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Participant
January 9, 2020
Answered

Dragging/Walking Puppet Moves Entire Drawing

  • January 9, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 600 views

So I'm very new to adobe character animator, and I'm creating my first puppet. I've managed to get the lip synch and facial tracking down, but my next step was to create draggable points. I added to draggable points on the hands and used sticks to ensure the arms move like bones, but when I drag the puppet the entire drawing moves. Ill recorded a video of what I mean but don't know how to post it here.

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Correct answer David Arbor

This is a common 'gotcha,' but the solution is very simple. You need to make each of your arms (the top-level layer only, no need to do this with each part of the arm) Warp Independent. This can be done by adding a "+" symbol before the name in Photoshop or Illustrator so your layers would be named "+Left Arm" and "+Right Arm." Alternatively, you can click the Crown icon on the left of the layer name inside of Character Animator. I recommend doing this in your art file so everything is properly set up there.

 

Be careful not to name your arms "+L Arm" or "+R Arm" or they will get tagged as the "L" and "R" mouth shapes. Check out the new Rigging Issues pane at the bottom of the Puppet panel (this can be called up by clicking the warning triangle) to see what other issues you might want to fix. Make sure to close it when not in use, though, as it will slow down your work because it's checking for issues after every click.

 

Here's a little more info on both of those subjects:

https://graphicmama.com/blog/character-animator-tutorial-rig-tools/

https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/using/rigging-issues.html

1 reply

David ArborCorrect answer
Inspiring
January 9, 2020

This is a common 'gotcha,' but the solution is very simple. You need to make each of your arms (the top-level layer only, no need to do this with each part of the arm) Warp Independent. This can be done by adding a "+" symbol before the name in Photoshop or Illustrator so your layers would be named "+Left Arm" and "+Right Arm." Alternatively, you can click the Crown icon on the left of the layer name inside of Character Animator. I recommend doing this in your art file so everything is properly set up there.

 

Be careful not to name your arms "+L Arm" or "+R Arm" or they will get tagged as the "L" and "R" mouth shapes. Check out the new Rigging Issues pane at the bottom of the Puppet panel (this can be called up by clicking the warning triangle) to see what other issues you might want to fix. Make sure to close it when not in use, though, as it will slow down your work because it's checking for issues after every click.

 

Here's a little more info on both of those subjects:

https://graphicmama.com/blog/character-animator-tutorial-rig-tools/

https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/using/rigging-issues.html