Pinning a character with Puppet
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Puppet bends a layer without cutting it: a mesh is laid over the layer, pins hold or move areas of it, and the picture bends between them.
1. Place pins
Section titled “1. Place pins”- Select the layer.
- Pick the Puppet position pin tool (
Ctrl+P). A wireframe appears over the layer: the mesh, cut to the picture’s opaque shape. - Click to place a pin. Put one on each part that should hold still, and one on each part that will move.
Density and Expansion on the options bar set how fine the mesh is and how far past the edge it reaches.
2. Drag
Section titled “2. Drag”Drag a pin. The wireframe follows the pointer, and the picture retains the deformation when you release. Everything between the pins bends rather than stretches, and the pins you don’t adjust remain in plkace.
3. Keyframe
Section titled “3. Keyframe”A layer with pins has a Puppet heading in the Timeline, a row per pin. Animate a pin like any other property:
- Turn on the stopwatch on the pin’s position.
- Move the playhead, drag the pin, repeat.
The keyframes take the same interpolation, easing and graph editing as everything else. Rename a pin on its row, or delete it from the row’s right-click menu.
4. Starch, overlap and bend
Section titled “4. Starch, overlap and bend”The other three pin tools share the strip slot with the first:
- Starch pin: stiffens the region round it. Amount sets how strongly; the pin row’s value column sets how far it reaches.
- Overlap pin: says which part draws in front when the picture folds over itself.
- Bend pin: dragging around the pin turns the region about it, and
Alt-dragging resizes it.