Scaling characters

[monototal]

I have created a character in PS using paths and imported it into CH. I use it in an AE file where it is placed by dynamic link. The problem is, if I try to zoom in even just a little it gets blurry, because I created the character with too small a resolution. When I increase the size in PS it's sharp of course since it's all paths but when I save it and it gets updated in CH All the rigging and triggers are all over the place.

1. Is there anyway to scale a character while keeping all triggers and rigging in place?

2.  What resolution / dimensions whould my PS file have if I would like the freedom to zoom in on any parts of the character? Illustrator is not really an option as I hate it with a passion (it has the worst usability ever).

Hope this makes any sense and some wise person here can help me.

[alank99101739]

What resolution is the PSD file? I am not a Photoshop user myself. I use Illustrator because its vector artwork so will scale as much as I need and stay crisp. Not being much of an artist I am probably equally bad in any tool I used! Lol!

But you mention After Effects as well. If you scale the CH output in After Effects I believe what happens is CH generates a bitmap video at the CH resolution then scales the bitmap video. That means no matter what resolution the puppet, scaling in AE will make it more blurry. It is better therefore to scale in CH as much as possible. CH can scale puppets with a Transform behavior. I would give that a go and see how well it works. Remember you can create double sized scenes for example in CH and scale it down in AE. The only negative is it will probably slow down CH (as its dealing with bigger files etc).

I do not know of a way to change the PSD file resolution and keep everything lined up. Maybe you can change the DPI at the same time? Sorry, I have not heard of any solutions that work (but that does not mean they don't exist). I have only heard of increasing the resolution and redoing the rigging etc afterwards. But I have not used Photoshop much so don't really have experience there sorry. Maybe someone else who uses Photoshop more can jump in with some advice.

But my recommendation is to avoid scaling in AE and do the scaling in CH and see if that is good enough to address the blurriness issue, at least as a first step.

[monototal]

Thank you for your quick reply!

Scaling in CH does not really work, it makes the character really blurry too, probably because it is a PS file, might work with AI files. The only solution, as you mention as well, seems to basically change the file resolution and dimensions to quite high and then redo the whole thing. Is there a way I can at least reuse my triggers and swap sets? I'm guessing not and I will have to redo all recording too 😞

It's my first CH project next time I'll be sure to start off with a much larger file.

If only Illustrator wasn't such a pain in the a*** to work with, that woudl probably solve my problem.

Thanks again!

[alank99101739]

-If you edit the existing artwork file and put new higher res content in it, so layer hierarchy does not change at all, then all triggers, swap sets etc should remain. it's just Draggers, sticks, pins. etc will be in the wrong spot and need to be dragged to the right spot (sticks will need redoing because you cannot make them longer once drawn). 

[alank99101739]

You can also experiment by exporting the puppet, importing it again (creates a copy of artwork and all rigging) then experiment with that copy without damaging the original. Once you understand how it's going to work, do it to the original.

[monototal]

Thank you.  I didn't know that so I imported the artwork into SH again and did everything from scratch. The character is now nice and crisp even when zooming a lot, thanks to the fact that I scaled the PS (all paths) artwork to 4000px and 500 resolution. Next character will be a lot quicker I hope 🙂

Thanks for your help!