A step by step guide to turning a static illustration into a puppet for Adobe Character Animator. Download a free template with the right hierarchy and properly named layers.
For the character to work well in Adobe Character Animator * the artwork should follow a specific structure and naming convention. This tutorial explains the layer hierarchy of properly built puppets and demonstrates the workflow of using a template, which you can download in the template section below to quickly turn a static character into a puppet for Adobe Character Animator.
The process of creating a puppet in Adobe Illustrator * is very similar to creating one in Adobe Photoshop *. The main difference would be using layers and sub-layers instead of folders.
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The first step would be getting your character ready in terms of all the required elements. You need to create all the artwork that you will later use.
A puppet you will build for Adobe Character Animator can vary in its complexity. A very basic character can only have a front view for the head and the body while a more complex one will have 7 head views, gestures, expressions, and customizable accessories. If you would like your character to be able to walk, you will need to prepare left and right body profiles for it as well.
Once you have all the artwork prepared, it is time to stack everything in the right hierarchy and assign correct naming to different elements.
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A puppet in Illustrator will have one main layer with the puppet’s name on it and all the body parts will be sub-layers below it.
Each of the sub-layers head and body should also follow a specific structure. You can decide on how complex your structure should be based on the required functionality.
Does your character need to walk? Will it stand still? Will it turn its head? What gestures do you want it to perform?
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It is important to follow Adobe guidelines when it comes to naming your sublayers. Once named properly Character Animator would be able to recognize the specific body part as such and rig it for you.
The number of head views you create will determine if your puppet be able to turn its head and how smooth will the movement be. It is possible to only have a front head view and you can have all 7 of them: front, 3/4 left, left, 3/4 right, right, top, bottom. Anything in between is acceptable as well.
Each of the head views you decide to create needs to have different facial parts stacked on properly named sub-layers below it.
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You don’t have to include all possible facial parts in your design, the software recognizes the parts with the right naming and ignores the ones that are ‘missing’. The more facial elements you include the more expressive your puppet will feel.
In Adobe Character Animator you can assign a tag manually to each of the facial parts, but the software will do that automatically if you name them properly in your design software. That can be a major time saver.
The software is able to automatically lip-sync your character according to your voice or external audio. For it to work properly the character must come with premade and correctly named mouth shapes-phonemes.
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In many cases, it is not enough just to have one mouth set. If we are sad, happy or angry that is often reflected in the way we talk. We might want our character to express different emotions while talking. For that we will need to create several mouth groups with all the mouth shaped below them (+Angry Mouth, +Sad Mouth, etc.).
The eyeball of the character should be labeled as right/left pupil range. It is still important to create such a layer even for characters (such as Nelson above) who don’t have an obvious eyeball in their design. The pupil of your puppet will follow your pupil movements as recognized by your video camera and therefore it is important to limit them into a specific area.
You should follow the same steps to create all the head views (frontal, left quarter, left profile, right quarter, etc.) you need. Once you are happy with the result it is time to duplicate the head with all of its views to the left and right profiles.
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Unlike with facial elements, in most cases, we will need to create the body rig for our characters manually and there is no need to include all the recognizable body tags in our design.
If we want the character to have different hand gestures we will create each hand gesture on a different sub-layer and place them all as part of the arms.
In some cases, you will want the puppet to move the arms in front and behind the face. That will require building a more complex structure. You can read all about it here.
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Once the character design in Adobe Illustrators follows a proper hierarchy and naming conventions it can be imported into Adobe Character Animator.
Now it is time to import your character into Adobe Character Animator. You will see that the puppet will already react to your facial movement and audio. With some simple rigging, it will be able to move its hands, perform gestures, walk and more. We will have the rigging process covered in the next tutorial. Stay tuned!
Hey! I'm a CG artist, designer and illustrator. I love to explore different creative forms, media types and artistic styles. Feel free to write me with your ideas, suggestions or requests.
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Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.For starters you will learn how to setup a simple grid and how to create two, simple art brushes. Next, using basic tools and effects along with the Blend Tool you will learn how to create the head and the ears of your character. Using those saved art brushes along with some basic effects and blending techniques you will learn how to create the hair.
Moving on, you will create the nose and a subtle shadow using two simple blend and a bunch of Drop Shadow effects. Taking full advantage of the Appearance panel you will learn how to create the eyes and the eyebrows. Using the Pucker & Bloat and the Zig Zag effects along with some neat stroke attributes you will create the tiny, orange bow tie. Finally, you will learn how to add a simple background and a subtle speech bubble.
Hit Control-N to create a new document. Select Pixels from the Units drop-down menu, enter 600 in the width and height box then click on the Advanced button. Select RGB, Screen (72ppi) and make sure that the Align New Objects to Pixel Grid box is unchecked before you click OK.
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Enable the Grid (View > Show Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). For starters you will need a grid every 5px, so simply go to Edit > Preferences > Guides > Grid, enter 5 in the Gridline every box and 1 in the Subdivisions box. You should also open the Info panel (Window > Info) for a live preview with the size and position of your shapes. Do not forget to set the unit of measurement to pixels from Edit > Preferences > Units > General. All these options will significantly increase your work speed.
Pick the Ellipse Tool (L) and focus on your Toolbar. Remove the color from the stroke then select the fill and set its color at R=96 G=57 B=19.
Move to your Artboard and simply create a 30 x 150px ellipse, the Snap to Grid should ease your work. Switch to the Anchor Point Tool (Shift-C) and focus on the top side of your shape. Simply click on the existing anchor point and your shape will look like in the second image. Grab the Direct Selection Tool (A), select the two anchor points highlighted in the second image and drag them 30px down. In the end things should look like in the third image.
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Make sure that your shape is still selected, open the Brushes panel (Window > Brushes) and click the New Brush button. Check the Art Brush box and
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