How can I make a handbag move like this in Character Animator?

[tiffanyl14655871]

Hi Guys

I recently created a scene with characters on Vespa's.

Because I am new to animation I didn't know how to make hair flow in After Effects so I created my puppets on their Vespa's in Character Animator and rigged them on a walk cycle with very low strength and other settings, and added physics to get the hair flowing, also added cycle layers to the animals and physics to some of their ears and tails, this also gave everything on the Vespa a small up and down movement as if they were on a bumpy road, then imported to After Effects to add the wheels and handbags.

Most of my characters had handbags moving on their arms...

Question...

Is there a way to have the handbags move like I have done in After Effects in Character Animator without having to export 2 separate files eg. the body then the arm over the bag into After Effects?

Also would be good to be able to rotate the wheels in CA also.

All my characters will have bags with them and for all of them I don't know how to get this to work wihtout having to export 2 files.

In CA, I tried the dragger and dangle tool, but it either distorts the bag, or I don't get this flowing motion I have created in After Effects.

Any help will be grateful.

Thank you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=50&v=J93p04OA8CY 

[alank99101739]

A few ways come to mind - you would have to experiment to see which works better.

First the car wheels. You can add “behaviors” at different levels of a puppet. In your case, add a “Transform” behavior to the “wheel” (might work better if wheel is independent). Set the origin to the exact middle of the wheel. Then arm the “Rotate” property of the nested Transform behavior and set it to 360 (or -360). Record the value, trim the record to say a second long. Grab the little square in the top left corner of the blue bar and drag it to the right to create a “blend”. The Rotation will the go from zero to 360 over a period of one second. Turn off ease in/out so its linear (otherwise it speeds up and slows down). The wheel should spin once. To go longer, I think you can type in 3600 (big number) and extend out the recording length. Or copy and paste the record to repeat it.

If you get the above going I was going to suggest using the same technique for the handbag. Correct, don’t use dangles or anything. Set the default rotation of a Transform behavior added to the handbag to say -30, then record a value of +30, then blend the start and end of the recording and it should go from -30 to 30 and back again. Keep ease-in and out on (unlike the wheels above).

If that does not work (I think it will) there are other approaches. You can make the handbag independent, set attach to to be “hinge”. I think under physics you can set the friction of the joint - set that to zero. I am hoping if the handbag starts with a rotation of 15 it will swing down due to gravity, then keep going like a pendulum because friction is zero. My fear here is you don’t actually want real gravity - moving the puppet may cause it to swing etc. The Transform behavior I think will give the closest approach to what you want.

https://extra-ordinary.tv/2018/10/22/project-wookie-a-beginner-youtube-playlist/ Episodes 9, and 11 through 15 might has some useful tips if the above does not make sense.

[tiffanyl14655871]

Thanks so much for this. I thought it would be the transform tool, but obviously I was doing something wrong when I tried it. I'll give what you suggested a go. Really appreciate your help!