I've put together a few free Adobe Character Animator tutorials. With their help, you will learn how to create and control a 2D character using a webcam and a microphone. These tutorials will guide you through the basics, so, after reading this article, you will know how to create an animated puppet on your own.
Top 18 Adobe Character Animator Tutorials
Unlike many free animation software, Character Animator doesn’t allow creating characters. To do this, you need to use either Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. You can also download character templates from the Adobe website and animate them in Character Animator.
1. How to Get Started in Adobe Character Animator
The Character Animator tutorial shows you the basics in case you’re new to this software. They are must-read for anyone who creates an animated character for the first time.
The guide highlights such processes as importing a ready-made puppet, using the rig and scene options, adjusting expressiveness and behavior, changing the overall look of a character in Photoshop.
Thanks to this Adobe Animate tutorial, you will find out more about visemes and other extra options the program comes with.
2. Working with Recording and Editing
With Adobe Character Animator, you can record various character performances in a few simple clicks using facial and body tracking data.
This Adobe Character Animator tutorial goes in more detail about recording and editing techniques you need to use while creating animation on desktop computers and specific animation tablets. You will learn about arming and disarming, combining multiple behaviors and enhancing lip-sync tracking.
3. Basic and Face Triggers
Setting up triggers is essential when you create a puppet in Adobe Character Animator. It lets you add emotions, props and animation assets upon request.
I start with simple triggers, such as turning lights on and off, changing hand positions, triggering groups with behaviors. Next, I set up face triggers, add eyelids, animate a moving mouth and use other options to liven up a face and give it a dynamic feel.
4. Creating an Animated Livestream
In this video, I demonstrate how to use Adobe Character Animator to create a live character and stream it via Twitch, YouTube and Facebook platforms.
You will receive tips for creating a dynamic and easy-to-control character that can be shown on a live stream. Plus, I offer some tips on finding and setting up the streaming software products.
5. Creating Puppet in Photoshop
If you’ve dreamed of creating your live character in Adobe Photoshop and Character Animator, this Adobe Character Animator Tutorial will show you how to customize templates to create any character.
You can edit a sample template and turn it into a new living character by replacing different parts of the body, such as mouth, eyes, hands, arms, hair, etc.
6. Creating Puppet in Illustrator
Illustrator is quite similar to Character Animator when it comes to creating puppets. This tutorial tells you how to work in Illustrator using the most preferable options.
As a bonus, you can create a robot puppet by following the steps shown in the video. Thus, the guide will be useful for users of all skill levels.
7. Adobe Fresco + Adobe Character Animator Workflow
Adobe Fresco is a great app for those who like to draw on a tablet. You will discover how to use Fresco to make your animation workflow easier. I’ll show how to draw characters, export them to Photoshop for further editing and use Character Animator to animate them.
8. Complete Single Character Workflow
This lesson shows how to create an animated video with an animated narrator. You will learn everything you might need, from scripting to setting up keyframes.
In this manual, I refer to different software products. Audition makes it easier to work with audio, Photoshop can be used for creating characters, while in Adobe Character Animator puppets can be animated. Adobe After Effects is the final step for putting everything together.
9. Complete Cartoon Workflow
Ready to create a cartoon? This may seem like a daunting task at first. In this tutorial, I will show you how to write scripts in Google Docs, record audio using Adobe Audition, prepare illustrations in Adobe Fresco, work with rigs in Adobe Character Animator and create cartoons in Adobe After Effects.
10. Mixing Animation and Reality
The blender Character Animator tutorial teaches how to add animated characters to videos. I will show you how to create a character who can walk, chat and play the guitar. You need just to use a slow-motion recording and swap sets for hands. Next, I’ll use Premiere Pro and After Effects to make the character look more realistic.
11. Walking in Adobe Character Animator
This video offers several helpful tips on the Walk behavior which allows your animated characters to walk, step, crawl, run, etc.
The guide goes deeper into the differences between simple and three-view walk rigging. It demonstrates techniques for creating the backdrop and foreground movement and then describes the steps needed to rig a PSD file.
12. Replays in Adobe Character Animator
Replays are the most powerful features in Adobe Character Animator. In this Adobe Character Animator tutorial, I will demonstrate to you how to work with them. Just right-click on any set of takes in the timeline to transform them into on-demand actions.
With replays, you can add dynamic performances to your characters, such as simple steps or dance movements.
13. Physics in Adobe Character Animator
Do you want to make your character more dynamic? Use the Add Physics option. You will learn how to create colliding shapes using dynamic and collide tags. Besides, I’ll show you how to animate hair in Dangle Physics. Plus, you’ll learn how to depict raindrops falling on an umbrella.
14. Arm IK in Adobe Character Animator
Control hand movements with Arm IK (Inverse Kinematics). This tutorial Adobe Character Animator tells about rigging and tagging arms while using various behavior parameters. You can record arm positions and use a trigger to turn IK on or off.
15. Magnets in Character Animator CC
If your doll has a magnetic behavior, all things marked as “magnets” will be attracted to each other. This video shows how to create simple magnetic attachments (a hand and a cup), trigger magnets (catching and releasing fish) and use repeats to make a magnetic field (magnet and ABC blocks).
16. Basic Eye Rigging
As there are many issues with rigging eyes, I’ve prepared this free Adobe Character Animator Rigging eye tutorial to shed some light on four techniques used for animating eye movements.
You will find out how to animate basic, off-centered and large-pupil eyes. I will also tell you in detail how to animate blinking eyes and add eyelids. After these manipulations, your puppet’s eyes will look more realistic.
17. Cameras in Character Animator CC
Try using various types of shots to enhance your videos, such as wide, medium, close-up, zoom and pan shots. This Adobe Character Animator Tutorial teaches the basics of camera system configuration both for recorded and live animations.
18. Work with Triggerable Audio
The newest version of Adobe Character Animator allows adding triggerable audio. It enables you to playback an audio file simultaneously with a triggered animation. You can use it to add sound effects, voice-overs or songs. This video teaches the basics of triggerable audio to make the Chloe puppet sound more realistic. You will also master more advanced techniques on the example of Drumbot.
