Copying Rigging to New Puppet

[omg651]

I'm having trouble doing this. I've created one character with three outfits. I'm trying to keep the same rigging for each of them so she changes while she's walking. 

However, I'm having a hard time duplicating the rigging on the character. 

I saved the puppet, then changed the original psd file. But when I go back into CA, only some of the rigging is the same. 

Can someone give me a step-by-step guide to making this happen? 

[joshuag86337383]

Need more clarification.

Do you have three seperate puppets (3 different PSD files)? Or is it one puppet with three outfits?

If it's one puppet with three outfits you will have to re-rig each new outfit.

[omg651]

I have three different PSD files. 

[joshuag86337383]

In that case when you edit the originals, if any layer names are changed this will mess up the rigging. If you add, remove, or change the order of any layers this will also change the rigging and you would have to rerig.

I don't know what method you're using for creating copies, but here is the best method I have seen.:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/character-animator/duplicate-puppet-keeping-rigging-behaviors-and-rep...

[omg651]

Yeah I guess that's the problem I'm coming across. All of the layers are named the same, in the same order, etc. That didn't seam to work...so I export the puppet, bring it into a new project. When I point the source to a different file, the rigging disappears. When I edit the original, the rigging disappears. 😞

[joshuag86337383]

But are you exporting from Character Animator?

With the method I linked there should be no need to change any source.

From the link:

Best approach I know of is to export the puppet to a .puppet file (in menus) then import the puppet file back into the same project. This makes a copy of rigging and artwork. Then if you edit original you will update the copy of the artwork file. 

[omg651]

I tried that too. But when I update the artwork file, the rigging disappears. 

[alank99101739]

i don't know the exact rules to detect if the artwork has changed, but i have exported a puppet, imported it (which made a copy of the original artwork file) then edited the artwork file to copy and paste changes into the graphics (without renaming layers) and that worked (kept rigging). E.g. i changed a dress with a different dress. But i did not select a different psd file - I changed the contents of the existing artwork file on the imported puppet.

The export/import is important to make sure it copies the artwork file (duplicating the puppet in ch shares the artwork file). The other way is to use a single artwork file and use triggers to flip betweem clothes, but i did not do that to try and keep the puppets fast and lean.

[omg651]

So, here's what I ended up doing that finally worked: 

1. I exported the puppet and imported into a new project (I was previously duplicating the puppet, which alank99101739 pointed out DOESN'T work).

2. I couldn't add to the +layers, if I created a new layer and renamed it "+Left Arm" like in the original and deleted the original layer, it wouldn't work. I had to edit within the layers already established.