Puppet Abilities Preview?

[Tim27898261hm38]

When I go to the home page and see available puppets, or if I open Puppet Maker to start customizing a puppet, I have no idea whatsoever what the puppet's behaviors are. Can it do a 1/4 head turn? Can it perform in profile (side view), so that two puppets can talk to each other? Can it nod up and down? Can it breathe? Etc. I work for a non-profit organization that creates videos for people with developmental, visual, motor disabilities, etc., and we need a customizable 3D puppet that can do all of the above. (Except "breathing" isn't all that important.)

The only way you can get the answer to these questions is AFTER you start a scene, import the puppet, and select the puppet to look at the behaviors. Some of the puppets allow you to go into rigging and set up a behavior I am looking for, some do not.

I would like a behavior preview available, perhaps by right-clicking the puppet's thumbnail? It needs to show two categories: [1] What can the puppet do without going into Rigging, and [2] What behaviors in Rigging are/are not available for this puppet?

Thank you for any consideration.

[ElectroPuppet]

If you require more functionality from your puppet it may be worth looking at 3rd party sellers. We sell a number of puppets that have more advanced behaviours like walk and replays. Our puppets have been used as teaching puppets in high schools and universities as well as by televison networks, marketing and advertising companies.

https://www.electropuppet.com/

You can also download free versions to try out before you purchase anything. Hope that helps!

[Tim27898261hm38]

Thank you for the response, ElectroPuppet. Unfortunately, I need 3D puppets that can at least do a 45 degree turn, so two puppets can be talking to each other. ElectroPuppet has a half dozen clay-mation puppets, but they are all front-facing.

I have added the ElectroPuppet website to a list of Character Animator resources.

[ElectroPuppet]

Actually many of our puppet families have various head and body views. The 'Toon Loons' can face 3/4 left and right and have head turner. We are about to release reverse views for them too, so over the shoulder conversations can be created. Grab the Yoyo puppet for free right now;
https://www.electropuppet.com/downloads/yoyo/

The 'Flat Pack' have front and 3/4 facing bodies and head turner.

So there are a lot more options than just front facing puppets!

[TheOriginalGC]

You can always make suggestions at this link: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911317-character-animator Also, when using the Puppet-Maker feature, you can take a puppet through all of its paces.

[Tim27898261hm38]

Unless there is some trick I don't know about, you cannot "take a puppet through all of its paces" until AFTER you click Generate, which means it is the same thing as picking a puppet with mystery behaviors from the Home page.

I posted my request at the URL you provided. 

Thanks!

[TheOriginalGC · Accepted solution]

At the very bottom are all of the replays associated with the puppet which you can try without generating a puppet. Not many of the puppet maker puppets have turns, but you can always use transform scale x to flip a puppet so that two puppets in 3/4 view can appear to be facing each other.

[Tim27898261hm38]

I wasn't aware that the Play area of Puppet Maker was a complete list of possible behaviors. For example, you can go into Rig and set up auto-blink, breathing, and physics on some puppets. I have spent hours fiddling around in Rigging--and can see the new behavior panel on the Record page--only to discover that the selected puppet can't do what I set up.

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

[Tim27898261hm38]

Sorry for the late response, but I just tried the Scale X idea (set to -100), and it worked like a charm.

Thank you for this tip, which I will used regularly from now on!