More Efficiency and Flexibility Comes to Character Animator

Since leaving beta at Adobe MAX, Adobe Character Animator CC continues to push the boundaries of a brand new approach to animation. Developed directly with animators on scripted series, quick turnaround projects, and live and interactive performances, Character Animator allows creators to rethink how they work. This latest release brings more efficiency, flexibility, and workflow control to Adobe’s signature performance-based and live animation tool.

New Creative Possibilities

Particles

Colliding Particles Add life to scenes and performances with particles that can now collide and interact with puppets, build on top of each other, accumulate like snowflakes or collapse in a pile like poorly stacked bricks.

Additional Puppet templates. We improved existing templates and added more in-app puppet templates with a wide range of behaviors and attributes. You can explore new animation aesthetics, from hand-drawn characters to stop-motion style “claymation” figures. Check out the Chicken Blaster puppet that makes great use of physics features and colliding particles.

Reusable takes. Reuse your (Cut/Copy/Paste) performance takes between puppets and projects for simpler timeline adjustments. All types of takes can now be cut, copied, and pasted between puppets and projects. Behaviors associated with the take will be applied to the new puppet.

New Animation Tools in Character Animator.

Enhanced Puppet Rigging

Trigger Workflows

Streamlined trigger workflows. Create and edit triggers faster with easier organization and layer management. Create a swap set or trigger more intuitively using new ‘drop targets’ within the Triggers panel.

Click the name of a layer associated with a trigger to reveal that layer directly in the Puppet panel, and manage layers containing triggers in the Puppet panel. Additional trigger panel improvements include the ability to see your settings, layers, and conflicting triggers more clearly.

Improved behavior management. Add behaviors directly from the Puppet panel for easier puppet rigging. Remove all existing behaviors on a puppet in one step and apply new rigging behaviors to give your puppet the exact abilities you want.

Improved Trigger Workflows.

Precision Performance

Countdown to Record

Enhanced Controls panel. Improvements to the Controls panel help you pose and animate your characters faster than ever. A new UI gives you several options to configure the Controls panel to have it look and work according to your preferences. You can customize button artwork and have record buttons directly in the panel. In addition, you now have the ability to switch from Layout to Perform mode with a double-click.

Countdown to record. Start with the specific pose you want at the beginning of a recording, using a new three-second countdown to prepare the puppet (and the performer) before recording actually starts.

New Scene Snapshot. This latest release includes a brand new feature: Scene Snapshot. Scene Snapshot helps you easily compare and align different shots of a character allowing you to match poses between takes quickly.

Visual keyboard shortcut editor. Use the visual Keyboard Shortcut editor to view the shortcuts associated with menu commands, tools, and other application functions. Customize keyboard shortcuts for faster editing. Using the same interface as After Effects and Premiere Pro, you can now assign and change keyboard shortcuts to commands and menu items.

Join the conversation

Please join us in the Character Animator forums to ask questions about these new and updated features — it’s the best place to have a conversation with us. If you’d like to submit feature requests or bug reports, you can do so at this page.