Joysticks n’ Sliders Character Animation
Joysticks n’ Sliders is an After Effects plug in created by Mike Overbeck who also created the great Limber tool. Josyticks n’ Sliders is essentially a pose based rigging system - what does that mean? It allows you to set keyframes, centre, left, right, top, and bottom. With those 4 furthest points created you can create a controller that interpolates between those key frames.
Think of a classic arcade game controller, and a dot on your screen. Move the joystick and the dot on the screen moves with the controller. Now imagine this on steroids. A different joystick controller for each pupil on a face. A mouth with the central pose closed lips, but the upper position is a smile and as you move the joystick up the resting position moves to a smile. A joystick for the head, the hair, arms, legs, body…
What about Sliders you ask? Well they’re slightly more complicated than Joysticks, but much more powerful in how you can use them and they offer an unlimited amount of poses you can add to your layer. This allows xxxxxxx xxx xxx