Character Animator & Photoshop not connecting :-(

[jocelyntrue]

Hi all,

When I open a new blank face (or anything else) in Character Animator it doesn't open Photoshop with the image ready for customizing.

Neither does going to 'Edit' > 'Edit Original'.

Do I need to reinstall the programs or am I just missing something small?

It worked fine on the Mac computer, but the Windows 10 PC is giving me headaches.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Damian

[alank99101739]

Strange... Some random suggestions to try...

CH does not open Photoshop automatically - you have to do CTRL-E or Edit Original, but you said you tried the menu item. Does CH display the artwork file? Can you start up Photoshop on the file by hand and see changes when you save it?

When you click on the puppet, the properties displayed at the top has a path name to the Photoshop file holding the artwork. I would check that this path name is correct. My guess is if you moved from Mac to Windows its something like the slashes being the wrong way around, causing problems when launching Photoshop. E.g. maybe CH accepts forward slashes in paths by Photoshop does not... You can edit this field to fix it up.

If you are starting a brand new project.... ummm.... if you look at the path name and it looks right, can you start up Photoshop itself and open that file by hand?  I am wondering if the WIndows PATH is wrong or something so CH cannot file Photoshop.  If you try “export media”, does Adobe Media Encoder start up on your scene? If that also fails maybe that is a hint the PATH is wrong.

[jocelyntrue]

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to help.

I have opened PhotoShop by hand and it does not save the file changes.

I'm sorry but I the only path name I see for the new puppet is - C:\Users\Damian\Documents\Adobe\Character Animator\Character Animator Project 5\Ch Media\Gathered Media

It is a .psd file.

Does this seem right?

The 'auto sync with artwork' box is checked.

Adobe Media Encoder opens up just fine when I exported it.

I have the apps on my Mac & Windows PC, the Mac works fine and the Windows doesn't. I never moved it from Mac to Windows.

I have uninstalled all the files and used the Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool and then reinstalled everything and it still wont open up Photoshop. So frustrating.

Can you recommend anything else?

I have found that if I find the puppets file and open with photoshop it opens and works, but is there a way to make it so I don't have to do this every time?

Thanks again for your time.

Damian

[alank99101739]

Hi! Sorry, I did not understand completely. I assume you can see the puppet in CH - just that Photoshop on the file is not coming up. The path you gave is to a directory, not an artwork file. I think that is the directory the puppet is in. I am not at a computer just now, but I think when you drag a puppet into a timeline and single click on the puppets, the properties panel should show the path name to the file. (You can probably get the same by single clicking on the puppet.) But that must be working or else you would not see the artwork inside CH. So my guess the pathname is correct.

Can you open up Photoshop by itself while CH is running?  (Could you be running out of memory having both loaded at the same time?) That is starting one or the other works, but both at once does not?

Only other suggestion is to explain the exact sequence you are doing. I was not sure what you mean by you opened it by hand and it did not save the changes. How can you change an artwork file without Photoshop? Or are you saying you cannot save changes while in Photoshop? Or you can save the changes (they are there when you open the file) but CH is not picking up the changes? The latter seems most likely, in which case I would guess the file you are editing is not the same one CH is using...

[Fireship Media]

Has anyone actually come up with a solution or explanation to this question? I have a job to do and assumed this programme would be the best thing to use as opposed to doing the work laboriously in After Effects.

I can't say I am impressed.

[Fata Morgana]

If I understand correctely  :

- open blankface in CH

- go in RIG and click on the name of your puppet in the part of the screen named "puppet"

- an access to the PSD file in link with your puppet appear on the top right corner of your screen in blue. It must work  because the file will be the one wich CH use for your puppets.

- right click on this access but don't double click on this nothing will appear, you have to "open with -> Photoshop"

- Don't forget to save your change In the photoshop file to synchronise with CH

Hope it will work for you now !

[alank99101739]

On another thread I found if Photoshop was not installed under c:\program files or c:\program files x86 then Windows would not let me associate photoshop with the .psd file extension.

So I uninstaled photoshop, changed the install directory in the cloud launcher app, reinstalled and everything worked

[Fata Morgana]

Ow ! good to know, I would never have guessed !

[Fireship Media]

It doesn't work. We have two machines in the office that are state of the art - one Mac and one PC - Mac version works fine and opens photoshop as well as character animator as one - like it's supposed to.

Does not work properly on PC - have reinstalled, and now it doesn't respond requiring a hard exit.

*still* NOT impressed.

[alank99101739]

Not responding is pretty severe!

If you go to Windows explorer and find a psd file, can you right click and “open with” photoshop? Or double click on the file? If that does not work then Edit Original won’t work. That was discovery 1 for me. Once I fiddled around and got that working, I moved on to character animator.

Note, I used to get CH hang a few times a session in rig mode if I did things too quickly. I am wondering if that is the hang you saw. I now pause to make sure the UI finishes updating from the previous command before starting the next one and it’s fine. (Annoying but fine.) On a faster laptop I have not seen it - only on my slower laptop.

[Fireship Media]

I am using a Ryzen 8 core PC with 32 gigs of RAM.

After Effects has crashed on me twice this afternoon whilst trying to create a character for this Character Animator programme - which *also* keeps hanging - the fact that I have to now go and manually find the character and open in in PS and wait an age for it to update is NOT impressing me.

This has cost me a day.  Time is money.

[alank99101739]

That is a beefy machine! My last suggestion if the other points have not helped is to contact Adobe Support (links are in the forum near the top). They may be able to provide direct help.

[headTrix Training]

The program works so well, it still fascinates me! You will feel like a kid again on Christmas morning.

Sounds like you clearly saw how it worked on the Mac, you click and Voila, I move face moves.... with ONE CLICK!

So maybe you have tried it so many times that you have different blank-face.psds and the computer is confused since they all have the same name? I'm not sure... it sounds weird.

If you have the Photoshop file, try renaming it and .... then try opening it up in Photoshop.) If it opens in Photoshop, open Character Animator and then try Importing that same Photoshop file with the new name into Character Animator.

File>IMPORT and import the file.

Then click the new scene icon at the bottom of the Project panel. Does all of this work? Then you have the Photoshop file, that works in Photoshop and Character Animator. Then click on your Puppet in the project panel, and when you do you will see a link on the right to your Photoshop file. Then when you update your Photoshop file (add color to the face, and click Save), and go back into Character Animator you will see it processing and it should update. If not.... its something like alan mentioned with the paths of where Photoshop is saved, and/or call Adobe support as he mentioned, they can login to your computer and help fix the issue.

and Psst.... Keep working on the Mac if you can!

cheers,

mark

[DanTull]

Sorry, I wanted to take a minute to look up the related code so I'd know what to ask to diagnose this issue before responding.

The code for "Edit Original" translates directly to a ShellExecute call with the open verb, so the main reason I can think of that it'd fail is if the file association were misconfigured somehow. It makes me wish the error code were logged, since that might shed some light.

If you use Reveal in Finder on the same puppet, does it show the PSD you expect? If you double click it in explorer, it opens Photoshop? If so, I guess the only thing I can think of to ask is what is the path to Photoshop and what is the path to the file?

DT

[Fireship Media]

Hi all - I just went and did the job in AE as I know where I'm at there - laborious as it is.

I'm going to be taking another look at Animator again soon - and if the problem persists I'll post error logs here.

Thanks for all the replies  - sorry it took me a while to come back... I just went into that AE space for a while and nothing else mattered.

You know how it is.

[Jamzy7]

I can not believe I'm having the same problem in 2024. 

[MiStir]

Make sure that in the project panel the puppet is selected and not the scene then go to Edit >> Edit Original.

[Jamzy7]

Thank you, that solved my problem!

[antond16915259]

For me works when I opened .psd file, cause I didn't have photoshop as default program for .psd files. Maybe try in settings

[dawnf69893535]

Doing this solved the problem for me.

[kikuchiyosesa]

Yep. For some reason after installing Photoshop, my .psd files were still not associated with the Photoshop in Windows.  After associating the filetype with Photoshop, selecting to "edit original" in Character Animator worked.

[Dan Ramirez]

Sounds like you've moved on, but what happens if you double-click a PSD file on your desktop? CH should be using the exact same thing your OS is using.

[binterik]

Hi everyone, I also had this problem when I first installed the program. I have a PC running Windows 10. I have installed all the Adobe suite programs in a different drive than C to save space. I followed the advice from this forum, with this method:

1. I searched for .psd files and clicked 'open in folder'

2. I right-clicked on the file for the option 'Open-with', but did NOT select Adobe Photoshop

3. I selected 'other programs' from the list to open the option where the tick-box says 'open for all files of this type' 

And bingo. Hopefully this helps.

[Jenny5E59]

I had the same issue and resolved it by finding the psd file and opening it from photoshop. You will see a linked file in Character Animator. When I tried clicking on it, it still does nothing, so I went directly to the file location and opened it from there. Hope that works for others! See pic:

[redpredator8]

PHOTOSHOP IS NOT SET TO BE THE DEFAULT APP FOR .PSD EXTENTIONS...

SEARCH IN WINDOWS DEFAULT APPS

THEN LOOK FOR .PSD 

THEN CHOSE PHOTOSHOP.

ENJOY