In-betweens remember my mistakes

[tonym]

Hi. Tony here. Here's my problem....

I am trying to make the green-shirted guy from the tutorial walk two steps...and my efforts looks horrible because of the in-betweens.

When I go to position a thigh, a shin, a foot, or any body-part for that matter, I often pick the wrong tool and cause the body-part to bend and rotate in horrible, crazy ways. Only after a lot of trial and error do I finally position the character properly in a new keyframe.

Unfortunately, when I Play the animation, MOHO remembers all those goofy twistings of limbs I did by mistake, and includes them in the in-betweens. This makes the cartoon character start to take a normal step, then his foot spins backwards or does some other weird movement, and then he concludes his step by placing his foot where I intended him to (having arrived at the keyframe).

Is there a way to make MOHO forgot all those trial-and-error rotations, translations and mistakes and just focus on the keyframes like I want it to?

Tony M

[Jack Payback]

I havent been using it that long but I think you can just select the offending bone, then you will see its keyframes.. then click on the "selected bone translation" or "selected bone angle" dot located at what ever frame/frames causing you the problem, then in that window hit the little delete button and that should get rid of it..

Im sure theres probably a more advanced way to do this once ya know the program better but seems to work for me.

-jack

[tonym]

Thanks, Jack Payback. I just tried your idea and I couldn't make it work.

The problem is that there are no dots in the screwy in-betweens to delete. There are dots at keyframe 6, but the screwy movement happens in the Moho-created in-betweens 1 to 5. When I delete the dots at keyframe 6, the whole foot movement disappears.

What I'd like to remove is the crazy spinning of the foot in those in-betweens 1-5.

It's my fault, I admit. When I was positioning the foot in keyframe 6, I spun the foot in a circle before getting it where it needed to go. I do this a lot. Apparently I'm a spaz at animating.

Anyhow, I hope there's a way to make Moho ignore my trial-and-error goofs when making a keyframe.

I hope this problem makes sense. I suppose it's possible that everybody else using Moho adjusts every bone perfectly 95%-100% of the time. But not me.

Tony M

[tonym]

Dang it. I just went ahead and deleted the dang dots and started over.

Maybe I should stop trying to use the rotate bone tool. I swear, whenever I try to use it, it never does what I expect, and the body-part I'm messing oftentimes spins 360 degrees in my confusion.

I probably should lock a foot-bone down more often...

Anyhow, if anybody knows if there is a way to make Moho focus on the keyframes and ignore my trial-and-error efforts at moving bones, please let me know.

Tony M

[jorgy]

I think I am having similar problems. When rotating a bone from, say the 10 deg position to the 270 deg position, sometimes it goes clockwise, as I'm expecting, but sometimes it goes "the long way around". I've even put extra keyframs in to try and "show" moho which way I want it to turn, but it just makes the last gap that much faster.

[Lost Marble]

Moho pays attention to how many times you spin the bone around, and which direction. So, if you spin the bone around in a complete circle before closing in on the final position, then when it plays back the bone will also move in a complete circle.

To undo this, either delete the keyframe and re-position the bone, or rotate the bone in the other direction in order to "un-wrap" the circular movement you added before.

I think way back in an old version of Moho (version 1 maybe?), bones would always take the shortest path from one angle to the next. However, this made it difficult to move a bone in a full circle (or even just over a half circle). That's why, if you rotate a bone 370 degrees, it will then move 370 degrees, not 10 degrees, from its original position.

[myles]

When I was positioning the foot in keyframe 6, I spun the foot in a circle before getting it where it needed to go.

Try setting angle constraints before animating - they stop a joint bending more than, umm, the limit you set. See Tutorial 3.2.

To have more control over a bone when using the rotate tool, grab the bone near the tip (the narrow end) but not right at the tip, and drag it around as if it was a physical object (like the big hand on a huge clock) and the mouse cursor was your hand. Grabbing the bone near the base (blunt end) and dragging the mouse around (or dragging the mouse along the bone and through the blunt end) will usually result in less controlled movements as per your description.

Regards, Myles.

[tonym]

Thanks for the help, Lost Marble and myles. Why Moho does what it does regarding full-circles makes sense now, and I'm glad Moho sports that feature.

Counter-spinning was not something I had thought of; it should address most of my problems until I get more skillful with the bone tools. Thanks for the tip!

I'm a little intimidated by the angle contraints, myles. They seem advanced. But I will give them another look. And THANKS for the tip on where to grab a bone with the rotate tool. I had been grabbing bones in random locations!!

I declare my problem COMPLETELY SOLVED!!!


Tony M

[jorgy]

Moho pays attention to how many times you spin the bone around, and which direction. So, if you spin the bone around in a complete circle before closing in on the final position, then when it plays back the bone will also move in a complete circle.

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense (now)...

[bupaje]

I'm a little intimidated by the angle contraints, myles. They seem advanced...

Coming from another noob -don't be intimidated. When you set the angle constraints you actually see the little 'arms' showing how big the angle is but if you want to play just make a worm shape and bone it; then you can set the different constraints and dynamics and just drag it around until you have the 'now I get it!' moment.

[myles]

I'm a little intimidated by the angle contraints, myles. They seem advanced.

Lost Marble has made them really easy to use (especially if you have a wheel-mouse).

I've put up a really quick guide to angle constraints for you to have a peek at.

However, angle constraints only apply when using the Manipulate Bone tool, rather than the Rotate Bone tool, to move the bones.

Regards, Myles.

[rylleman]

However, angle constraints only apply when using the Manipulate Bone tool, rather than the Rotate Bone tool, to move the bones.

Sure it applies when you're using the rotate bone tool. I never use the manipulate bone tool, only rotate and translate, and I'm using angle constraints all the time.

[tonym]

THANKS, myles! That was kind of you. I'm going to tackle angle constraints right away.


Tony M

[myles]

However, angle constraints only apply when using the Manipulate Bone tool, rather than the Rotate Bone tool, to move the bones.

Sure it applies when you're using the rotate bone tool. I never use the manipulate bone tool, only rotate and translate, and I'm using angle constraints all the time.

Oops, so it does - thanks rylleman!

I was doing a quick manipulate bone test in frame 0 - where bone constraints rotate with the bone, which of course is what you want when setting up a skeleton, as opposed to animating it.

In all other frames (i.e. when animating) angle constraints work very nicely with the rotate tool, as rylleman says.

Regards, Myles - who obviously needs more caffeine.