Character Animation Suite

Hi all,
I hope this is the right place to post this:
I'm looking for a character animation suite for AE. An ideal solution would be this: a plugin which let's users create a rig, animate it and save the complete animation (or animation-loop) to be used on different characters. The ability to blend between different animation-sets would also be really neat. I know that e.g. 3DSMax has these functions. Is there anything remotely similar for AE? Do you have any pointers?
Thanks, Michael

I am not aware of such a comprehensive package.
For character rigging, you can use iExpressions or DuiK.
iExpressions can do way more than character rigging, but here are some tutorials that give an idea where it is helpful for character animation
http://mamoworld.com/tutorials/puppet-animation-ik-expressions
http://mamoworld.com/after-effects-expression/change-marker-2d
iExpressions - aescripts + aeplugins - aescripts.com
Maybe you also explore the other scripts at aescripts in the character animation category
Character Animation - Animation - After Effects - aescripts + aeplugins - aescripts.com

Similar Messages

New After Effects CC 2015 Character Animator Feature

Hi, the new After Effects CC 2015 character animator feature looks amazing. Is this compatible with Photoshop CS6 or would you have to use the Photoshop CC version?

> How do you download a free trial version of AE CC
"Free Trial" button in the upper right corner of this page: http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects.html
> would you be able to record the animated facial features and then tie this in with the pre-recorded sound afterwards?
Yes, you can mix and match separate performance tracks ("takes") per puppet.
> when you take the finished animation into AE can you further manipulate in the AE timeline - facial features, body etc?
Once you're back in AE, it will be pixels, so you'd do further edits in Character Animator before bringing into AE. Though you could, say, just do the head or lips in Character Animator and then attach them to a body done in AE.
> I guess I am wondering if this software would be good enough for professional character animation.
If it's not, please us know why so we can fix it! Note that this first version is a "preview" so don't expect the usual polish & completeness of a shipping app. It will install (as a companion app) automatically as part of the next AE CC update.

For character animation is frame by frame, motion or classic tween?

Hi, i'm very new to adobe flash. I'm using cs5
Am i right in thinking that for detailed character animation, of cartoons or people, i would still need to do frame by frame animation, and then probably use tweening for big movements like making that same animation move across the screen?
Your responses would be appreciated.

I am not an animator (most of the time) but if I were I think I would probably end up using timeline tweening wherever it helped make things easier, especially for what you are calling big movements like having things zoom or move or to have a background moving if the animation involves characters moving.

Trying to install Mopheus Photo Animation Suite

I am trying to install my newly downloaded Mopheus Animation suite (now compatibale with OSX) and when I start the install, it gives the not enough memory logo (this ap needs 16.8mb) and the installer greys out. I've got tons of memory and so I can't figure this out. Being lazy, I thought I would see if anyone on the board had run into this. I have see this before with other downloads, but nothing new enough to relate.
Cheers,
Glenn
G4 Flat Panel, Macbook Pro and Macbook with an old Clamshell in reserve! Mac OS X (10.4)

Thanks. I tried them and site admin says they had not heard of this happening.
What I can't understand is that I have so much memory unused and it claims that I don"t have the required 16+MBs need for the install.
When I click on the close window for that message, the installer has a message saying click to install on (Volume (Null), but the install button is grayed out.
I have downloaded the installer again and it still does the same.
A little help? I'm open to any ideas.
Cheers

Flash character animation

I am creating a CBT for E-Learning. In the CBT we have used
animated character, voice over, play and pause option.
By default play button is selected, when user click on the
pause button it will pause the character movement like (body
movement, eye-popping and lips movement) and as well as voice over.
Click on play button it start the all the movement from where he
paused it.
I have faced following problem while doing the same:
1) For Play and Pause option, I have made the character
animation in flash timeline, and it is very time consuming to do
the lips movement in timeline. If I put the lips in a movieclip
then, clicking on Pause button it will not Stop.
Now I need the solution how to reduce the time to do the same
character animation in flash timeline with Play and Pause button.
Any idea.....! Pl revert...
Regards
Sonum

If I understand you have done the animation already, in a
separate movieClip
but can't get it to pause... If that is the case just add the
code to your
pause button to affect more than one clip. Something like:
pauseButton.onRelease = function(){
mainCharacter.stop();
mainCharacter.lips.stop();
You can have your buttons affect as many clips as you need...
you could even
use an array to hold clip references and use that in both a
play and pause
button:
var myChar = [mainCharacter, mainCharacter.lips,
mainCharacter.eyes];
function animateChar(thePlayState:Boolean){
for(var i = 0; i < myChar.length; i++){
if(thePlayState){
myChar
.play();
}else{
myChar.stop();
playButton.onRelease = function(){
animate(true);
pauseButton.onRelease = function(){
animate(false);
HTH
Dave -
www.offroadfire.com
Head Developer
http://www.blurredistinction.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/

Flash character animation help

Greetings,
I have a character animation that involves a lot of walking, I currently have the feet and upper body fully animated, I was wondering if there was a simple way to get the upper and lower legs to track the feet and hips.
I animated the feet and upper body by creating keyframes and manually positioning each symbol at every keyframe, I was just hoping there was a simple solution for the legs rather then having to manually position each one at each keyframe.

Hi,
If you want to get started with the flash animation make sure to start learning how to use all the image editing tools that may come handy with your animation. You animation doesn't seem that complicated but it will take quite some time to gather all the symbols and images(cartoons).
Here is a website that offers some tips regarding basic flash animations:
http://www.entheosweb.com/Flash/default.asp
Look into these three main guides(it will give you a better understanding on what to do with your objects and actions)
Motion Tween
Motion Guide
Bouncing Effect
Hope this helps you,
Vicente Tulliano

Character Animation: Movie Clip or Graphic Symbols?

Should I use Movie Clip or Graphic Symbols for Character
Animation? What do people who make TV shows use. If I'm not
planning on manipulating any symbols with ActionScript and I'm not
using a symbol that requires it's own time line like a walk cycle,
is there any reason to use movie clips symbols? If I put my
animation on the web will it download noticeably faster if I use
graphic symbols instead of movie clip symbols?

What I meant is, there are different ways of setting up a
workflow for Flash animation. Studio animators are trained in
traditional frame-by-frame animation. So their workflow is usually
to do the same in Flash: make every frame a keyframe, then copy and
paste everything from one frame into the next, then make whatever
changes are needed. A classically-trained animator can get a good
momentum working this way.
But for making the most streamlined SWF files, this method is
not the best. It's much better to rely on library assets, place
major parts or sets of parts on different layers, and only keyframe
those things that need keyframes. If good planning is done in
advance, it can be just as fast as doing straight-ahead keyframed
animation.
Either method may end up with the same result. But when you
want to go back and tweak things, it's a whole lot easier to do it
when method 2 is used.
I'm sure I'm not very clear. PM me and I'll send you a list I
created of "best practices" which I give to e-card animators.
One of these best practices is: place a thumbtack on the "G"
key on your keyboard. The very WORST habit that is taught to studio
animators using Flash is to use neither Graphics nor Movie Clips,
but to immediately click Ctrl-G every time they draw something.
This creates a Group. It's faster than hitting F8 and typing in a
name, but it causes ENORMOUS problems, especially when doing
retakes and revisions. And it results in gargantuan SWF files.
I literally GLUED a thumbtack to one one animator's keyboard,
since he seemed unable to remember this rule. Luckily this wasn't
in America, or I'd have been charged with grievous bodily
assualt.

Character animation workflow between AE, PS, and PP. Help!

I just finished my first animation test. Please check here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN7Xjzxi568
My general workflow... (Creative Suite 5 on a 2011 27" iMac 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB 7200rpm HD, AMD Radeon HD 6770M w/ 512 MB)
The character is created in PS. I draw the character and then cut out each body part as a separate layer to make a puppet for animation in AE. Since I am making my characters in PS, I need very large files because I may want a close up on the characters face for instance. The .psd that I import into AE is around 7000x7000 file.
As you can see in my video, my backgrounds are video. I am using a Canon 5DII shooting 24fps @ 1080p.
Let's just say I had many, many issues getting the video above to work. I don't want to recount what I did as it was most likely the wrong way to do it.
My question is, what should my workflow be?
Should I cut the background video in Premiere Pro, and then do a dynamic link between PP and AE, do my animation on top of the cut video sent from PP, and then send it back to PP after I'm done?
ALSO, the 18 second video above took around 2 hours to export. My final output is always 720p, so should I be batch converting all my video before hand to 720p as it will make editing and exporiting a lot faster? Will adding RAM to my computer make rendering/exporting faster, or will that just give me general performance increase? It's only about $100 to upgrade to 16GB of RAM and I should probably get on that. Or is rendering/exporting only reliatn on the CPU/GPU?

My good friend Angie Taylor is one of the best at this style of animation and she has put up a bunch of free tutorials. You can find them with a quick Google search. This is one of my favorites. It shows you how to tie all of the body parts to a single control layer so that you can simplify the animation procedure and speed up your workflow. You should also check out her blog.

Control the character animation in adobe edge

Hello ,
i have a character, i want to control the animation to use left arrow key and right arrow key.
When i press left arrow key the character run animation call.
When i press right arrow key character back run animation call.
when user don't press any key the character stop animation call.
Please help me, i am designer i don't know codding/
Thanks
Chetan Thakur

Hi,
Try this tutorial and see if this helps
http://www.heathrowe.com/adobe-edge-simple-keydown-trigger-animation/
The right arrow key is 39 and left 37
if (e.which == 37) { // key left
this.play("sun"); //name of your character instead of sun
Hope this helps

Character animation bug

Could you help me fix an animation bug in my game i'm making... It's not playing the animation correctly on the walking left animation, please help
Character code
onClipEvent (load) {
var ground:MovieClip = _root.ground;
var grav:Number = 0;
var gravity:Number = 1;
var speed:Number = 7;
var maxJump:Number = -12;
var touchingGround:Boolean = true;
var right:MovieClip
onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
_y += grav;
grav += gravity;
while (ground.hitTest(_x, _y, true)) {
_y -= gravity;
grav = 0;
if (ground.hitTest(_x, _y+6, true)) {
touchingGround = true;
} else {
touchingGround = false;
if (Key.isDown(Key.RIGHT))
            this._x += 5;
                if (this.currentFrame <= 1)
                    if (this.currentFrame <= 1)
                    gotoAndPlay(2);
                    else
                    nothing
if (Key.isDown(Key.LEFT))
            this._x -= 5;
                if (this.currentFrame <= 1)
                    if (this.currentFrame <= 1)
                    gotoAndPlay(3);
                    else
                    nothing
if (Key.isDown(Key.UP) && touchingGround) {
grav = maxJump;
if (Key.isDown(Key.UP))
                if (this.currentFrame <= 1)
                    if (this.currentFrame <= 1)
                    gotoAndPlay(4);
                    else
                    nothing
if (ground.hitTest(_x+(_width/2), _y-(_height/2), true)) {
_x -= speed;
if (ground.hitTest(_x-(_width/2), _y-(_height/2), true)) {
_x += speed;
if (ground.hitTest(_x, _y-(height), true)) {
grav = 2;
Game file
http://www.mediafire.com/?lvzr2927h1e75wo

That is AS2 code. You should look for help with it in the AS2 forum...
http://forums.adobe.com/community/flash/flash_actionscript?view=discussions

Character animation question

Hi all,
i need some help to try to understand which technique was used to do this video "puppet",
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRNd6K8kS4M
i mean witch techniques i can use to reach this result?
Someone tell me that adobe guys done this kind of characteer animation at nab some time ago...
thanks to anyone want to help me.

THe filmmaker comments might have some suggestions but they are mostly political.
You might be able to contact the filmmaker directly.
That pieces uses a digitally updated version of classic cel-based animation. Any good book on animation will include all you need to know. Some of the scenes are entirely synthesized but most are made of carefully designed individual drawings. The jiggle can be synthesized or created manually. Some effects are obviously done in AE or another compositor. Other effects were simply edited in a timeline like Final cut or Premiere.
The most critical factors: Preproduction planning and storyboarding. Every frame of that piece was carefully designed by people who understood their tools. And they worked for a director who understood the pipeline.
bogiesan

Character Animation Help (PLEASE RESPOND)

When I animate my character with classic tweens, the arm always detatches from it's source. Does anyone know how to fix this WITHOUT creating new keyframes or using motion guides? Please answer!

you have a character with an arm. if you place that character on a timeline (with no tween) and test your movie, the arm stays where it should, correct?
you then animate that character with a motion tween (in which case you would expect the arm to stay where it should) or are you using a shape-tween (and then all-heck could and, in your case, does break loose)?

Problem with Character Animation

hello,
I am trying to get a character to jump up when I press the spacebar and come down by himself but am having a dickens of a time doing so. Here's the code I am using:
This is the LevelOne class, there is also a player class:
var playerHalfWidth:uint = player.width / 2;
var playerHalfHeight:uint = player.height / 2;
var backgroundHalfWidth:uint = bg.width / 2;
var backgroundHalfHeight:uint = bg.height / 2;
The_Shadow.x = player.x
The_Shadow.y = player.y
vx = player.theVX;
vy = player.theVY;
jump = player.Jump;
if (inAir == false){
oldX = player.x;
oldY = player.y;
if (jump == true){
if (reachTopHeight == false){
vy = jumpSpeed; //jump up
trace(oldY);
The_Shadow.y = oldY; //keeps the shadow from jumping
inAir=true;
if ((player.y <= (oldY - 20)) && (inAir == true)){
reachTopHeight = true;
if((reachTopHeight = true)&&(inAir == true)){
vy = -(jumpSpeed); //come down
if ((player.y >= oldY) && (reachTopHeight == true)){
player.y = oldY;
inAir=false;
reachTopHeight = false;
//Move the player
player.x += vx;
player.y += vy;
Here's a link to the game so you can see what's going on: http://billzgames.comule.com/
Thanks a bunch for any help

you should be using a loop counter (eg, loop). then when the space key is hit, use:
var startLoop:uint=loop;
// then in your current code:
vy = jumpSpeed+gravity*(loop-startLoop)*(loop-startLoop)
if(vy<-jumpSpeed){
player.y+=vy;
} else {
// do whatever. player's returned to baseline

Is the Adobe Character animator software available now within AE?

Because I can't see it, thanks

The CC 2015 versions have not been released yet. Don't mistake a product demo on a tradeshow as immediate avialability.
Mylenium

Flash as a Character Creation tool... After Effects as the Animating tool

I was watching a tutorial in Lynda.com in which an animation studio in California used Flash as their drawing and painting tool for the creation of Characters... not sure what they used for the subsequent animation of the characters, but their feeling was that Flash was a better intuitive freehand/variable width outline creation program than Illustrator or photoshop for this application... I'm not sure of their choice of Animating tools, but, its been my feeling that After Effects seems to be a more user friendly (organized) and robust, yet less confusing keyframing program than Flash... thus my question on the subject matter is....... does anyone out there have any experience with this scenario of using Flash for character creation then exporting the hopefully layered and vector artwork into After Effects for animation, and if so what is the proper workflow as far as exporting goes from Flash to get the character set up in After effects for animating. I know the rigging and Hierarchy workflow in After Effects... more specifically I'm asking about file type for exporting from Flash to possibly keep the vector characteristics once in After Effects. If I am off in my thoughts please clarify for me if possible the best programs for these applications!

My experiences back your theory.
I love Flash with a Passion for years Its great for low budget projects because it lets you pump out results fast. But it also has its faults as soon as you move into the medium budget realm, with more than 4-5 people working on the same project for more than a month. It will get messy, you will start to loose more and more work because of flashs rising crash tendencies. It may come in handy even in big budget productions, but solely as a Preproduction tool, that you use for developing storyboards or pitch ideas. After Effects has a steeper learning curve but in the end I would say its a much more reliable, solid tool for animators than Flash.
I felt actually inspired by your post to come up with a little comparison bewtween flash/AE concerning the character animation workflow
Character animation Celebrity Deatmatch : FLASH vs. AFTER EFFECTS
Flash
After Effects
Robustness
++
Shared Assets across platforms
++
Auto-Lipsynching options
++
Drawing Capabilities
++
0
Quick Results
++
TargetFormats
++
Animationlimit
1 min
>60 min
2nd Party frameworks especially for animators
++
2,5 D/3D capabilities
+
Audio workflow
+
Interactive capabilities
++
Programming language
++
0
Particles
++
Accessibility
++
+
I was astonished that the result was so clear.

Character Animation Suite

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for