Known issues in Character Animator

Issue: A Character Animator scene imported into a Premiere Pro 14.6 project via Dynamic Link and then opened in the Program panel appears with a red tint. The sequence exported from Premiere Pro also has this red tint. Character Animator does not need to be open for this issue to occur.

Workaround: Either switch to the software renderer (in Project Settings, set the Renderer to Mercury Playback Engine Software Only) or use the latest version of Premiere Pro (14.7 or later). If you are using Premiere Pro (Beta), make sure you also install Character Animator (Beta).

If you only need to export a movie of your Character Animator scene, you can export it directly to Adobe Media Encoder or import the scene from the Character Animator project (.chproj) file instead.

Issue: On macOS Big Sur (11.0), the Character Animator scene does not appear when using the AJA T-TAP video device (in the Live Output preferences).

Workaround: Contact AJA Video Systems for additional information on macOS Big Sur compatibility.

Issue: If Adobe Media Encoder Version 14.0.1 or After Effects 17.0.2 is launched first and then a Character Animator project (.chproj) file's scene is selected for import into Adobe Media Encoder, After Effects, or Premiere Pro, an Entry Point Not Found error message referencing dvascripting.dll can appear a few times.

Workaround: This message is harmless, and you can just click OK to dismiss the error. To avoid getting this error message, launch Character Animator first.

Issue: Crash when clicking OK in the Preferences dialog box if you were previously viewing an open scene in one workspace then switched to a workspace without the Scene panel just before you opened the Preferences dialog box. No project data or changes to application preferences are lost.

Workaround: Make sure you're in a workspace that contains the Scene panel before opening the Preferences dialog box. Alternatively, upgrade to Character Animator version 3.1.

Issue:  "Error opening Illustrator file. (64)" error message appears -- if the file was saved from Illustrator 2020 (Version 24.0) in the Illustrator 2020 format (Version is set to Illustrator 2020 in the Illustrator Options dialog box).

Workaround: In Illustrator, choose File > Save As, specify the file name, and click Save. Now in the Illustrator Options dialog box, set Version to Illustrator CC (Legacy). Alternatively, upgrade to Character Animator version 3.1.

Issue: If a Character Animator scene is added to the queue in Adobe Media Encoder using the Add Source (+) button and the scene is later updated in Character Animator, the queued scene includes those updated changes to the scene. Therefore the scene does not match the version when it was added to the queue.

Workaround: Add the scene to the queue via File > Export > Video via Adobe Media Encoder menu command.

Issue: Open or import a puppet created in an earlier version of Character Animator. If the puppet has the Particles behavior but no Physics behavior applied, the particles do not emit.

Workaround: Add the Physics behavior to the puppet. The Particles behavior requires Physics to be at or above the same group in the puppet hierarchy that Particle is applied to.

Issue: While rendering scenes, the scene doesn't show any content and only shows the current background color.

Workaround:

• Click the Refresh Scene button at the bottom of the Scene panel. 
• If that doesn't work, try Option-clicking (Mac) / Alt-clicking (Windows) Refresh Scene. 
• If you still face the issue, please file a bug report and attach a project or artwork file.

Issue: In an Illustrator file, layers and groups with “Guide” in their name are not interpreted as guides/handles. The content of such files still render even if muted in the artwork file. Only paths are supported by Character Animator.

Issue: Applying the Draggable handle tag to the top-level origin handle for a puppet does not allow the puppet to be dragged in the scene.

Workaround: If the puppet’s layers are enclosed in a single top-level group, apply the Draggable tag to that group’s origin.

Issue: Face, Keyboard Triggers, and Lip Sync behaviors in projects and puppet files created in earlier (Beta) versions of Character Animator might appear as obsolete.  They appear with "obsolete” after their names when opened in the latest Character Animator. Though they still work, they do not benefit from improvements made in newer versions.

Workaround: If you want to update the obsolete behaviors to the latest versions, and do not have any recordings for them, or if you don't mind losing the recordings, select the puppet in the Project panel. Now remove the obsolete behaviors, and add the newer versions of the behaviors. For the obsolete Keyboard Triggers, replace with Triggers.

If you update the behaviors for a puppet imported from a .puppet file, be sure to export a new .puppet file to share with other users. They cannot be imported into earlier versions of Character Animator once re-exported.