Puppet waist, during walk cycle, is doing something odd.

[Chris_Gray]

I have been working on creating some puppets with Illustrator and CA. 

I recently watched this puppet walking video from Okay Samurai, and attempted to do this with some illustrator puppets I created.   

I noticed the waist on my puppet was larger than needed after watching the run & sneak styles. 

I opened the file in Illustrator, deleted some anchors on the waist shape, saved AI file, back to CA.

Now the waist looks like it is doing some odd behavior, but there are no behaviors added to the waist or body layer. 

The anchors at the bottom center of the waist stay in the same position, while the rest of the waist moves with the body in motion to the walk styles. 

Link of video to showcase my issue

Any suggestions, insights, recommendations are appreciated.

Thank you! 

[TheOriginalGC]

Access to video denied.

[Chris_Gray]

Thank you for your response. 

Hope this upload works. 

Please let me know if there is a better way to share information to better understand the problem.

Still a newbie.

[Daniel McKittrick Ramirez]

Unfortunately, we can't access the link. If you're able to post the actual .puppet file, it will be easier to debug. 

[Chris_Gray]

How do I post the .puppet file? Drag & drop?

[TheOriginalGC]

You will need to use a file sharing site like drop box or Google drive.

[Chris_Gray]

Got it.

First time saving a .puppet file. 

I made a copy of the puppet in the project panel. 

Thank you for taking the time to look into these issues. 

I have another question referring to the puppet copy.

I made the copy puppet in the link to edit so I could use more than 1 in a scene, since this puppet includes frontal, left quarter, and right quarter. 

My intention is to duplicate this puppet 3 times - a puppet to only walk left or right, to make the puppet capable of walking backwards in both directions, and a frontal fixed puppet. I am considering creating 2 other frontal fixed puppets with each quarter view.

The question is, if I am going to delete a quarter facing side from the 3 sided puppet that has been duplicated in the CA project panel, do I remove the unwanted layers in CA or Illustrator? 

I opened the duplicate puppet with the AI button on the project panel in CA, but it opened the same AI file as the original puppet, making this option feel like a dangerous approach. 

Any guidance, suggestions, or insights on this issue is appreciated. 

Thank you!

[Cherie2450573608fr]

If you open the original AI file and save a copy under a new name., then open the new puppet and direct link to new the file.you should have unique AI file for each?

[alank99101739]

There are different levels of copying etc that is useful to understand.

• There is the artwork
• There are "puppets" in the project panel that point to artwork (via the Path property)
• There are instances of puppets in a scene's Timeline

What does this mean?

• You can put multiple copies of the same puppet in a timeline. They share the same definition, but recordings of movements etc are stored per copy.
• You can have multiple puppet definitions pointing to the same artwork file. If you delete bits from the rigging of the puppet (e.g. profiles) you can have a custom puppet sharing the artwork, but using different parts
• You can copy the rigging AND artwork to have separate copies of them.

Some tips for the last one. If you duplicate a puppet, it creates a new rigging hierarchy in CH, but the Path property points to the same artwork file. Editing the artwork will impact both puppet definitions. If you duplicate the puppet in CH, then outside of CH make a copy of the artwork, you can update the Path property of the puppet to point to the copy.

Personally, I don't share artwork between puppets because I forget sometimes when coming back to a project later. So I always make copies of the artwork and rigging. To do that, I export the puppet using the menus and import it again. That guarantees to make a copy of the puppet and artwork automatically (and creates a backup in case I stuff things up). I do it this way from habit as I make less errors (!!).

[Chris_Gray]

Wow this is really helpful. 

For summary: Rather than duplicating the .ai file, duplicate the puppet in CA project panel ~> export the puppet (File, Export, Puppet...) ~> open the duplicate .puppet file in CA to make the desired edits without affecting the original puppet.

Hope I followed correctly. Thank you alank99101739.

I hope to find an answer about the waist issue with my character after uploading the .puppet file. Thank you for the support thus far Adobe community!

[alank99101739]

If I understand what you mean, yes. That is, you can

EITHER duplicate the puppet in CH and make  a copy of the .ai file AND update the copy of the puppet Path property to refer to the new .ai file 

OR you can. use Export Puppet from the menu to create a .puppet file, then Import that .puppet file back into CH. This will create a separate puppet and create a separate file (in the "Gathered Media" directory of the project, if you look at the Path property of the puppet).