Puppet Hierarchy

[Dannerino]

Love the concept behind Sticky.  Creating hair and face group with subgroups, one containing colors for the hair and face.  I've been copying the layout and process exactly and it doesn't seem to work.  In doing so, I noticed something in Sticky that made no sense.

Sticky has three groups in the Photoshop file for orientation: left quarter, right quarter and frontal.  The only things in these groups are the arms and legs.  Under these groups and at a higher level in the hierarchy are the Head and Torso groups.  Yet in the puppet hierarchy of CA, these groups are inside of left, right and frontal.  How is that possible?

[alank99101739]

Ch does not say head and torso have to be under profiles. But if you want the body to change with the profile, then it would make sense. I guess a stick body looks the same from all angles, so does not need to change?

[Dannerino]

I understand that head and torso do not have to be under profiles.  And I'm not concerned about the body changing with the profile, I can do that.  My confusion comes from the huge differences between the puppet in CH and the source of that puppet in Photoshop.

I learned that you create a puppet in Photoshop and by using particular folder structure and naming rules, it translates well to CH.  Well, the Sticky puppet and its supporting Photoshop file are very different.  In Photoshop, the head and torso groups are their own groups, not inside any other.  But when it gets to CH, suddenly these groups are within the profile groups.  In trying to understand the way that puppet was put together with Layer Picker behaviors that are used in the Controls section, I was forced to take a close look at the folder structure so I could match it and make the same animation tricks happen for my puppet.

Then I notice this huge discrepancy and 1) I don't understand how it's possible, and 2) I can't proceed with my puppet until I do.

[alank99101739]

oh, gotcha. I have never looked closely at sticky. I think it is probably using shared puppets. If you mark a puppet as shared, you can reuse it in multiple places. See all the puppet icons in the rigging hierarchy? I think they are shared puppet instances that have been dragged into the main puppet. Sorry, i have no experience with them - but if you look for "shared puppet" you might find more info in the user guide.

[alank99101739]

To expand slightly, i wonder if they did something like reuse the artwork file for multiple top level puppets (deleting the bits not wanted). Then marked them as shared. Then dragged them back into the main puppet. Then when export puppet was used all the individual puppets were lost - only the copy in the main puppet remains. 

Try searching the forums for "sticky" too - i think there was a discussion like a year ago on sticky.

[Dannerino]

Thank you.  The concept of shared puppets or shared puppet parts has cleared it up for me.  When I imported the Sticky puppet, I didn't see that a couple of Sticky Shareables folders came with it.  I believe those folders will contain what I need.