This is a quick introduction to the puppet tool. It's a hybrid video and text tutorial. Enjoy!

You will need:

• AE CS3
• A character or object on a single layer with an alpha channel or not merged to the background.

Instructions

1. Create a new project in AE. Save it as Puppet.AEP.
2. Import 'skeleton.tif'. It's a flattened RGB tif file of a skeleton, saved with an alpha channel that I painted in Photoshop. It's a bit larger than I need, just incase I choose to zoom in. Choose 'Premultiplied - Matte with Color' in the Alpha settings in the import dialog box.
3. Drag skeleton.tif from the Project Window to the 'Create New Composition' button at the bottom of the project Window.
4. A new composition will be created that is the height and width of the original image - 648x720. No it's not your standard video resolution, but that is the beauty of After Effects. You can make things any size you like.
5. Select the 'skeleton.tif' layer in the composition. Click the Puppet Pin Tool (cmd + P/ctrl +P) button on the right side of the toolbar.
   
6. Place the pins on the main joints of the skeleton - wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles and don't forget the neck and waist. The movement is a bit difficult to show without video, so I've created a short video tutorial to explain how to do the next few steps.

Take a look at my project file. I put easy eases on all of the keyframes to smooth out the movement a bit.

To finish, drag your skeleton into a haunted house or graveyard scene, add some effects, more skeletons, move them around the screen, whatever you like.