So if I want to utilize the hand bones feature in CTA4 for my custom character, do I have to "cut up" my character's hand in Affinity Designer kind of like you do with all the other body parts? In other words, have a separate pixel layer for each finger, thumb, palm? Anything else?

Have any tutorials on custom hand creation been published yet?

Has anyone done this yet? Any tips?

I believe you have to use the template from Actor Template>Character>G3>6_G3 Bone Hand> (Choose the Human Bone Structure).
Use the Bone Structure to replace the old ones.
Also, you have to do the modification to the hand to fit the bones.
Hopefully, this will help.
Thanks.


YouTube Tutorials Here

I've just started playing with this feature, but am happy to pass along what I've basically done so far with customizing the bone hands provided! Put your custom character (with "normal" hands - these can even be the dummy hands) into Composer Mode and highlight the character. Click "body",  "G3", "hands", "Bone hand", "G3 360" and choose double-click the hands you want to use (this takes a minute to apply to your character so don't freak out when it doesn't happen right away :)).


Adjust the hands to fit your character with "Edit Pose"


Now you can do one of two things. If you have your custom hand sprites already designed, you can apply each sprite individually in the usual way:


OR (if you don't have the parts pre-made) you can send the individual bits to your external editor (I use GIMP) and play with them there to suit your character.



Either way, you can adjust everything as needed. I've even made three-fingered hands this way by manipulating the bones and pose.
And again, these are just some basic things I've found when playing around with the hands that hopefully you can use...maybe someone with more experience with them will jump in and add more.

Thanks for the update on what you have found so far.
The more "cartoony' 3 fingered hand that you have replicated sounds very interesting.
Does this then work with the Leap Motion controller?
Cheers
Shanty

This is what my three-fingered hands (plus thumb) look like:


The included hand poses work great with them (when you open the 2D Motion Key Editor there's a little hand which you click to get to the poses) - and the software fills in the keyframes between them so you get a nice transition from one pose to the next, unlike the sudden change with sprites.  You can also animate as usual with the Motion Key Editor.
I bought a leap motion controller on eBay that should get here next week and will report on that once I've played with it a bit.

Thanks for the replies. So if you go and replace the sprites in Sprite Editor, do you need an upward and downward facing hand and palm?

Wow. Just got it all figured out. I replaced the hands with the bone hands from Content Manager as described above. I replaced the sprites in both hands (and chose empty for the unneeded ones) and then launched the character in PSD editor to adjust the size and position of the individual hand and finger parts. Then I moved the hand bones (the circles with a plus) into correct position along the fingers, etc. Exported the character as a PSD, and brought him into CTA4. It works great! This feature is a game-changer! Quick, easy hand motions in 2D Motion Key Editor. Can't wait to start playing around with it. Thanks again everyone!