Using Character Animator and Animate CC together?

[Animachristi]

I'm not sure if this is possible, so just a request from the team for information. I've made a kind of narration with a character in CH for a short animation in AN. I converted the CH file to H.264 and imported it to Premiere, first, to try to edit them together. That didn't work. So I imported the CH file (as MPG4-H.264) into Animate CC's Library to try to set it up on the stage, but it doesn't come in correctly. I'm shooting for having just a little rectangle off to the side of the rest of the action. Is this even possible? Thanks for any info you folks might have. Cece

[Kanikas]

Moving to Adobe Animate CC - General​

[_keyframer]

Hi. What does "CH" mean? Do you mean Character Animator in AE?

What are you trying to edit together? The character animation as an MP4 and the narration (WAV or MP3)?

Did you already do the lip syncing? Was it as recorded using Character Animator?

How does Animate CC tie into this? Were you trying to use Animate CC to sync the MP4 (H264) to the audio? Premiere Pro is specifically designed for stuff like that.

[Animachristi]

Hi Keyframer,

Thanks for all the questions. Basically, I've done a Character Animator (Beta) file, which I have saved as an H264-MPG4, and yes it has the narration on it which I synched with my own voice/narration. I am still creating the animation for which I'm using Animate CC. I want to insert my Character Animator file into a block inside of my animation in Animate CC. I don't need any further narration on it or any editing. I just want to insert it as an independent sort of movie clip that plays once inside my main animation.

If this is not possible, then I will use Premiere to just do some regular editing and cut pieces of my Character Animator file into the Animate CC file as it goes along. That also looks nice, so I'm less frantic about being able to accomplish the former now.

Thanks again for your questions and if you have any insights, I appreciate them!

[Colin Holgate]

You can import an H.264 files (mp4 in this case) into the Animate timeline, to then do synchronized additional animation on top of it. You would then File/Export/Export Video to create an MOV video file of your animation layers (make sure to check the box that says to ignore stage color and generate alpha, and don't check the box about sending to Adobe Media Encoder). The export won't include your import mp4.

Make sure you had the FLA frame rate set to match the video rate.

Then back in Premiere you would combine your original mp4 with the MOV of your animation, most likely with the MOV in the upper layer.

The fact that the video originally came from Character Animator is incidental, and as you see can lead to confusion!

[Animachristi]

Thanks Colin and Keyframer. I'm not sure still how to make, or even if it's possible to make my Character Animator mp4 something that runs inside, which I should say "on the stage" of my animation? I know I can edit the two together, as I've brought them both into Premiere and they look great. But so far, all I can seem to do is cut pieces in, using standard video editing techniques. I can't seem to place the Character Animator video on top of the Animate CC layer. I know I can export such videos as OAM and place them on Muse websites, for example. Is there such a method for doing so in Animate?

[Vivacious_outfit15D5 · Accepted solution]

You can use a Video component on the Stage to do this. Just open the Components Panel using Window > Components and drag a Video Component instance to the Stage. From there, you can point to the video file from the Properties Panel.

I have a quickie video overview of this that may be helpful:

[Animachristi]

Thank you! Thanks for all of the other great videos as well! Cece

[Animachristi]

I've been able to run the Character Animator video on the stage and it looks great. But I'm not able to export it intact. The message comes up:

WARNING: This movie uses features that are not supported in the Flash Player 23 player

Scene=Scene 1, layer=Bella Video, frame=1:WARNING: H.264 video will not be published.

I was surprised because I was thinking H.264 was now the video standard for Abode pro. Should I maybe try a lower quality conversion?

[Colin Holgate]

What Joseph talked about was if you want to make a web page that features video inside animation. What the rest of us have talked about is if you want to create a video that is a combination of existing video and new animation. If that's what you're doing, ignore Joseph's suggestion. If you're making a web page, ignore our suggestions.

About lowering the quality of the video. You could do that by making FLV, then you could export a combined video from Animate that had the FLV and the animation, combined as H.264. If you're not too worried about the quality of the FLV, it could be a good solution. But, your main challenge will be making the FLV. You would need to download an old version of Adobe Media Encoder to do that (if you install Flash Pro CS6 you will get AME as well).

[Animachristi]

Thanks Colin! I actually wanted to add a video onto the stage of a second video, but not for a website. I just wanted to package the project as a video I can share. In trying to save it, the only effective save I can do is as an Animate file. I can't believe Animate would make it impossible to save this as something useful outside of its program. When you mention an old version of Media Encoder, would that be for the purpose of trying to save the project, or trying to save the Character Animator video that I'm inserting into the Animate file?

[Colin Holgate]

With the old media encoder you could make an FLV instead of an MP4, from the Character Animator mp4. You can then embed that in the Animate timeline and export it along with any animation you've added on top of it, as a new MP4 file. More exactly, it exports MOV and sends that to the new media encoder to make the MP4.

If you're interested in having the best quality you ought to use Premiere, and do what we were saying earlier to combine the animation and the Character Animator video. If quality isn't as important, then making an FLV and having Animate export as video would be ok.

[Animachristi]

Thanks again Colin, and yes I think I'll have to do the old-fashioned cutting together in Premiere, as I do want quality and there doesn't seem to be an older version of AME available on my cloud panel anyway. I was hoping to put the Character Animator in the corner, kind of as one might see an interpreter for deaf, but cutting them together might make the video more interesting anyway. Thanks very much for staying with me in this quest! Cece

[Colin Holgate]

Just so you know, and not so you will do it, the old Adobe Media Encoder gets installed with Flash Pro CS6. You can get that from the CC apps menu, find additional apps, view previous versions. Then the Flash Pro entry is a drop down menu of all the versions going back as far as CS6.

[Animachristi]

Thanks--I looked on previous versions, but I didn't look in additional aps--I'll check that out.  Thanks again--what would we beginners do without you guys.  Cece

[Vivacious_outfit15D5]

Yeah - you could also export your mp4 generated by Character Animator as still frames and then bring all these into a MovieClip on the stage... I don't think I'm quite clear what the final target is.

[Animachristi]

Hi Joseph,

I took some snips. My plan was to put Bella into the Spanish Lesson Backdrop over on the right side to sort of speak the narration for me while other things are going on in the animation. Ideally, she would not have the black background, but that's not a huge issue. I got help putting her together, and she works great, and it even looks great with her inserted into the animation in Animate.

But there seems to be no way to turn that Animate file/project into a commonly accessible file format and have everything still function in the animation, using the export function.

My endpoint objective is an MPG4 or MOV file that can be shared or integrated elsewhere, with an overall objective of being able to independently produce this sort of thing for clients. !!! But seriously.

[_keyframer]

As Colin mentioned - you'd want to import the MP4 into Animate that can only be used as a reference layer for additional new layers of animation inside of Animate CC, Export out your new animation from Animate as Colin suggested and reassemble in PP. Hope this helps.