Characer aninamtor vs crazy talk or DUIK

[reindeer4]

Hi -

Curious if Character Animator is in a stable, usable form at this point - and how it compares to alternatives such as DUIK plugin for After Effects (AFX) and Reallusion's CharacterAnimator 3.  Interested in full body animation, which could be 2D or 2 1/2 D (vs true 3D animation which I'm also considering).  And lip synching would be a plus though not absolutely necessary - but wouldn't want to use it if it looked too mechanical.  I will be putting everything together inside of AFX and Premiere - so workflow within AFX is a plus - though I'm fine exporting a png sequence from another program and then bringing in)

Thanks for any insights or suggestions.

[oksamurai]

The difference here is that CH is performance based, not keyframe based. So I see them as different tools in the toolbox, and depending on what you're trying to do, or what character you're using, one product might be better for you for a particular project.

Body animation in CH is currently mainly powered by "draggables" - dragging limbs with the mouse or fingers on a touch enabled device - and key triggers, which swaps in different hands or triggers certain animations to play with keyboard presses. The #1 request on our idea board, however, is full body tracking: Ideas for Character Animator. So it's not hard to imagine that kind of functionality being explored more in the future.

CH's dynamic link with After Effects and Premiere Pro is definitely the highlight for me, as it's something I use on a weekly basis. A combo could work too. If you felt comfortable with DUIK, for example, you could make a head in CH and then track that onto a DUIK body rig.

These videos might help:

• How can I add draggable limbs to my character?
• How can I Dynamic Link my scenes with After Effects or Premiere Pro?