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everyone today i want to show you a new tool included in After Effects CC 2015
called character animator
now I've always wanted to do character animation in the past but I've been
scared away by its complexity
you know like sinking a mouth up to audio or trying to get key frames look
smooth and fluid instead of robotic so what's great about character animator is
it allows me to set up a character and photoshop or illustrator then record and
natural feeling performance with webcam and bring it all into after effects to
composite a full scene
I've been playing around with it for the past few months and here are ten tips
that I've learned for getting started making your own animated characters
start with another puppet as your template character animator looks for
certain trigger words in your file layer names
so if you call something left pupil or right people it will move with your own
pupils when you hook it up to a webcam if you start a puppet from scratch
you'll end up taking a lot of time at the end just reorganizing every naming
all your elements to fit the character animator naming conventions
one thing isn't right you can run into frustrating results what I do is look
for an example character that's close enough and structure to the character
that I want to make and then start building my character against it it will
save you a lot of headaches at the end
check out the description in this video for a link to some characters I've
created you can feel free to edit and modify on your own
there are 13 different possible mouth layers three of these neutral smile and
surprised are triggered by your mouth motions in the webcam the other 10 are
triggered by audio looking for specific sounds like ooh ahh so don't worry about
over exaggerating your mouth shape while talking because it doesn't matter just
talk naturally and use that knowledge to your advantage so if my character is
happy
I'll smile when I talk so that was smiling when i finish use keyboard
command triggers if you put a letter in parentheses after a layer name it will
show up when you tap the key during recording and character animator for
example I've got some angry downward slanting eyebrows tribute to the a key
for this red monster
so when I hold down a monster gets angry you can do this for anything everything
from different hand gestures to even a complete head turn
basically the more triggers you add the Richer your character is in a more
dynamic and expressive your performance can be
use eyelids for expressing this the eyes are the most expressive features of the
face so it only makes sense that use all the I related items at your disposal and
character animator here you have the option of upper lower eyelids which
really helped
particularly if your character has big cartoony eyes and they feel subtle but
it really helps bring a character's life
add dangle for anything that physics effects if you add the word dangle in a
later named and set things up correctly you'll create independent elements that
will move on their own
based on how the rest of you moves so for this no person character her scarf
was way around you can create an anchor point by creating a layer making one .
and renaming in origin being the scarf will sway from that origin . adding
several elements like this really helps a character come alive
use fixed points to pen a character to a certain place if you add the word fixed
in your lair name
you can pin certain parts down if I didn't have any fixed layers on red
monster
his whole body would move while I move my head but if i make his feet fixed
those won't move
but everything else will Bend and morph to stay connected to them
if you have a more standard human character you might want to keep their
body fixed and let their head and neck spend around
and mouse track left or right to add interactive elements by adding mousetrap
left mouse truck right to a layer name
you can also add some limited mouse interactions for characters the easiest
example of this would be adding interaction points two hands
so when you drag near them the arms move so instead of your characters hand
staying at their side the entire time
now you can add a little motion to add some more realism to the scene
Nutcracker jaw and adding behaviour
there's a section and your puppet options called behaviour and you can add
a few extra interactions here if you want one of these is the Nutcracker jaw
which basically is a different way to animate the mouth
so this bird characters speak might not need all 13 different mouth positions
instead I can just name the lower beak layer ja add the Nutcracker job behavior
adjust the chin flabbiness and only the jaw later will move up and down when I
talk
it's a pretty cool effect
include motion track points to add extras in after effects
just because character animator let you animate a full character doesn't mean
you have to if I wanted more control over the snow person's arms
I just make a small . where the arms would go record my performance and then
use the motion tracking tool and after effects to attach an arm to it
you can even just record of mouth performance and attach it to something
else and after effects
not just for characters now that you've got a great way to capture natural
motion
think about how you can use in other places for a tree swaying in the wind or
a balloon floating in the sky
sure you could key frame it out but it may be a little faster and easier to do
the performance capture and character animator instead
anytime you think moving your head around would be easier than animating
manually
it's worth tried so that's quick intro - what's possible with character animator
it's a great new tool to add to your After Effects Arsenal makes character
animation a lot of fun
again feel free to check out the link in the video description below for some
puppets you can use to get started or ask questions in the comments below
good luck and thanks for watching
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