Adobe Character Animator
February 26, 2016
Adobe relatively recently allowed Creative cloud users to use the preview version of Character Animator. This program is specifically made to animate photoshop puppets in a fluent manner. For this is uses a webcam and a multitude of layers and maps in photoshop.
Now, the use of layers is always useful, but in character animator there are certain requirements that were asked of the layers that seemed strange to someone who has rarely drawn characters in photoshop. The + signs in front of the layers and folders told character animator that the those parts should be able to move independently from the rest of the body.
This of course is s good thing, but the crudeness with which these movements happened means that there is very little use when using less cartoonish characters, such as the ones we are using. In the video below you can see how unnatural the movements look. Take note of the fact that I have pinned the shoulders of the character, so they will not move.
As useful as character animator seemed at first, the actual use of it is not precise enough for or vision of the project, and thus we will continue our efforts in After Effects, where there is a 'Puppet pin' feature which looks promising in moving the photoshop drawings.This also means that the already created puppets (which were created to be used in character animator) need to be changed slightly to make them less complex.
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