Adobe Character Animator

Adobe Character Animator is a desktop application software product that combines real-time live motion-capture with a multi-track recording system to control layered 2D puppets based on an illustration drawn in Photoshop or Illustrator. It is automatically installed with Adobe After Effects CC 2015 to 2017[1] and is also available as a standalone application which one can download separately as part of a Creative Cloud all-apps subscription.[2] It is used to generate real-time 2D animations to produce both live and non-live animation.

Adobe Character Animator
Developer(s)Adobe Inc.
Initial releaseJune 15, 2015 (2015-06-15)
Stable release
Version 23.1 / December 10, 2022 (2022-12-10)
Written inC++, Lua, JavaScript
Operating system
TypeComputer animation
LicenseFreemium for Starter mode, trialware/software as a service for Pro mode
Websitewww.adobe.com/products/character-animator.html

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 (for face-tracking), microphone (for live lip sync), keyboard (for triggering layers to hide/show), and mouse (for warping specific handles).

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 (Mac only) 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.[3]

History

Character Animator was originally code-named "Animal".[4][5]

The following is the list of versions of Character Animator.

Ship Date Version Shipped with Major features added
June 15, 2015 Preview 1 After Effects CC 2015.0 (13.5) markerless face tracking; layered PSD & AI import; WAV & AIFF import; PNG sequence export; WAV export[6]
July 27, 2015 Preview 2 more accurate face tracking and lip sync; track reordering and snapping in the timeline; transparency grid; improved performance; bug fixes[7][8]
November 30, 2015 Preview 3 After Effects CC 2015.1 (13.6) “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[9]
June 21, 2016[10] (announced April 12, 2016) Preview 4 After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8) visual layer tagging, improved lip sync, export via Adobe Media Encoder, Syphon support, Motion Trigger, Auto Blink[11]
November 2, 2016 Beta 5 After Effects CC 2017 (14.0) dynamic link to After Effects and Premiere Pro, shareable puppet files, Cycle Pause tag, MP3 import, PNG sequence import, speed improvements[8]
April 19, 2017 Beta 6 After Effects CC 2017 (14.2) automatic walk cycles, viseme editor, cross-platform live streaming output via Mercury Transmit, layer blending modes, workspace modes, additional languages (Simplified Chinese, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Korean)[12]
October 18, 2017[13] (announced September 14, 2017) 1.1 part of Creative Cloud All Apps[2] Controls & Triggers panels, MIDI support, pose-to-pose Face & Eye Gaze animation, audio waveform in the timeline, copy and paste of visemes into After Effects, auto-attach, clipping masks, Layer Picker, Fader, Collide & Dynamic tags, improved lip sync[14]
December 11, 2017 1.1.1 minor UI changes and bug fixes[15]
April 3, 2018 1.5 particle physics, scene snapshots, improved triggers UI, copy and paste takes and triggers, countdown before recording, custom Controls panel button art[16]
October 15, 2018[17] (announced September 9, 2018) 2.0 Characterizer, replays, magnets, squashiness, shoulder and hip tags, history bookmarks[18]
April 3, 2019 2.1 Character Trigger extension for Twitch, jaw movement based on visemes, search filtering for behaviors, UI polish[19]
June 17, 2019 2.1.1 bug fixes[20]
November 4, 2019 3.0 keyframes, scene cameras, triggerable audio, motion lines, rigging issues pane, search filtering for tags and triggers[21]
December 9, 2019 3.1 trigger labels, search filters for project items[22]
February 19, 2020 3.2 keyframe time stretching, replays-related improvements, new keyboard shortcuts, automatic addition of corresponding behavior for Pin, Dragger, and Dangle tools[23]
May 18, 2020 3.3 feedback button, markers over dynamic link, timeline search filter, audio track volume control[24]
June 15, 2020 3.3.1 bug fixes, new icon[25]
October 20, 2020 3.4 speech-aware animation, improved lip sync, limb IK, merge takes[26]
February, 2021 3.5 timeline snapping options[27]
March 10, 2021 4.0 new file format (faster, more compact, and resilient to corruption)[28]
May 10, 2021 4.2 automatic damaged project recovery[29]
July 19, 2021 4.4 native Apple silicon support, faster speech-aware animation[30]
26 October 2021 22.0 body tracker, smart replays, head & body turner, updated examples[31]
13 December 2021 22.1.1 puppet maker, transcript-based lip sync[32]
8 February 2022 22.2 bug fixes[33]
11 April 2022 22.3 bug fixes[34]
9 May 2022 22.4 bug fixes[34]
21 June 2022 22.5 Starter mode, Quick Export, Auto-swap and Leader/Follower behavior[35]
17 October 2022 23.0 Motion Library[36]
6 December 2022 23.1 Motion Library Strength parameter and Modernized GPU support

See also

References
  1. "An In-Depth Look at Character Animator, Adobe's New Motion Capture & Animation Tool". Nofilmschool.com. July 5, 2015. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  2. "Adobe Creative Cloud features". Retrieved October 27, 2017.
  3. "Adobe Character Animator CC Learn & Support". Adobe. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  4. "We've created an Animal - Creative Cloud blog by Adobe". Digital Video & Audio. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  5. Kosner, Anthony Wing. "Adobe Character Animator Lets You Make Cartoons Speak With Face Tracking". Forbes.com. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  6. "Adobe Character Animator (Preview 1) now available - Creative Cloud blog by Adobe". Digital Video & Audio. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  7. "Character Animator (Preview 2) now available - Creative Cloud blog by Adobe". Digital Video & Audio. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  8. "What's New in Character Animator - Adobe Community". forums.adobe.com. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  9. "After Effects CC 2015 v13.6 and Character Animator Preview 3 updates available - CGPress". CGPress. December 2015. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  10. "Character Animator (Preview 4) Makes Animation Easier - Creative Cloud blog by Adobe". Adobe Creative Cloud. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  11. "Sneak Peek: What's Coming Next in Character Animator - Creative Cloud blog by Adobe". Adobe Creative Cloud. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  12. "Newest Release of Character Animator Adds Simplified, Powerful Workflows - Creative Cloud blog by Adobe". Adobe Creative Cloud. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  13. "New Features - Adobe Character Animator CC". Adobe.com. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  14. Okay Samurai (September 14, 2017). "New Features Preview - September 2017 (Adobe Character Animator CC)". YouTube. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  15. "What's New in Character Animator". Retrieved December 11, 2017.
  16. "Adobe releases Character Animator CC 1.5 | CG Channel". www.cgchannel.com. Retrieved April 27, 2018.
  17. "Adobe & Animation: Strategy for 2019 and Beyond".
  18. "Introducing Characterizer and More Game-changing Innovation in Character Animator CC". Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  19. "Adobe releases Character Animator CC 2.1". Retrieved May 9, 2019.
  20. "What's New in Character Animator | Adobe Community". forums.adobe.com. June 24, 2015. Retrieved July 15, 2019.
  21. "New features summary for the November 2019 release of Adobe Character Animator". helpx.adobe.com. Retrieved November 25, 2019.
  22. "New features summary for the 2019 releases of Adobe Character Animator". helpx.adobe.com. Retrieved December 11, 2019.
  23. "New features summary for the 2019 releases of Adobe Character Animator". helpx.adobe.com. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  24. "New features summary for the 2020 releases of Adobe Character Animator". helpx.adobe.com. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  25. "Character Animator 3.3.1 is now available!". June 16, 2020. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
  26. "Adobe releases Character Animator 3.4 | CG Channel". Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  27. "Character Animator User Guide". helpx.adobe.com. Retrieved March 20, 2021.
  28. "Character Animator 4.0 is live!". community.adobe.com. March 10, 2021. Retrieved March 20, 2021.
  29. "Adobe releases Character Animator 4.2 | CG Channel". Retrieved July 21, 2021.
  30. "Speech to Text and Native M1 performance on Mac now available in Premiere Pro". Adobe Blog. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
  31. "Feature summary | Character Animator (October 2021 release)". Adobe. Retrieved November 18, 2021.
  32. "What's new in Adobe Character Animator". Adobe. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  33. "Character Animator 22.2 is now available!". community.adobe.com. February 8, 2022. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
  34. "What's New in Character Animator". community.adobe.com. June 24, 2015. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
  35. "Feature summary | Character Animator (June 2022 release)". Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  36. "Feature summary | Character Animator (October 2022 & June 2022 release)". Adobe. Retrieved October 18, 2022.
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