Character Wizard

jaakay · Post by **jaakay** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 3:53 pm

Hi All,

I upgraded to version 8 on the 8th and was very excited to start using the character wizard. I also watched the Webinar when it was first broadcast and was very happy to hear that the Wizard is customisable.

Although it is possible add your own custom heads, hands, eyes, nose etc, in the application folder they do not have a folder for the pants and shirt to be able to create your own custom clothing or have I missed something? How would you create a skirt, for instance. Would you have to do that once you have exported from the Character Wizard and change things in the editing window. What if you were using all views would that not be a tidious job to change every view and how would you know that they were all the right size. All your characters won't be wearing T-shirts and shorts or trousers. Why is there no dress option for the female etc?

Are there any plans for a step by step tutorial on creating custom characters for the wizard including the clothing?

I hope this makes sense. Sorry it's so long.

ponysmasher · Post by **ponysmasher** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 4:17 pm

Unfortunately it isn't possible to customize the bodies, that's something I wanted to do as well. All you can do is change the bodies by hand after a character has been created.

jaakay · Post by **jaakay** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 5:00 pm

Thank you for your response. At least I know now.

I am a newbie. So, am I right in thinking that the only really time saver here is that you don't have to rig the character yourself and you just customise once in the editor window, and it allows you to use the walk and jump cycles with this bone rig.

This may be a very elementary question, but when you add a walk cycle from the actions palette to your character from the wizard and create a start and destination keyframe on the timeline, how do you get the character to stop walking once it gets to its destination (just keeps walking on the spot)?

Thanks in advance for your help.

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 5:16 pm

There's more to the CW but it will take some time to get the best workflow that's possible. So don't give up yet. As for the walk, when the figure makes the last step you want, with the bone layer selected, right click in the time line and choose add key frame to each bone channel to stop the walk cycle. make sure that you don't have any bones select on the figure or parts will continue to cycle.

jaakay · Post by **jaakay** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 5:57 pm

Jonbo, you are a genius. It worked!!!!!! Thank you.

I'll have to wait for more information to be released regarding the use of the Character Wizard.

Rudiger · Post by **Rudiger** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 5:56 am

I think the other big deal about the character wizard is being able to add your own custom actions. This means that you will be able to build up your own library of actions to use whenever you create a new character.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 9:07 am

Does the character wizard contain more than one skeleton? Like human (Bipede), 4-legged Animal, Bird?

ponysmasher · Post by **ponysmasher** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 10:10 am

slowtiger wrote:Does the character wizard contain more than one skeleton? Like human (Bipede), 4-legged Animal, Bird?

No, just humans.

aleXean · Post by **aleXean** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 10:26 pm

Is it possible to have a completed character .anme ( that I make ) and replace it with one of the presets in the character wizard? That would be most ideal.

ponysmasher · Post by **ponysmasher** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 11:43 pm

aleXean wrote:Is it possible to have a completed character .anme ( that I make ) and replace it with one of the presets in the character wizard? That would be most ideal.

Unfortunately no. You can put in some of your own parts (eyes, nose, head, mouth, feet) but you cannot use your own body (torso, arms, legs) or your own bone rig.

aleXean · Post by **aleXean** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 1:39 am

That should be possible, I think it would be easier than importing characters into the content library...which I have no idea how to do.

For instance, say you are working on a television series and you have all of these characters pre-made.. wouldn't you want to have them accessibly within the program instead of importing...just a time saver.

digitalartguru · Post by **digitalartguru** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 5:52 am

ponysmasher wrote:Unfortunately it isn't possible to customize the bodies, that's something I wanted to do as well. All you can do is change the bodies by hand after a character has been created.

It doesn't make sense that we can't alter or create our own bodies for it. What is the use of it if you can't be original? I can see this with the Debut version, but the PRO version should allow creation of body parts. Why are we paying full price upgrade for this? It's not ready.

madriver · Post by **madriver** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 7:38 pm

digitalartguru wrote:
ponysmasher wrote:Unfortunately it isn't possible to customize the bodies, that's something I wanted to do as well. All you can do is change the bodies by hand after a character has been created.
It doesn't make sense that we can't alter or create our own bodies for it. What is the use of it if you can't be original? I can see this with the Debut version, but the PRO version should allow creation of body parts. Why are we paying full price upgrade for this? It's not ready.

Totally agree. Makes the module all but worthless.

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 10:39 pm

Before you give up on the character wizard, think about this. How long does it take you to build a base character, rig it with bones, apply masking or patches to the overlaps. Those that have experience with the software can do this in a few minutes. But with the character wizard, this can be done in a few seconds with all the layers and bones named properly, patch layers in proper place, switch layers for the head and feet all set up. Not only that,you will also have all of the actions that you've created and you will have this for all eight views too. If you think of the character wizard not as a character creator, but as a rig generator or character starter.If you know how to add and bind points, customizing the base rig is pretty easy. You can then save the customized rig to the content library for future use. Take a look at this file if you have Anime Studio Pro eight. It's only the front view. It took me about an hour to tweak the original character from the character wizard and most of that time was figuring out the best workflow. It's not perfect, but it looks a lot better than when it first came out the wizard. I've also included the original figure, that was generated by the wizard. So you can compare the changes I made. I've also included a little animation to see what she looks like in action. I was disappointed at first in the wizard myself, but just as a rig generator, it's a real timesaver.

http://www.mediafire.com/?lb7wmaesw3e1qzg

aleXean · Post by **aleXean** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 11:29 pm

This is true Jonbo, which is why I think I can speak for all of us when we say we want to be able to add our characters to the wizard. That way they are always easily accessible.