Yeah, replays and triggers can be tricky and I think there are some bugs around this area too. So the way replays figure out how to start/stop (and I probably should have mentioned this in the tutorial) is where the first and last blend handles are. But triggers can sometimes keep playing and ignore the blend starts/stops. For Sirr's poses I got him to work by always making sure the length of the trigger takes were the same as the the other dragger/face/etc takes. So maybe give that a try and see how it goes. If it keeps being an issue please DM me on Twitter and I'll take a closer look and try to help!

Okay Samurai Thanks so much! To fix my issue I just copied and pasted everything except the trigger to another section of the timeline. Then I just flipped my hand/mouth again and hit the Record 2-Frame Take button and it just created a trigger take in the timeline. Then I just fit it to my arm movement and it was all fixed! Your channel has been super helpful so thanks so much! We all appreciate the hard work you put into your videos! ❤️

rumo my channel wouldn’t exist without this guy!

He really is! I like his sense of humor.

I haven’t tried integrating the two but I’ve heard of people who have! Good luck!

hi, were you able to download the puppet? there was no puppet when I downloaded the file. ?

@@Raging_Granny_Gamer I was, I believe its available on the OKSamurai's own page and the adobe page CA page in the link.

@@VacFink yes. I downloaded it, but the file didn't work

@@Raging_Granny_Gamer I use PC vs Mac so that might be a difference.There are a number of files in the .zip file. You might make sure your not opening the wrong version (mac or pc) or accidentally opening justone of the meta.data files adobe uses in the background to store the selections. I'd make sure your putting all of the files in the same place, because you need the meta files and the photoshop files for editing. Hope that helps.

I've downloaded his puppets before. They should be puppet files, but they are not this time. But thanks

Thanks! Yep, I'm teaching 7 classes at MAX this year!

Yeah, I remember them (zookeeper studios) saying that but I have never personally done it! They like to hack stuff so my guess is they made something custom or are using some third party tool to make it work. If you can find Dusty Gridley online somewhere he can probably tell you how he did it :)

Export should always match what you see in the scene. If it isn't please post screenshots or videos on adobe.com/go/chfeedback and we can try to figure out what's going on in more detail.

Hopefully so!

Probably not going to make a dedicated tutorial to it, but the "Linear Dodge / Add" blending mode is the best way to do this. If I were making the glow of a phone, I would draw in a PSD a separate layer of blue smudges over the highlighted areas, blur it, and use the linear dodge blend and adjust transparency as needed.

Tons! adobe.com/go/chtutorials has most of them organized pretty well!

Not really - I have an old one for head turns - kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ldmdf7uAqbrIZok.html.

He can if you switch to the manual controls, but because of the layer ordering his hand would go behind his face.

See the tutorial "Advanced Rigging: Leeta" on this channel, it shows how I do all the texturing (with clipping masks!). I also talk about this in general in the "How I Draw Robots" video on this channel too (when I add the metal texture as a blended overlay).

@@okaysamurai ok! thank you

It's hidden, but you can change the name of a handle by selecting it and pressing enter.

@@okaysamurai I've entered 3 parts: 1. The rigging mode on the properties panel, 2. The place where I need to see the name change is in this screenshot of the timeline. prnt.sc/vwxyd8 3. In the record mode on the puppet behaviors prnt.sc/vwy0di I've clicked the names of each area, hit enter in these places and nothing happens. 😢

You need to select the actual handle (circle icon on the character artwork) in rig mode.

Blends will only work on certain takes, yes. For example, a trigger or mouth viseme won't blend because it's more of a binary on/off signal, not something that is moving like the face or draggers. Adding to new scenes should be covered in the original "Getting Started" video, in part 4 I think.

@@okaysamurai Thanks. :)

I used to use a place called "POW Studios" that was an indie game studio that had PNG sequences, but they went out of business unfortunately.

Indeed!

There is not, but this page should help explain all the behaviors: helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/using/behavior.html

Not yet - for now you will need to go to Premiere or After Effects for that.

Not yet, but that’s a great suggestion! You can also use external devices like xkeys or stream deck or monogram creative console which can do some similar stuff!

Not yet - hands are done via dragging the mouse or fingers on a touch-enabled device. We hope to open up to more input options in the future!

You have to pick one or the other - front or behind. See kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bdaXoMKmmbzPgZ8.html for more info.

@@okaysamurai Thanks. Then maybe I will have to cheat with the layer order a bit and cheating mask then :) lovely tutorials thank you a lot.

In this tutorial I showed that I had a layer where the hand is holding something, and then I just trigger it whenever I need it. Download the Sirr puppet from okaysamurai.com/puppets and see how his arm is set up.

Yeah, IIRC I basically just made a blank trigger and that became a manual option since nothing else was taking over!

@@okaysamurai aaah that makes sense! Thanks!

@@okaysamurai omg I finally got it, it was so easy! Thanks! Step by step I'm figuring this all out ;)

No, luckily you just have to redraw the hand! In Sirr's case he has one arm but several hands in a group inside that arm. Then all the movements and expressions are done by recording performances and/or other triggers like in the face simultaneously.

​@@okaysamurai Thank you! One more question, please? So im trying to set a trigger for my character were he crosses his arms when I press a button. The button works but I can still see the other hand and arm layer when I trigger the crossed arms. How can I get the other hand and arm to disappear when I trigger the cross arms?

FYI . I created new arms and hands separate from the main arms and hands.

To make something disappear, it's usually best to put it in a swap set in the triggers panel. In swap sets only one thing can show up at a time, so if both hands/arms are in there as separate triggers, only one can show up at a time. The "Triggers" tutorial on this channel goes into swap sets a little more.

@@okaysamurai Thank you sirrrrrrrrrr!

This is a good idea, and yes, I should do something like this. For now, the best one is the Fresco tutorial, which creates a character from scratch part by part and then does the organizing in Photoshop: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m7WFnsuKnNzMk2g.html

Select your scene in the project panel and you can change the framerate in the right. When you dynamic link to AE or PR it should keep that framerate.

@@okaysamurai OMG! THANK YOU!!!

I just drew a 2-3 frame group of orange light, adjusted the transparency, and added it to the head and body. Then I added the cycle layers behavior to automatically run between the frames continuously. If you download the puppet and dig into rig mode you should be able to see the groups and how they were set up!

@@okaysamurai ah that makes sense! thank you!

Theoretically yes - if you select a puppet and click the blue link on the right, you can select a new artwork file to replace it. So rig one puppet, duplicate it in the CH project panel, click the link, select the new replacement character, and as long as the components are the same it will work.

Use the Cycle layers behavior and and set it to "continuously." Check out this if you need more info: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jeCJfcWLvs7cnZ8.html

@@okaysamurai TY so much

I just did a search for "watercolor texture" - I think it's here: www.freecreatives.com/backgrounds/watercolor-texture-background.html

@@okaysamurai Thank you.

Go for it: www.adobe.com/products/character-animator.html

Okay Samurai Thank you, but do I need to sign in first?

Yes, you will need a free Adobe ID to do a trial.

Okay Samurai Ok

Replays could get disconnected in a few ways, either by changes in the rigging or puppet artwork, or manually editing or deleting a replay from a trigger in the triggers panel. Are you continuing to rig / edit the puppet while doing replays? That would be my first guess....if it persists, please post a screenshot, video, or File > Export > Puppet (.puppet file) to adobe.com/go/chfeedback for more direct help.

@@okaysamurai Thanks for responding. You're always so good about that. What's weird is that the replays worked fine in the current version of CH. The replay disconnects were only in the Beta... Here's a link to the video for what it's worth...kzfaq.info/get/bejne/irNjmNp9r7auiWw.html

I primarily used the pen tool to make basic stroked shapes.

Yep sure!

Both are part of the Creative Cloud "All Apps" package.

Hard to say for sure without seeing the rig, but usually if something isn't responding to fixed handles it's because it's independent (crown icon) when it shouldn't be. Try removing independence and see if that helps. If not, try posting your puppet or a screenshot to the official forums for more direct help!

Sorry I somehow missed this comment - not in Character Animator, but yes in After Effects - look up how to make a mask in AE.

@@okaysamurai No worries, thanks for the reply.

Right now no, it's just the standard alphanumeric keys. You could always just use the controls panel in the app, which doesn't rely on keys, so you can just make as many clickable buttons as you want. If you have an external MIDI device you could add a ton more keys to that as well.

Thank you very much ☺️

After Effects. For this video I did the puppet performance recorded in CH, but everything else - backgrounds, editing, effects, etc - was PR and AE.

@@okaysamurai Ok thanks. Would be cool if you could make a video on when to animate the scene in Character Animator vs. when to instead do the editing and camera movements in After Effects maybe for more flexibility. Thanks again for taking the time to do these tutorials.

@okaysamurai on Twitter works!

I'd do that with rotation keyframes. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/n9l8YLGLlZa1kYE.html

@@okaysamurai Thank you so much for the quick replay but I have been trying now for the last two hours and it is very difficult to understand. Will keep using After Effect I guess.

Yeah, AE might be better for this kind of keyframe-specific animation.

Import an image, then drag it into your timeline and under any other puppets and it should show up. Download the Sirr example here and you should see the mountains background in the sample project as a guide to follow.

Thank you so much I can finally create animations 😁😊

And everything is working thx to u but when I want to download sirr it downloads but then doesn't load up character animator and I'm on windows 10(and can u check out the vid I made using character animator on my channel a few mins ago)

Sorry for this now

In Character Animator go to File > Import and open up the chproj file in Sirr's unzipped folder. That should work.

Character Animator sees one face and voice in the webcam, so whatever you have selected in the timeline will get recorded. You can drag as many puppets as you want in the timeline, but you should probably only record one at a time. The other option for live workflows is hooking up 2 computers, 1 for each character.

@@okaysamurai thanks Dave :)

Since going fulltime with Adobe I don't do freelance work anymore, but check out this page for other CH users who might be able to help: adobe.com/go/ch_examples_thirdparty_en

Here is fine! I have a running endless list of ideas I keep.

@@okaysamurai OK then. I, of course, cannot be sure you have not already covered this, so if you have my apologies and could you provide a link? I would like a tutorial on your organizational practices. Ch projects can quickly get large and unwieldy, both within the project and on a finder level. I, for example, am doing a series of 1-minute videos with a recurring character. I like all episodes to be in one project so I can cross reference and appropriate elements. Within Ch, I may have folders holding Puppets, Scenes, Recordings, Imported Recordings, Backgrounds (even though it may make more sense to put the backgrounds in in Premiere or AfterEffects, having a reference plate is often essential) and so on. Many or most of these folders may also duplicate on the hard drive level. It can quickly become a mess. Do you have a structure you could share to make this all more manageable? I know this sort of tutorial is not as fun or exciting as how to do something in advanced rigging, but it would be hugely helpful. Keep up the great work, Martin

Great suggestion, I'll add it to the list. Quick explanation: for me, I keep all my assets in one folder on my desktop. So for this one, I had a folder called "Monstercamp" that had everything - the PSD file, the background music, the audio, etc - so it was all in one place. As long as you don't do the in-app CH command "copy media files" it won't copy them into your CH Media folder, it will just reference the original. For Evan Flamethrower I had a desktop folder per character, which included their PSD and audio files, and then folders for each scene that also included background, foreground, music, etc. However, usually I'm pretty unorganized and do things fast and loose so maybe I'm not the best person to give advice about this sort of stuff. :)

@@okaysamurai "However, usually I'm pretty unorganized and do things fast and loose so maybe I'm not the best person to give advice about this sort of stuff." Well, if not you, than who? But that was helpful, thanks.

All chproj files are 0kb, so that's okay - it's just an empty container really. If you go inside Character Animator and go to File > Open and select that chproj file, it should open.

@@okaysamurai Hi, I did that - but the file is empty. There is no puppet. In the past I believe the downloaded files were .puppet files.

I just tried it here and it worked. Make sure you are updated to version 2.1.1 - that's the latest and that's what it was made in. The ZIP should be the same setup as any CH project, with a chproj file and two folders, Ch Media and Ch Data. The chproj file references those folders to work so they all need to be in the same place.

@@okaysamurai thanks. I have creative cloud and I think my version is up to date, since it doesn't indicate a new update - but I will try again. Thanks, Dave

@@okaysamurai i have the latest update 2.2.1. and I downloaded your file again... I open the zip file and double clicked on the Sir CH Animator file. it opens Character Animator to a to Temp1_Sirr.zip that's up at the top left hand of the opened Character Animator screen. There is no puppet or anything else there. Please help. Thank you, Dave.

Check out character.adobelanding.com/thirdparty/ for a directory of CH freelancers.

Okay Samurai, you are the best Dave, I can't began to thank you enough for all the help you have given me and everyone else. You are also such an amazing instructor.