2023-2-23 Snapshot with 5 character scene

As mentioned in a prior post, organizing a scene has high flexibility when the individual parts for each character in Character Animator are exported with an alpha background independently and then all of them are imported into Final Cut Pro X for blocking.

Pictured here, Rex, Mabel, Brad, Sammy, and Ben are having a conversation about clean energy with many misconceptions on the part of Sammy and Ben with respect to breakthroughs in nuclear technology, specifically fusion vs fission.

Arranging all characters in the scene allows for camera changes to be made, where closeups and pans can occur. Before getting there though, each character needs to be observed closely to see what types of adjustments should be made to their individual video exports. That is, if it seems that a character’s eyes are not looking in the right direction, like Ben in this image, then a revised recording of the head/eyes position in Character Animator just for that particular point in the timeline allows for refinement.

Since Final Cut Pro X references files from a folder when imported, the revised video export from Character Animator automatically updates. The beauty in this is that even after pans and closeups and even cuts to a movie clip are made, the re-written revised video export will still have all those Final Cut edits.