Backgrounds in Character Animator

[orlandop98057891]

I am now moving to backgrounds on my characters and wonder if I should use backgrounds in CH or After Effects. Do you know of any tutorials on the subject for either program?

[Ko.Maruyama · Accepted solution]

What do you want to do with those backgrounds? You'll have more control if you composite everything in AfterEffects

[orlandop98057891]

Thanks for helping I very much appreciate you taking the tim Ko.

I guess I will try and do whatever needed. Not really sure. It depends on what the characters are doing. I think after effects may be the best after reading and a little thinking. Thanks for your time.

[orlandop98057891]

After a couple of hours of playing it seems that its best to use CH for recording the characters movements, lip sync, magnets and physics. I should use after effects for adding backgrounds and cameras. Can the group please give input on this?

[David Arbor · Accepted solution]

I think the general consensus was that we agree, but as Alan said, if you're only using static backgrounds then keeping everything in CH is fine. A recent update added cameras, which was awesome. I like to create a camera, record triggers in different views, then during playback toggle a KB shortcut to switch angles.

As Ko asked, what are you trying to accomplish in your animation? Do you need to composite other elements in or are you just working with puppets and static backgrounds? If so, then CH is probably fine on its own.

[David Arbor · Accepted solution]

I agree with Ko, After Effects is the place to do this with control. That being said, you can do some clever stuff by hacking the Walk behavior to make a parallax effect for your background. But it's still a hack and you're better off doing this same technique in AE. That being said, here's a link (starts at 6:32) where Dave Werener from the Character Animator team shows how to do this: https://youtu.be/vbNXq8NTIWk?t=392

[orlandop98057891]

Thanks David,

I appreciate you for taking time to help. I agree with you guys. Thanks for the link.

[alank99101739 · Accepted solution]

Agree with everything said so far. I do 99.9% of backgrounds in CH because I find it easier to line up characters with the background etc. Its also faster as on my little computer I find dynamic link is slow. If the backgrounds are just static images then AE is not necessary. You just load the background image up as a puppet.

I use AE when I have a video I want as a background and want to align the character with the video.

So I agree it depends on the style of your animation as to which is best. But for me AE is my last resort, not first choice, mainly because of speed of workflow.

[orlandop98057891]

Thanks Alan for taking time to answer. I appreciate you.