Puppet

Puppet

Reshape is old-school compared with the Puppet tools.
To get started with Puppet, select a layer (preferably a
foreground element with a shape defi ned by transparency,
such as an alpha channel or mask), and add the Puppet
Pin tool (Ctrl+P/Cmd+P) by clicking points on areas
you want to animate. Click two points, drag the third,
and behold: The layer is now pliable in a very organic,
intuitive way.


Perhaps just because I could, I created a pretzel
 Puppet can be used for much subtler stuff, but this
example clearly demonstrates something previously impossible
in After Effects.
Here are the basic steps to create a deformation animation:
1. Use the Puppet Pin tool to add three pins to a foreground
layer. Experimentation will tell you a lot about
where to place these, but they’re very similar to the
places on a marionette where the wires connect: the
center, joints, and ends.
2. Move one of them, and observe what happens to the
overall image.
3. Add points as needed to further articulate the
deformation.
4. To animate by positioning and timing keyframes:
Expose the numbered Puppet Pin properties in the
Timeline (UU); these have X and Y Position values
matching many other properties in After Effects.
5. To animate in real time: Hold Ctrl/Cmd as you move
your cursor over a pin, and a stopwatch icon appears;
click and drag that pin, and a real-time animation of
your cursor movement records from the current time
until you release the mouse. You can specify an alternate
speed for playback by clicking Record Options in
the toolbar.

Try these steps with virtually any matted image and see
what happens; you’ll quickly get the feel for how Puppet is
used. To refi ne the result, you have some options.
In the toolbar is a toggle to show the mesh. The mesh not
only gives you an idea how Puppet actually works, it can be
essential to allow you to properly adjust the result. I like to
leave it on.
The Expansion and Triangles properties use defaults that
are often just fi ne for a given shape. Raising Expansion can
help clean up edge pixels left behind in the source. Raising
Triangles makes the deformation more accurate, albeit
slower. The default number of triangles varies according to
the size and complexity of the source.