Part of the puppet is now invisible???---Everything was working before!

Report · Oct 12, 2020

I'm at an impasse!!!! I made a puppet that was working previously well (in August), but now is appearing in Character Animator with part of it's "head" missing/invisible. I spent hours troubleshooting this and even recreated the puppet file using another one that is working, copying-and-pasting layer-by-layer to ensure somehow I didnlt botch the layer order or have a hidden mask somewhere.

Even the jaw part is weird. The jaw visible in the image below is part of the neutral mouth layer, thus the rest of the mouth should be visible too! It's as if there's some hidden mask that's rendering part of the scene invisible.

Here's what Character Animator is displaying:

And here's the puppet in Photoshop. I added the black background layer to the photoshop file so you can see the puppet. When imported into Character Animator, that background layer is deleted.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated. This makes nooooo sense at this stage!

Report · Oct 12, 2020

Here's a link to the PSD file in case anyone is kind enough to examine it for me....[DOWNLOAD]

Report · Oct 12, 2020

Could you share a screenshot of the rigging hierarchy? Or use "Export Puppet" and share that instead? I am guessing it is something to do with behaviors or triggers in the rigging in Character Animator that is the problem (not the PSD file).

Report · Oct 12, 2020

Thank you very much for the reply! I'm relatively new to CA, but I suspect its a PSD issue somehow. There's no rigging at all. All rigging settings are default. It's a just static puppet face with visime mouth animations and when I import other PSD puppets set up the same way, the scene works just fine.

So while experimenting with the PSD, I created a new face background layer using the original artwork as a Hail Mary in case there was some mask hiding in there. I saved the original face background as an inactive layer (just in case I goofed something as I was working.), imported it back into CH, and the scene WORKS! Who-hoo!

But the mystery isn't over...I then go back into photoshop to delete the inactive background layer and the duplicate face background, save, and CH returns to the missing head problem! So I return to Photoshop, undo the deleted inactive layers, and the scene then works again.

This makes no sense at all!!! The extra layers are inactive design debris which should have no influence on CH.

Here's the new PSD puppet with the debris layers that is working: [DOWNLOAD]

For now, I'm back up and running. But at some point I really need to understand this little mystery. I have a lot more work to go and the only reason I'm back up is by chance of experiment with no clear cause.

Report · Oct 12, 2020

AlanK, I hereby bow to your wisdom!!!

I just looked at the rigging for the one that's working and the one that's not for comparison. Sure enough...

NOT WORKING:

WORKING:

Just two questions...

1. How could this have happened? I've never messed with rigging for any of these puppets.

2. More importantly, how do I fix it and avoid it in the future?

Report · Oct 12, 2020

I just did an experiment and added an inactive layer with fill to the problematic file. Sure enough, it was the inactive black background layer that's keeping it from collapsing and doing that "mask-trace" thing. This is the first puppet I've created that wasn't composed of solid filled shapes (e.g., line art with transparency). I'm guessing CH tries to trace the artork if it isn't solid?

Report · Oct 12, 2020

Sorry, I think we were typing at the same time (I am at work - sneaking a look in every so often).

Yes, to expand what I said in last post slightly, hidden layers are very important to CH. They are considered a part of the artwork as you frequently hide a layer so it is only visible when you use a trigger in CH to reveal it. So you cannot leave dregs around with no side effects in CH. Hiding does not mean "not present". E.g. frequently people hide all the mouth positions except Neutral. As you talk, CH changes they layer that is hidden (based on the visemes). If you had hands, the same would be true - you show one set of hands and hide the others so only one is displayed at a time.

To be honest, still not completely sure why some of the artwork disappeared (I did not expect that), but the solution seems simple enough. Leave that big rectangle behind everything, but hide it. Note: This can also be good practice to avoid the center of the artwork moving if you add to the drawing. It can mess up old recordings if the centroid of the artwork moves. Having a big rectangle behind it stops this problem too.

Report · Oct 12, 2020

Ahhhhh! Very helpful. What CH does is it tries to find joined artwork. If little bits of artwork are not joined it sometimes "loses" them.

In your second image, it looks like you have a big rectangle behind all the artwork. That is why the big yellow rectangle is there. Then that layer has been hidden (look down the bottom of your layer list - I bet one of the two hidden layers is a big rectangle). Hidden layers are still used to find joined artwork because a trigger might make it appear.

So my recommendation is to put a big rectangle behind your drawing then hide it (not delete it). I think that will solve the problem.