Creating Characters + Animating Stories w/ Character Animator

This course will focus on storytelling with animation using Adobe's new Character Animator program. This program allows users to quickly get to animating their own characters by leveraging facial recognition and lip-syncing in a fun and intuitive way. Students will create and design their own characters (which we will develop in the early stages of the course) and learn how to quickly and easily integrate them into an animation workflow.

By acting out what we want our characters to do in real-time, this course will provide the foundation and means to create animations that before would have required months learning a piece of software. The class will culminate in each student having a short animatic with their character in a small skit we develop throughout the course including:

-Basic character emotions, lip-syncing and movements

-Animated character items (such as clothing, tools, various objects)

-Backgrounds and mood (how they affect your character + add to the story you’re telling)

-Walk-Cycles

Finally, we will use all that we’ve created over the course to put together a short animatic that tells a story. Students will leave this class with a collection of basic character animations and a short animation reel (featuring the kinds of demonstrated skills and variety companies look for in a reel).

This class will provide a solid groundwork for students to push their animation and storytelling skills further, with a solid understanding of basic character creation, the "frame", as well as basic animation and storytelling principles.

What you’ll need:

-A computer with a webcam

-Access to Adobe’s Creative Suite (Photoshop/Illustrator + Character Animator +

After Effects)

-A love of story, strong characters and animation!

• Intro
• Crafting Characters
• Crafting Narrative
• Animating Characters
• Facial Tracking + Lip Syncing
• Motion in Body
• Background + Backdrop
• Walk Cycle
• Telling a Story
• Outro