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Maanky
Participant
September 19, 2020
Question

How do you synch character movements to videos when you can't import them?

  • September 19, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 1113 views

I create videos in PP from images and video clips and then have a puppet narrate them. Is there a way I can produce the puppet animation in front of the video so that they are pointing to the right parts of the slides?

See https://youtu.be/Fy7Rfxbzjig

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Community Expert
September 23, 2020

just import your Ch movie intro Premiere. In premiere you can easily place, cut, and edit your character on top of your video. When you import the actual scene from your Ch file it dynamically links. I find it easy to move and edit parts of my character to sync up exactly. And you could always go back to Ch and make an update... and when you go back into Premiere... BOOM - its updated! The amazing part is going to Photoshop, updating your character and pressing save, and then it updates your animation in CH and Updates the movie linked in Pr giving you a LOT of control. I think its pretty awesome. After effects can be used in the same way, but this would be to add tracking or effects.... for editing Premiere is the tool to use, and its less of a space hog then AE too!


Hope that helps!
have fun!

mark

headTrix, Inc. | Adobe Certified Training & Consulting
Jose5ED8
Participant
September 23, 2020

Hello Mark,

 

I am trying to do something similar. 

 

I want to have two puppets (one in angry mode and the other normal) and a video playing. These puppets would make comments about the video that is playing. I am having a hard time thinking how to best do this having in mind the two puppets. 

 

How would you do it?

 

Best,

 

Miguel

Community Expert
September 23, 2020

It sounds simple and straight foward. I am also teaching myself how to use the program thorught this project! Thank you for your reply, I will share my final product once I finish it! 

 

Thank you Mark,

 

Miguel


ha. Well I guess its sort of simple IF you know Photoshop, Character Animator and Premiere!

the big trick is NOT to export your character animator project... just import it into Premiere so it is dynamically linked... then its so powerful, and you can make real-time adjustments and edits to sync everything up. It is relatively easy. And super fun to see it all coming together!

 

Would love to see it! Enjoy the process!

cheers,

mark

headTrix, Inc. | Adobe Certified Training & Consulting
alank99101739
Legend
September 19, 2020

No, but there is a feature request if you would like to add your vote for it. Best idea I can suggest if you want accurate pointing is in PP work out the key frames you want to point at, export that single frame, note the position in time, then import that frame into CH as a background. Yes, a pain.  

Another idea i have never tried - export from PP as a image (png) sequence via media encoder, but see if you can make it speed up video or something so it only exports one frame every 2 seconds of the original video. Then load those frames into a cycles layers in ch. Hopefully that will not put too much load on ch.

 

The other way to do it is using Dynaimc Link. You can drag the Ch scene into After Effects and it will overlay the puppet on top of a video. It can get sluggish, but it does work. Each time you update the scene, it will update in after effects. With your small simple puppet it might work acceptably. (I rarely use it myself as on my computer it is just too slow to be usable.)

Maanky
MaankyAuthor
Participant
September 21, 2020

Sincere apologies for not thanking you earlier. I'm staggered that this isn't an issue for more people. I've tried the png sequence work-around but it takes a lot of time and tons of duplicate space. I will certainly try the After Effects dynamic link wheeze although I'm a novice to AE having only ever used it to export with alpha. That's the thing with Adobe, you start with photoshop and next thing you're shovelling cash at them for ever more apps.

Still, it's fun.

Simon