The layer list can get pretty complex - we have that as a convenience, but from a user interface point of view, brightening it up or strengthening it might make it feel noisier and more confusing. It also seems fairly uncommon for users to rename layers inside CH - most tend to do it inside the original file. But happy to hear if anyone else feels this way. ... View more

Yes, this is how it works currently - the group and layer are separate entities, we have to account for the group and its origin even if you move something inside of it. In general I'd recommend doing your layout in PS or AI as it's not CH's greatest strength right now - it can be slow going. Is it possible to share a .puppet file with the puppet you've made pre-error message? That sounds like a bug. ... View more

In general, you only have to tag the top level. So if you have a group named Left Pupil with a bunch of stuff inside, you only need to tag that top level group. Yellow tags are the handles (invisible data point), blue is the artwork itself. So think of yellow as a dot in the middle of the pupil to track, and blue as the actual layer. CH needs both of these for the best results. ... View more

The face tracking is looking for specific points, like the black in the middle of your pupils. It tries its best but sometimes it will readjust. same with the red dots - it's looking for particular points of contrast or lining. It's pretty good now, but yes, we hope to make it even better in future releases. ... View more

Are you able to add the puppet into a new scene, or does this always happen? Did this scene have anything else in it? If it always shows up, can you please share the exported .puppet file via google drive / dropbox / creative cloud / etc, either posting the link here or DMing it privately to me? ... View more

Thanks - I'll file a bug. If someone needs more info they'll be in contact. ... View more

I have heard of users using stuff like an Xbox controller to trigger stuff, but you'll need a third party app like JoyToKey. ... View more

Any jitter is probably a combo of your actual eye movements + the face tracking readjusting if it can't find the pupils. The closer and better lit your eyes can be in front of the camera, the better the results should be. In general I feel like I don't run into this issue much, but I also usually do mouse controlled pupils for any recorded work to get more precise control. I agree that the smoothness range in particular can feel minimal unless you're dealing in the 80-100% range - we could do a better job with that. ... View more

Agreed, I do this a lot too. We plan to make this a bigger part of the rigging workflow in the future! ... View more

Interesting idea - thanks for the suggestion! ... View more

That...is super weird. I haven't heard that happening before - I'd expect at least something to show up. Can you post a screenshot of your full system specs here? ... View more

Sometimes third party stuff can create a conflict with CH, whether it's an audio interface or a video app that is trying to use the camera/mic. Usually we recommend disabling all external applications like this when using Character Animator for the best performance and experience. If you're not using CH for live animation, you could do all your audio tracks separately in the app of your choice, import them into your scenes, and do timeline > compute lip sync from scene audio. ... View more

Currently there is no direct connection between Animate and CH, although it's a very common user request we hear. ... View more

Currently no - but thank you for the suggestion. We may be redesigning these in the future so it's helpful to know if you can't read them! ... View more

Yes, someone recently found this bug too and it will be fixed in the next update. Sorry for the trouble! ... View more

The fact that all other CC apps are running but this one isn't makes me wonder if it has something to do with the camera, as that's the one thing that seems unique to CH. Does it help if the webcam is unplugged? (Not useful I know, just curious if it runs at all without it). Sometimes a conflicting program can cause issues - is anything else running in the background that could possibly conflict with camera and/or microphone resources? ... View more

Eyes are pretty jittery in general, but try upping Eye Gaze > Smoothness to something like 100% and see how that feels. Smoothness will basically clean up the rough edges and ensure every transition is more gradual. ... View more

Pressing enter / return on a name in the project panel should rename it. ... View more

This is definitely something we'd love to do in the future, but there are no currently announced plans for it yet. But you can see with the last release adding shareable .puppet files that we are moving in this direction. It's not too hard to imagine a video chat app or game one day recognizing and being able to use .puppets. ... View more

Yep! If you twirl down the project panel folders on the left, you'll see a few different instances of the Andrew puppet (he has a few variations on him depending on the scene). If you select one of these puppets and go to Edit > Edit Original, you'll open up the original PSD. Make any changes and save and they should sync back with CH. ... View more

Try these tips: FAQ: Why does the Camera & Microphone panel not show my webcam's video? I'd say 90% of the time this message is due to some other app taking control of the camera - screen capture software, video chat, whatever. Try closing everything else you have running and see if that helps. ... View more

Sharing AI files is probably the easiest way to go. And if you have differing versions, you can always relink artwork (see 11:30 here): So if I were you, I'd have the illustrator send you updated AI files that you just relink. But .puppets could work too - once a .puppet is imported, if you highlight the puppet in your project panel and press ctrl + e (win) or command + e (mac), you'll open up the AI or PSD file, and could relink from there if need be. The one thing to note is that major structural changes in your AI or PSD might not always sync exactly as expected, leading to lost rigging - CH can't (yet) always remember a group or layer if it gets moved around or put into a new group. For me, I do light / loose rigging (add a few fixed / draggables / sticks to get some basic structure), but wait until the art feels complete for more final rigging. This is something we are actively working on making better in the future. ... View more

It looks like your spikes are all set to be independent? If you remove all the +s or crowns from them, I think you'll be fine (it should also help improve performance). ... View more

Try this: http://adobe.ly/2gvBjMq I had to reimport it so you might have to re-rig some sticks and a few other things. But: a) You had all the different head groups (frontal, left profile, etc) tagged as "head" - you don't have to do this, you just need one head tag for the parent head group. b) The biggest offenders were the head groups - note how the blue bounding box is a vertical rectangle instead of just surrounding the head. It looks like there was some leftover artwork or something in the head background layers that was messing up the shape of the mesh and causing warp issues. I deleted those and it seems to work better. ... View more

Haha, you must be a mind reader because we are working on something very similar right now. We agree - what we have now was a "what's the quickest way we can get lip sync editing into the app" solution, not the best. What's coming next should do exactly what you want - and maybe even a little more! Thanks for the input, much appreciated! ... View more

Note that if you tag something left pupil, you automatically get the yellow "left pupil" and blue "left pupil size" tags. Basically yellow means a handle tag, blue is a layer tag. I think of handles as the invisible data points that help set the rules for how a character moves, and layers as the artwork itself. ... View more

There was a bug because the character had a layer named: .... ...and that didn't sit too well with CH for whatever reason. Even after Joe changed it he was still running into trouble until he renamed the top level puppet, but I think the periods were at the root of the issue. This is already fixed and will work in the next version. ... View more