Character Animator program not responding

[b.diskin]

CH has been acting 'wonky' this past week. (The technical term for when a computer does not work correctly. Ha ha.) I've character's features disappear after applying a trigger or behavior tags to them. Now, it won't update my character after I've made edits in Photoshop. What's up? I REALLY need this to start working properly.

My eyes disappear after I apply a trigger or behavior tag to them. Lip sync applied and working fine. I have triple checked layer order. As soon as I remove the trigger or behavior the eyes re-appear.

When I select body parts in puppet mode I only get a yellow outlined rectangle insteaf of an outline of that body part. I've dumped hidden layers but that did not help. I deleted any white area around my art on all Photoshop layers. I won't update edits and still shows the outline of a rectangle.

I'm working on a Mac. All software has been updated. I have uninstalled and reinstalled CH. All othe Adobe prgorams arrre working swell. I have searched FAQ's but not found similar question. So, I came here. Can anyone help?

[oksamurai]

Could you please File > Export > Puppet, and upload/share your .puppet file (via Google Drive, Dropbox, Creative Cloud, etc.) here or via DM so we can take a closer look?

For triggers - in general, when something is added as a trigger it will not show up by default in the scene — it will. only show up when a trigger is activated.

For edits not syncing, in Rig mode select your puppet in the project panel and make sure "auto sync with artwork" is checked in the right properties.

For outlines, make sure in Rig mode that in the lower left corner of the puppet panel that "show mesh outline and auto handles" (a tilted hexagon icon) is blue/on.

[b.diskin]

I believe I have uploaded the file correctly to the Creative Cloud. Here is the link:

https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/534d4b8c-ca99-4823-67c3-bc829cfae291

Have at it! Let me know what I'm overlooking. Thanks.

[oksamurai]

Nice character! Try this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vz_lzPBac-CoBEfutV8LRnTjpjJ5M7Ul/view?usp=sharing

I wasn't able to fix everything but hopefully it gets you started on the right path.

• The poses trigger was only set up for a single pose. In this case, you would want a swap set trigger instead. I set that up. Check out the triggers section in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK-DjtiPzRs for more info about swap sets.
• The eyes weren't named correctly - they were called blink, eyeball, and pupil instead of left pupil, right eyeball, etc. Without those left/right deisgnations, they weren't being tagged.
• The eyes in general are problematic because the eyeball isn't big enough for the pupil to move around in. Check out the eyes section in the linked video above, which talks about how to make this better.

[b.diskin]

Thanks, Dave! The project is for a client. The character is a "caricature" (not really. I ended up rotoscoping him). It's a very limited animation video. I don't need the pupils to move. I just need to have him blink and move his arms.

Great tutorials! They'r ehow I sold my client on using Ch. I don't suppose the tutorials, or a manual, comes in print format for us old schoolers. Even a PDF format. I find it easier to scan an index for topics than scrub through videos.

[oksamurai]

I've done a few PDFs when I've taught classes at Adobe MAX, but sadly I haven't had the time to put them together for many of the video tutorials yet. It's a great idea, I should!

[b.diskin]

Well, it would be easier to update than redoing several of your easy to follow videos. Right?

[oksamurai]

Ha true. 🙂