There are a lot of ways to bring your character "to life" in Character Animator, however there is one thing that a cartoon has that life doesn't: 100% consistency.

I have an idea about triggers having an RNG system to them such as different mouth shapes for the same sound to add variation or when I hit a trigger to make a pleased expression the expression has different variations that will randomly trigger to give the same emotion but have a slightly different look to give some imperfections/naturalness to the design (such as people don't make the EXACT same face whenever they are pleased, or look the EXACT same whenever they get mad.

Same idea as script/handwriting font writers when they make multiple iterations of the same letter to give the illusion that it is actually someone's handwriting.

At present, Character Animator (v3.4) supports Swap Sets that enable users to select a single layer to be visible within a layer group.

For example, say you want to create multiple pre-drawn facial expressions for your puppet, "Normal" and "Sad". In each expression, you want to be able to change the eyebrows, eyelids and entire mouth swap set.

How would a user achieve this with a simple puppet structure like the following?

+Head

    +Eyebrow Left

    +Eyebrow Right

    Eye Left

        Eyelids Left

        +Pupil Left

        Eyeball Left

    Eye Right

        Eyelids Right

        +Pupil Right

        Eyeball Right

    Nose

    Mouth

        Neutral

        Smile

        Surprised

        M

        ... etc

    Face

A user would need to create individual Swap Sets for each facial element that needs to change, as follows:

+Head

    +Eyebrow Left

        Eyebrow Left Normal

        Eyebrow Left Sad

    +Eyebrow Right

        Eyebrow Right Normal

        Eyebrow Right Sad

    Eye Left

        Eyelids Left

            Eyelids Left Normal

            Eyelids Left Sad

        +Pupil Left

        Eyeball Left

    Eye Right

        Eyelids Right

            Eyelids Right Normal

            Eyelids Right Sad

        +Pupil Right

        Eyeball Right

    Nose

    Mouth

        Mouth Swap Set Normal

            Neutral Normal

            Smile Normal

            Surprised Normal

            M Normal

            ... etc

        Mouth Swap Set Sad

            Neutral Sad

            Smile Sad

            Surprised Sad

            M Sad

            ... etc

    Face

This example shows only 2 facial expressions, but imagine if you wanted a large range of emotional expression. Then add in support for head turns -- the puppet would get overly complex very quickly.

I am currently using this method on a production. For more detailed explanation, you can view my video tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEVwz4vpz6o

A better way to do this would be to support the concept of "Recursive" Swap Sets.

These would switch layers throughout an entire layer group tree, not just directly below a single layer group.

This could be used to simplify the above scenario. The user could create a structure as follows:

+Head

    Expression Normal

        +Eyebrow Left

        +Eyebrow Right

        Eye Left

            Eyelids Left

            +Pupil Left

            Eyeball Left

        Eye Right

            Eyelids Right

            +Pupil Right

            Eyeball Right

        Nose

        Mouth

            Neutral

            Smile

            Surpised

            M

            ... etc

        Face

    Expression Sad

        +Eyebrow Left

        +Eyebrow Right

        Eye Left

            Eyelids Left

        Eye Right

            Eyelids Right

        Mouth

            Neutral

            Smile

            Surprised

            M

            ... etc

Note that the "Expression Sad" layer group contains several layer group names that exactly match the structure in the "Expression Normal" layer group, but contains only the layers that will alter to create the "Sad" facial expression.

The "+Head" layer group would then be set as a "Recursive Swap Set" and "Expression Normal" set as Default.

When "Expression Sad" is triggered, Character Animator would recursively search through the entire "Expression Sad" layer group tree to replace layers or groups that have matching names with the target layer or group.

After the operation, the end state of the puppet, conceptually, would be:

+Head

    Expression Current

        +Eyebrow Left Sad

        +Eyebrow Right Sad

        Eye Left

            Eyelids Left Sad

            +Pupil Left

            Eyeball Left

        Eye Right

            Eyelids Right Sad

            +Pupil Right

            Eyeball Right

        Nose

        Mouth

            Neutral Sad

            Smile Sad

            Surpised Sad

            M Sad

            ... etc

        Face

Once the Trigger ends, the puppet would conceptually return to its Default state, which is "Expression Normal".

This would give users a much more convenient way to swap groups of layers for a variety of complex effects.

I'd love to be able to use my number key pad to control the in-between "NE, NW, SE, SW" directions using individual keys, instead of the combo of holding two keys at the same time. For example, on a number key pad, the 9 key would be "NE" (i.e. up and to the right), instead of the current two-key press of 8 and 6 at the same time.

That would make it a smoother move in a live performance b/c sometimes it's hard to press and release two keys at exactly the same time, so the pupil jumps a little bit.

Repro steps:

1. Think like a user/newbie.


2. Create a new project and import Blank.


3. Go into rig mode.


4. Add a trigger to any body part.


5. Add a behaviour to that same part.


6. Right-click the lego/gear icon for that body part.


7. Notice that there's a 'remove all behaviours' option in the context menu.


8. Right-click the trigger icon for the same body part.

Notice that there's no corresponding way to remove all triggers from that body part exposed in the menu.

In addition to creating a bit of an asymmetry between one part of the user experience and another, it looks as if there simply isn't a way to remove all triggers from a body part...