| Adobe Character Animator | |
| Developer: | Adobe Inc. |
| Latest Release Version: | Version 23.1 |
| Programming Language: | C++, Lua, JavaScript |
| Operating System: |
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| Genre: | Computer animation |
| License: | Freemium for Starter mode, trialware/software as a service for Pro mode |
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. It is used to generate real-time 2D animations to produce both live and non-live animation.
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.[2]
Character Animator was originally code-named "Animal".[3] [4]
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[5] |
| 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[6] [7] | |
| 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[8] |
| June 21, 2016[9] (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[10] |
| 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 |
| 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)[11] |
| October 18, 2017[12] (announced September 14, 2017) | 1.1 | part of Creative Cloud All Apps[13] | 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] | |
| 22.0 | body tracker, smart replays, head & body turner, updated examples[31] | ||
| 22.1.1 | puppet maker, transcript-based lip sync[32] | ||
| 22.2 | bug fixes[33] | ||
| 22.3 | bug fixes[34] | ||
| 22.4 | bug fixes | ||
| 22.5 | Starter mode, Quick Export, Auto-swap, and Leader/Follower behavior[35] | ||
| 23.0 | Motion Library[36] | ||
| 23.1 | Motion Library Strength parameter and Modernized GPU support | ||
| 23.6 | Custom Background in Starter mode, Editable Replays and Select Takes Within or Overlapping Work Area | ||
| 24.0 | stability improvements and bug fixes | ||
| 24.2 | improvements and stability updates |