Adobe Character Animator: a guide to animating your characters

Here is an overview of the software's workspace, to help you find your way around the explanations below.

For more detailed information, please see the official Adobe page.

Workspace bar (at the very top of the interface)

It gives quick access to the software's different workspaces.

In Illustrator or Photoshop, putting a "+" sign in front of a layer name is a code that tells Adobe the layer is independent.

Here, putting a "+" on the eyebrows lets the software move the eyebrows without affecting the other layers.

In Adobe Character Animator, the "+" sign is shown as a crown icon.

List of layers to make independent

To save time, here is a complete list of the layers to make independent for a character (with their French equivalents):

• +Frontal > +Face
• +Left Profile > +Profil Gauche
• +Right Profile > +Profil Droit
• +Hairs > +Cheveux
• +Right Eyebrow > +Sourcil Droit
• +Left Eyebrow > +Sourcil Gauche
• +Talk Contents > +Contenu de conversation
• +Mouth > +Bouche
• +Sad Mouth > +Bouche triste
• +Right Eye > +Oeil Droit
• +Left Eye > +Oeil Gauche
• +Right Arm > +Bras Droit
• +Left Arm > +Bras Gauche
• +Right Hand > +Main Droite
• +Left Hand > +Main Gauche
• +Right Leg > +Jambe Droite
• +Left Leg > +Jambe Gauche

Mouth movements can be edited or deleted directly in the Timeline.

You can import pre-recorded voices straight into the Timeline: import the audio, then drag it onto the scene > select the character in the Timeline > Menu > Timeline > Compute Lip Sync Take from Scene Audio. Once this is done, turn off lip sync from the microphone to avoid any interference.

In the puppet panel, select > Body > select the Handle tool (the double circle) > click on a foot > select the "Fixed" modifier.

Do the same for the other foot.

You can add another fixing point with the Pin tool (shaped like a drawing pin), which is a shortcut for the handle we have just used.

We want the arms to be attached at the shoulders, not at the elbows.

First, make sure the arms are independent (with the crown icon on each arm layer, or the "+" sign in front of the layer name in Illustrator or Photoshop).

Then click the selection icon and move the cursor towards the shoulder until the outline of the selected layer turns from yellow to green.

This colour change means the two layers overlap (the upper arm overlaps the shoulder).

To stop the arms looking like spaghetti, we give them more structure by adding a skeleton.

Go back to "Rig mode" and keep the right arm selected.

Click the Stick tool and drag it over the forearm and then the biceps to draw a simple two-part scaffold.

To adjust how the arms behave, click on your character's layer, then add a new behaviour: "Limb IK" (called "Cinématique inverse des membres" in the French version).

The hands must be grouped inside the arm's sub-layer.

1. Click Rig (top left).
2. Select the right-hand group, for example.
3. Drag and drop the group into the Triggers panel on the left
4. And drop it onto the icon that appears at the very bottom, called "Create Swap Set".

Simply enter numbers or keyboard characters in the small boxes so that the corresponding hand is selected.

However, it isn't easy to pick all the hand movements while animating.

To make this easier, you can generate thumbnails for each movement.

1. Go to "Controls".
2. Click "Generate controls for the puppet".
3. And the thumbnails are created!

You can now click on them in the scene to change the type of hand.

The procedure is the same as for the arms, except that the points linking the ankle to the foot are not joined with the Stick tool.

Now comes the step where you attach the limbs to the body.

1. Select the "Body" layer you created. You will see that the points at the top of the limbs created earlier appear in green.
2. Select the Handle tool and add the different attachment points for the limbs.
3. Link these attachment points to the character.

All that's left is to add the waist handle:

1. Keep the "Body" layer you created selected.
2. Select the Handle tool.
3. Add a point at the waist.
4. Keep it selected and add the "Waist" tag to the character.

Positioning the neck axis on the character is an important step, because this axis gives the head a natural up-and-down movement when the character walks:

1. Move the central axis to the neck.
2. Select the Neck tag.
3. The Neck tag is then added here.

Once you have made a first recording, you can record over it, re-recording only certain parts of the character.

To make the new take invisible and blend it smoothly into the timeline, soften the transition using the take blend handles in the timeline, as shown in the screenshot here.

Let's start simply, with one background image and one image in front of the character.

Walk settings for the image behind the character:

Walk settings for the image in front of the character:

Then proceed as follows for both the image in front of and the image behind the character:

1. Select the layer.
2. Select the character's centre point on the right.
3. Tag it as "Hip":

First, make sure your Photoshop or Illustrator file contains the following 3 layers. Each of these layers represents a position of the character (front / left / right).

You can also group these layers directly in Adobe Character Animator by going to: Puppet > Group Layers.

Then, in Adobe Character Animator, select the character's position for each layer.

To begin with, you can create a simple animated character with 3 positions, then refine it later with 2 more positions.

Next, enable the "Walk" behaviour. To do this:

1. Click on the character's name.
2. In the "Properties" panel on the right, click the small "+".
3. Select "Walk".

Next, place the character's origin point towards the bottom of the character, at foot level.

This origin point is the axis around which the character turns, pivots or spins. If the character were a star, for example, you would leave the origin point in the centre.

Then do the same for the character group (named Charlotte YummyGate), as shown here: