Scribbleh Brings More Interactivity and Personality to Live Streams

Courtesy of Christopher Eriksen Bøe.

Streaming services like YouTube and Twitch have erupted with content from gamers who live stream their play and commentary to the masses. With so many people producing daily and weekly shows, it’s becoming more and more difficult to differentiate channels and attract a loyal audience. A combination of witty commentary and a touch of personality can go a long way, though.

Christopher Eriksen Bøe has found the winning combination with Scribbleh, a Twitch channel that’s increased in popularity since its initial launch. A native of Norway who spent time as a graphic designer for various ad agencies and IT companies, Christopher began experimenting with Adobe Character Animator CC in his spare time, which ultimately became the impetus for Scribbleh.

Building the foundation

Upon discovering Adobe Character Animator while reading through patch notes for Adobe After Effects, Christopher almost immediately got the idea to start using the program for Twitch. He created the Scribbleh character eight years prior in Adobe Flash, now Adobe Animate CC, and saw the opportunity to bring him to life. After moving the drawings over to Adobe Photoshop, he then rigged the character using Adobe Character Animator.

Courtesy of Christopher Eriksen Bøe.

Since first creating his animated character and going live on Twitch, Christopher has remade the character twice to take advantage of new features in Character Animator, such as the Triggers panel, which gives him one location for all of his artwork triggers, and the improved lip-sync accuracy.

What began as a hobby turned into a full-time job, as Christopher’s project gained some attention and a big following. He works to differentiate his channel from those of others by creating more engaging content with an interactive audience experience and eclectic subject matter.

“The topics change every day, but I focus on making it fun, first and foremost,” says Christopher. “It needs to be fun, it needs to be entertaining. It’s not so much just sitting there and hanging out—it’s more like putting on a performance for the audience.” While he had immediate success, Christopher continues to experiment and find new ways to entertain his audience.

Enhancing the interactive experience

Viewers don’t just want to sit there and watch someone speaking while playing a video game, they want to be taken for a ride. To achieve this experience, Christopher keeps innovating with a particular focus on engaging live with his audience, including having conversations and answering questions live as Scribbleh. Character Animator has taken interacting with his audience to a whole new level. His ability to talk live with his audience and answer questions live as Scribbleh has set his channel apart.

Courtesy of Christopher Eriksen Bøe.

“I used Adobe Animate for the interactive overlays as I have a chatbot that writes text files to my computer based on chat messages,” says Christopher. “I actually made an app in Animate that reads those text files and triggers animations to occur on the screen that the Character Animator character can interact with.”

Despite his constant development of new tricks, his favorite element is still his laughing animation thanks to its simplicity. He mapped it to a pedal and that he presses to switch out to a nutcracker-like jaw mouth when he laughs, so the real-time animation shows up organically. His process also shows just how important listening to his viewers is in terms of creating a truly interactive experience.

“I’ll usually spend about half an hour setting up, tweet that I’m going to live, then I’ll be at it for about five hours,” says Christopher. “After that, though, I will spend a couple hours on social media, taking notes and finding things that I can work on for the next show.”

Christopher also uses After Effects and Premiere Pro to produce highlight videos, transitions, moving backgrounds, and other elements to enhance his channel. For graphics, he uses Photoshop and Illustrator, then hops into Animate for custom animated overlays and codes in ActionScript 3 to get the interactive chat animations on the screen.

His innovative work, as well as his show’s success, translated to an invitation to participate in the holy grail of animation entertainment events.

See Christopher at Comic-Con

Christopher will be on the “Up Your Game: Create Live Animated Avatars!” panel at San Diego Comic- Con to further discuss his process and experience with Adobe Character Animator and managing his channel. This is a must-see panel for those who are interested in adding animation to their online presence and audience interactions. Also at Comic-Con, Adobe’s Dan Ramirez will be giving an Adobe Character Animator demonstration and previewing the new technology of Project Puppetron.

Here’s where else to find us at SD Comic-Con:

Swing by our booth (4313) to meet the team, listen to our users discuss their latest projects, and get your hands on Adobe’s creative tools.

Stay tuned to Adobe CC Video Facebook and Adobe CC Video Twitter for the latest on the ground at Comic Con, including special surprises!