Animate?
Currently there is no easy way to go from CH to AN, but we hope to change this in the future.
@@okaysamurai and? Did anything got easyer? Im having a hard time rn, as the Tipp 27 from this tutorial is not working as showed. Is there a fast way to make a long frame2frame sequence that was drawn in animate into a (Vector) illustrator file, in order to create a puppet out of that afterwards? This is the last key to my dream workflow.
4:30 That is useful. I can also understand why its under utilized because there's no tutorials on it.
Yeah this is sadly one feature I've not personally used a lot, but it is incredibly powerful.
Do you have any info on origin markers? I am wondering how they work.
Sure, check out the arm rigging section here, which talks about moving origins to the shoulders: th-cam.com/video/hK-DjtiPzRs/w-d-xo.html
make life easier ❤
I can only assume the watching parties that keep disliking these 𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 tutorials MUST be the competition.
Hey man can you please make a video on how to make a puppet walk and then kick and then stop please if possible it would be very very helpful. 🙏
I might tackle this in the future but for now, watch the "Walking" tutorial on this channel and then check out the Ninja character in the app, who has walking + a kick animation.
Can i use this software to make my youtube channel and monetize it in the future?any copywrite issues?
You are free to CH however you want.
Hello. I’m eager to start doing animations, but there is a big issue: my voice. It’s not very melodic and I cannot sing in key. What tools/apps are there to modify a voice as if it was another person or gender and don’t make it sound too fake.
Adobe Audition does have some pitch shifting options that work pretty well IMO. Auto-tuning in apps like Garageband can help somewhat with pitch issues as well. Worth experimenting with!
HELLO DAVE ! i have a question can i make a pupett for sell in adobe stock ?
Unfortunately Stock doesn't currently have a category for puppets. I have mainly seen people making their own online shops currently, like digitalpuppets.co.uk.
I have a question, can I do a character in diffrent program than Photoshop, to animate in this program?
(sorry for bad English)
Yes, as long as it can save a PSD or AI (layered) file, you're fine using whatever you want! For example, I've seen some nice puppets made in Procreate!
@@okaysamurai Okay, thank you very much ^^
Can u make a video on How to design a walking character in photoshop or illustrator
Try this: th-cam.com/video/gv_2Upvtm-M/w-d-xo.html
@@okaysamurai Thank u soo much Dave
I would love to use Adobe Creative Cloud, but it’s too expensive. Do they have financial aid for their monthly subscription? Or are there free programs that do the same thing as the character animator?
I would check out sales - there's always one during the Black Friday timeframe. Student discounts are huge too if you can find a way to get one of those.
Okay Samurai thank you for the reply, I’ll have to check it out during Black Friday!
what version of Character Animator is this
I forgot when I made this, but all of these should work in the current shipping version.
On the new update, the "Hide Sibling" is missing, I can't use the trigger.. Can you help me with this please?
This is an old way to set triggers - nowadays we mainly use swap sets: th-cam.com/video/WzYJbZYhxmk/w-d-xo.html
@@okaysamurai Thank you!
Inwas able to do all of it up to the streaming. However, I think my laptop can’t handle Character Animator, NDI, and OBS at the same time. Character Animator keeps on crashing.. it says: “opengl setup failed the scene panel” while streaming..😔 You have been a big help! Thank you very much!🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
I'd love to make animations. I'm really very interested. But I can't afford buying adobe character animator. What should I do?
Try the 7 day free trial first to make sure it's the right fit for you. Then keep an eye open for Creative Cloud sales and discounts, which do happen here and there (especially around Black Friday time in November).
@OkaySamurai Is it possible to walk up and down instead of just left and right? If the answer is yes then this software = the best software!
Not automatically, but some users have added front walking cycle layers (like Wonder Boy from adobe.com/go/chexamples ). If you did that plus scale keyframes you could get a pretty nice forward walk. The same would be true of any direction/view you're going for.
@@okaysamurai So then I would get forward walk as well as still being able to walk left and right with my puppet? And will future updates/puppets support this since I don't want to spend too much time with creating walk cycles :) ? Thanks!
You could rig a puppet to do everything. Basically if Wonderboy was your "front" view then yes, you could have the character seem like they're walking in 3 directions. I would probably start simpler and build up from there.
Wow, make shareable will definitely make mouths easier for me
here 's dave my teacher everyone, if u wondering how he tought me to do this stuff, just check out my channel. i SUPER DUPER really appreciate to have such a good teacher.
After effects renders CA Dynamic links painfully slow. Am I missing something with this workflow? Please help
It really depends on the complexity/size/duration of the assets you're using. This is why in a lot of my longer workflow videos I talk about changing the preview to lo-res to help. The other option you always have is to export from CH as a PNG sequence and WAV file - it's more baked in but will render much faster in AE.
@@okaysamurai Even at low res, it's a super slow process in AE (in CA it's really fast!). Is there a certain setting I'm unaware of that might boost performance of the Dynamic Link workflow between CA and AE?
Not really, at least currently. The main issue here is that when dynamic link connects, it has to render out the whole sequence - it isn't just rendering the current frame, which can take quite a while, especially the first time you start. I would try the PNG + WAV approach and see if it works better for your needs.
Okay Samurai Ive been rendering out a quicktime video file from CA/Media Encoder and importing to AE. Do you recommend PNG sequence /Wav file over this method?
That works too! If that works for you it's probably cleaner since it's just one file instead of potentially hundreds of PNGs.
First yeah boyy
Can you make a mobile app plz!😓
Can i monetize my videos using Adobe Character animator videos?
Absolutely!
I tried to do the last one on windows but I don't have that option 😣
Alt should work on Windows.
It's under the Help drop down, click and hold on about character animator and then hold down alt and let go of the mouse click. You have to do it this way or alt will just close your drop down.
Thanks 😊
@@okaysamurai omg thanks for all the tips and videos bout character animator these videos made me buy character animator and now I am obsessed
What Is the End
You'll have to try it and find out.
@@okaysamurai When I try it Its Just Get Back To Record
For me, if I hold down alt/option while the File menu is open then I see the text move slightly, then I click About CH and something pops up. If not for you, not a big deal - it's a very small surprise. :)
@@okaysamurai Its Work It was Something Why Those are not Available on Puppets Panel
hi Dave I was wondering if you could maybe give me a shout out in the next tips and tricks or community spotlight video
I really enjoy using charter animator for all of my videos and now some of my school projects and it would also be grate to have some exposure for my channel. Thank you :)
I will never use this software since it is so much difficult to understand 🙏🏻🙏🏻
It takes patience! But well worth it :)