Skip to main content
Probably Dustin
Probably Dustin
Participant
February 23, 2023
Answered

Too many hands, too new to CA to know what to do with them

  • February 23, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 370 views

I’m still pretty new to Character Animator and I’m working on my first puppet. All the tutorials and example puppets I’ve looked at teach how to switch between only two or three hands. Evidently I went mad with power because I ended up with over 100. Am I supposed to keybind every hand? Am I going to have to work out a flow chart to keep it all straight? This is a disaster.

 

I’d prefer to put as much of that kind of long-term burden on Character Animator as possible. Like if this were After Effects, I’d use Opacity keyframes to swap between hand gestures and then have Time-Remapping on each gesture so I could cycle through to the specific hand I want, no flow chart required.

 

But your Character Animator ways are strange and scary, and I’m out of my depth. Please save me from this flow chart.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Daniel McKittrick Ramirez

That's a lot of hands! 

 

Generally, you'll want the hands as part of a Swap Set. Worst case scenario you have 100 well labeled names in the Swap Set. You can inser these into the timeline by selecting them in the Triggers panel and pressing Ctrl/Cmd + 1/2/3. 1 inserts a 1f trigger. 2 inserts a 2f trigger. And 3 inserts a trigger the duration of the Work Area Bar. This last one is the only one I use. 

That said, 100 in one Swap Set is too much for this workflow. Are all of the hand shapes valid for a given view? If not, then we can simplify the Swap Set to include view specific triggers. 

2 replies

D
Adobe Employee
Daniel McKittrick RamirezCorrect answer
Adobe Employee
February 24, 2023

That's a lot of hands! 

 

Generally, you'll want the hands as part of a Swap Set. Worst case scenario you have 100 well labeled names in the Swap Set. You can inser these into the timeline by selecting them in the Triggers panel and pressing Ctrl/Cmd + 1/2/3. 1 inserts a 1f trigger. 2 inserts a 2f trigger. And 3 inserts a trigger the duration of the Work Area Bar. This last one is the only one I use. 

That said, 100 in one Swap Set is too much for this workflow. Are all of the hand shapes valid for a given view? If not, then we can simplify the Swap Set to include view specific triggers. 

    Probably Dustin
    Probably DustinAuthor
    Participant
    February 24, 2023

    Thanks so much for replying!

     

    Yes, the hand shapes are all valid, but no, I don’t need every hand all the time. In order to make it all work, sure, some can be left out of the Swap Set as long as there’s a way to substitute them in later if I need them, which is probably the answer.

     

    Basically I’ve been thinking about it wrong because I’m not familiar enough with Character Animator, and I keep trying to do business like I’m still in After Effects. I run into this a lot.

     

    Luckily, the forums are friendly and helpful. Thanks guys!

    TheOriginalGC
    Community Expert
    TheOriginalGCCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 23, 2023

    If you're looking for in-between frames for your hands, you can use the Cycle Layers behavior to automatically cycle through those layers until you reach the final frame. All of the behaviors are explained here: Behaviors in Character Animator (adobe.com)

      Probably Dustin
      Probably DustinAuthor
      Participant
      February 23, 2023

      Thank you so much for replying! I’ll take that link too, that’s helpful.

       

      But in-betweening is exactly what I’m not looking for on this puppet. I just want a wide variety of static hand states.

       

      The hands are divided into ten folders by gesture like Open, Fists, Point, etc. The folders are just buckets though, so anything that looks like a fist goes in the Fist bucket, etc. Nothing animates together like that, so it’s more a matter of, “I really need him to swap to Fist 7 at this point in the timeline. Hold on, let me bust out my keybind flow chart.” Nooo.

      Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
      Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices