Trying to match position of puppet in a scene from two Illustrator files.

[Hybrida]

I am trying to match the position of a puppet standing up from a chair and sitting down onto the chair. I have one illustrator file of the puppet sitting and then when swapset is triggered it goes through an cycle layer animation of the puppet standing. I then have a separate Illustrator file of the puppet standing which when its swapset is triggered it sits back down on the chair. I am trying to match the position of these two imports in a scene.

The reason I split the puppet into sitting and standing was because I wanted the standing puppet to walk around the room and the puppet was getting too convoluted and complicated to have all these states.

But now I am having problems perfectly aligning these two Illustrator files in a scene. In the Illustrator files both puppets are in the same size artboard and both are in the same x,y position including both states of sitting and standing. But when I import them into Character Animator, the origin points are different which is leading me to not have them match positions in a scene. I am assuming this is happening because the standing Illustrator file has the 'Eye' active in the standing layers while the 'Eye' is turned off for the sitting animation layers and vice versa for the sitting Illustrator file. So when I import these files even though they are in the same position in the Illustrator file, Character animator is positioning their origin points differently.

I'm sorry if this is convoluted and confusing, but I was hoping someone could shed some light on this problem or maybe direct me to a possible solution. Thanks.

[alank99101739 · Accepted solution]

Here is my guess. CH works out the puppet origin I think by working out the bounding box of all artwork in an illustrator file (including hidden content). You can drag the origin in CH to adjust it, but I never do - I had a few problems with the origin then drifting each time i modified the file and it was ee-imported. So i never move the origin in fear it will happen again. (It might however be safe these days.)

So one trick is to put a hidden independent big square into the artwork that is bigger than the rest of the artwork. Do that at the same point in both puppets. That big square will then control the puppet origin point. Make it independent so it does not mess up any warping etc. Hide it so you cannot see it.

Either that or put a copy of both puppets in a scene and compute the exact offset needed to get it right. Then write those numbers down. Remember there are two sets of position properties, one that is applied before scaling and one that is applied after. But i prefer the other approach myself. It's a bit hacky, but others have reported it working for them.

[Hybrida]

Hey thanks for the detailed reply. I tried the bounding box method you suggested, and it does seem to work for now. I am bit concerned it might lead to other issues as you say it is kind of hacky but it will do for now so the tip is much appreciated.

As far as computing the offset, I'm not quite sure how I can get the exact pixel position differentials since Character Animator does not seem to be working off a fixed canvas size when rigging the puppets, so right now, I am just eyeing the puppet's different positions and trying to get them to align. Maybe I am missing something.

Also, it would be good to get exact pixel position control of the origin points as well as other points for more finetuning the puppets. Then again maybe this is an issue of running into problems if a canvas is used.

Either way thanks again for your help.