Character Animator not displaying photoshop image properly - effects, mask

[roberts87160414]

I am new to Photoshop but found its brushes far superior to Illustrator for my character.  I added an overall effect layer to the character and a mask.  However, when I imported the character into Character Animator, the mask is not applied (a rough grey edge appears around the character) and the effect/shading do not show.  I was able to flatten one of the layers separately with the effect layer and it showed on Character Animator, but would have to do that for each layer and piece it back together, plus would still be left with mask issue. I attached screenshots of the issue.  I appreciate any advice you have to offer concerning the mask and/or effect so I can start animating.

Thank you!

This is how it appears in Character Animator , which is far from how it looks in Photoshop with effect and mask

UPDATE: I have figured out the effect issue, but still need help getting the mask to apply to the character in CA

[alank99101739]

I don't use Photoshop often myself - someone else may be able to help better. Not all Photoshop capabilities are supported by CH (as you discovered!), but I recall someone talking about "smart objects" - I think you could group some layers and it sounded like CH cached more inside the PSD file which CH could then understand. Something like that. Might be worth an experiment to see if it helps. But I have never tried it myself.

[roberts87160414 · Accepted solution]

Alan, thank you for the reply.  I figured it out last night once I stepped away from the computer.  I had to copy the effect to each layer separately (which required adjustment on each layer) and inversely select the mask so I could erase the outlying art on each layer.