Sometimes we do not have the time to create our own Puppets and that's ok!  Character Animator has several example puppets to choose from on the Welcome Screen.  To get to this page go to Windows -> Welcome.  Any puppet you select will also download the source material so that you can customize it if you want!

Another place to look at is Okay Samurai's Website.  They are one of the main contributors to Adobe Character Animator Puppet Collection.   Also, a quick google search for " Adobe Character Animator Puppets" can yield some great results.  Just remember that this is others works.  Just out this guide to read more about how copyright works

Before you get started I recommended downloading a blank template from here

Before you get started I recommended downloading a blank template from here

Creating a puppet is about identifying the parts in which you want your puppet to move and rigging it. Rigging is a technique used in skeletal animation for representing a 3D character/2D models using a series of interconnected digital bones. To do so we need to look at the fields that are available to us first:

Character Animator Rigging can be summed up into two categories the head and the body.  Each will have subcategories 

• The Head can include eyebrow, eye (eyelid top, eyelid bottom, pupil, eyeball), Nose, Jaw, Mouth)
  • The mouth feature in Character Animator is one of the most exciting features because it can turn sounds into animations.  Check out Okay Samurai's free mouth template pack 
• The body can include neck, elbow, wrist, waist, hip, knee, ankle, heel. tool

A fully rigged puppet could look like this. Please note this puppet has one advanced feature of a side profile that is used when the puppet is walking 

(Example of Illustrator)

The most basic puppet should have a head that includes two eyes ( pupil, eyeball), mouth.  A basic puppet can look like something like this

(Example of Photoshop)

It has a head with two eyebrows, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.  This will be the typical setup that you will probably use. 

Rigging Your puppet is one of the most crucial components to character animator 

To get started let's check out the different panels

The first panel we are going to look at is the puppet layers panel.  In this panel, you will hopefully see the hierarchy of what we established in Illustrator/Photoshop. If something was mislabeled it will not appear here and we will need to retag a little bit later.  In this panel, we see our body parts and two icons.  Next to each body part is Eye (  ) and a Crown ().  The eye will give us the ability to hide certain body elements.  The crown is identified that the element moves independently from the rest.  Things you want to move independently but follow the main structure the rest of the body.  For example how pupils move in the head. 

The second panel (located on the righthand side) is our properties panel that houses information about our puppet layers, layer mesh, tags, and behaviors.

Layers - Shows XY Coordinates (in case you needed to move a body part or entire puppet a few pixels to the left or right), Scale, Rotation, and Opacity

Layer Mesh - The mesh represented by a yellow outline around a body part or profile represents the tissue how of the puppet can potentially move.  This feature becomes handy when a puppet does move the way we potentially want

Tags - The tag system is automatic if we correctly identified our body parts in photoshop or illustrator.  If not this is where we can make those corrections along with tagging additional items such as a neck or waist to aid in some behaviors.

Behaviors - We can add predefined behaviors to our puppet like walking or a nutcracker jaw. 

A Scene is a place where we will add our puppets and additional elements to 

To start a scene:

• Scene >  New Scene (CTRL +N /CMD +N (Mac))
• Drag and drop your Puppet into the scene

Arming puppet for recording is a fun and engaging process! Let's look at one of the panels we will be using

 Each puppet has several different variables that can be tracked and recorded.  We can see from the image on the left all of the possibilities.  Any element that has a red dot next to it will be armed (will record) once we hit the record button ( located below our scene).

To get started let's check a few things:

1. Is our puppet in our scene?
2. Is our camera on to make use of motion tracking of eye, mouth, and head?
3. Do we need our microphone on to record our voice or did we prerecord our audio?
4. Do I know how I want my puppet to interact in this scene?
5. Will I be adding anything else to the scene or is it just the puppet?

Once we answer a few of these basic questions we can get started

Before we get started let's talk about the most optimal way to record.  Recording works best when we individually arm each element. For example recording head  Recording all elements at once is not recommended particularly when you have a very complex puppet. Recommended Record order (Voice, Walk (is using), Face = Eye Gaze, Physics, Triggers, Anything else)

1. Refresh Scene ()
2. Set Puppet Pose ( While looking at your camera click the Set Rest Pose() this will start the tracking feature of eyes , mouth, and face. Note: Glasses can skew the eye-tracking and face tracking
3. Arm puppet for recording
   1. You can use recommended  recording order (Voice, Walk (is using), Face = Eye Gaze, Physics, Triggers, Anything else)
4. Press the record button located at the bottom of your scene
5. Record your audio or any other  feature
6. Repeat steps 3 - 6 until all features are recorded

Saving your scene is very simple! 

1. We will go to File >Export >  Video Via Media Encoder (Media Encoder is a secondary application from Adobe that manages encoding for all of the video applications). 
2. Press the green arrow(this will start the encoding process.  Please note this can take a very longggg time depending on how long your scene is and the capability of your computer