Puppet Starch controls

When you are distorting one part of an image, you may want to prevent other parts from being distorted. For example, you may want to preserve the rigidity of an arm as you move a hand to make it wave. Use the Puppet Starch tool to apply Starch pins to the part of an object that you want to keep rigid.

You apply Puppet Starch pins to the original outline, not to the deformed image.

Unwanted distortion in figure (upper left) is prevented with Starch pin (upper right and lower left)

Each Starch pin has the following properties:

Amount

The strength of the stiffening agent. The influence of Starch pins is cumulative, meaning that the Amount values are added together for places on the mesh where extents overlap. You can use negative Amount values to cancel out the influence of another Starch pin at a specific location.

If you notice image tearing near a Deform pin, use a Starch pin with a very small Amount value (less than 0.1) near the Deform pin. Small Amount values are good for maintaining image integrity without introducing much rigidity.

Extent

How far from the Starch pin its influence extends. The influence ends abruptly; it does not decrease gradually with distance from the pin. Extent is indicated visually by a pale fill in the affected parts of the mesh.

In addition to animating still images, you can use the Puppet effect on a layer with motion footage as its source. For example, you could distort the contents of the entire composition frame to match the motion of an object within the frame. In this case, consider creating a mesh for the entire layer, using the layer boundaries as the outline, and using the Puppet Starch tool around the edges to prevent the edges of the layer from distorting.