I need to export JUST the puppet

[christineavatar]

Is it possible to export just the rigged puppet? I would like about 3 1/2 seconds to be overlaid on an MP4 backgound. That backgound has people walking in it so I will put it together in Premier Pro. What happens now is the puppet covers over the entire backgound. How to I get just the puppet out of the Character Animator program, with some minor movements of the mouth for 3 1/2 seconds?

[alank99101739 · Accepted solution]

You can "export a rigged puppet" using the "Export Puppet" from the menus, but I don't think that is what you want.

You want to create a short scene in Ch with that puppet in it, then export that clip into Prem Pro (with a transparent background). You can do this with dynamic linking (or by exporting a video clip with an alpha channel). For dynamic linking, create a new scene in Ch, set the duration property to 3.5 seconds, do your animation of the mouth. Then open up Premier Pro while Ch is open, and drag the Scene object over into Prem Pro. This will create a "dynamic link" between the two apps. If you update the Ch scene (e.g. scale the character a bit smaller), it will automatically update in Prem Pro.

Note: I normally expert a video clip with transparency instead - I don't use dynamic link very often. But should work if you have updated Ch and Prem Pro to a compatible version (e.g. the latest version for both). I export a video clip using a video format that supports transparency (e.g. NOT mp4!!) because I like having a video clip file. Nice, robust, safe. But every time you update the scene, you need to export the clip again - dynamic link makes that faster to do and should work pretty nicely with a single puppet and a short scene.

[christineavatar]

The guidence you offered doesn't seem to work for me. I've tried to have JUST THE PUPPET so that I can put it into the background that I have made for it. No matter what I do I always wind up with a black background with just my puppet in it. The scene I've created is buried by it. What am I doing wrong?

[alank99101739]

Could you describe

• How you exported from Ch - dynamic linking? MP4 file? Did you use "Export / Video with Alpha via Adobe Media Encoder" from the menu? etc. [I want to confirm you are exporting using a mechanism that supports transparency - the default MP4 for example does NOT support transparency in video clips]
• I assume you are using Prem Pro to layer video clips one on top of the other? Does the video clip under the Ch trip become visible when you trim the Ch video clip? If you throw a UltraKey effect (Chroma key) on the Ch layer with Black as the transparent layer in Prem Pro, does that make it start working? [I want to confirm that you are doing things correctly in Prem Pro. You could load up a PNG file with transparency in Prem Pro]

The most common mistake is to export to MP4 which converts transparency data to black color, since MP4 does not support transparency. You need to use a different video file format, and select a video encoder with "Alpha" (transparency) support. There are only about 2 options that work.