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Indie767
Inspiring
August 10, 2017
Question

Character creation alternative to Illustrator?

  • August 10, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 2024 views

After a lengthy evaluation, I find Illustrator to difficult to create characters for Character Animator.  There is too much a learning curve with Illustrator and it falls apart when you start creating sub group layers needed for Animator. For example, creating new layers in sub-groups and moving new objects created in sub-groups with a mouse is not possible (At this level, objects can only be moved and positioned with keyboard arrow keys). This makes for a difficult workflow.

Does anyone know of any vector based programs more suitable to draw characters and import them into Character Animator?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

R
Ripbud
Participating Frequently
August 12, 2017

I've been fighting with Illustrator myself.

My best option has been to line and color out parts of the character on the ipad using the "Adobe Draw" app.

Here is what I do:

  1. Draw out character on a piece of paper with a good ol pencil.
  2. After I'm done doing a rough sketch - I take a picture of my sketch using my ipad.
  3. I load the image into "Adobe Draw"
  4. Create a new draw layer - and do the head outlines
  5. Create a new draw layer and paint  under my head lines.
  6. I do this with all my character body parts in the ipad app.
  7. When I'm done - I click the icon "load into photoshop or illustrator if I want to drive my self crazy
  8. The layers load from the ipad on to my desktop computer and I clean up as needed in photoshop - and re-label my layers.

I've found that I can draw better on the ipad than in illustrator and come out with a decent looking character.

Hope this helps.

I
Indie767Author
Inspiring
August 13, 2017

Thanks, I did try this but CA is not relevant for me anymore. I want to use an existing audio track to sync the mouth to but CA can't handle this as of yet (Attempting to do so crashes my computer). I suppose I can play the audio track into my microphone from a speaker but this is a pain. I Know CA is still in beta so I suspect the next release will allow importing audio.. Until then, it is a very limited tool.

R
Ripbud
Participating Frequently
August 13, 2017

Are you running Nvidia Experience?

Character Animator Crashes if the Shadowplay is running - it's a pain to kill the process but once you do no crash.

I've never actually had CA crash for any other reason beside the Shadowplay bug.

oksamurai
Community Manager
oksamuraiCommunity Manager
Community Manager
August 11, 2017

Currently CH only supports PSD or AI files.

You could use smart objects in Photoshop - they won't get imported as vector into CH but would allow you to resize inside PS without worry of pixelation.

I agree - I find Illustrator's grouping structure pretty wonky at times, which is why I typically go PSD if given the choice. But it's a personal preference.

I
Indie767Author
Inspiring
August 11, 2017

Thanks, I do need to resize so AI is the tool.

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