New Starter mode is now available!
Character Animator 22.5 (released June 2022) introduces Starter mode to get you started animating now without any prior experience. Update now to the latest version to try this out.
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- Character Animator User Guide
- Introduction
- Creating and controlling puppets
- Rigging
- Behaviors
- Recording and playback
- Export projects
Read on to see the Behaviors that you can apply to control your puppet and bring them to life. Here they are categorized by their function or the way they can control a puppet’s layer structure or appearance.
Watch this video for a quick introduction to the various Behaviors you can apply to your puppet.
Body: directly controlled
Control bending and lengths of arms and legs.
Control bending and lengths of arms and legs.
Control a region of a puppet by dragging with the mouse or by touch. This behavior is available by default.
Control eye pupil movement separate from the rest of the face. This behavior is available by default.
Control head, eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth with a webcam. This behavior is available by default.
Control your puppet's arms, torso, and legs using your webcam.
Switch between groups as you turn your head and body.
Control a puppet's mouth with your voice. This behavior is available by default.
Control the lower jaw of your puppet with your face or voice.
Make a character walk, moving the legs and swinging the arms.
Body: auto-animating
Simulate eyelid blinking or layer flickering.
Animate your puppet quickly by choosing motion from a library of 350+ full-body character animations.
Simulate breathing in your puppet.
Make vector artwork wiggle.
Layer swapping
Displays layers of a group in order.
Display or trigger a specific layer of a group.
Switch between layers based on the directional movement of the group’s parent mesh.
Physical simulations
Make different parts of a puppet or different puppets to connect to each other as they get close.
Draw lines behind a fast-moving object to accentuate its movement.
Continually emit objects with velocity and affected by physics such as snowfall or a cannon.
Dangle an object to make it sway, or allow objects to collide with each other. Allow objects to be affected by physical forces, like gravity and wind. This behavior is available by default.
Utility
Fade a layer on and off via trigger.
Translate, scale, and rotate handles of a puppet and adjust opacity. This behavior is available by default.
Show different parts of a puppet by pressing keys. This behavior is available by default.
If you have a question to ask or an idea to share, come and participate in our Character Animator community forum. We would love to hear from you.