Multi character rig After Effects-10 tips workflow
10 tips on how to effectively set up a multi caracter pupet style rig for animation in After effects. It is a collection of hints on how to improve the workflow when working on quite a long animation with a few characters, and based on what I learnt while making such a project. Hope you will find it useful:)
Referenced character animation-happy Hippo:
• Video
Individual character rig tutorial series:
part 1 (preparing assets and importing to AE):
• Realistic character rig in After Effe...
part 2 (parenting, rigging hand and mouth shapes for lip sync)
• Realistic character rig in After Effe...
part3 ( rigging and eyes and hand shapes rig, switching on and off character layers one controler layer)
• Realistic character rig in After Effe...
Camera rig setup tutorial:
http://vimeo.com/69809876
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Shortcuts for animating a character in AE
Select all (works both on sleceted layers, and on controlers in your controler layer, so you can select all controling properties, and close them ,and then manually open just one or two you are currently animating)
Ctrl+A
Undo
Undo
Ctrl+Z
Duplicate layers
Ctrl+D
Go forward 1 frame
Page Down or Ctrl+Right Arrow
Go forward 10 frames
Shift+Page Down or Ctrl+Shift+Right Arrow
Go backward 1 frame
Page Up or Ctrl+Left Arrow
Go backward 10 frames
Shift+Page Up or Ctrl+Shift+Left Arrow
RAM preview
0 on numeric keypad*
Manually preview (scrub) audio ( impossible to live without when doing lip sync to voiceover).
Ctrl-drag current-time indicator
Replace source for a selected layer
Alt-drag footage item from Project panel onto selected layer
Precompose selected layers
Ctrl+Shift+C
Show only modified properties
UU
Show only selected properties and groups
SS
Set marker at current time (works during RAM preview and audio-only preview) so you can set yourself key moments to animate, for example where dialogue starts and finishes.
(multiply) on numeric keypad
Audio preview
, ( on numeric pad)
Save project ( do it as frequently as possible, your software will crash, and will do it in the worst possible moments, so develop a habit of saving frequently)
Ctrl+Shift+S
Cut layer in place
Alt+ ]
and
Alt+ [
Pan behind tool
Y
Active selection tool
V
Those two shortcuts come reall handy when rigging a puppet.
switch on and off expression for layer transparency property
if(thisComp.layer("name_of_controller)layer").effect("disappear name_of_layer_to_switch_on_and_off")("Checkbox")==1)100 else 0;