Adobe Animate vs Character Animator

Adobe Animate vs Character Animator are the products created by Adobe Co.

Adobe Animate is great animation software in producing basic and advanced vector graphics, animation for television, websites, clips, video games, apps, etc.

Character Animator is 2D animation software capable of giving life to graphic objects created in Photoshop and Illustrator and uploaded from other sources. With this software, you can make a drawn character speak with your voice or repeat your facial expressions with high precision.

What Is Adobe Animate?

Adobe Animate is powerful software for developing cross-platform animation and interactive multimedia applications. Adobe Animate gives allows you to draw vector graphics and create animations for games, applications and websites. It processes bitmap images, making it possible to embed formatted text, audio and video into multimedia content.

Adobe Animate: Strengths and Weaknesses

Upgraded UI. The touch-optimized interface includes an improved Properties panel, a customizable toolbar, a redesigned Timeline, and more. The interface is meant to give users a convenient basis for their work and make this program more appealing in the Adobe Character Animator vs Animate competition.

Animation for any object. An advanced animation toolkit allows you to develop apps, commercials, and terrific multimedia content that moves across the screen. But for the program to work correctly, you must use exclusively a legal version purchased from the Adobe site and not pirated software, such as Adobe Animate Torrent and/or Adobe Animate Crack.

Scripting feature. Scripting is of great help when it comes to making a Flash game more interactive and interesting. Actually, this is the feature that puts the software far ahead of many Animate alternatives and gives it additional points in the Animate vs Animator stand-off.

New custom brushes. In addition to the usual brush settings such as size, color, and smoothness, these brushes also have pressure and speed options. Additional brush parameters such as roundness, angle and taper allow you to create different variations and give your drawings a unique look.

Additional filters and color effects for a camera. The Properties panel has updated features for a camera. You can apply any filters or color effects to the camera, similar to those previously applied to frames.

Output to any platform. It is possible to create content for desktop, mobile and TV users by exporting animations to other platforms, including HTML5 Canvas, WebGL, Flash/Adobe AIR, and specialized platforms such as SVG. You can include code directly in projects and even add actions without writing code.

Built-in interactive tutorial. If you are a novice user choosing between Adobe Animate vs Character Animator, you’ll be glad to learn that the former has an integrated interactive tutorial. You can find it in the Help tab. It covers the basic functions and concepts of Animate and animation in general. Using interactive tutorials, Animate lets you practice and explore simple animations while working on them.

Wacom tablets support. If you aspire to create mind-blowing content that will receive hundreds of positive comments on YouTube and have bought a special graphic tablet to enjoy designing even on the go, you’ll be happy to know that Adobe Animate is fully compatible with such devices, which means you get both powerful equipment and cool software for the task.

Discounts up to 60%. Adobe discounts for students and teachers go as high as 60%. Besides, the company has special offers for enterprises and businesses. If you are a student and have a document that confirms your status, you can get access to the program absolutely for free from your school’s computer lab.

Incompatible with many CC programs. Unfortunately, this cool program has rather a limited compatibility range, which boils down to After Effects only. Thus, you can’t use Ps to produce a cover or Adobe Audition to improve audio.

Limited functionality. Keep in mind that Adobe Animate is aimed at people, who are looking for 2D animation software. It can’t boast mesmerizing visual effects and will be of minor help if you dream of creating cover drawings.

What Is Character Animator?

Character Animator is a program that brings a 2D character to life using webcam acting. Adobe Character Animator recognizes facial movements, records sound, and generates facial expressions. In this case, you can additionally control the character from the keyboard and mouse. When you speak, your character speaks, when you make a surprised face, the character does the same.

Character Animator: Strengths and Weaknesses

Integration with Photoshop or Illustrator. The process begins with creating a character in Illustrator or Photoshop. You can either make your own character from scratch, or download eyes, mouth, etc. from Creative Cloud Market. If the names of the layers correspond to the body parts (chest, head, eyes, mouth), then no further adjustment of the animation skeleton is required. You can also assign layers to body parts directly in ACA.

100% functionality. While working on a character, you can operate such parameters as scale, position, and rotation. The built-in diagram editor allows you to control the speed and smoothly bring the character to the desired position. Character Animator software allows you to create a "repeat" or "trigger" - a pre-animated sequence that you can turn on at the right moment.

Tracking facial expressions. You can use a webcam to track facial expressions. The program monitors position, rotation and distance from the camera to the face, and all movements such as lips, eyebrow raising, etc. are tracked. Whatever emotion you portray, joy or surprise, Face tracker will track it and apply it to the character.

Automatic animation of limbs. While Character Animator automatically controls the face, you can move the character with the mouse. You can add additional properties, such as making the character's jaw and mouth move vertically, like a ventriloquist, or make hand gestures.

Recording and editing takes. You can record the scene parts, with many takes. Each such recording is presented as a separate track in the Timeline panel. By trimming and shifting the tracks, you compile a final version of the scene that can be exported to Adobe After Effects CC, Adobe Premiere Pro CC, or Adobe Media Encoder CC for further editing.

Real-time work on animation. Thanks to webcam image capture, Character Animator software is a very useful tool to synchronize animation and character dialogue in real time. For example, animators, who created "The Simpsons", used the package when Homer was answering the calls from viewers on the air.

Isn’t sold as a standalone product. There is no way to purchase solely this program, as it is sold only as a part of Adobe’s All Apps package.

Requires a webcam and a microphone. In order to use this software to the fullest, you need to buy a webcam and a microphone, and this means additional expenses.

Confusing UI. This software can’t boast intuitive interface, which can scare away some users. There are lots of tabs and you need to devote quite a lot of time to understand what is what.

Adobe Animate vs Character Animator: Price

Both programs are available through Adobe’s CC subscription model. However, Animate CC can be purchased separately, while Character Animator is accessible via All Apps plan.

• Adobe Animate CC Single-App Plan - $31.49/month
• Creative Cloud All-Apps Plan - $39.99/month (at a discount, price without discount is $52.99)

Besides, while using Character Animator, you need another program, e.g. Photoshop or Illustrator to generate a character.

Adobe Animate vs Character Animator – Who Wins?

The choice between Animate vs Animator becomes easier if you clearly define what you need a program for.

Adobe Animate CC is great if you are interested in producing frame-by-frame animation or if you want to have total control over your character’s motion. Besides, the software makes it possible to include more character and camera movement, which is helpful if you are engaged in publishing web content.

Opt for Character Animator if your main scope of activity is creating “talking heads” content, which takes lots of time if animated manually. This program is also more suitable for real-time streams and in-person events.