Adobe Character Animator Tutorial Roundup

Adobe Character Animator is motion capture character animation software that comes with Adobe Creative Cloud. It’s a fun way to quickly create animated characters right within the Adobe suite of tools. There are free puppets to use and a lot of great tutorials online. You’ll be animating in no time.

This article focuses on how to use Character Animator and shows you tricks like having flexible rubber limbs, moving your character’s jaw, and much more.

By the way, Character Animator v4.2 was released last month but check out some exciting sneak peeks of what’s coming up in the future of Adobe Character Animator. A Body Tracker!

So, what if you want to use Character Animator right now? Get some free puppets and check out some tutorials and dive right in!!

Get some Puppets

There are some puppets included in Character Animator but there are more free puppets that you can download and they are free to use. Of course, you can design your own as well.

Download the free puppets

How to create cartoon animations in 5min | Adobe Character Animator | Zero to Hero

Emmanuel Crown gets you up and running in Character Animator in just a few minutes.

JAW DROP EFFECT / Adobe Character Animator

Bernie Gonzalez shows you a super easy trick to get your jaw to move in Character Animator.

Adobe Character Animator Tutorial: How to create flexible rubber limbs

Antony Evans of Digital Puppets Animation Studio explains how to create flexible rubber limbs in Adobe Character Animator.

Workflow Show: Performing Motion Design with Adobe Character Animator

This was a LIVE episode of Workflow Show from May 2021. In the episode, Host Kyle Hamrick talks to Adobe’s Dave Werner (aka @okaysamurai) – we’ll be talking about all the ways you can be using Character Animator in your workflow today!

Complete Animation Workflow (Adobe Character Animator Tutorial)

Dave Werner gives you a good once-over workflow for Adobe Character animator. He takes you through recording and editing the audio in Adobe Audition. Then, he shows you how to build your character in Photoshop. After that, he explains how to rig and animate him in Character Animator. Finally, he shows you how to composite everything together in After Effects.

Adobe Character Animator Tutorial: How to create flexible rubber limbs

Here are his Links:

• Narrator Dave puppet
• Audio Library
• Arm IK Tutorial
• Advanced Rigging: Leeta
• The Noun Project
• Okay Samurai – This is the site of Dave Werner, who is a designer on the Adobe Character Animator team. In addition, he’s in a couple of the video above. If you want great information on using Character Animator, this is a great place to go.

More Okay Samurai Tutorials

Okay Samurai has super fun and useful tutorials for Adobe Character Animator. Here are a few recent ones. Be sure to check out the Okay Samurai YouTube Channel.

Advanced Rigging: Monster Camp (Adobe Character Animator Tutorial)

Download the free puppet “Sirr” and play along. In this tutorial, he animates a different arm structure than usual. Also, he applies paper texturing, uses a deep trigger system with marshmallows that catch on fire and burn, and adds glowing highlights and shadows. Finally, he replays the pose system and creates a customized controls panel. There’s a lot here, indeed!

Basic Eye Rigging (Adobe Character Animator Tutorial)

Give personality to your characters by animating the eyes! Okay Samurai shows you some great tricks. Similarly, Download the assets here.

More about Character Animator

Adobe Character Style Transfer: FXGuide Deep Dive – Mike Seymour walks you through features in the 2019 release.

Want more?

Check out the previous posts on topics such as character animation and rigging. Not to mention, walk cycles.

• Character Animation with Adobe Character Animator and After Effects: Mouths and Heads
• Rigging a Simple Character Using DUIK in AE
• How to Animate with the Advanced Puppet Tool in After Effects
• 2 Ways to Create Seamless Joints in After Effects