Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity Forums Adobe After Effects An issue with the AE puppet tool

  • An issue with the AE puppet tool

    Posted by Brian Bernhard on June 17, 2023 at 7:09 pm

    Howdy folks, I hope all is well.

    I have searched the web and cannot find a solution for this issue I am having, so here I am.

    I am animating a drawing I made in photoshop. It’s a face with a wide open eye, in the eye socket, i have left an alpha channel. I have the eyeball on a seperate layer, so it can be animated to look around. The issue I have, is that I want to have the eye blink a little.

    I thought i would do this with the puppet too. Placing pins on all the elements I dont want to move to lock them in place, then I placed pins on the upper and lower eyelids. When I move them, the image along the alpha channel becomes warped and the eyelid is no longer smooth, its all warbly. Like a sine wave. Is there any way to sort this out so that the eyelid closes without the sine wave?

    I kind of like the effect, as is, as I love the wonkiness of it, but I would like to figure out how to smooth it out if need be. Maybe adding more pins is the trick, but that seems like it would make it even wonkier. lol.

    Thanks in advance.

    I can add some pics to illustrate if yall need it.

    -Brian

    Brian Bernhard replied 2 years, 11 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • Graham Quince

    June 18, 2023 at 9:46 am

    I think we need to see some screenshots, but to be honest, it sounds like what you’re getting is what I’d expect to see. The puppet tool distorts the image and with lots of anchor points it’s probably what’s creating the mesh warp. It might be simpler to add an eye lid as a separate layer and animate just that.

  • Brian Bernhard

    June 19, 2023 at 6:03 am

    You are probably right about the eyelid. Was just trying to avoid drawing more parts, lol. I was hoping they maybe tweaked the tool in the last few updates to have a feature I didnt know about that could give us more control over what parts warp with the puppet tool. Thanks for your response. I will grab some screen shots and post in the next few days if I figure something out.

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy