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Participant
June 26, 2025
Answered

Character rigging help

  • June 26, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 1254 views

Please help me before I lose my mind!

I’m having trouble with my puppet in Character Animator 25.

I’ve made the head independent, added a neck handle, and aligned the origin, but the head either:

 

  • Falls off or floats when set to independent
  • Or won’t move at all when properly attached
  •  Or when I link face behaviours it hangs off

 

 

I’ve followed all standard rigging advice — but the behavior still fails please send advice!

Correct answer TanBoxer

Thank you, I found it by chance. Draggers were turned off in the properties column on the right. Maybe I did that wrong when trying to record the two arm raise. thank you for the reply. your so helpful in this group. 👍

2 replies

Inspiring
June 28, 2025

Frustrating isn't it? I get things working then read something I could have done better and then make a change and everything else goes wrong. lol Great software, just annoying quirks for newbies. I just moved some origins after watching youtube and it messed up all my rigging and bones.

 

Now I've just deleted and changed a scene and now the arms wont drag and I've no idea why. lol, If I create a new scene it works. Can I find out why the arms wont drag even though the draggers are still in the rig setup? Not a chance.

 

So although I can't answer your questions I just want to say you are not alone and I feel your pain.

TheOriginalGC
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 28, 2025

Perhaps something other than your puppet is selected in the scene?

TanBoxerCorrect answer
Inspiring
June 28, 2025

Thank you, I found it by chance. Draggers were turned off in the properties column on the right. Maybe I did that wrong when trying to record the two arm raise. thank you for the reply. your so helpful in this group. 👍

TheOriginalGC
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 27, 2025

I see you have both eyebrows in one layer marked as eyebrows which is independent. Take each of the eyebrows out of that layer and delete it. Each eyebrow should be independent. Each pupil needs to be tagged as independent. Is the layer marked as "origin" the face? Usually, the head is not independent of the body. It should be attached to the neck, but I don't see that in your puppet. Please verify thet the origin point for the head layer is where you want the head to pivot on the puppet as shown in the image below.

Participant
June 27, 2025

Thankyou so much for your reply. I will sort the eyebrows out! The head is named as original on my layers and as you should be able to see on the pic the crosshairs point for the head is exactly where I want the head to pivot at the join between head and torso, iv also added a handle on the torso layer and tagged it as neck and placed it directly on top the head so they are in alignment. But the darn thing still falls off if labeled as independent and if not crowned then it's fully attached and won't move at all. This is my first puppet iv created and I'm worried iv missed something 😂

TheOriginalGC
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 27, 2025

It's hard to tell with the filled mesh in your selected image, but it looks like there are a couple of sticks placed in the head. Why are those there?

 

Yes, if the head is independent, then there's nothing to connect it to the neck, causing it to float. Would I be correct in assuming that when the head is attached to the body, then the body swings whenever you try to move the head? If so, try adding a stick to the base of the body and give it a "fixed" tag to pin the feet to the ground.