How to keep body from floating

[Octavia5CFB]

I'm new to character animate and made a puppet but the puppet doesn't stay put. Whenever I move the puppet follows my tracking and starts to float so im wondering how to keep the puppet in one place.

[mark@headTrix]

hey there,

yes the puppet moves along with you and your camera. To lock it in place, just go into Rig mode, select the main character at the top level. And then use the Pin Tool at the bottom and just pin your characters feet down to keep it in place, or in your case you can add a few pins across the button of the characters shirt. You can also go to Record mode, select your characters in the scene.... and then if you toggle open the  Transform behavior, you can scrub the x, y position and scale to place your character how you want it to be.

Hope this helps.

best,

mark

[Tim27898261hm38]

Thank you for your answer, but the Fixed pins did not work for me. The video is 95 seconds long. For the first 92 seconds the puppet totally stays on the ground. During the last 3 seconds, it floats. (With Fixed pins added.)

First 92 seconds:

Last 3 seconds:

I tried using keyframes, starting just before where the floating happens and set the ground level  to -20 for Position Y, then ending the video with the second keyframe tag at -18 to try to force it to go down a bit if anything. No luck, it still floats up. 

Any ideas would be appreciated.

(And by the way, the Fixed pins in Rig mode are not enabled on the top level layer, nor are they on the Puppet layer. They are not enabled until you select the Frontal or Left Quarter layer (or whatever view you have).

[Tim27898261hm38]

Okay, I tried Keyframes again, fiddling with Position Y on both ends, and it drifts a little bit but the result is acceptable.

[TheOriginalGC]

Are you using the motion library? I've had some wierd experiences with that.

[Tim27898261hm38]

I have Motion Library enabled, yes, so that the behavior appears on the right. I use it for walking in the middle of the video.

However, I have nothing going on from Motion Library for the last 15 seconds.

Thanks for your reply!

[j-saito]

(this has nothing to do with Motion Library, just general CH rigging)

Relevant thread: https://community.adobe.com/t5/character-animator-discussions/character-shifting-x-position-whilst-s...

"Fixed" handles are for fixing the deformation within a layer. If your puppet is composed of separate independent (crowned) layers, e.g. leg layers connected to the body layer, and if you have "Fixed" handles on the leg layers, they will move if the body moves.

Options:

1. Make the legs and body layers dependent. A good strategy if you only care about the talking head and the upper body animation. Examples: Tull and Wampler

2. Keep legs independent but properly rig legs with Limb IK. You may also want to check "Initial Foot Pinning" in IK. This is a better strategy if you want full-body animations. Examples: Chloe, Hopscotch, Sam

I can give more specific guidance if you can share a link to your puppet.

[j-saito]

@Tim27898261hm38 

Oh sorry I missed, you have a separate dedicated thread on this. I'll post solutions there if I find any.

[Tim27898261hm38]

Sorry for two posts.

I didn't realize"floating" upwards the last 3 seconds was the same issue as "rotating" over the entire video.