If I recall correctly, I think someone from Adobe said once before something about files within the project directory being stored with relative paths and files outside using absolute paths - so it could help (worth trying). But I could not find it just now. (Another thread I read once indicated some people thought it was normal with After Effects to have to relink asset files when sharing projects...) ... View more

Just to be clear, you are seeing stuff like this right? When I fix the path to the puppet artwork, it starts working again. Click on the path name to bring up But to back up to your original email, the PSD guy is not 'rigging" the file in Character Animator is he? Just creating the PSD file with the correct layers?  Then your CH rigging guy rigs the puppet.  Either both your computers have to use the same path name, or else your CH rigging guy should export the puppet and send that to you.  The challenge there however is if he changes triggers etc, you cannot refresh the existing puppet with the changes I think. My best *suggestion* is to standardize the path name to files (I use something like C:\Adobe\Projects\...") so the path names don't change. Then your CH rigging guy can open the project on his machine, then sync your changes so you can see those changes (e.g. using Google Drive or OneNote etc). Don't ever both have the project open at the same time. But you are right - I cannot see a nice workflow for multiple people working on a project. The first time is great. But getting updates to puppets seems problematic when they include triggers etc.  Just doing artwork updates is okay, but having a separate guy doing the rigging does not seem to be supported well. ... View more

Sorry, its not very clear what behavior you are after. Do you want the head to move, but be attached to the body so it stretches with it perhaps?  My initial guess would have been set independence on the head, but set the head strength property (in Face) to a small value (or zero) so it does not float away from the body. If that is not what you want, maybe try to explain in a bit more detail what behavior you are after? ... View more

If you knock up a skeleton puppet demonstrating the issue and export it, can have a look to see if something easy. Its often easier to tinker than explain. ... View more

I agree that would be nice, but I was wondering if you could duplicate the puppet (copying triggers) then change the artwork path property to a different file. (This is hacks, but best I could think of today.) ... View more

I am just going to bed with no computer turned on, but I would suggest checking the auto-tagging. My most common reason is the “pupil Range” tag was added to the same thing as “pupil size”, meaning the pupil has no space to move. I go through each layer one by one carefully and check the tags on each group. Sometimes its the top level Eye for example that has some strange tags. The other one is to check the pupil has independence turned on - but I find that results in distortion rather than lack of movement. ... View more

You probably need to look at a full tutorial, but I think what you want to look into is “idenepence”. E.g. try namint the Head group “+Head” so it automatically makes that group independent (the little crown next to the group is then selected).  I am guessing you want the head to move (e.g. Tilt side to side) independent to the body which is what “inpdenence” is for. It gets a bit more tricky if you want multiple head turns etc - but my step 1 suggestion is to try clicking the crown icon next to the Head group and see if that gets you a step further. Then read up on independence. And no reason to apologize. Everyone here started with a first puppet! I find once you get the first puppet going, the next ones are much faster. But head movements, facial expressions, arms and legs are stages of progress. Then suddenly life is good! Good luck with it! ... View more

Not sure if useful, but if you duplicate a scene or puppet (Edit/Duplicate in the menu - CTRL-D), all of the behaviors get copied don’t they? Then you can edit the copy?  I find it a useful way to experiment. Copy an existing thing, hack the copy, then delete it if the experiement failed.  (Sorry if I have missed your point!) ... View more

Probably need more detail, but my guess is you have a bad mesh. If you click the little mesh icon in the “rig” panel or “scene” panel, it shows a yellow mesh of how everything hooks up. If all is well, you will see the yellow mesh maps to the outline of your puppet nicely. But sometimes it cannot understand your artwork and uses a rectangular mesh where everything is connected. Then moving an arm moves the body as well. Independence of different layers also can come in here. If the auto mesh is wrong, you can manually pick “contour” which is generally correct. It normally gets it wrong if you have unconnected bits of artwork (even if a single pixel!) - it throws up its hands in such cases sometimes. But my first suggestion (from the helpful Adobe folks) is to turn on the mesh first and see if you get a hint what is going on. A recent similar post was Distorting face bug in case useful. Otherwise search the forums for the word “mesh” and you might find more hints. ... View more

If I move the artwork file (PSD or AI file) to a new location, or move a project to a new machine with different path names I get that behavior. The path name to the artwork file is a property of the puppet, so you can relink it by updating the path name property. If the artwork is in the media directory, I think it uses a relative path name, so re-linking is a non-issue. But if the artwork is outside the directory I think you get the problem. This is why “export puppet” is more reliable to share a puppet with a different user - it puts a copy of the artwork into the media directory, which I think uses a relative path name, so it all works nicely. But basically I think you just need to edit the path name property of the puppet to correct the path to the file. (Sorry, not at a computer right now to do a screen grab etc.) ... View more

Yes, backups are really important. I was trying to use Adobe Cloud for backups by syncing the project directory - only to discover when I had a problem that it was not a good solution - I could not work out how to recover the files from the cloud without downloading them one by one! I was scared creating a new sync directory might wipe the out of the cloud etc.  Having an easy way to "clean project of all cached files that can be rebuilt before taking a backup" would be useful. ... View more

I learnt it from Dan in the forums here, doing exactly what you are doing - asking questions and getting tips along the way.  (I was going to not butt in, but that one was too scary! 😉 ... View more

Eeek! (runs screaming from room) Ahem. I would keep that folder. It contains the real irresplacable content. ... View more

I tried to “talk like a girl” (I am a guy!) then pitch shift up 6 semitones, but people said it sounded strange. I found “Adobe Voco” was demonstrated a few years back at a conference, but looks like it was just a play project. Only (non-Adobe) product I have found is Voice Changer - Download - Voice Changing Software— but I was not happy enough with the results to use it. I would really love it if there was some parameterized processor in Audition that could pitch shift everything but the formants. I think that is what the other product above attempts, so it must be somewhat possible... I wanted to use it with Character Animator - much faster if I can do all the voices for a cartoon myself. ... View more

Ah, what seems to happen is when you have two draggers it averages (?) between the two drag positions. So you get more play in the movement, but it still will stretch if you go far enough away. If you are close to the body, the sticks stop the arm from compressing. It means you can be less precise with mouse movements, which makes it a bit easier. ... View more

In the March 2018 Tips and Tricks video just released, it shows how you can have two draggers - you arm one for recording, but disarm the other one. In this case you see the value of the unarmed dragger. I wonder if you could have two draggers (you add a new dragger behavior) then alternate arming the two draggers frame by frame. Might be worth experimenting with... ... View more

I screen grabbed the video - see the cursor is a long way away from the hand? How did you achieve this? ... View more

Nice Angel! Is it possible to share a link to an exported puppet? (In the menus there is an “export puppet” item.) It makes it much faster to do! Feel free to message me the link directly if you don’t want to make it public. It is normally a matter of some tag being on the wrong layer, or missing an independence group. Its just faster to debug looking at the puppet. Always happy to debug an Angel! 😉 ... View more

Oh, and I agree what is confusing is if you are recording triggers, you cannot see the previous trigger recorded values. They are disabled (because the "Trigger" property is armed). They are still in effect when you play back, but you cannot see them while recording a new trigger or in "stop" mode, as long as the "Tiggers" property is armed. Frequently I just record an individual trigger the the short period of time when it is needed, then edit it in the timeline to get the positioning correct. I trim the recording to match the actual value, to avoid accidental masking of other recordings for the same swapset. I generally don't care when I record it - I just drag it to wherever I need it afterwards. Then the timeline looks more like Sorry if this is not helping. This is probably the end of my suggestions as I am out of ideas. Good luck with the video! I am still envious of the pans - especially the one where the background seems to be doing a true spin. Nice! ... View more

Sorry, your message came in just as I was typing my previous message. I think I am getting it now. Yes, I find that Character Animator only notices so many concurrent key presses sometimes. But I have not had any problems doing a couple of key presses then going back and recording over the top for other cycle layers - as long as they are separate swap sets. I then edit in the timeline to get the position of the triggers lined up properly. (I cannot record them at precise times typically - it gets a bit off.) But lip sync I am still surprised about. My puppets are probably less complicated, but I still have ones with multiple (e.g. 10) strands of hair with multiple dangles each. I have never had lip sync problems in the final render. But I always use "compute lip sync from audio" so it does not have to do that computation real time. Regarding getting the wind effect to fire at a specific time after the start, how is that different to having another separate trigger, and adjusting the start time of the trigger in the scene? As long as it is in a separate swap set, I think you can record as many different triggers as you like...  I just did a recording (with ZERO cycle layers) of 5 concurrent key presses (triggers). Left and right hands, mouth, eyes, etc. When I record over the top, it only masks the other recording for the same swap set (see swap set 3 below). And I only just realized in the last week or so I can hit "Enter" over a swap set name and give them better names! (Right click does not bring up "rename", so I assumed I could not rename them!) ... View more

Reading back over your post, I guess its more the "it's not practical" phrase I don't quite get. I normally record one input at a time and layer them up to get the final solution. But I do it all in Character Animator, and tweak the recording afterwards. Draggers are a pain, and disabling some tracks and puppets to avoid CPU overloads during recording can help, but I think I am missing something still sorry. I mean your video was pretty sophisticated, so clearly you have a good idea what you are doing! That is, I find draggers a pain because you have less editing control. So I tend to record multiple smaller drags in complex cases, so I can move them individually (and trim the edges to get them to overlap nicely). But other things like keyboard triggers I guess I generally just do a rough recording to get the triggers recorded (not accurate, just recorded), then I edit in the timeline to get the positions exactly right (to frame level precision). ... View more

It probably depends more on what behaviors you want to use. Different behaviors need to know different body parts. E.g. if you want to use the walk behavior, then there is more of an issue than if you just want to use face controls. If just using draggers for example, they won't care what something is - they just drag it (so you can attache arms to the head no problems). The concept of "head" and "body" is important for head movements, "legs" if walking, "eyes" if using eye / face tracking, etc. Other than that, Character Animator does not really care what your puppet looks like... I noticed https://graphicmama.com/blog/free-adobe-puppet-templates/ has a "cute fish" that has fins for example, with a cucumber just below it on the page. Another good source of sample puppets is Okay Samurai Puppets .  Of course Adobe has some free samples too somewhere. ... View more