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Question

Adobe CH-Scene changed motion after exporting to AE

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
September 2, 2018
7 replies
3318 views

Hello together,

Adobe AE changes the motion of my puppet after
importing from Character Animator.

I've tried it several times: could you please help me?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hSy24jmAMNXLX77wgPln7CDK8DZWk4mv

I would be glad for help.

Kind regards

Dennis

This topic has been closed for replies.

alank99101739

Brainiac

It is very strange. I don’t have a solution sorry! But a few final ideas just in case.

Can you successfully use the provided sample puppets? If they work then there might be something wrong with your puppet. (It did seem corrupted when I got it.)

if the the above works, maybe rebuild your puppet from the artwork file. That is, import the psd/AI file and do all the rigging again.

Yes, not having Windows 10 support I can see is a problem for you. The older version should still work, but I understand the pain there if not getting the latest features.

Not sure if any use, but dropping in a plug anyway, if you want a series of tutorials from scratch to see if the same thing works for you, see the “project wookie” playlist link on https://extra-ordinary.tv/2018/10/22/project-wookie-a-beginner-youtube-playlist/ - these are screen casts that are largely unedited so show every step I took to achieve the results. But they are for latest release. (Most is the same, but there are new features)

But up to you how much effort you want to invest.

J

jacqueliney64836004

Participating Frequently

Appreciate it all. I dropped the puppet in a new project on my windows 10 computer and rerigged it all. The arm movement finally looked right but then the hand squished and distorted. I think I have to do it all with frame by frame animation to guarantee results. I started doing a movie review character for a podcast site that's launching a youtube channel with all frame by frame and they work flawlessly on either of my machines.

Thanks again. I'll check out your link and don't plan on quitting.

alank99101739

Brainiac

Do you know of the cycle layers feature? It allows you to do frame by frame for short sequences as part of the puppet.

bBut feel free to drop in a screen shot of the squishing hand issue. With version number of CH. version 1.5 had problems that was fixed in 2.0 for example. There were ways to avoid the problem however. But screen shots are useful to see if it looks like same issue.

To drop in a screenshot you can just paste into the text area here the output of snipping tool.

J

jacqueliney64836004

Participating Frequently

Still no movement on this? I'd like to keep learning/animating but I don't see the point in doing more work if I can't export it.

alank99101739

Brainiac

Have you tried installing the software? I am using Windows 10 but don’t have your problem. Very strange. I don’t mind trying again, but last time it seemed to be fine on my machine. Could you do a screen grab of what you did. And the result? I can then try to repeat directly. Should I start from a newer version of your project? Or even just s export of your puppet.

J

jacqueliney64836004

Participating Frequently

I'll try to get it installed on my windows 10 computer and try again. Maybe 7 is just too far out of date.

Thanks!

J

jacqueliney64836004

Participating Frequently

Appreciate all the work and time you guys have put in so far.

I opened this project in Character animator and got the same error alank got. I cleared the cache and tried again. Still nothing.

I opened an entirely new project and imported the puppet fresh. I rigged just one arm and set the triggers for his angry face. I did an 8 second video just to have him raise his hand and drop it again. Looked great until I exported. The hand stretched way out of frame.

alank99101739

Brainiac

Very interesting! Time to start asking some boring questions like what OS are you on. It sounds like you are in CH though dealing with AME (Adobe Media Encoder), not AE (Adobe After Effects), so its different to the start of this thread? Could you share the AME and CH version numbers?

To summarize, you created a project, loaded a puppet, dragged the arm up and it plays back okay in CH? However when you use AME to export to a video file the arm reaches up much higher, beyond what you dragged it to be? That may be the same problem as the original part of this thread (indicating its not After Effects causing the issue).

But its starting to sound like an Adobe staff problem to look into. Once there is a nice repeatable test case (like the ZIP file above) Adobe folks like DanTull and others can have a look. In this case however I have not managed to repeat what you are seeing. It worked fine for me, but it sounds like two people are seeing the same problem now. That is where the version numbers might make a difference - maybe we are running different patch levels of the applications. It should be in an About menu (sorry, not at computer right now to check exactly where).

DanTull

Adobe Employee

This is on my list to look at in more detail, but it's been busy the last few days. Thanks for the pointer to the thread.

DT

J

jacqueliney64836004

Participating Frequently

I appreciate the testing for sure!

I tried creating a brand new scene and keeping things simpler. The scene parameters are 1920 x 1080. I use scale and the Transform X and Y parameters to set the character. I turned off most of the recording options and just used a dragger for my character to raise his hand and wave. A single trigger was used to change his hand to open palm.

I exported to Media Encoder with Match Source - High bitrate.

Here's the project folder. It's mostly a playground since this is my first full on attempt. I created the Len puppet 6 times before I got it right haha:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Fex0dEanTHqMi4kA66mgnqZROA47Wj1u

alank99101739

Brainiac

Okay, home from work, downloaded the ZIP file, got an error when loading:

So I held down ALT and clicked the refresh button. That cleared up that problem. I then generated the video for "Scene - Export Test". I then used media encoder to generate a video. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RFnFexKs_clFfOUgNS2K4P-IHKCBB_Vf It plays pretty much like in CH (the elbows struggle for some parts, but that is a known problem with CH).

I then dragged the scene from CH into AE and generated the video from there. It came out pretty much the same. The elbows bend a bit strangely, but that is a known issue with the current CH release (hopefully fixed in the upcoming release). But that is different to the previous post in this thread.

If you problem is the elbow bend, then you can do things like put a dragger on the elbow to "help" it go the right way. You can also fiddle with the sticks on the arm, or draw the character with slightly bent arms already so the bends go the right way be default. But that is a different problem than the first video I think.

So could you please expand on the problem you are facing? Is it working on my machine and not yours perhaps? Or am I not following what you are doing?

Thanks!

Alan

CoSA_DaveS

Community Manager

BTW, the elbow-bending-the-wrong-way problem has been addressed by the newly announced (but not yet released) v2.0 by using a new behavior called Arm IK. It uses shoulder/elbow/wrist tags to keep elbows from bending the wrong way and arms from stretching too far.

J

jacqueliney64836004

Participating Frequently

I'm having the same issue. Tried everything listed here and nothing. Been dead in the water 3 days over this. I even wiped out my scene and started from scratch, same results.

alank99101739

Brainiac

My theory (which may be wrong!) is its to do with draggers being relative to the scene, not the puppet. So moving the puppet in AE causes problems. Are you moving the puppet? Eg changing scale factor, moving it, different frame dimensions? I can try to repeat at home tonight. If you can share details about what you did it can help me try to replicate.

J

jacqueliney64836004

Participating Frequently

This particular scene is just the character from the waste up looking straight at the camera. He puts his right hand on his hip and points at the camera. I did pre-recorded audio in Audition and got the visemes set up pretty well. Everything exports perfect until I add the arms.

The first scene I did I had the character walk in from camera right and go to the left side of the panel. He looks around (head turns) and then faces front. He waves at the camera. That one exported perfectly last week but this time around I can't even get it to play back properly within character animator. I made no edits to the puppet core file and the only rigging changes I made were eliminating and adding back in the sticks and draggers trying to sort the arms.

alank99101739

Brainiac

Are the two videos exactly the same clip? A common problem people are facing is the during Character Animator playback the arms (elbows) go one way, but in the final encode they go the other way. Its very annoying. Sometimes putting sticks on the arms helps. Sometimes putting a dragger on the elbow helps start it off on the right spot.

But looking at the two videos, the hands do not start/end at the same place. I am wondering if you are hitting a slightly different problem. In Character Animator dragger positions are absolute positions in the scene window. If you add a Transform scale or change position X/Y afterwards it does not change the drag positions (so the hands stay still but the rest of the body moves away). I am wondering if you are doing scaling or similar in AE and hitting this problem - the drags are not being transposed or scaled so the hands end up in the wrong place. Does that sound like what you are hitting?

(Looking at the video again, it looks like a combination of both of the above. You recorded drags then changed the Postion X/Y (or Absolute X/Y or Scale) so the puppet body moved, but the drags did not move because they are not relative to the body. The path of the drag is exactly the same in both vidoes, but it is exactly offset relative to the body, like the body was moved. Then with the hands being in a different position relative to the body, the arms start flexing in strange wrong angles.)

D

dennisg4651517Author

New Participant

yes - the two videos are exactly the same clip.

In AE I just took the scene into it. Not more....

Ithink it is a issue in CH - I try some thinks out with the rigging tool.. Maybe the issue will dissapear.

Thank you for your answer.

Kind regards

Dennis

alank99101739

Brainiac

Have you tried the playback with recording disabled on the puppet? The playback has quite a few red lights on. If you disable the arm button (turn the red dot off), does it behave differently To what you are seeing now? Having the record button enabled masks the old values (at least during recordings) with the idea that it is going to record a new value over the top. But it can be confusing at times... It might be worth turning off the red dot (at the puppet level is find, on the left side of the screen) just to see if it makes a difference.