New to MOHO, 4 questions

[tonym]

I downloaded the demo and did the first 13 tutorials, and I just have to say, WOW, this program is incredible. If the answer to question #1 is encouraging, I'll happily buy this program.

Question #1: What is the quality of a MOHO animation when played on a tv?

I want to create good-quality animations that I can burn onto a dvd and watch on my tv. I'm hoping a MOHO cartoon would look totally appropriate on a tv, but I'm afraid a MOHO cartoon might look heavily pixilated and suffer from distracting aliasing or some other flaw. I'm new to animation, so I might be worrying for nothing, but I thought I better ask.

Question #2: I notice that when I animate a layer in the tutorials, it starts moving, then picks-up speed, then slows down slightly right at the end. Is there a way to keep the speed constant? I wouldn't want an animated baseball flying through the air to slow down right before someone catches it, for example. You don't need to explain how to keep the speed constant; I just want to be sure that there is a way to do it.

Question # 3: Could someone explain why "translate" makes sense as a word in "translate layer" and "translate points." It seems like a strange word to use.

Question #3: Is there a story behind the word "MOHO"?

Thanks!
Tony M

[hemorrhoid]

The quality is extremely good. As good as you could possibly want it to be.

[kdiddy13]

Question #1: What is the quality of a MOHO animation when played on a tv?

Should be fantastic. It will render out clean anti-aliased edges at 720x540 (NTSC square, before converting to 720x480 rectangular pixels). It can even handle film res if you want.

Question #2: I notice that when I animate a layer in the tutorials, it starts moving, then picks-up speed, then slows down slightly right at the end. Is there a way to keep the speed constant? I wouldn't want an animated baseball flying through the air to slow down right before someone catches it, for example. You don't need to explain how to keep the speed constant; I just want to be sure that there is a way to do it.

Yup. Check out this page from the manual. It should answer all your keyframe questions.

http://www.lostmarble.com/moho/manual/i ... ation.html

Question # 3: Could someone explain why "translate" makes sense as a word in "translate layer" and "translate points." It seems like a strange word to use.

It's kind of an standard term in animation apps. For example, Maya, and I think After Effects use it amongst others. Translate, rotate, and scale are the holy trinity, if you will, of object manipulation. I'm sure there's a more technical reason for this, other than, "That's just how it is." But that's all I got.

Question #3: Is there a story behind the word "MOHO"?

http://www.bedope.com/int/int09mc.html

It's a little old, but it covers the name thing, and gives some interesting insight to the creative mind behind Moho, as well.

Lost Marble, I'd love to hear an update to this interview. How has your view of this software changed over the years? Are you happy with the direction it and its community are going? Where would you like to see it going from here?

And by the way, tonym, welcome to the community!

[Lost Marble]

1. Yes, Moho can definitely do TV-quality output. ("TV quality" is actually quite low. Moho can also be used for 35mm film production.) The default resolution in Moho is kind of low (320x240), but you can raise it up all the way to 4096x4096.

2. Yes, it's possible to keep the speed constant between keyframes. To do that, you need to set the interpolation mode between those keys to "linear".

3. "Translate" in this sense comes from definition #4 below. It's a commonly used word in computer graphics.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=translate&r=67

4. Not much of one. We wanted a name that would be unique and stand out a bit. "Moho" came from just randomly flipping through a dictionary, looking for unique words. The funny thing is, a company called Lost Toys later released a video game called Moho.

[tonym]

Thanks for the replies! You folks were very helpful...and quick! And thanks for the semi-obscure definition of translate, and for the link to that interview. AND for this sentence, "Translate, rotate, and scale are the holy trinity, if you will, of object manipulation" (kdiddy13). I had no idea about that, and am happy to know it.

I just purchased MOHO! Thank goodness Moho was priced at $99 or I doubt I would've demoed it like I did, and I would've missed-out on its awesomeness. Man, I am so jazzed.

Bye. I'm off to "translate" another tutorial into my brain.



Tony

[myles]

Hello Tony,

Expanding on the previous replies:

I think "translate" was stolen from the maths/physics arena, and is used because "move" and "movement" are such imprecise terms - rotation and shearing are also "movement".

If the definition of "translate" is too obscure, perhaps the more precise but more technical definition of "translation" would be better: http://dictionary.reference.com/search? ... ation&r=67
(the physics definition) - "Motion of a body in which every point of the body moves parallel to and the same distance as every other point of the body"

To set the interpolation between one key and the next, select the keyframe marker on the timeline (it will turn red), right-click (or Mac equivalent) and select "Linear" (or one of the other options) from the pop-up list that appears.

Regards, Myles.

[jorgy]

It will render out clean anti-aliased edges at 720x540 (NTSC square, before converting to 720x480 rectangular pixels). It can even handle film res if you want.

I have been setting up my canvas size to be 720x480. Should I be setting it to 720x540 instead? I'm trying to think ahead, so I can go to TV or DVD easily down the road.

[kdiddy13]

Sorry for the confusion. For most purposes, 720x480 is perfectly adequate and no noticable problems will ever crop up. But technically, this is as I understand it:

720x480 is the final resolution for digital NTSC video (miniDV and DVD use this). However, it is a rectangular pixel format. You'll see 0.9 used to describe the ratio of height to width in programs like Premiere and After Effects, amongst others. Moho, as far as I know, doesn't render out rectangular pixels. Those pixels end up getting stretched to fit the aspect ratio when converted to DV. This can cause some stretching in images. You'll probably only notice it if you're using perfect squares or circles. Otherwise, it's almost imperceptable, especially so if the end viewer never knew what it was supposed to look like in the first place.

However, if having an exact replica of your footage is necessary (say you're animating a cartoon addition on to a live footage building and will be compositing in a program other than Moho) you'll need to take into account the pixel aspect ratio. 720x480 at .9 rectangular converted to square pixels comes out to 720x540. So, since I typically run everything through After Effects anyway, and I'm a bit on the picky side as far as my images go, I'll render out at 720x540 square. A program like After Effects will take that footage, as the very last step in my process, can apply a scale funciton to it squeezing it to fit a 720x480, .9 DV comp and be sure that squares and circles will hold up when they're put out to the Television. They'll look squished in the comp, but when you put it out through a DV source like firewire digital camera or DVD, voila, they're back to normal.

Trish Meyer's Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects has a pretty good explanation of DV and the pixel aspect ratio if you're dying to know more. It's been split into 2 volumes since I last bought a copy, so I'm not sure which volume it's in now.

[Lost Marble]

That's right, Moho only does square pixels. I think the best way to work is to stick with square pixels while in Moho, and not try to think too much about what will happen later. So, a resolution of 720x540 with square pixels would be a 4:3 aspect ratio, perfect for standard TV.

Then, when you pull that into your video editor that's doing 720x480 rectangular pixels, the video editor should know what's going on and automatically squash your Moho footage down to a rectangular pixel format.

[tonym]

Translate..."Motion of a body in which every point of the body moves parallel to and the same distance as every other point of the body"

Ah. There we go. Now I definitely get it.


Thanks,
Tony