Adobe offers three different ways to animate characters, and the right training depends on which one fits your work. Adobe Animate is for drawn 2D animation, using frame-by-frame drawing and tweens. Adobe Character Animator is for performance animation, where your webcam and microphone drive a puppet with automatic lip sync. After Effects is for rigging cut-out characters inside motion graphics and video projects. Future Media Concepts (FMC) teaches Animate and After Effects in live courses; for Character Animator, Adobe's own free tutorials are the best place to start. This guide compares the three and lays out a training path for each kind of character work.
None is best in every case. Each one animates characters in a different way:
| App | How you animate | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe Animate | Drawing frames, symbols, tweens, layer parenting | 2D cartoons, game and web characters, interactive content |
| Adobe Character Animator | Performing with webcam and microphone; puppets react in real time | Livestreams, explainers, talking-head characters, fast turnaround |
| Adobe After Effects | Keyframes, parenting, Puppet tools, expressions | Characters inside motion graphics, ads and branded video |
A useful way to choose: ask how the character's performance will be created. If an animator draws or poses every movement, look at Animate. If a person performs it live, look at Character Animator. If the character is one element in a larger motion graphics composition, look at After Effects.
Adobe describes Animate as a tool for interactive animations for games, TV shows and the web, with characters that blink, talk and walk through frame-by-frame animation. It also publishes to many platforms, including HTML5 Canvas, which matters for game, ad and eLearning work.
For character work, the core skills are building characters from symbols, animating with classic and motion tweens, parenting body parts so they move together, and swapping mouth shapes for dialogue. Strong drawing and timing still matter most; the software makes the timing easier to adjust.
FMC's Animate Fundamentals: An Introduction to Animate is a two-day live course ($795 at the time of writing). Its outline covers graphics and text, animating symbols, advanced motion tweening with the Motion Editor, camera moves, shape tweens and masks, interactive navigation, sound and video, and publishing. Lesson 5, Character Animation with Tweens, covers layer parenting, classic tweens, animating deformations and graphic symbols for lip-syncing dialogue. FMC recommends Photoshop Fundamentals: An Introduction to Photoshop, or equivalent experience, before the course.
For a broader comparison of the two main 2D tools, see our earlier post on Adobe Animate vs. After Effects.
Character Animator works differently from traditional animation. Using your webcam and microphone, it tracks your face and body and syncs the puppet's mouth to your voice automatically. Adobe's Puppet Maker lets you customize a character from templates, or you can start from your own artwork in Photoshop or Illustrator.
Adobe offers a free Starter mode: pick a puppet, record audio, add motion and export. The pro features add custom characters, rigging that matches how you move, and livestreaming while you perform.
FMC does not currently run a dedicated Character Animator course. The most direct path is Adobe's free Character Animator tutorials, paired with solid Photoshop or Illustrator skills, because the quality of a Character Animator puppet depends on how cleanly its artwork layers are named and organized. If you plan to build your own puppets, Photoshop Fundamentals: An Introduction to Photoshop or Illustrator Fundamentals: An Introduction to Illustrator is the training that will make the biggest difference.
Many characters in commercial work are not cartoons with their own episodes. They are mascots in an explainer, a hand in a product demo, or a figure that walks across a title sequence. After Effects handles these well because the character can share a composition with type, footage, tracking and effects.
The After Effects skills that matter for character work build across FMC's three core courses:
Prices are from FMC's course pages at the time of writing. The After Effects Master Class bundles all three courses, seven days in total, for $2,506.
Whichever app animates your character, the artwork usually starts somewhere else. A character built for animation needs separate, clearly named layers for each moving part, consistent pivot points and enough overlap at the joints that movement does not reveal gaps.
That is why Photoshop and Illustrator training appears in every path below. It is less about drawing ability and more about preparing art that rigs cleanly. Animators who skip this step often spend more time fixing broken joints than animating.
Adobe offers an Adobe Certified Professional exam for Animate, Multiplatform Animation Using Adobe Animate, and one for After Effects, Visual Effects & Motion Graphics Using Adobe After Effects. There is no Character Animator exam.
For character animators, a portfolio and reel carry the most weight. Certification is most useful when you work in studios, agencies or schools that ask for verified software skills. Paired certifications can also earn specialty credentials: Animate with Dreamweaver counts toward Web Design, and After Effects with Premiere counts toward Video Design.
If you are still deciding whether animation is the right career, our guide on how to become an animator covers the roles and skills involved.
Adobe offers a free Starter mode that lets you choose a puppet, record audio, add motion and export. Custom characters, advanced rigging and livestreaming are part of the pro features.
Animate is stronger for drawn, frame-by-frame and tween-based 2D characters. After Effects is stronger when the character is part of a motion graphics or video composition and needs to share space with type, footage and effects.
Not as a dedicated course. FMC teaches Animate and After Effects in live courses, plus Photoshop and Illustrator for preparing character artwork. Adobe's free tutorials are the best starting point for Character Animator itself.
Keyframing, shape layers and masks come first, then the Puppet tools, parenting and basic expressions. FMC's introduction and intermediate After Effects courses cover these in order.
Drawing helps most in Animate. Character Animator offers templates, and After Effects characters are often built from shapes or supplied artwork, so layer organization and timing can matter as much as drawing skill.
- Tyree Peters
Marketing Manager, FMC