Adobe Character Animator


Adobe Character Animator is an Emmy-award-winning desktop application software product that combines live motion-capture with a multi-track recording system to control layered 2D puppets drawn in Photoshop or Illustrator. It is automatically installed with Adobe After Effects CC 2015 to 2017 and is also available as a standalone application which one can download separately as part of a Creative Cloud all-apps subscription. It is used to produce both live and non-live animation.

Description

Character Animator imports layered Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator documents into puppets which have behaviors applied to them. The puppets are then placed into a scene, which can be viewed in the Scene panel and Timeline panel. Rigging is set up in the Puppet panel, though basic rigging is fully automatic based on specific layer names like Right Eyebrow and Smile. Properties of selected elements can be examined and changed in the Properties panel, including behavior parameters. Live inputs include a webcam, microphone, keyboard, and mouse.
Final output of a scene can be exported to a sequence of PNG files and a WAV file, or any video format supported by Adobe Media Encoder. Live output can be sent to other applications running on the same machine via the Syphon protocol or Adobe Mercury Transmit on both Mac and Windows. Scenes can also be dropped directly into After Effects and Premiere Pro, using Dynamic Link to avoid rendering.

History

Character Animator was originally code-named "Animal".
The following is the list of versions of Character Animator.
Ship DateVersionShipped withMajor features added
June 15, 2015Preview 1After Effects CC 2015.0 markerless face tracking; layered PSD & AI import; WAV & AIFF import; PNG sequence export; WAV export
July 27, 2015Preview 2more accurate face tracking & lip sync; track reordering and snapping in the timeline; transparency grid; improved performance; bug fixes
November 30, 2015Preview 3After Effects CC 2015.1 “sticks” to control rigidity of the puppet mesh, multi-touch gestures to control character limbs, the ability to share rigged puppets, increased recording flexibility, performance improvements
June 21, 2016 Preview 4After Effects CC 2015.3 visual layer tagging, improved lip sync, export via Adobe Media Encoder, Syphon support, Motion Trigger, Auto Blink
November 2, 2016Beta 5After Effects CC 2017 dynamic link to After Effects & Premiere Pro, shareable puppet files, Cycle Pause tag, MP3 import, PNG sequence import, speed improvements
April 19, 2017Beta 6After Effects CC 2017 automatic walk cycles, viseme editor, cross-platform live streaming output via Mercury Transmit, layer blending modes, workspace modes, additional languages
October 18, 2017 1.1part of Creative CloudControls & Triggers panels, MIDI support, pose-to-pose Face & Eye Gaze animation, audio waveform in the timeline, copy & paste of visemes into After Effects, auto-attach, clipping masks, Layer Picker, Fader, Collide & Dynamic tags, improved lip sync
December 11, 20171.1.1part of Creative Cloudminor UI changes and bug fixes
April 3, 20181.5part of Creative Cloudparticle physics, scene snapshots, improved triggers UI, copy & paste takes and triggers, countdown before recording, custom Controls panel button art
October 15, 2018 2.0part of Creative CloudCharacterizer, replays, magnets, squashiness, shoulder and hip tags, history bookmarks
April 3, 20192.1part of Creative CloudCharacter Trigger extension for Twitch, jaw movement based on visemes, search filtering for behaviors, UI polish
June 17, 20192.1.1part of Creative Cloudbug fixes
November 4, 20193.0part of Creative Cloudkeyframes, scene cameras, triggerable audio, motion lines, rigging issues pane, search filtering for tags and triggers
December 9, 20193.1part of Creative Cloudtrigger labels, search filters for project items
February 19, 20203.2part of Creative Cloudkeyframe time stretching, replays-related improvements, new keyboard shortcuts, automatic addition of corresponding behavior for Pin, Dragger, and Dangle tools
May 18, 20203.3part of Creative Cloudfeedback button, markers over dynamic link, timeline search filter, audio track volume control