Before I can begin to animate my mental health videos I first need to decide which software will be best suited for my project. Because of this I aim to create a small animation within the softwares Character Animator, After Effects and Adobe Animate in order to understand how each of the programmes works first hand, and hopefully at the end I will be able to chose which software to use for my project. To begin with I will create a small animation of a character using Character animator.
Although I have a basic understanding of how to use Character Animator due to using the software in second year, I though it best to test out the software again due to it being a while since I last used the programme. Below is a tutorial video by Okay Samurai who goes through the basics of how to use the software. I will be using this tutorial video in order to refresh myself on how the software works.
Getting Started in Adobe Character Animator
Creating Animation in Character Animator
In order to create an animation within character animator, your first have to create the character using either Photoshop or Illustrator. For my test animation I decided to use Photoshop to create the character simple because I have more knowledge using that software.
When creating the character it is vital that all groups and layers are labelled correctly so that you will be able to animate the character once it is imported into Character Animator. A simple way to break it down is to have three main groups, one labelled character, one labelled head and the last one labelled body. This will help to keep all the parts of your character organised and make it easier to edit if needs be. The other key feature to remember is that rights and lefts are mirrored, so if you want to add the left eye, when looking at the screen that will appear to your as the right eye. It is also key to remember that anything that will be animated through tracking, such as the pupil and eyebrow will need a plus before the name of the layer, otherwise when you import the character other to Character Animator, it wont animate.
As is visible from the image below, I have just created a very simple and basic character head in order to animate. Although for my own animations the characters will have body’s, while testing out the different software I did not think it was necessary to create a whole character to animate. This would have just be very time consuming and creating just the head of a character gives me enough insight and understanding into how the software works.
Software Experimentation | Part 1
Software Experimentation | Part 2
Reflection
After creating the head of a character and animating it I was able to refresh myself on the process of animating within Character Animator. The process of creating the character is very simple, as is rigging it to animate, and there is a lot of potential to get creative with the software. Where the software fails is in its ability to only animate characters, meaning that if I decided to use this software, I would most likely also have to use something like After Effects or Premier Pro so that I could make my animations more substantial, and not just an animated character.
Having explored Character Animator my next step will be to test out animation within After Effects. This I plan to do in a similar fashion to how I have explored Character Animator, by finding a simple tutorial on youtube and then replicating the process within the software. This will hopefully help me to decide which software will be the most appropriate to use for my mental health animations.
Bibliography
Katherine Leveridge (2021) Software Experimentation | Part 2. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKxqjhQQPvg&ab_channel=KatherineLeveridge. [Accessed 16 March 2021]
Katherine Leveridge (2021) Software Experimentation | Part 1. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnkhx6A2RMs&ab_channel=KatherineLeveridge. [Accessed 16 March 2021]
Okay Samurai (2020) Getting Started in Adobe Character Animator. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GKCw4f1UrI&ab_channel=OkaySamurai. [Accessed 13 March 2021].