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How Do I Open Ch CC 2018 from Inside AE CC 2018?

Contributor ,
Oct 25, 2017 Oct 25, 2017

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I've built all my character scenes and props in After Effects CC2018, but cannot find a way to open Character Animator from inside AE.  When I do open Character Animator on its own, my characters' mouths don't seem to be associated with the Lip synched file in the project.  In fact,it looks as if the Lip Sync is not affecting the puppet at all.

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Explorer ,
Oct 26, 2017 Oct 26, 2017

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Character Animator is where you create your recordings- the actual puppets should be made in either illustrator or photoshop. Once you've done the recordings/scenes in CA, you then open that file on After Effects to complete your story... you don't work in AE, then in CA- you first do your puppet work in CA, then open in AE.

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Contributor ,
Oct 26, 2017 Oct 26, 2017

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I've actually made a few dozen in the last 10 months or so.  So I'm very familiar with the workflow.  But I have at least 2 major issues in place:

1). Within Ch lip syncing is not working, as the puppets don't seem to know there is a synced voice file in the scene, and
2). I don't see a way to compile the Ch project so that I can import everything into Ae .... nor do I see a selection to export the Ae into a file for use in Premiere CC.

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Explorer ,
Oct 27, 2017 Oct 27, 2017

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Hi,

I'm not staff or anything, but I'm currently switching back and forth between the latest versions of CH and AE then finalizing in PR without any issues (other than having to split scenes because I manage to run out of 64gig of RAM with 3 x 4k puppets in 30min takes).

Since you have worked with CH for a long time, I'm sure you know the following, but just reading your questions, this would seem the answer:
1) lip synching to a file in CH is achieved by selecting a puppet, muting all but its proper voice track and selecting: Timeline > compute lip synch from scene audio. I do this with my puppets (2 in 1 scene) and have no issues.

2) To get CH stuff into AE you basically have 2 options: dynamic linking, which is achieved by e.g. dragging the scene from CH to AE. Works for me. The other option is to use the export dialogue under the File menu and render it out before importing it as a normal video. Works for me too, but I don't use it because 6 hours of rendering for a revised version just to increase the playback speed in AE is not worth it for me.

If this does not help, can you elaborate on your problems?

For me the only thing that has changed with the final release is how triggers work (used the "convert" feature without problem), and the fact that CH is no longer bundled with AE (I used to own only AE CC and CS6 for the rest of the suite before CH became its own stand alone software). But the workflow has not changed.

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Contributor ,
Oct 27, 2017 Oct 27, 2017

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Thanks for the reply!  I am a bit perturbed that nobody from Adobe has offered a hand .... just saying ....
But my issue is simple:
I cannot scrub through nor tap "Play" to preview my lip syncing.  I see in Dave's Tuts and other Tuts online people scrubbing through or previewing the Lip-Sync to confirm or to make Viseme length edits.
Please just let me know if you can do this, or if I'm missing something.
I've got the rest down ....
Thanks ... PLEASE .... for some help.

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Explorer ,
Oct 27, 2017 Oct 27, 2017

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On my end, I don't use live audio (just like you, if I understood) and after lip sync calculation I can scrub through and play the scenes with audio, listen, and make adjustments/changes to the visemes. Since my scenes are so long, I have to zoom in to actually see them, but all is working as before. There is a noticable improvement in the final release for adjusting and viewing keyboard triggers of the recordings, but I guess this is not where the problem lies for you.

So, I'm not sure where your problem comes from. I'm sure someone from Adobe will come to the rescue. It sometimes takes a day or more - maybe because there is a limited crew for CH - but I've always gotten a helpful answer here (mostly from Dave himself).

In the meantime, just in case you have not tried already, you could work though some steps to localize the problem:
- download a free sample puppet and see if this works with the audio in a fresh scene.
- try a different audio file with your puppet and see if a corrupt audio file is the culprit.

If any of the above works, then at least it can be ruled out that there is a faulty installation. If not, then I hope the guys from Adobe can figure it out.

Good luck man!

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Contributor ,
Oct 27, 2017 Oct 27, 2017

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When you scrub through after doing the Lip-Sinc in your scene, can you watch the mouth movements on your puppet?  That's my ONLY question.
I just want to scrub through and see the mouth react to the visemes.

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Explorer ,
Oct 27, 2017 Oct 27, 2017

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Yes, I can see the mouth movements when scrubbing and also during playback. And they correspond to the visemes.

But that comment opens up and interesting possibility. Could it be that the problem arises from the puppet structure? In the final release they changed how triggers work. But that also meant that some puppet structures need revisions because an old structure might not show all elements. Any clues to that possibility would be mentioned in the Dave's Video (part 1) on the final release. Hope that this could be it.

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Adobe Employee ,
Oct 27, 2017 Oct 27, 2017

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Just for those that run across this thread, the lip sync issue has its own report (and resolution, I think) here now: Re: Lip Sync Has Me Down and Out - Need Help

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