Reusing a character with different clothes

[kelvint67223495]

Hi! I have some questions to ask:

1. Will it be easier to just draw a sorta naked character and reuse it by only drawing new clothes for it to wear? (ugh, layers?)

2. What kind of tools in Illustrator are good for drawing people and clothes? (I have zero experience)

3. Can I use the same behaviors for a character in different clothes?

4. Lastly, can I create a html 5 game using 2D puppets (with their behaviors) from Character Animator?

Thanks in advance!

[John T Smith]

You will probably get better answers by asking in the forums for those programs

Here is the list of all Adobe forums... https://forums.adobe.com/welcome

[rayek.elfin]

kelvint67223495  wrote

Hi! I have some questions to ask:

1. Will it be easier to just draw a sorta naked character and reuse it by only drawing new clothes for it to wear? (ugh, layers?)

2. What kind of tools in Illustrator are good for drawing people and clothes? (I have zero experience)

3. Can I use the same behaviors for a character in different clothes?

4. Lastly, can I create a html 5 game using 2D puppets (with their behaviors) from Character Animator?

Thanks in advance!

1 : yes, in Photoshop or Illustrator by layering things in a smart manner, create sets of cloths in layer (groups), and assigning keyboard triggers to each in CA. See: Keyboard Triggers & Cycle Layers (Adobe Character Animator Tutorial) - YouTube

2: First learn to draw and work with the tools in either Illustrator or Photoshop (or both). Follow any basic Illustrator and Photoshop course. Alternatively, draw on paper, and scan/photograph the result, and ink, colour, and layer in Photoshop.

3: I believe you will have to set up keyboard triggers for each new character. It's very quick and simple, though.

4: No, not possible. CA doesn't export to a usable format. Perhaps the developers will add AnimateCC support at some point, but AnimateCC doesn't export to a usable generic 2d puppet format for use in (html5) engines either. If you need this for a game, your only option is to go with alternatives such as DragonBones, Spine, Spriter, Moho, Blender with Cutout tools, etc.

"Okay Samurai's " Youtube channel provides good CA tutorials.

[Kanikas]

Moving to Illustrator​

[Myra Ferguson · Accepted solution]

You can create characters in several different Adobe applications. You can create them in Illustrator or Photoshop and use them in Character Animator. You could export a png sequence from Character Animator to import into Animate CC or if you wanted to do the animation with Animate CC tools, you could Import your Illustrator or Photoshop art into Animate CC.

I'd really recommend taking a look at Animate CC first, which has great tools for creating artwork. It might be better to start there so that you can get familiar with just one program. You can create a game with Animate CC, too.

To create a base character, in Animate, you'd make a symbol for the body with different parts on separate layers. Each outfit could be in a different symbol, so you could swap it out. When the clothes are a symbol, you could change their color by adding a tint.

[rayek.elfin]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Myra+Ferguson  wrote

You can create characters in several different Adobe applications. You can create them in Illustrator or Photoshop and use them in Character Animator. You could export a png sequence from Character Animator to import into Animate CC or if you wanted to do the animation with Animate CC tools, you could Import your Illustrator or Photoshop art into Animate CC.

I'd really recommend taking a look at Animate CC first, which has great tools for creating artwork. It might be better to start there so that you can get familiar with just one program. You can create a game with Animate CC, too.

To create a base character, in Animate, you'd make a symbol for the body with different parts on separate layers. Each outfit could be in a different symbol, so you could swap it out. When the clothes are a symbol, you could change their color by adding a tint.

It would be great if Character Animator would "play nice" with Animate CC, and allow the user to import a fully rigged character from CA ready for animation into Animate CC (instead of a simple png sequence). But before that will happen, Animate CC's bone tools will have to be improved first, and CA doesn't support bone tools at all, of course.

Still, even an export option of a semi-rigged character for use in Animate CC would be nice. It's a shame the two don't play well together, even though it seems like a no-brainer. Perhaps in a future version?

[Myra Ferguson]

You can request that as a feature. The Animate team is always eager to hear what people want.

Adobe Animate CC Feature Request/Bug Report Form