How does puppet animation work

Helps in Changing the Mesh Order Another striking feature of Puppet Warp that you might be interested to know is its ability to change the order of the mesh when it comes to depth. This is unbelievably impressive in the sense that you will be able to define which part goes over the other using the Pin Depth icons.

Easy Manipulation of Image You can easily manipulate an image by placing pins in the area that you want to control movement. It is like pulling strings on a puppet. You can reposition areas such as leg or hair and make it seem like the character is running with the hair flying. This tool works effectively on Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects. Animating an object or character is easy, and quick in Puppet Warp Animation.

During Puppet Warp animation, your chosen image will have to go through a lot of distortion owing to the movement. Puppet Warp provides a visual mesh that lets you drastically distort specific image areas while leaving other areas intact. Applications range from subtle adjustments to severe limb distortions. In most cases, you will keep your distortions subtle to keep them realistic.

Here is how to use Puppet warp in Photoshop. You can move or distort the selected object using Puppet Warp in Photoshop. Here is how you do it:. You can easily reshape part or the entire object or body of the object using Puppet Warp in Photoshop.

Just follow these steps listed below:. You can easily manipulate or distort an artwork using Puppet Warp in Illustrator. You can use this tool on Illustrator to adjust lines and shapes, and that is especially so if you want to pose or reposition a character.

After Effects works very well when it comes to Puppet Warp Animation as it helps add life to animation, especially when working with image assets, particularly vector designs. Save the picture as a Photoshop file to preserve the alpha channel. It can then be used to work on After Effects. An area of the mesh that is not influenced by Overlap pins has an implicit In Front value of 0.

The default value for a new Overlap pin is When animating the In Front value, you should usually use Hold keyframes. You do not usually want to interpolate gradually from an element being in front to an element being in back. How far from the Overlap pin its influence extends. The influence ends abruptly; it does not decrease gradually with distance from the pin.

Extent is indicated visually by a fill in the affected parts of the mesh. The fill is dark if In Front is negative; the fill is light if In Front is positive. When you are distorting one part of an image, you may want to prevent other parts from being distorted.

For example, you may want to preserve the rigidity of an arm as you move a hand to make it wave. Use the Puppet Starch tool to apply Starch pins to the part of an object that you want to keep rigid.

The strength of the stiffening agent. The influence of Starch pins is cumulative, meaning that the Amount values are added together for places on the mesh where extents overlap. You can use negative Amount values to cancel out the influence of another Starch pin at a specific location. If you notice image tearing near a Deform pin, use a Starch pin with a very small Amount value less than 0. Small Amount values are good for maintaining image integrity without introducing much rigidity.

How far from the Starch pin its influence extends. Extent is indicated visually by a pale fill in the affected parts of the mesh. In addition to animating still images, you can use the Puppet effect on a layer with motion footage as its source. For example, you could distort the contents of the entire composition frame to match the motion of an object within the frame.

In this case, consider creating a mesh for the entire layer, using the layer boundaries as the outline, and using the Puppet Starch tool around the edges to prevent the edges of the layer from distorting.

The Puppet tools and Puppet effect in After Effects use an enhanced puppet engine called the Advanced Puppet Tool, and the old engine is called the Legacy puppet engine. In After Effects Projects saved in earlier versions of After Effects use the legacy Puppet engine by default. At the core, the advanced puppet engine use similar concept as the legacy puppet engine, the differences being:. Refer to the table below to understand the key differences between the Legacy and Advanced puppet engines:.

Triangle control: Specifies the highest number of triangles allowed for a mesh. Legacy Puppet Tool uses smart triangle placement in the mesh with a higher density of triangles to achieve better results. Density control replaces the Triangle control.

Density controls the layout, size, and amount of triangles automatically calculated within a mesh. With higher density, the maximum and minimum triangle sizes reduce, you can add more triangles between pins, and the maximum number of triangles allowed have increased. Lower the density, the triangle size increases and creates a sparse mesh. Starch pins are under the Stiffness group. Starch pin are under the Deform group and the Stiffness group is discontinued.

Starch pins have Extent control to manipulate the extent to which the pin impacts the puppet. Starch pins do not have Extent control, but can impact the stiffness in the region between Starch pins and other pins. The Advanced puppet engine interprets the Starch pins as Position pins. You can convert Starch pins into Position pins with the Pin Type property. Mesh Rotation Refinement , specifies the maximum amount any position or starch pin rotates to minimize deformation.

Higher the value, higher is the amount of rotation flexible deformation , and lower the value, lower is the amount of rotation stiff deformation. You can use the Puppet Engine control to choose between the Advanced puppet engine and the Legacy puppet engine. To choose, in the Timeline panel, click the drop-down menu next to Puppet engine , and select the engine. You can switch between the two engines but After Effects recommends that you avoid switching after you place or animate pins for the following reasons:.

The Advanced Puppet Tool offers the following types of pins to animate your puppets. To apply these pins, select the pin type in the Puppet Tool menu in the toolbar. When you select bend pins or advanced pins in the Puppet Tool panel, it displays a rotation and scale control - larger, outer circle with a single square handle.

Hold the Shift key while you drag to constrain rotation to 15 degree increments. Legal Notices Online Privacy Policy. Buy now. Animating with Puppet tools Search. Last updated on Basics of Legacy Puppet tool.

Each Puppet tool is used to place and modify a specific type of pin:. Use this tool to place and move Deform pins. To show the mesh, select Show in the Tools panel. Online resources for the Puppet tools. Manually animate an image with the Puppet tools. Select the layer that contains the image to animate.

Using the Puppet Pin tool , do one of the following in the Composition panel or the Layer panel:. A Deform pin is placed where you clicked to create the mesh. Click in one or more places within the outline to add more Deform pins. Go to another time in the composition, and move the position of one or more of the Deform pins by dragging them in the Composition or Layer panel with the Puppet Pin tool.

Repeat this step until you have completed your animation. Record animation by sketching motion with the Puppet Pin tool. If your composition contains audio, you can sketch motion in time with the audio. Select one or more Deform pins. Go to the time at which to begin recording motion.

How the Puppet effect creates outlines. Work with Puppet pins and the distortion mesh. To show the mesh for the Puppet effect, select Show in the options section of the Tools panel. To select or move a pin, click or drag it with the Move tool. To activate the Move tool, place the pointer on a pin while either the Selection tool or the corresponding Puppet tool is active. To select multiple pins, Shift-click them, or use the marquee-selection tool to drag a marquee-selection box around them.

To activate the marquee-selection tool, place the pointer for a Puppet tool outside all meshes and outlines or hold the Alt Windows or Option Mac OS key.

To delete selected pins, press the Delete key. If the pin has multiple keyframes, and only the keyframe at the current time is selected, pressing Delete deletes only that keyframe; pressing Delete again deletes the pin. To reset Deform pins to their original locations at the current time, click Reset for the Puppet effect in the Timeline panel or Effect Controls panel. To remove all pins and meshes from an instance of the Puppet effect, click Reset again.

To increase or decrease the number of triangles used in a mesh, modify the Triangle value in the options section of the Tools panel or in the Timeline panel. Modifying the Triangle value sets the value for a selected mesh or, if no mesh is selected, sets the value for meshes created later. To expand the mesh beyond the original outline, increase the Expansion property in the options section of the Tools panel or in the Timeline panel.

Modifying the Expansion property sets the value for a selected mesh or, if no mesh is selected, sets the value for meshes created later. Expanding the mesh is useful for encompassing a stroke. To duplicate an object using Puppet Pin tool, click within the original outline. Clicking within the original outline creates a new mesh, with its own copy of the pixels from within the original outline. You can also duplicate a Mesh group in the Timeline panel to achieve the same result, which is sometimes easier than clicking within the original outline without clicking the mesh to create a pin.

Puppet Overlap controls. You apply Puppet Overlap pins to the original outline, not to the deformed image. Each Overlap pin has the following properties:. In Front. Puppet Starch controls. You apply Puppet Starch pins to the original outline, not to the deformed image. Each Starch pin has the following properties:. Basics of Advanced Puppet Tool.

At the core, the advanced puppet engine use similar concept as the legacy puppet engine, the differences being: New pin behaviors and pin types Smoother and customizable deformations Enhanced density. Difference between Legacy puppet engine and Advanced puppet engine. Legacy puppet engine. Advanced puppet engine. You can't convert Starch pins into any other form of pins. No option of Mesh Rotation Refinement. Improvements to Advanced Puppet Tool. You can switch between the two engines but After Effects recommends that you avoid switching after you place or animate pins for the following reasons: As the two engines interpret pins differently, switching could change the deformation.

Starch pins are different in Advanced puppet engine and so the Legacy puppet engine treats advanced starch pins, as normal position pins, and the Advanced puppet engine ignores legacy starch pins. Types of pins in the Advanced Puppet Tool.

Puppet Position Pin Tool : The pins you place with this tool can only control the position of the pin. These pins display as yellow circles in the UI. Advanced Pins : Enables you to control the position, scale, and rotation of the pin. This allows significant control over how the Puppet effect mesh deforms around that pin. The mesh can create noticeable shearing if you do not animate all three properties. For example, you can use an advanced pin to animate the head of a character to move to the side and look downwards.

However, if you do not animate the rotation manually, the head continues to point in the same direction and create a stretched appearance. These pins display as blue-green circles in the UI. Bend Pins : These pins automatically calculate their location from the surrounding pins, similar to starch pins, while allowing you to control of the scale and rotation of the pin. You can use the bend pins to create the appearance of the chest of the character breathing, or of a wagging tail.

Another case can be where you scale or rotate a part of the mesh but have the position of the pin automatically move with the rest of the puppet. These pins display as orange-brown circles in the UI.