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How can we improve Character Animator?

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integration with "Adobe Animate CC"

If we could import animations and assets from Animate straight into Character Animator that would be incredible. Is this a feature on the docket? I know you can animate in PS, but it doesn't feel quite as streamlined for the animation process as Adobe Animate.

Also, if we could incorporate tweens, that would be legendary.

Alternatively, if we could just export Adobe Animate files straight to Illustrator while maintaining layers (and finding some kind of solution for timeline animations, maybe distribute to layers and put in folders). However, this feature might be exclusively used for the purposes of integration to Character Animator. Direct compatibility would probably be an easier solution.

  • Daniel
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Daniel Broderick shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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Sirr Less responded  · 

Hey all,

In the recent release of Animate, under File→Publish Settings→Other Formats→SVG Image (checkbox)→Options, there is now a checkbox “Optimize For Character Animator”.

Using it, you can export an SVG image that Character can import, that will have a layers structure that works well in Character. While you can’t yet export an SVG sequence from Animate, right now you can get the image from Animate to Character with minimal clutter and add rigging to it for performance. Let us know if this is helpful and what you want to see happen next!

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  • Karan commented  ·   ·  Report

    Fully agreed, actually, I think that character animator and animate should be 1 software, it will make things alot easier and animations much more believable. We as creators should have that choice.

    At the very least, there should be a connection to allow an import/export between the 2 softwares

  • Lori Evans commented  ·   ·  Report

    I agree with Ken Gerleve. I was expecting the two animation programs to work with each other and it would be great if I could move fully formed animations back and forth between the two, as necessary.

    As it is, I would really have appreciated it if Adobe could have specifically spelled out to me in their descriptions that these two programs have limited ability to work together. Then I wouldn't have had to spend so much time searching until I finally found the truth buried in some forum posts and on this page.

    In addition, I don't know if Ch is natively vector or raster. I found someone on reddit saying it is vector, but don't know if they actually know the answer or not.

    In the end, it seems that I may have to move assets from both Ch and An into Ae, which means a whole lot more learning for me and an end result that will definitely be raster.

  • Cezary commented  ·   ·  Report

    @less

    The "Optimize for Character Animator" works with lots of errors. Look at this FLA which contains simple drawing of a ship.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/y8ba7yhet211qzj/Ship.fla?dl=0

    Also I attached an exported SVG file. Here are some troubles I found opening it in Illustrator or Character Animator (same problems):

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/00nhtvpyfboiz3y/Ship%20%28Optimized%20for%20CHA%29.svg?dl=0
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/vev0v892xxs0qji/Ship%20%28Not%20optimized%20for%20CHA%29.svg?dl=0

    Errors:
    1) The second line from the bottom is thicker.
    2) The ropes holding wheels are missing.
    3) The layers are mixed up. For example check the "opona kuter 1" layer.
    It contains a lot of lines that doesn't belong to this layer.

    Without the optimize option it works much better, but there are no layer names so it's useless...

    More than month ago I submitted this problem to Adobe Support, but it's still an ongoing process without any solution.

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    Honestly, this should just be one app, an app to create 2D animations, that includes character rigging.

  • Joe Rothenberg commented  ·   ·  Report

    Adobe Animate is my go-to for creating vector art. A direct connection between Animate and Animator would be an enormous workflow improvement. Currently I have to draw the characters in Animate then import them to Illustrator. The process of converting Animate files to Illustrator files is a cumbersome nightmare involving renaming every layer, realigning the body parts and dealing with optimization issues, not to mention the inconvenience of revisions. A direct workflow would literally save me a day per character.

  • Ken Gerleve commented  ·   ·  Report

    First of all, I want to thank everyone developing Character Animator for being open to feedback from users. Also Dave's video tutorials and Tips and Tricks videos are great! I'm always amazed at what people are able to do with Character Animator.

    I agree with the request to integrate Character Animator with Adobe Animate CC, and everything Daniel mentioned. I have been using Flash/Animate for decades (since it was owned by Macromedia) and I am completely used to and comfortable with its interface and workflow. I have attempted to use After Effects on a few occasions, but have generally quit before starting because the interface seems so complicated and not intuitive at all. I am an artist, not a tech person, so setting various parameters and drilling down into menus makes me blanche. I understand keyframes and tweens because they correlate to traditional animation principles.

    Additionally, I've always found it easier to work in Flash/Animate than Illustrator when creating vector images, particularly when I was using the images for Animation. So it is a bit disappointing that the two Adobe animation applications don't work with each other.

    It would be nice to export characters (Movie Clips) I've already developed in Animate into Character Animator without having to export to .SVG and then rename and reorganize all the layers, etc. before they can be saved as .AI files and imported into Character Animator. It would also be great to be able to easily import recorded puppet animations from Character Animator into the Animate timeline for more complicated animations, and be able to use movie clips and graphics from Animate in Character Animator for more puppet centric animations where objects (props) could animate. For example, if a Puppet in CH is holding a lantern, the lantern could be a movie clip from Animate which would loop a flickering flame.

    Thanks again for all the hard work!

    -Ken

  • Daniel Broderick commented  ·   ·  Report

    quotations were for searching purposes when I was trying to find an existing request, and then I left it in when I created a new request.

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