Control puppets using behaviors

A puppet's behaviors are listed alphabetically, at each level of the puppet's hierarchy, in the Properties panel. New puppets automatically get the following behaviors: Dragger, Eye Gaze, Face, Lip Sync, Physics, Transform, and Triggers. You can add and remove behaviors as needed. 

This behavior can prevent unnatural bending of elbows and lengthening of arms when their hands are moved or dragged around. IK stands for Inverse Kinematics, a method for calculating, for example, entire arm positions by specifying only the hand position. The Arm IK behavior now can flip the bend direction of each arm automatically as the arm is rotated.

Setup

Controls

• Elbow Strength controls how much to constrain the elbow bend direction. 0% allows bend direction to change, whereas higher values restrict bend direction more.
• Stretchiness controls how much the arms can stretch beyond their length at their rest pose. This setting works in combination with the force being used to move the hand (for example, a Draggable wrist). Lower values restrict stretching, whereas higher values produce very stretchy arms.

            Note: Stretching arms with low Stretchiness will slow down arm movements. For increased responsiveness, use a larger Stretchiness value.

• Auto Bend controls if automatic bending occurs. This option is enabled by default.
• Elbow Flip Threshold controls when the elbow bend will reverse direction, based on the direction that the upper arm (from shoulder to elbow) is pointing relative to the vertical axis. For example, at 0°, as the upper arm crosses the vertical axis, either pointing up or down, the bend direction will change. At 30°, it'll flip the bend direction 30° off vertical. Typical values are between 90° and -90°.
• Smooth Transition controls easing into the reversed bend direction. Lower values can produce an undesired quick flip of the elbow, so higher values are recommended for continuous movement.
• Reverse Bend Left and Reverse Bend Right switch the elbow direction that left and right arms bend, relative to their default bend direction based on the locations of the Elbow handles.

Auto Blink: Simulate blinking of eyelids or flickering of lights

This behavior automatically triggers a layer, such as eyelids to blink or lights to flicker. The blinking can occur at regular intervals or with some randomness. You can use this behavior to have a character blink randomly, but it can work with the Face and Triggers behaviors if you also want to control blinks with the webcam or keyboard.

Setup

1. Add the Auto Blink behavior to the puppet or a group within it. (This behavior is not applied to new puppets by default.)
2. Assign the Left Blink or Right Blink layer tag to the layer to blink automatically.

Controls

(* = visible only when the puppet or group that this behavior is applied to is selected in the Project or Puppet panel.)

• Blinks per Minute controls the frequency that the layer appears.
• Blink Duration controls the number of milliseconds (1/1000ths of a second) to show the layer before disappearing.
• Randomness controls the regularity of the blinking frequency, with 0% blinking at regular intervals and higher percentages varying the rate.
• * Blink Layers the number and list of layers with the Left Blink or Right Blink layer tags applied.

Breathe: Simulate breathing

This behavior scales the chest of a character as if it were breathing in and out. For example, try animating the Wendigo puppet in the Start workspace, which shows breathing and head turn movements.

This behavior looks for a handle with the Breathe tag on it. Artwork files can use either "Breathe" or the older "Chest" names for guides — the files will import with the Breathe tag.

Setup

To specify the part of a puppet to expand and contract, assign the Breathe tag to a specific handle or to groups to affect its origin. If imported artwork has a layer with the word "Breathe" in its name, the layer's origin gets the Breathe tag automatically.

Controls

controls the rate of breathing (scaling) between minimum and maximum scale amounts.

control the range of scaling around the Breathe handle. If there aren't handles near the Breathe handle, you might need to reduce this range (for example, from 95% to 110%).

control the distance and angle that the Breathe handle slides along as it's scaling. You can even use these parameters to make a character's shoulders shrug.

Cycle Layers: Display layers in order

This behavior displays each of the puppet's layers in order, which can be useful to repeat a pattern like a splash animation or blinking lights. Used with Triggers, the cycle of layers can be triggered by pressing a key.

Setup

Apply this behavior to the puppet containing the sequence of layers to cycle.

If you want the cycle to be controlled by pressing a key, select the puppet layer in the Puppet panel, and then enter the key in the Trigger section of the Properties panel.

See Dojo Joe in the Character Animator examples download for a working example that you can modify.

Controls

This behavior has the following parameters:

• Start controls when to start displaying the layers — the available options are When Triggered and Immediately.
  
• Layer Order controls how the layers are used — Top to Bottom (the topmost layer is the first one shown and the bottom layer is the last) or Bottom to Top. If you are assembling the cycle in Photoshop by pasting layers (which get added on top of existing layers), selecting Bottom to Top is easier than reversing the layer order in the artwork file. 
• Advance Every controls the duration to display each layer before switching to the next one.
• Cycle controls the number of times to repeat the layers, Continuously or Once.
• Forward and Reverse controls whether the layers play in reverse after reaching the last layer.
• Hold on Last Layer controls whether the last layer in the cycle stays visible while the trigger is active. It can be used with Forward and Reverse to , for example, hold on the last layer until the key is released, then play in reverse.
• On Trigger End controls playback when the trigger key is released. Stop Immediately stops the cycle on key release, whereas Let Cycle Finish completes the cycle, including any reverse playback (if enabled). If the cycle was started by a trigger in a swap set, other triggers in the same swap set will be prevented from triggering until the cycle is finished.
  
• Continue After Pause controls how the cycle is resumed from a Pause-layer ( layer that has the Cycle Pause tag applied). When Triggered is used if you unpause the layer with the trigger key. When Trigger Released is used if you unpause the layer by holding down and releasing the trigger key.

Display sequential layers synchronized to time

The layers in a cycle can be triggered in sequential order synchronized to the timeline, so subsequent layers in the cycle are chosen as you advance later in time. This can be useful when you want to use an image sequence (created via File > Import Cycle or Puppet > Add Cycle) as background video.

Display sequential layers synchronized to time, do the following:

Set the Start parameter to the new Synced to timeline option. Synced to timeline is like Immediately, except that the former doesn't advance through the group's layers during rehearsal (i.e., when stopped on a frame).

The cycle is synchronized to the original start of the puppet track, so if you shift the puppet track later in time, the cycle still starts at the first frame of the puppet track. If you extend the in-point (left edge) of the puppet track earlier in time, the first layer of the cycle is used for those extended frames.

The Immediately option now also shows the same layer during playback and recording. If you start playback or recording after rehearsing, you might see a discontinuity in the layer chosen. When using Immediately or Synced to timeline, the Hold on Last Layer parameter is now disabled when Forward and Reverse is checked or when Cycle is set to Continuously.

Dragger: Control a region of a puppet by dragging with the mouse or by touch

This behavior allows you to drag a region of a puppet away from the rest of it (for example, to wave its arm). It is applied by default for new puppets, but works only if a location on the puppet is set up for control via mouse or touchscreen.

Setup

Assign the Draggable tag to a specific handle or to groups to affect its origin. If imported artwork has a guide or a layer with the word "Draggable" in its name, the Draggable tag is applied to the corresponding handle automatically. 

Controls

Drag near the location in the Scene panel. The nearest Draggable handle location on the puppet moves to match the relative changes in mouse position while dragging.

The Dragger behavior records each Draggable handle that you move as a separate take group, so that multiple performances for a specific handle compose together, and don't affect performances for other handles that you drag. By grouping Dragger takes by dragged handles, you don't need to use multiple Dragger behaviors to capture multiple dragged handles. The Timeline panel shows each Dragger takes grouped by handle name as "Handle (handle-name)".

The Dragger behavior lets you control Draggable-tagged handles only when dragging within some distance from the handles. This optional control can help when you only want to control Draggable handles when very close to them, as opposed to whichever one is nearest. It is also useful when you have more than one Dragger behavior applied to different parts of the puppet — to avoid both activating on a single drag.

If you have a touch-enabled display, you can control Draggable handles by touching the display. Multiple handles can be controlled at the same time. The following actions can be performed at the handle location:

• Move: One finger down, then dragged in any direction. This gesture is equivalent to dragging a handle with the mouse.
• Scale: Two fingers down, then dragged apart or together, spreading or pinching the fingers.
• Rotate: Two fingers down, then either one swept in a rotating motion around the other or both swept in a rotating motion and same direction around the midpoint of the two fingers.

This behavior has the following parameters:

• Mouse & Touch Input controls whether the behavior processess mouse actions such as clicks and drags or touchscreen gestures.
• Limit Range controls whether the nearest Draggable handle is controlled regardless of distance (unchecked) or only if the Draggable handle is within a specified range (checked).
• Range specifies how close, in on-screen pixels (i.e., independent of panel zoom level), the mouse pointer or finger on a touchscreen needs to be to a Draggable handle to control it. A value of 0 (the default) chooses the nearest one.
• After Move controls what happens after you stop dragging the Draggable handle. Return to Rest (the default) makes the handle settle back to its resting pose, whereas Hold in Place keeps the handle at the spot where you left it.
• Return Duration controls when Return to Rest is used for dragged handles, the handles return smoothly to their resting locations. You can control how long (in seconds) it takes to return to rest with the Return Duration parameter.

Eye Gaze: Control eye pupil movement separate from the rest of the face

This behavior uses the webcam, mouse, arrow keys, or touch-enabled display to control the movement of a puppet's pupils for finer control and recording of eye gaze. You can dart the puppet's pupils directly to the nine common positions shown below.

You can smooth and pause eye gaze and blend recorded eye gaze takes.

Eye gaze behavior

Artwork setup

Organize and tag layers similar to those for the Face behavior. However, you only use the Head, Left Eye, Right Eye, Left Pupil, Right Pupil, Left Pupil Range, and Right Pupil Range tags.

Controls

You can control eye gaze with the webcam, mouse, arrow keys, or touch-enabled display.

Control eye gaze

This behavior has the following parameters:

100% is the default transformation for each parameter, but you can decrease it to 0% to dampen the transforms or increase above 100% to exaggerate them.

• Mouse & Touch Input controls whether the behavior processes mouse or touch-display drag actions for eye gaze. When armed, clicking or dragging with the mouse or touch will cause the puppet's eye pupil layers to look at the mouse/touch location. The location is defined relative to the center of the scene, which corresponds to the puppet's eyes looking straight ahead. You can dampen the offset by decreasing Mouse & Touch Strength.

Tip: Temporarily disarm behaviors controllable via the mouse (for example, Dragger or Particles) if you want to control eye gaze with the mouse.

• Camera Input controls the movement using the input from a webcam.
• Keyboard input: Control the movements using arrow keys as follows:

1. Single arrow key: points the pupil in that direction.
2. Pair of arrow keys: points the pupil in a diagonal direction. For example, up and left, up and right down and left, or down and right.

• Snap eye gaze: Select this option when using camera or mouse to restrict pupil movement so that it darts to one of the nine common positions shown earlier. This controls the responsiveness of the pupil to your own pupil movement. When controlling the eye gaze with the arrow keys, the pupils always dart even if snap eye gaze is not enabled.
• Smoothing controls how much to dampen jittery pupil movements in front of the webcam or due to nonideal lighting conditions causing pupil tracking points to move unexpectedly. The default value does some smoothing, but you might want to decrease it if you prefer to have your puppet's pupils react instantaneously to quick motions, including rapid eye movements. Note that smoothing has an effect even when snap eye gaze is enabled.
• Camera Strength controls how far pupils can move when controlled using the camera input.
• Mouse & Touch Strength controls how far pupils can be offset when controlled via the mouse or touch.
• Keyboard Strength controls how far the pupils move when controlled using Keyboard.
• Minimum Snap Duration specifies the minimum duration of a snapped eye gaze position before the pupils can move. This parameter can be used to prevent overly jittery eye gaze movements when snapping is enabled.

You can also blend together Eye gaze recordings (takes).

Face: Control a puppet with your webcam

This behavior uses the face-tracking results from your webcam to control the position, scale, and rotation of named facial features in your puppets.

Artwork setup

Specify the facial features to control

Organize and tag layers as described in Body features.

Eyelid blinking

A puppet's eyes can blink in two ways — swapping to different artwork for a closed eye or sliding opposing eyelid layers together. The former gives you more control over the look of a closed eye, especially if it cannot be represented as two adjacent layers, and is easier to set up. However, no scaling occurs for partially closed eyes. The latter gives you continuous movement/scaling of eyelids, but requires more set up.

Use unique closed eye artwork

Assign separate Left Blink and Right Blink layer tags within the Left Eye and Right Eye tagged layers. When the Face behavior detects a closed eye, the Eye artwork is swapped for the Blink ones.

Use separate eyelid artwork

The vertical distance between these handles determines how far to close and open the eyelids (i.e., Character Animator tries to move the top/bottom eyelid layers together to simulate closing of the eye).

Eyebrow control

As you raise or lower the eyebrow of your puppet, you can also tilt them for more expressiveness. You can tilt the eyebrow inward at the low point to emphasize a scowl, or tilt it outward at the high point to make your puppet look surprised.

To adjust the intensity of eyebrow tilt when raised or lowered, adjust the Raised Eyebrow Tilt and Lowered Eyebrow Tilt under Face behavior.
Note: Both these options are relative to the drawn orientation of the eyebrow at the rest pose, with 100% or -100% tilting the eyebrows vertically.
The Move Eyebrow Together option under the Face behavior is set as default in Character Animator. This means that the eyebrow movement happens in sync with each other. You can deselect the option for independent control of the eyebrows.

Face Tracking setup

Character Animator captures your facial expressions from your webcam and animates the puppet based on your facial movements.

For some configurations with both internal and external webcams, the internal camera might not be the first (default) camera, or the intended external webcam might not be the next video input, so you might need to switch to the intended webcam. Also, sometimes you might need to reset or retrain the face tracking to the current position and orientation of your face so that the initial appearance of a puppet is as intended.

Mirror Camera Input

Use the Mirror Camera Input option in the Camera & Microphone panel menu to control if the camera image should be flipped horizontally before being used. Note that the option is checked by default.

Choose a specific webcam (video source)

Choose Switch to Next Camera from the Camera and Microphone panel until the intended webcam is active in the panel, or choose Switch to Default Camera to reset to the first webcam.

If you have multiple webcams or your webcam isn't the first video source found (for example, if you have a video capture device), cycle through available video sources to choose the intended one.

If the number of video sources changes during or between sessions, you might need to reselect the intended source.

Improve tracking accuracy of your facial performance

• Increase direct lighting on your face.
• For eyelid and eye gaze direction tracking, move closer to the camera so your face appears bigger in the frame.

Set the rest pose for your face

Look at the center of the Scene panel, place your face in what you consider a default, rest pose, then click Set Rest Pose in the Camera and Microphone panel or press Cmd/Ctrl+P.

Recalibrate the red face and blue pupil tracking points

In case they no longer follow your facial features, try moving your head within the field of view of the camera, double-click in the Camera & Microphone panel, or push the red dots towards your face using your hand.

Smoothening facial movements

If your facial movements in front of the webcam are uneven or if lighting conditions cause facial tracking points to move unexpectedly, you can try compensating for these movements by having captured camera information smoothened over time. To smooth out facial movements, increase the new Smoothing parameter's value in the Face behavior. The default value does some smoothing, but you might want to decrease it if you prefer to have your puppet react instantaneously to quick motions, including rapid eye blinks. Mouth replacements are not affected.

Capture the initial frame of the performance

To ensure that a punched-in performance (starting a recording during playback) for the Face or Lip Sync behaviors captures the initial frame of the performance, deselect the Pause During Playback option in the Camera & Microphone panel menu.

Multiple sets of switchable Head Turner views

Turner views

A character can have multiple Head-tagged group , each with its own set of views (and Head Turner behavior). For example, you might have one set of views by default, but then use a keyboard trigger to switch to a different set of views.

Set up switchable sets of Head Turner views

As you press the key trigger to show a head, you can then turn your head to trigger the different views.

See Wendigo in the Character Animator Examples download for a working example that you can modify.

Face: Pose-to-pose movement

You can produce pose-based movement from the webcam automatically, emphasizing key poses you make with your head and facial features using the Face behavior. Adjust the Pose-to-Pose Movement parameter to control how much to pause the head and face motion. The higher you set the parameter, the more the system will hold the key poses. Setting the parameter lower will cause the key poses to change more frequently.This parameter does not affect lip sync. Use the Minimum Pose Duration parameter to specify the minimum amount of time that a key pose will be held. This parameter only has an effect if the Pose-to-pose movement parameter is greater than 0%.

Tip: Increase Smoothing to 60% or more to ease the transition between key poses. Lower smoothing values can produce jarring jumps between poses.

Controls

Control a puppet with your face

As you move or rotate your head or make different facial expressions (smile, mouth wide open, etc.), the puppet in the scene should follow.

Audio from the microphone can be used to show different visual representations of your voice, via the Lip Sync behavior (described in Lip Sync: Control a puppet's mouth with your voice).

Generate face data from prerecorded video

The face measurements data on the system clipboard is converted to a Camera Input take on the selected puppet.

Pause head movements but still allow lip sync

Hold down the semicolon (;) key. You can use this capability to, for example, have one character stationary but talking to another character that is moving in the scene. When you release the key, the puppet's head smoothly moves to the currently tracked head position and orientation. To slow down the transition, increase the Smoothness.

The semicolon key is usable when the Face behavior's Camera Input is armed.

This behavior has the following parameters:

• Camera Input allows you to control puppet using your face movements on the webcam.
• Smoothing controls smoothing out of jittery or uneven facial movements captured using the webcam. See Smoothening facial movements for more information.

• Head Position Strength, Head Scale Strength, and Head Tilt Strength control the movement, scaling, and z-axis rotation of the head.
• Eyebrow Strength controls the vertical movement of the eyebrows.
• Eyelid Strength controls the movement and scaling of the eyelids. At 0%, no blinking triggered by the webcam occurs, which is useful if you want to control blinking automatically using the Triggers behavior (with eyelids assigned to a key).
• Mouth Strength controls the movement and scaling of the mouth.

• Parallax Strength controls parallax movement of the eyes, nose, and mouth.
• Blink Eyes Together controls the synchronization of eye blinks (for Blink layers only). Uncheck this option to control each eye blink separately (for example, wink).

Face tracking with a webcam

Fader: Fade a group on and off via trigger

This behavior allows you to show or hide a specific part of a puppet by fading the opacity of that part (a group) on or off by using a trigger (e.g., keyboard trigger). The group will fade in when triggered, then fade out when the trigger is released.

Setup

Note: This behavior isn't applied by default to puppets. Add the behavior to the specific group of a puppet that you want to fade in and out. Avoid having Fader and Transform on the same group.
Also, assign a trigger key to the group. Set the key to latch if you want to toggle fading in and out by tapping the key instead of holding it down.

Controls

This behavior has the following parameter:

Duration:  controls how fast (in seconds) opacity will increase or decrease.

Handle Fixer: Restrict movement in a bendable puppet

This behavior allows parts of a bendable puppet to stay fixed in place as if pinned down.

Setup

Assign the Fixed tag to a specific handles or groups to affects its origin. If the imported artwork has a guide or layer with the word "Fixed" in its name, the Fixed tag is applied to the corresponding handle automatically.

When the puppet moves (for example, via the Face or Dragger behavior), the bendable areas stretch and deform. For example, you can restrict the movement of a character's torso and lower body by placing a "Fixed" handle at the waist (like a Puppet pin in After Effects or Photoshop), but have the upper part of the body (Head handle) controlled by the Face behavior.

See Headless Horseman.psd or Red Monster.ai in the Character Animator Examples download for working examples that you can modify.

Stick tool

The Stick tool (available in the Puppet panel) allows you to create rigid segments in the warpable mesh of a puppet's rubber sheet. The area around the segment cannot bend, but the segment can stretch or shrink. For example, you can create sticks (segments) for a character's upper arm and lower arm, leaving a gap at the elbow so it can bend there.

To create a Stick handle in the Puppet panel, click at the place above a layer to specify one end of the stick, then drag to the other end of the intended stick. A handle with a line through it is created.

Head Turner: Switch between groups as you turn your head

This behavior switches between groups, for example, different views like the front, quarter, and side/profile of a character, as you swivel your head left or right.

Setup

Specify the controllable views by tagging the layers with at least two of the following:

• Left Profile
• Left Quarter
• Frontal
• Right Quarter
• Right Profile
• Upward
• Downward

The number of provided views determines the distance your head needs to swivel. If you provide Left Profile, Front, and Right Profile, Front is triggered when you look straight at the camera, and the profile views triggered when looking to either side. If all five views are provided, you need to turn farther to the sides to trigger the profile views.

Controls

This behavior has the following parameters:

• Camera Input allows you to control puppet using your face movements on the webcam.
• Sensitivity controls how far you have to swivel your head around the y-axis to switch to the quarter and profile layers. Decrease the value if the switching is happening too quickly, or increase it if not fast enough.

Switchable head turner view

You can create multiple head-tagged group, each with its own set of views (and Head Turner behavior). For example, you might have one set of views by default, but then use a keyboard trigger to switch to a different set of views.

Keyboard trigger groups

Layer Picker: Choose a layer to show or trigger

You can trigger a specific layer in a puppet or group using the Layer Picker behavior. Following are the various ways of choosing the layer ‐ by index number, percentage, microphone, keyboard, mouse, or touch-enabled display, or a combination of these. Each layer can even have Cycle Layers applied for more complex triggering of layers.

Setup
This behavior isn't applied by default to puppets. You can add the behavior to the specific group of a puppet whose layers you want to pick from. Only the layers and groups in that puppet are chosen, layers within groups are ignored.

Controls
The layer to pick is a combination of multiple input controls. The controls that are available are index number, the percentage of the number of layers available, via loudness captured by the microphone, via arrow keypress, and via dragging via mouse or touch-enabled display. The sum of all layer numbers chosen by these controls determines the actual layer to trigger. You can use one or more controls that are best suited for your needs.

Layer Picker parameters:

• Audio Input: controls the layer picked based on how loud you talk into the microphone. Use the Audio Sensitivity parameter to adjust the value (defined below).
• Camera Input: Camera Input parameter, when armed, allows you to use head movements to pick the layer to use. When using the camera, the new Camera Mode parameter selects the type of head movement ‐ the turn of your head, the width of your mouth, the vertical movement of your eyebrows, etc. ‐ as the controller, and the new Camera Strength parameter controls the influence of that head movement on layer picked. Because the camera input is being used for layer selection, be sure to click the Set Rest Pose button while your face is in a resting pose.

Note: Some camera modes might require adjustments to Camera Strength, Index Offset, and Percentage Offset values to get the results you want.

• Keyboard Input: controls the layer picked by pressing the arrow keys. Use Left or Up Arrow to decrease the layer number and Right or Down Arrow to increase the number.
• Mouse & Touch Input: controls the layer picked by dragging horizontally in the Scene panel with your mouse or using touch-enabled display. You can adjust this parameter with the Mouse & Touch Strength parameter (described below).
• Index Offset: controls the layer picked by selecting its layer number (position within the group or puppet). This parameter has a minimum value of 1 (first layer).
• Percentage Offset: controls the layer picked by selecting a percentage of the range of layers. This parameter has a minimum value of -100% and a maximum of 100% so that you can, for example, select a higher-numbered layer with Index Offset, but reduce it with a negative Percentage Offset.
• Audio Sensitivity: controls how much influence the audio volume has on the layer picked. This is used when Audio Input is armed.
• Mouse & Touch Strength: controls how far you need to drag horizontally to change the layer picked. This is used when Mouse & Touch Input is armed.
• Keyboard Advance: controls how you press an arrow key to advance the layer number. On Hold (set by default), allows you to hold down the arrow key to repeated increase or decrease the layer number. On Tap, requires pressing the arrow key for each change in layer number.
• Out of Range: controls how to handle layer numbers that are outside the range of available layers. Limit to First/Last (set by default) restrict to the first and last layer, showing the first layer if the number is negative or the last layer if the number is larger than the last layer's index. The loop repeats the range of layers.

Lip Sync: Control a puppet's mouth with your voice

This behavior produces lip-synced animation if the original artwork contains visemes (visual representations of your mouth as you make different sounds) and you talk into the microphone. You can also process audio in the scene to generate lip sync data for a puppet.

The Lip Sync behavior has a Keyboard Input parameter that, when armed, allows you to display specific visemes by pressing the first letter of the viseme layer's name for example, A for the Aa viseme , D for D, W for W-Oo, etc.). You do not have to add keyboard triggers manually to those layer names.

Lip Sync preferences

Use Lip Sync preferences to control  how the lip sync engine is used for detecting and generating visemes. To open, select Preferences > Lip Sync.

The Lip Sync preference window allows you to control the following:

• Viseme Detection: controls the density (number) of visemes generated by lip sync for a given section of audio. 
• Camera-based Muting: controls the threshold of how open your mouth needs to be (when the Camera Input is enabled) to enable lip sync. This can be useful to avoid your puppet's mouth changing when other people are talking in the background but your mouth isn't open in front of the camera. By default, there is no muting, so background sounds can produce visemes. 
• Version: selects the version of the lip sync engine used to detect visemes.
• Audio-based Muting: controls the threshold of how loud the audio needs to be to enable lip sync.

Working with visemes

A viseme is a generic facial image that can be used to indicate a particular sound. A viseme is the visual equivalent of a phoneme or unit of sound in spoken language. Visemes and phonemes do not necessarily share a one-to-one correspondence. Often several phonemes correspond to a single viseme, as several phonemes look the same on the face. 

Within Character Animator, there are three shapes that are determined by the shape of your mouth in the webcam. These only show up if no audio is detected (no one is talking). Neutral is the most common to see and should be your default "rest" mouth.

The other 11 mouth shapes, called Visemes, are determined by audio. Visemes are visualizations of key mouth positions when saying common phonetic sounds. Character Animator listens for 60+ specific sounds and translates them into visemes.

Name your characters

If you name and structure your Mouth group like this, Character Animator automatically recognizes and tags these mouth shapes upon import.

Tips to create custom mouth shapes

• Lock the top jaw. Keeping the top row of teeth in a consistent place helps things look smoother.
• Cycle Layers behavior can be added to a mouth group to add a few frames of transitional animation when that sound is picked up. The mouth opening to Aa or W-Oo is a common application.
• You can add additional mouth shapes (sad, yell, etc.) into your Mouth group and show them through keyboard triggers.
• These are examples of a frontal view, but quarter and profile views can follow the same general guidelines.

Artwork setup

Specify the visemes to control

Organize and tag Mouth layers as described in Body features. See Red Monster.ai or Robot.psd in the Character Animator Examples download for working examples that you can modify.

Tracking setup

Improve tracking accuracy of your speaking performance

Try boosting the microphone input level in your operating system's Sound control panel.

Controls

Control a puppet with your voice

A scene named after the puppet is created, and the scene is opened in the Scene panel.

You can change the audio hardware references. To change them, select Edit > Preferences > Audio Hardware.

As you talk, the audio signal is analyzed and a matching viseme for your mouth is displayed. When no sound can be detected or the microphone is disabled, control falls back to the Face behavior (if present) analyzing the video signal (your mouth expressions captured by the webcam) to possibly trigger the Smile or Surprised mouth shapes.

Generate lip sync data from prerecorded audio

This behavior has the following parameter:

• Audio Input controls whether the behavior processes audio from the microphone or scene.

Use scene audio for audio-controllable behaviors

You can create Lip Sync take for behaviors that have Audio Input parameters ‐ Nutcracker Jaw and Layer Picker ‐ both of which can use audio amplitude to control them. The existing Timeline > Compute Lip Sync from Scene Audio menu command now references the behavior with an armed Audio Input parameter:

• Create Lip Sync Take from Scene Audio
• Create Nutcracker Jaw Take from Scene Audio
• Create Layer Picker Take from Scene Audio

If there are multiple armed Audio Input parameters, for multiple selected puppets or multiple behaviors, the menu command will mention the number of takes that will be created. If you only want to record a take for a specific behavior, make sure the others are disabled or disarmed.

Edit visemes

You can insert, select, trim, delete, or replace visemes.

Visemes are represented as adjacent bars below the Audio Input track bar and the gaps between these bars are moments of silence in the audio. Each bar represents a separate viseme. Each viseme bar
has the viseme name displayed on it for easy recognition. Zoom in to view these names.

To zoom into the timeline, do any of the following steps:

• If you want to timeline zoom in/out around mouse, place pointer over the specific point in the timeline and hold down Alt-vertical-wheel(Win) or Option-vertical-wheel(Mac).
• If you want to timeline forward/backward in time, hold down Shift-vertical wheel (Mac/Win) or Horizontal wheel (Mac/Win).

Select visemes

To select visemes or silences, do any of the following steps:

• To select a viseme, click the left-edge of the viseme bar. The edge turns white when you select it.
• To select a silence, click its left edge. The cursor changes to a horizontal arrow when you hover over the edges.
• To select multiple visemes, press Shift+click(Win) or Cmd+click(Mac).
• To retain the existing selected visemes and silences as you drag and select them, hold down Shift (Win) or Cmd/Ctrl (Mac) before starting to drag.

Adjust the timing of visemes or silences

To adjust the timing of a viseme or silence, do any of the following steps:

• Drag the viseme bar horizontally from the edges.
• Drag the edge between viseme bars or silences horizontally. 

The left edge of the viseme or silence moves earlier or later in time. You can drag the left edge of the viseme bars or silences across other visemes to replace them.

Delete visemes

To delete visemes or silences,

• Select Edit > Delete or press Delete.

When you delete a viseme bar or silence, the viseme bar or silence to the left extends to the next viseme or end.

Editing Visemes using Keyboard

There are multiple ways in which you can edit visemes . Visemes can be edited from the Visemes context menu and by dragging visemes manually. Several keyboard shortcuts can also be used to edit visemes when they are selected.

• Left arrow or right arrow: Selects the previous or next viseme or span of silence in time.
• Up arrow or down arrow: Moves the selected viseme earlier or later by one frame in time.
• The first letter of the viseme name, for example, A for Aa, E for Ee, W for W-Oo: replaces the selected viseme associated with that letter.
  
• Forward slash key (/): Splits the selected viseme in half.

Note that Deleting a selected viseme automatically selects the next viseme or span of silence in time if one exists.

Replace visemes with another viseme or silence

Right-click the viseme to be replaced and choose a new viseme from the context menu. To replace a viseme with a silence, choose Silence from the context menu.

The letters in parentheses are sounds. For example, use D viseme for sounds like n, th, and g.

Tip: Though you can play back or scrub through time, or deselect the Puppet track item to view the result, you can also disable microphone input in the Camera & Microphone panel to make changes to a viseme and see the results on the character immediately.

Add a viseme

• To add a viseme where there is silence, right-click in the silence and choose a new viseme from the context menu. This adds the viseme and removes the silence.
• To add a viseme anywhere in time, click the viseme and hold down Alt(Win) or Option(Mac) and right-click to choose a new viseme from the context menu.

Depending on placement, the inserted viseme leaves silence after it. To make the inserted viseme fill the rest of the span of silence, press Alt/Option-left click to open the Visemes popup menu.

Split a viseme

To split a viseme , do any of the following:

• Hold down Alt(Win) or Option(Mac) as the cursor changes to a razor and click the area you want to split. The razor indicates the area to be split.
• Select and drag the playhead to the area to be split and select Edit > Split, or Cmd+Shift+D (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+D (Win).

Reuse and copy visemes

You can cut or copy and paste lip sync takes from one puppet or project and use it in another by following these steps:

• To retain the original visemes and copy the lip sync take, choose Edit > Copy (Cmd/ctrl+C). To cut the original viseme , choose Edit > Cut (Cmd/Ctrl+X).
• Select the puppet track item in the timeline where you want to paste the copied viseme . This could be in the current project or another one. Position the play head where you want to paste the lip sync. To paste, choose Edit > Paste (Cmd/Ctrl+V).

Note: If you copy multiple Lip Sync takes, they are pasted in order of their selection.

Instead of copying the entire Audio Input take of visemes or Trigger take of triggers, you can selectively cut, copy, and paste viseme and trigger bars to reuse just the recordings you need. For more information, see Reuse (cut, copy, and paste) viseme and trigger bars.

Move the jaw based on the current viseme

The Lip Sync behavior can vertically move a Jaw up and down. It can be moved automatically based on the height of the current viseme , specifically the offset of the bottom edge of the viseme relative to the bottom edge of the Neutral mouth shape. With the Jaw handle along the chin of the face, as different visemes are displayed, the bottom of the face can warp to simulate the chin moving up and down.

Note: If a viseme is a cycle (i.e., Cycle Layers applied to a group of layers showing an animated viseme ), the vertical offset will be based on the tallest layer in the group. If there are multiple mouth groups, it will use the average height of all mouths with that same viseme's tag.

The behavior has the following new parameters to control Jaw movement:

• Jaw Movement controls how much to offset the Jaw handle. Use a lower value for subtler jaw motion. 
• Manual Jaw Adjustment allows for additional control of each viseme's vertical offset of the jaw.

Export lip sync take to After Effects

You can take Character Animator  visemes  into After Effects for use on different characters. For information on the steps to follow, see Lip Sync: Take export for After Effects.

Magnets: Dynamic attachment of objects

This behavior lets different parts of a puppet or different puppets connect to each other as they get close. Use it for picking up and dropping objects, like a cup of coffee that you want your character to grab.

Setup

Controls

Controls how connected objects are oriented with each other ‐ Weld retains the original orientation at the time the attachment was made, whereas Hinge allows the attached object to pivot. If you are using multiple Magnets behaviors (for example, you're connecting between puppets), and they use different attach styles, the connection to be used is Hinge.

Controls how strong the connection is between attached objects, with lower values allowing the objects to move more freely than at higher values. A strength of 0 will not attract other Magnet-tagged handles, and also breaks any current connections.

Controls the maximum distance (in pixels) that nearby Magnet-tagged handles need to be from each other to form a connection.

controls if Collide-tagged groups containing Magnet-tagged handles can overlap but still collide with other groups that are not magnetized (checked), or always collide (unchecked). When unchecked, the groups will collide when their outlines meet. The Range value might need to be increased because the handles will not overlap before making a connection.

Magnets behavior

Motion Lines: Draw lines behind a fast-moving object to accentuate its movement

This behavior draws lines along the motion path of and behind an object to convey fast movement. Also known as speed lines, they can accentuate how parts of a puppet move over time and can add flourish to an animation. You can define any number of motion lines, with each optionally having a pair of secondary lines.

Setup

1. Add the Motion Lines behavior to the puppet. 
2. Add the Motion Lines handle tag (from the Modifiers tag category) to any number of handles that you want the motion lines to be drawn from. These handle locations can move either directly (by dragging them if they also have the Draggable handle tag) or indirectly (as part of a mesh that is controlled by another behavior).

Controls

As the puppet moves, handles tagged with Motion Lines will have lines drawn from them based on their speed. The behavior has the following parameters:

• Velocity Threshold: controls the speed that the handles tagged with Motion Lines needs to exceed before a motion line appears from the handles. 
• Line Lifespan: controls the duration that the motion lines stay visible. 
• Line Width: controls the thickness of the primary motion line that's drawn from each tagged handle. The width of the secondary motion lines is a percentage of the primary line's width.
•  Secondary Lines: shows a pair of smaller lines along each primary motion line to accentuate its movement. The location and length of the secondary lines are randomized for a more visually compelling look.
• Secondary Line Offset: controls the distance of the secondary lines from each primary motion line. 
• Color (R), (G), and (B): controls the red, green, and blue color components of the motion lines, each component a percentage. 
• Opacity: controls the visibility of the motion lines. 
• Fade Opacity: controls making the tails of the lines lighter. It is enabled by default.
• Tapered Lines: gradually reduces the thickness of motion lines in addition to fading them.
  
  

Motion Trigger: Show artwork based on directional movement

The Motion Trigger behavior switches between groups based on the direction the parent puppet is moving. For example, as a character moves to the right, switch to a profile view of the character running with motion trails behind it. The movement of the character can either be direct (you dragging it across the scene) or indirect (the puppet is attached to a hand on an arm that is swinging because the torso is moving).

Setup

To specify the motion views, attach any of the following tags:

• At Rest
• Moving Left
• Moving Right
• Moving Up
• Moving Down
• In Transition

Notes:

• These directions are based on your view of the scene in the Scene panel (i.e., a puppet moving to the left side of the scene would trigger the Moving Left layer, if present). Diagonal movement chooses the dominant direction, but falls back to the other direction if a layer for the dominant one does not exist.
• This behavior is not applied by default to puppets, so add it first to see its effect on a puppet.

Controls

Move the parent puppet whose group has this behavior applied. Movement can come from any other behavior (Face, Dangle, Dragger, Transform, etc.).

This behavior has the following parameters:

Speed Threshold controls the threshold that the parent puppet must move in pixels per frame before a layer is triggered. Speeds below this threshold triggers the At Rest layer.

Minimum Duration controls the minimum number of frames to trigger a layer before triggering a different layer, which can reduce flicker/jittery switches between layers when moving at a slower speed.

Motion trigger

Nutcracker Jaw: Control the lower jaw with your face or voice

This behavior moves the lower part of the puppet's mouth as you open and close your mouth in front of the webcam or talk into the microphone. This can be a simpler way of making a puppet talk without needing to specify separate artwork for the different mouth shapes and visemes used by the Face, and Lip Sync behaviors. If Face, and Nutcracker Jaw behaviors are both on a puppet, the Face behavior can still control the rest of the face, but Nutcracker Jaw controls just the mouth.

Setup

Specify the lower jaw to move

You can rotate the jaw of the puppet. To rotate the jaw, follow these steps:

If imported artwork has a guide or layer with the word "Jaw" in the name, the Jaw tag is applied to the corresponding handle automatically.

See Nutcracker Annie.psd in the Character Animator Examples download for a working example that you can modify.

Controls

Move the lower jaw with your face

Move the lower jaw with your voice or other sound

This behavior has the following parameters:

The Nutcracker Jaw behavior can now open and close your character's mouth as you talk into the microphone. Just make sure the Audio Input parameter is armed, and the microphone input is enabled.

In addition, the actual movement of the tagged Jaw layer can now be rotational (clockwise or counterclockwise), in addition to vertical. For rotational movement, create a handle tagged with Jaw as the pivot location; a Jaw-tagged origin handle is not working at this time.

This behavior has the following parameters:

• Camera Input controls whether the behavior will process video from the webcam.
• Audio Input controls whether the behavior will process audio from the microphone.
• Camera Flappiness controls the offset of the lower jaw based on your tracked mouth in front of the webcam. Microphone Flappiness controls the offset of the lower jaw based on the audio amplitude of your voice in the microphone. For both parameters, 100% is the default maximum offset from the rest position — 100 pixels for position-based movement, 45° for rotation-based movement — but you can change the value to affect this maximum offset.
• Movement controls how the lower jaw will move — Position for vertical movement, Rotation Clockwise for pivoting from the jaw's origin in a clockwise direction (appropriate for the right profile of a character), or Rotation Counterclockwise for pivoting counterclockwise (for a left profile).

Jaw movement based on the viseme

The Lip Sync behavior can vertically offset a Jaw handle automatically based on the height of the current viseme . For more information, see Move the jaw based on the current viseme .

Particles: Control objects using physics

Particles behavior creates multiple instances of a puppet and treats them as particles within a simulation (for example, spewing as if fired from a cannon, or falling like snowflakes). This behavior isn't applied by default to puppets. Add it first to see its effect on a puppet. You can also apply it to a group of puppets to have the group emitted as particles from the parent puppet.

The Physics behavior must be applied at or above the group that has Particles behavior applied. This allows Particles to use the settings for the physics system, and particles to move. If you are opening an older project, or a puppet with only Particles behavior applied, add the Physics behavior to use the settings.

Controls

This behavior has the following parameters:

• Particle Mode controls the type of particle motion to generate — Snow makes particles fall from the top of the scene, Point and Shoot fires particles from the puppet's position toward the clicked location, and Cannon fires particles in a specific direction.

• Mouse & Touch Input controls whether the behavior processess mouse actions such as clicks and drags.
• Keyboard Input controls whether the behavior processess keyboard presses.
• Continuous Mode (for Point and Shoot and Cannon particle modes) controls if particles fire automatically, without clicking the mouse.
• Track mouse mode emits particles from the motion path traced by the mouse pointer location or finger location on a touchscreen, and in the direction of movement. 
• Flicker Particle Opacity causes the emitted particles to get brighter and darker over time like flickering fireflies at night. Tip: Set the Physics behavior's Gravity Strength to 0% to simulate floating particles that float near the dragged motion path.

• Particles Per Second controls the birth rate.
• Direction (for Cannon mode) controls the angle that particles fire from the center of the puppet.
• Velocity controls the rate of fire.
• Spread controls the width of the area from which particles are birthed. For Snow mode, if you want particles to fall across the full width of the scene, set this value to 100%.
• Randomness controls the variability in direction that particles fire. Use in combination with Spread for different looks.
• Lifespan controls particle duration (in seconds), from birth to death.
• Honor Emitter Transforms controls whether emitted particles are affected by the scale, skew, and rotation of the emitter (for example, water droplets that spray from an elephant's trunk). When unchecked, emitted particles are upright but is still affected by the emitter's position and the Particle Scale parameter.
• Particle Scale controls the size of emitted particles, relative to the normal size of the puppet.
• Emitter Opacity controls the visibility of the original puppet from which particles are emitted. Set to 0% so that all you see are the emitted particles. The Transform behavior's Opacity can additionally affect emitter opacity.
• Particle Opacity controls the visibility of emitted particles.
• Fade Particle Opacity controls whether the visibility of emitted particles reduces over their lifespan.

Note: Unless you want particles to move along an arc, set Direction (of emitted particles) and Gravity Direction in asimilar orientation. 

Gravity Strength, gravity Direction, Bounce Off Scene Sides, Bounciness, Wind Strength, and Drag parameters are now a part of Physics parameters. Squash and Strech parameter is no longer available.

Collidable particles

The Particles behavior can emit particles that are collidable  with other particles or other layers tagged
Collide.

Remove all existing particles in a scene

Select the puppet with particles and have it armed for record. Then Press D.

Physics: Simulate object movement and deformations

Physics allows layers in a puppet to collide and bounce against each other and the sides of the scene. For example, a character can walk through a pile of leaves, with the feet pushing them out of the way. You can even have a structure of nested groups act as a chain or produce ragdoll animation.  You can even have a structure of nested groups act as a chain or produce ragdoll animation. This behavior lets a puppet warp (hang and sway) as if it was pulled and pushed from some point on it. Handles on the puppet act as particles that get dynamically simulated, causing the artwork on them to move and deform. For example, the long hair, earrings, or wings on a character that sway or oscillate like a spring as the character moves around the scene.Note: Collisions occur only between independent groups of a single puppet, and between puppets that are in the same scene.

You can apply Physics at multiple group levels for finer control of stiffness, wind, and gravity settings. 

Note: The Physics tag is ignored if you apply it to a puppet's origin handle, either manually in the Puppet panel or if the artwork had a layer with "dangle" in its name.

Note: Collisions occur only between independent groups of a single puppet, and between puppets that are in the same scene.

The existing Dangle settings for the Physics behavior has been enhanced with support for squash and stretch deformation, which preserves the overall volume (surface area) of a puppet as it deforms. For example, compressing the puppet's mesh causes the sides to bulge wider to retain the original surface area. Similarly, stretching the mesh vertically causes the middle to get narrower.

Also, when using lower stiffness settings that cause looser swaying motion, you can reduce the amount of sway with damping control.

Setup

Assign the Physics tag to the handles that you want to control by physics. The puppet dangles from the other handles, such as Origin or the ones with the Fixed tag. If the imported artwork has a guide with the word "Dangle" in its name, the handles created from those guides get the Physics tag automatically. Layers with the word "Dangle" get the Physics tag applied to their origin handles. However, the Physics tag applied to any origin handle is ignored. 

Make sure that some parent puppets can be controlled by the Dragger, Face, or Transform behavior so that the dangling puppets can react to the motion.

Tip: Use Hinge attach style to allow the puppet to pivot smoothly around the attachment point.

Dangling still uses Dangle-tagged handles and the Dangle tool, but to operate collisions, tag the
layers as either Collide or Dynamic. These handle and layer tags are in the Tags > Physics section of the Properties panel.

Follow these steps to make an independent group dangle:

1. Add one or more handles tagged as Dangle to the group. 
2. Reposition the group's origin to where the dangling movement should be anchored.

• To make independent groups collide or move around the scene, apply the Collide layer tag if you want the group to be  collidable  with other Collide-tagged layers. The layer does not move unless you also use the Dynamic layer tag, but allows other  collidable  objects to bounce off it.
• Apply the Dynamic layer tag if you want the group to move around in the simulation. You might want to also apply the Collide tag so that the dynamic layer doesn't ignore other layers that you want it to bounce off of.
• When you tag a layer as Dynamic, the following actions will also occur so that you can see your layer move without requiring additional setup: 
  • The Collide tag will also be applied. You can, of course, untag Collide, if you did not need collisions.
  • If a layer is selected, its containing group will be made independent. If a group is selected, it will be made independent, if needed.
  • The containing or selected group, if previously set to a Weld attach style, will be changed to Free so that the layer can move.

Controls

Make a puppet's identified regions dangle

Move the puppet on which the dangled artwork is attached. For example, move your face (if the Face behavior is controlling the puppet) or drag in the Scene panel (if the Dragger behavior is controlling the puppet).

This behavior has the following parameters:

The Physics behavior has gravity controls that affect both dangling groups and colliding layers, and parameters specific to dangling and colliding actions. You can control them using the following parameters:

Gravity Strength: controls the amount of force or pull of gravity.

Gravity Direction : controls the orientation of gravity. For example, you can rotate gravity 180° to point upward, and either increase Gravity Strength or match Wind Direction to the same orientation to have dangled hair float upward.

Bounce Off Scene Sides controls if emitted particles bounce when hitting any side of the scene.

Bounciness controls how much particles bounce. If lowered to 0% and Bounce Off Scene Sides is checked, they'll slide along the edges.

Wind Strength controls the influence of the simulated wind on the Dangle handles.

Wind Variation controls the randomness of wind direction and strength. Increase this value to make the wind feel more alive.

Dangle:

• Spring Stiffness: controls the rigidity of the regions controlled by the Dangle handles. You can set the Spring Stiffness value up to 200%. Some puppets require lowering the default value (for example, down to 20%) to get more elasticity.
  
• Wind Strength: controls the influence of the simulated wind on the Dangle handles. 
  
• Wind Direction: controls the orientation of the wind, pushing Dangle-tagged handles in this direction
• Wind Variation: controls the randomness of wind direction and strength. Increase this value to make the wind feel more alive.

 Collision:

• Start: controls when the collision simulation begins, either When Triggered by a parent group that has a trigger is run, or Immediately upon the start time for the puppet in the scene. Tip: If you want a simulation to settle before showing it (for example, a pile of leaves settling on the ground before being pushed away by another object), set Start to When Triggered, and then press the trigger key when you want to see the settled animation. 
• Shape: controls how precise collisions should be. Fast approximates the shape of layers to be either a rectangle or circle (so detailed layers might not appear to touch when colliding ), but is faster to process the simulation. Contour uses the outline of the layer for more accurate collisions, but can take longer to process the simulation. 
  
• Weight : controls the density of layers that collide with each other. 
• Friction: controls how much colliding layers decelerate when sliding against each other. 
• Bounciness: controls how much colliding layers bounce off each other. 
• Bounce Off Scene Sides: controls whether colliding layers can bounce off the edges of the scene.
  
• Return Strength: controls how fast layers that are dynamic layers returns to their original position after being pushed away by another colliding layer. Set to 0 or low values to prevent or slow them from returning.
  

Make a portion of your puppet dangle independently

Dangle: Squash and Stretch deformation, Damping control

The Dangle behavior supports squash and stretch deformation, which preserves the overall volume (surface area) of a puppet as it deforms. For example, compressing the puppet's mesh causes the sides to bulge wider to retain the original surface area. Similarly, stretching the mesh vertically causes the middle to get narrower.

Also, when using lower stiffness settings that cause looser swaying motion, you can reduce the amount of sway with damping control. 

Setup

Apply the Dangle tag to at least one handle in the mesh.

Controls

• Squashiness controls how much to preserve the original surface area of the puppet. Set to 0% for deformation matching Dangle results in earlier versions.
• Damping controls how much the mesh sways, especially when Stiffness is at lower values when it normally produces looser movement.

Transform: Translate, scale, and rotate handles of a puppet

This behavior allows you to adjust the anchor point, position, scale, rotation, and opacity of a puppet, layer, or layer group in the scene. It is useful when you want to assemble multiple puppets in a scene or move a puppet across it.

If a Transform tag is applied to a handle, this behavior moves, scales, or rotates just a specific area of a puppet ‐ for example, to shift or twist a portion of the puppet's mesh. Opacity control is only available for the entire puppet.

Controls

• Anchor Point X and Anchor Point Y control the location of the puppet's center. Rotation, scaling, and skewing occur around this point.
• Position X and Position Y control the location of the puppet relative to its original rest location.
• Scale controls the overall size of the puppet, but you can also adjust horizontal and vertical scaling independently with the Scale X and Scale Y parameters.
• Rotation controls z-axis rotation.
• Opacity controls the visibility of the puppet.
• Group Opacity controls how the opacity of layers behaves. By default, Group Opacity is not applied to the layers. You set the opacity for each layer individually, which can cause overlapping layers to appear darker. Check Group Opacity if you want uniform opacity across the puppet.
  

Transform a specific area of a puppet

If you want to move, scale, or rotate just a specific area of a puppet, for example, to shift or twist a portion of the puppet's mesh, you can use Transform-tagged handles.
If you apply multiple Transform behaviors to different parts of the hierarchy, you can control different Transform-tagged handles independently — each behavior controls only the Transform-tagged handles that are within its group, and not controlled by a closer Transform group. Opacity control is only available for the entire puppet.

Setup

Add a Transform tag to a handle at the location on the puppet mesh to control.

Applying a Transform tag to the origin of an independent group is like adding a Transform behavior to the group, except you can't control the group's opacity.

Controls

Use the Position, Scale, and Rotation parameters for the Transform behavior to control the Transform-tagged handles. Anchor Point adjustments affect rotation and scale.

2. If required, adjust the Handle Strength parameter to reduce the effect of the settings on the handle, between 0% (no impact) to 100% (full impact of the changes made in step 1).

Triggers: Show different parts of a puppet by pressing keys

Character Animator uses a triggering system that replaces the older Keyboard Trigggers behavior with a more capable system based on the new Triggers behavior. For detailed information about Trigger behavior and Trigger Panel, see Trigger behavior and Trigger Panel.

Beta 6 and earlier projects and puppet files that use the obsolete Keyboard Triggers behavior will continue to work, but if you would like to use the new system with older puppets and projects please see See Converting Obsolete Keyboard Triggers to Triggers.

Walk: Make a character walk

The Walk behavior allows a puppet to walk across the scene by controlling the legs, arms, and body of the puppet. The behavior simulates some common walking styles such as - strut and prance.

You can create an animated walk cycle with the behavior. A walk cycle is a series of poses played on loop, which creates an illusion of a walking puppet. Walk cycles can convey different moods and emotions to enhance your animation. For example, long bouncy steps represent a happy walk.

Upon applying the behavior on the puppet, the legs move through a looping series of poses to complete a walk cycle. The feet are planted at ground level and the arms swing in opposite direction of the legs while walking. Walk behavior can also adapt to long and short legs for a smooth walk motion.

For making your puppet have a more realistic arm and leg motion, use the Left Shoulder, Right Shoulder, Left Hip, and Right Hip handle tags in the characters drawn in three-quarter perspective. Instead of swinging arms from the neck and legs from a single hip location, separate left and right shoulder and hip locations can improve the appearance of these swinging limbs.

Note that you can tag left-moving views as Left Quarter or Left Profile. Similar for right-moving views being tagged as Right Quarter or Right Profile.

Tip: The Home screen includes a template puppet - Walkbot, which has been created using the Walk behavior. You can use this template puppet to view the behavior settings, and modify these settings to customize the puppet.

Artwork Setup

Setup a profile view puppet with the legs and arms as independent groups to avoid unwanted overlapping. All the independent parts to the parent puppet (profile view puppet) staples automatically to prevent limbs from detaching. For best results, use Hinge or Weld attach styles for the limbs. Next, you can add sticks to the legs and arms to keep them straight and prevent bending.

The puppet is made of a number of independent parts attached with the parent puppet. In the Puppet panel, identify the following locations on each leg and on the body of the puppet.

• Neck
• Left Elbow
• Left Wrist
• Right Elbow
• Right Wrist
• Waist
• Hip
• Left Knee
• Left Ankle
• Left Heel
• Left Toe
• Right Knee
• Right Ankle
• Right Heel
• Right Toe

Use the correspondingly named handle tags in Properties panel to identify the locations. To find the handle tags, follow these steps:

Basic tags

You can create a basic walk cycle with a minimum set of tags. Before you create tags, you need to create handles, which the tags are associated with.

To create a handle, follow these steps:

For foot movement, use either Ankle or Heel tag and for leg movement, use either Waist or Hip tag. If you have a left-facing character walking to the left by default, also add the Knee tag. For the leg and arm handles, be sure to set the same ones on both left-facing and right-facing puppets, for  example  Left Ankle and Right Ankle (from the perspective of the puppet).

Separate left-facing and right-facing puppets

If you have separate left-facing and right-facing views, make sure to tag them correctly.

To add tags, follow these steps:

1. In Puppet panel, select the left-facing view.
2. In Properties panel, click the triangle  icon next to Tags.
3. Under Views section, you can view the layer tags.
4. Select the Left Profile layer tag for left-facing puppet and the Right Profile layer tag for right-facing puppet.

After you tag the puppets, switch to the Scene panel to see the puppets respond to the changes. With the Start parameter set to Left & Right Arrow keys, when you press Right-Arrow key, right-facing puppet is displayed, and when you press Left-Arrow key, left-facing puppet is displayed. If you tag only one profile puppet or no profile puppet, and press the opposite arrow key, the puppet walks backwards. For example, if you tag only the left-facing puppet, the puppet walks backwards when you press the Right-Arrow key.

Controls

Make the puppet move

By default, the puppet legs walk in place to help you preview the walk cycle of the puppet and make changes. You can make the puppet move using the Walk parameters

To make the puppet move, do any of the following:

• When Start is set to Immediately, increase the Body Speed value. Set to 100% to avoid the feet from appearing to slide along the ground. When the puppet moves out of view, click the Refresh button in the Scene panel to restart its walk.
• When Start is set to With Left & Right Arrow Keys, press Left-Arrow or Right-Arrow key. Pressing either key ramps up the walk from the character's rest pose to a walking motion, and releasing the key returns the character to rest; this is equivalent to changing the Strength parameter when pressing and releasing the key.

Tip: You can apply a draggable handle to the puppet's top-level origin handle if you need to reposition it
within the scene.

Parameters

Walk behavior has the following parameters:

• Mode controls when the puppet moves. The available options are — Immediate (when it first appears), and With Left & Right Arrow Keys (when those keys are pressed) and Position-based (move the legs based on the animation of the Position parameter).
• Position controls the horizontal position of the puppet and ensure the puppet walks as expected and does not walk out of the scene. The Body Speed parameter is not available when the mode is position-based.
• Start/Stop Easing controls how long (in seconds) it takes to ramp up to full speed after pressing the arrow keys and ramp down from full speed after releasing them. Use a short duration to simulate a character building up energy into the walk cycle and slowing down to a stop.
• Style controls the type of leg movement. The available options are — Walk (basic walk), Slump (upper body slouched forward), Strut (stiff gait with high knee movement), Prance (similar to a strut but with funkier upper body movement), Sneak (stealthy motion), Run (faster/longer stride), and Head bang (move head up and down).
• Stride Length controls the horizontal spacing of the leg and arm movement. For best results, set values between 80% and 120%.
• Step Speed controls how quickly the legs move through the walk cycle. At 100%, the character makes two steps per second. At 0%, the legs of the character do not move. Negative speed produces backwards movement.
• Step Phase controls where the legs start in the walk cycle. When Step Speed is set to 0%, adjust Step Phase manually to control the stepping.
• Body Speed controls how quickly the body moves. At 100%, the feet of the character feet do not appear to slide against the ground. At 0%, the body does not move, which is useful if you want to simulate a character running in place or moving above a scrolling background. If your puppet walks off the scene ,click the Refresh button at the bottom of the Scene panel to reset the position of the puppet.
• Arm Swing controls the range that the arms swing relative to the range of movement for the legs.
• Arm Angle controls the orientation of the arms at the rest pose with 0° (angle control pointing up) placing the arms straight down and 90° (angle control pointing to the right) placing the arms straight out in front of the character.
• Elbow Bend controls the amount of bending of the arms at the elbows.
• Strength controls the overall influence of the walk cycle relative to the drawn, rest pose of the character, with 0% the body is at the rest pose (with no movement), and at 100% the body moves through the normal walk cycle.
• Toe Bend controls the amount of roll or bend of the foot at the toes as the heel rises from the ground. You can adjust the parameter between 0% to 100%. 0% means no bend while 100% means maximum bend. The parameter is set to 50% by default. The bend of the foot is controlled by the toe-tagged handle. You might want to position the handle slightly away from the tip of the toe. Note: the placement of handles and sticks should be consistent between the right feet and left feet for best results.

Tip: To ease in and out of a walk, keyframe the Position parameter using Ease. When the Position's change over time (i.e., speed of movement) drops below 20% of the normal walking pace, the puppet's handles will be moved with reduced strength, dropping down to zero strength when the Position stops changing completely.

Tip: Add multiple Walk behaviors with different walk styles, speeds, and phase to produce more complex motion.

Walk: Arm and leg movements in Quarter views

The Walk behavior supports quarter-view-drawn characters. Also, a specific part of the walk cycle can be emphasized more than others, and shoulder and hip motion can be added, to produce more livelier movement.

Setup

Biped characters drawn in three-quarter perspective produces pleasing arm and leg motion when the new Left Shoulder, Right Shoulder, Left Hip, and Right Hip handle tags are used. Instead of swinging arms from the neck and legs from a single hip location, separate left and right shoulder and hip locations can improve the appearance of these swinging limbs.

The Shoulder tags are best placed in the parent group of the arms. Existing puppets with a Hip handle will get Left Hip and Right Hip handle tags associated with that single handle, but you can reassign the tags to separate handles.

Controls

• Pose Emphasis controls how much to slow down part of the walk cycle and speed up other parts to emphasize a specific pose.
• Pose Emphasis Phase controls the pose in the walk cycle to emphasize.
• Shoulder Sway controls how much the Left Shoulder and Right Shoulder handles move in opposite directions.
• Hip Sway controls how much the Left Hip and Right Hip handles move in opposite directions.

Wiggler: Make vector artwork wiggle

This behavior, when applied to Illustrator artwork, wiggles the artwork's paths automatically to give a little life to the puppet. It does not affect Photoshop artwork, or Illustrator artwork whose skin has the "Render As Vector" option disabled.

Controls

• Wiggliness controls the exaggeration of the wiggle.