Animating multiple characters with different parts overlapping in space

[sba18]

Hi! How would you go about animating two characters where different parts of the characters are in front/behind one another—for instance, a girl on her dad’s shoulders. Her body is behind his head, but her hands and legs cross over the front of his body. Is there any good way to handle that with the puppets?

[oksamurai]

Yeah, that's a little complex but seems doable. Basically just think of it as a monster with multiple heads and limbs. Each face should be tagged as a different view, so maybe frontal for the girl and left quarter for the dad, so the facial features will work in each. I'd probably do something like:

+Character

     Arms (Kid)

     Head (Dad)

     Head (Kid)

     Legs (Kid)

     Body (Dad)

Before getting too deep into artwork, I'd make a stick figure / basic circles & rectangles version to make sure the idea works. I do that a lot for anything out of the ordinary.

[sba18]

Question, though- is it possible to tage frontal for the girl and left quarter for the dad but still have each of their heads be able to turn left profile/quarter/frontal/right profile/quarter? I guess I can play around but trying to understand how the tagging works.

[oksamurai]

Oh, in that case you probably want to give each head its own Face, Lip Sync, Eye Gaze, and Head Turner behaviors. So yes, it's possible, just more manual behavior adding.