Use the Puppet tools to quickly add natural motion to raster images and vector graphics, including still images, shapes, and text characters.

The Puppet effect works by deforming part of an image according to the positions of pins that you place and move. These pins define what parts of the image should move, what parts should remain rigid, and what parts should be in front when parts overlap.

Each Puppet tool is used to place and modify a specific type of pin:

Puppet Pin tool

Use this tool to place and move Deform pins.

Puppet Overlap tool

Use this tool to place Overlap pins, which indicate which parts of an image should appear in front of others when distortion causes parts of the image to overlap one another.

Puppet Starch tool

Use this tool to place Starch pins, which stiffen parts of the image so that they are distorted less.

Mesh created by placing Deform pins (left), and result of dragging a Deform pin

When you move one or more Deform pins, the mesh changes shape to accommodate this movement, while keeping the overall mesh as rigid as possible. The result is that a movement in one part of the image causes natural, life-like movement in other parts of the image.

For example, if you place Deform pins in a person’s feet and hands and then move one of the hands to make it wave, the motion in the attached arm is large, but the motion in the waist is small, just as in the real world.

If a single animated Deform pin is selected, its Position keyframes are visible in the Composition panel and Layer panel as a motion path. You can work with these motion paths as you work with other motion paths, including setting keyframes to rove across time. (See Smooth motion with roving keyframes.)

You can have multiple meshes on one layer. Having multiple meshes on one layer is useful for deforming several parts of an image individually—such as text characters—as well as for deforming multiple instances of the same part of an image, each with a different deformation.

The original, undistorted mesh is calculated at the current frame at the time at which you apply the effect. The mesh does not change to accommodate motion in a layer based on motion footage, nor does the mesh update if you replace a layer’s source footage item.

The motion created by the Puppet tools is sampled by motion blur if motion blur is enabled for the layer and the composition, though the number of samples used is half of the value specified by the Samples Per Frame value. (See Motion blur.)

You can use expressions to link the positions of Deform pins to motion tracking data, audio amplitude keyframes, or any other properties.

1. Select the layer that contains the image to animate.
2. Using the Puppet Pin tool , do one of the following in the Composition panel or the Layer panel:

   • Click any nontransparent pixel of a raster layer to apply the Puppet effect and create a mesh for the outline created by auto-tracing the alpha channel of a layer.

   • Click within a closed path on a vector layer to apply the Puppet effect and create a mesh for the outline defined by that path.

   • Click within a closed, unlocked mask to apply the Puppet effect and create a mesh for the outline defined by the mask path.

   • Click outside all closed paths on a vector layer to apply the Puppet effect without creating a mesh. Outlines are created for paths on the layer, though an outline is only visible when a Puppet tool pointer is over the area that the outline defines. Place the pointer over the area enclosed by a path to see the outline in which a mesh will be created if you click that point. (See How the Puppet effect creates outlines.) Click within an outline to create a mesh.

   A Deform pin is placed where you clicked to create the mesh.

   Note: If an image is too complex for the Puppet effect to generate a mesh with the current Triangle value, a “Mesh Generation Failed” message appears in the Info panel. Increase the Triangle value in the Tools panel and try again.
3. Click in one or more places within the outline to add more Deform pins.

   Use as few pins as possible to achieve your desired result. The natural deformation provided by the Puppet effect can be lost if you over-constrain the image. Just add pins to the parts of the figure that you know that you want to control. For example, when animating a person waving, add a pin to each foot to hold them to the ground, and add a pin to the waving hand.

4. Go to another time in the composition, and move the position of one or more of the Deform pins by dragging them in the Composition or Layer panel with the Puppet Pin tool. Repeat this step until you have completed your animation.

1. Select one or more Deform pins.
2. Go to the time at which to begin recording motion.
3. In the Composition panel or Layer panel, hold the Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) key to activate the Puppet Sketch tool. Ctrl-drag (Windows) or Command-drag (Mac OS) the pins to animate.

   Recording of motion begins when you click to begin the drag. Recording ends when you release the mouse button.

   The color of the outline for the mesh for which motion is being sketched is the same as the color of the pin (yellow). Reference outlines, for other meshes on the same layer, match the label color of the layer.

   The current-time indicator returns to the time at which recording began, so that you can repeat the recording operation with more Deform pins or redo the recording operation with the same pins.

You can modify the motion paths of the Deform pins using the same techniques that you use to modify any other motion paths. The motion path for a pin is shown only if it is the only pin selected.

Try creating several duplicate meshes and sketching motion for each mesh. When you have multiple meshes in the same instance of the Puppet effect, you can sketch motion for one mesh while seeing the reference outlines of the others, allowing you to follow their movements, either roughly or precisely.

• To show the mesh for the Puppet effect, select Show in the options section of the Tools panel.
• To select or move a pin, click or drag it with the Move tool . To activate the Move tool, place the pointer on a pin while either the Selection tool or the corresponding Puppet tool is active.
• To select multiple pins, Shift-click them, or use the marquee-selection tool to drag a marquee-selection box around them. To activate the marquee-selection tool, place the pointer for a Puppet tool outside all meshes and outlines or hold the Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) key.
• To select all pins of one kind (Deform, Starch, or Overlap), select one pin of that kind and press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac OS).
• To delete selected pins, press the Delete key. If the pin has multiple keyframes, and only the keyframe at the current time is selected, pressing Delete deletes only that keyframe; pressing Delete again deletes the pin.
• To reset Deform pins to their original locations at the current time, click Reset for the Puppet effect in the Timeline panel or Effect Controls panel. To remove all pins and meshes from an instance of the Puppet effect, click Reset again.
  Sometimes, you want to animate an image from an initial position, through an intermediate position, and back to the initial position. Rather than manually dragging the pins back to their initial positions at the end of the animation, place the current-time indicator at the end time and click Reset. Only the keyframes at the current time are reset.
• To increase or decrease the number of triangles used in a mesh, modify the Triangle value in the options section of the Tools panel or in the Timeline panel. Modifying the Triangle value sets the value for a selected mesh or, if no mesh is selected, sets the value for meshes created later.

  A higher number of triangles gives smoother results but takes longer to render. Small objects, like text characters, usually distort well with only 50 triangles, whereas a large figure may require 500. The number of triangles used may not match the Triangle value exactly; this value is a target only.

• To expand the mesh beyond the original outline, increase the Expansion property in the options section of the Tools panel or in the Timeline panel. Modifying the Expansion property sets the value for a selected mesh or, if no mesh is selected, sets the value for meshes created later. Expanding the mesh is useful for encompassing a stroke.
• To duplicate an object using Puppet Pin tool, click within the original outline. Clicking within the original outline creates a new mesh, with its own copy of the pixels from within the original outline. You can also duplicate a Mesh group in the Timeline panel to achieve the same result, which is sometimes easier than clicking within the original outline without clicking the mesh to create a pin.