Switching Group Layers

[JCook]

I've been working on trying to turn a character's head and/or body, like a lot of other people, and have been following the various threads about it with great interest.

I have a head where the various parts (face, eyes, nose, mouth, etc.) are on separate layers inside a Group layer. I've drawn a straight-facing head, a leftward facing head, and a rightward facing head, each as a Group layer. I drew the straight head first, then duplicated the Group and modified the layers to get the left and right heads. I put them into a Switch layer, and can switch between them just fine, but the "Interpolate sub layers" option only works with Vector layers, so I get a sudden switch in poses. Does anyone know of a workaround to switch Groups and get a smoother movement?

OR

Is it possible that Interpolate sub layers may work with a future version of Moho?

thanks,
Jack

[cribble]

Have you put everything into one switch layer? Because you can split them up into different switch layers, and make the switch layers act like folders. So all the eyes can be in 1 switch layer, all the mouth in another, and all the heads in another...

Also make sure they have the same number of points with in vector file that you want to interpolate. So 'Eye1' and 'Eye2' must have the same amount of points in order to interpolate.

Make sure they are not inside each other, as i find the switch layers don't work properly.

[JCook]

That's a great idea, cribble. I hadn't thought of doing it that way. I'll give it a try over the weekend (that's probably the first chance I'll have to do it). It'll be a little more work to animate all that but it might be worth it if it works.

At the moment the Groups layers are switching just fine, but the movement is sudden. It's OK, but not what I want. I did check the number of points in the different copies of the various parts, and they're consistent. The manual states, though, that Switch layer interpolation only works with Vector layers.

I think you're idea will work, though.

thanks,
Jack

[Toontoonz]

I put them into a Switch layer, and can switch between them just fine, but the "Interpolate sub layers" option only works with Vector layers, so I get a sudden switch in poses. Does anyone know of a workaround to switch Groups and get a smoother movement?

If I understand what you are trying to do to get a smoother movement perhaps you would have to draw more in-between drawings. Maybe even do frame-by-frame animation for that portion.

All the "Interpolate sub layers" does is act like a morphing tool - one has to have the same number of points so the program can morph from shape to shape. (For use on a character that is turning left to right this could cause some strange inbetween shapes...plus very difficult to get the exact same number of points unless the drawing is very simple.)
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I think maybe people perhaps confuse Moho the 2D animation program as a 3D animation program.
Perhaps they figure they can do in Moho what a 3D animation program does when it turns a 3D model around in a 3D space. To me Moho uses a 2D (length and width) drawing in a 3D (length,width,depth) space.
Moho could be labeled as a "2 1/2D" program.
(Yes, 3D objects can be imported or created in Moho. But if the drawing/character one is working with is 2D (flat, no depth) one can´t force it to act like a 3D model in a 3D type animation program.)
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My suggestion is do more drawings of inbetween your main poses or think of a different way to go inbetween; such as, front view, zoom to eyes of character, left view. Or other editing cinematic methods.

[7feet]

Yeah, interpolation only happens for Vector layers in the root of the Switch layer. Some point animation on individual layers during the interpolation can help tweak thinks, but it's a little wierd and haven't played with that much. You don't have to make copies, but the points are assigned to each other by the order in which they are drawn, e.g. the 1st point on layer 1 corresponds to the first point on layer 2, etc. so if you do separate drawings, simple is better and you have to be careful. Also, changes in point curvature are not interpolated (maybe could be added? would be better) so it's best to avoid changing then between layer copies or you'll get a jump. In some cases (from a quick test) it just plain ruins the interpolation.