Brush Making and Using Tips

[Toontoonz]

Does anybody have any tips on getting the brush drawing feature to work in Moho?
I make my brush, save it as .PNG file in the Moho brushes folder. So far so good.
Then when I use the brush in Moho it never aligns right, never really looks right...and basically does not work how other vector illustration program brushes work.
So if anyone has any tips on getting the brushes to work in Moho, please post them.
(Yes, I have read and done tutorial 2.5 )

[Rai López]

You must experimenting with all possiblities and then think if you want really work with brushes because, personally, I think that brush in Moho needs some attention by LM part, yes... And I hope that some day this INTERESTING feature works propertly in, for example, SO comon situations like when you moves the camera away (not much away) or decrease the sice of the layers, in both cases I have that see how my brushed lines simply dissapears...

[Toontoonz]

Here is my problem or situation:

In the vector drawing program Acrylic (or Expression) when I make a brush it acts like a brush along the length of the line:

(click to see larger view)

The same with a brush in the vector drawing program Adobe Illustrator:


But with Moho when one makes a brush it is just a design that is repeated at user selected angles and distances along the line - it´s not really a brush, but a pattern repeater.
See below. The little stroke at the bottom left is what the brush looks like when not drawn in a line in Moho.

(click to see larger view)

How does one get a brush in Moho to work like brushes in other vector drawing programs?

[Toontoonz]

Since the Moho brush seems just to repeat the pattern one can make some strange/interesting movies just by moving the points around in the line.
The things seem to grow!!!
Great for making vines or plant-like things look like they are growing I guess, but not really a brush.
Check out my quick "Brushes Growing" movie - 900kb.
"Brushes Growing".mov
Each line was a line made with three points using two Moho brushes. I moved the points to different locations using a 72 frame timeline.

[Toontoonz]

How does one adjust the width of a line?

I draw a line, then I want it thicker. Say from (in the style menu) a line width of from 1 to 5 or 10 or 24 or any other width.
How does one do that?
If one selects the line with the Select Points tool then changes the number in the Style line width column, nothing happens. (Or I can´t get it to happen).

I thought maybe one could use the Select shape tools, but nothing happened there when I changed the number in the Style line width menu.

Yes, I know you can use the Line Width tool to adjust the line width, but there is no way to tell how thick the line width has changed; to 20? 3? 100? - the number in the Style line width menu does not change.

Any tips or suggestions on changing the line width? I must be missing something crucial in the process.

And can one make a line width of a fraction; such as .25, .5, 1.5, etc.???
How?
The smallest line I could make was with a width of 1.

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Edit: One of my colleagues mentioned that maybe the line width in the Styles menu just refers to line around a shape, not a line. Could be.
But then when if I change the number in the Styles line width box and draw a new line, the width changes...I just can´t change it after it has been drawn.

In the Freehand Options menu one can set the width of the line. But then one can´t change the width, by selecting the line and then putting a number in a menu anywhere...or can you?
Also I noticed that even though, using the Freehand drawing tool, the Feehand Options line width are set (say min 1, max 10) if one puts say 20 in the Style menu line width, this overrules the freehand options and the width of the line is what is in the Style menu line .

[Rai López]

Hmm... Posibly you can emulate the first image example in Moho checking Align Brush With The Curve, put Brush Jitte Angle to "0" (or near), adjusting Brush Spacing and checked Minimize Frame-To-Frame Randomness, yes... But you never (I've said NEVER), will get the results showed in your second Adobe Illustrator image... a PITY, isn't?

[Toontoonz]

Hmm... Posibly you can emulate the first image example in Moho checking Align Brush With The Curve, put Brush Jitte Angle to "0" (or near), adjusting Brush Spacing and checked Minimize Frame-To-Frame Randomness, yes... But you never (I've said NEVER), will get the results showed in your second Adobe Illustrator image... a PITY, isn't?

Ramón - I thought that too, and tried it. Align to curve, etc., etc. It does not work. Moho just repeats the pattern over and over on the line. Different spacing, different angle, but just a repeat.

If we could make and use the vector brushes as they are created in the vector illustration programs such as Illustrator and Expression and Acrylic and Freehand and XaraX and...what amazing, arty animations we could all make.

[Rai López]

To change the Line With in the Style window your points must be "Reseted", select your points and go to: Draw --> Reset Line Width menu comand, then make the changes, SELECTING THE SHAPE with Select Shape tool, dont' use the Select Points tool (you must select point only when you want chenge width with the Line Width tool, and remember that working with brushes you must deselect your shape to can preview the changes!

Yes, I know you can use the Line Width tool to adjust the line width, but there is no way to tell how thick the line width has changed; to 20? 3? 100? - the number in the Style line width menu does not change.

I've been trying to modify Line Width tool for add a number box to can control this, but nothing yet... (seemed easy, but I don't know what happen with this tooll),I asked for this in the past too, in the scripting forum, but nothing, yet... (yet). And NOT, you can't use 0.25, 0.5 or 1.5...

The smallest line I could make was with a width of 1.

Jaja ...yes, more thin lines (PLEASE) Feature Recuest

[Rai López]

Ramón - I thought that too, and tried it. Align to curve, etc., etc. It does not work. Moho just repeats the pattern over and over on the line. Different spacing, different angle, but just a repeat.

Yes, I suspected that you'd have tried, and you would see that I wroted emulate in italic (that was not casual) ...and yes (too) I'd be happy if we could make and use the vector brushes as they are created in the other logicall vector illustration programs, but all of us know, or must know, that Moho features are (in general) peculiar (and improveable in many cases), cause of this I put SO much Feature Requests, that is not only bad at all, because with this I want mean that I don't lost the HOPE!

If we could make and use the vector brushes as they are created in the vector illustration programs such as Illustrator and Expression and Acrylic and Freehand and XaraX and...what amazing, arty animations we could all make.

Jaja ...YES!

[Toontoonz]

To change the Line With in the Style window your points must be "Reseted", select your points and go to: Draw --> Reset Line Width menu comand, then make the changes, SELECTING THE SHAPE with Select Shape tool, dont' use the Select Points tool (you must select point only when you want chenge width with the Line Width tool, and remember that working with brushes you must deselect your shape to can preview the changes!

I tried your suggestion but couldn´t get anything accomplised....even if it would work what a chain of steps one has to do just to change the width of a line!

Since you pointed out the Draw menu, I went exploring there.
Interesting that with the "Random Line Width" one can change the width of the line----as long as it has a random, with two different min and max widths.
One can´t select a min and max width with the same number - say min 2 and max 2.
Max number is 64.
Min width is 0, but the line width never goes to 0.
The randomness seems to occur between points on the line - the more points and the bigger the difference in the random min and max and one has one wild, jagged line.
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New problem or situation:
Say you draw a line using the "star" brush.
But then you want to change that line to a different brush. How does one do that? Can one even do that? Once the line is drawn with a particular brush that seems to be the end of that. Anyone with any tips on this brush situation?

[Rai López]

I tried your suggestion but couldn´t get anything accomplised....even if it would work what a chain of steps one has to do just to change the width of a line!

Not the normal steps descrived!!! I'd only tip that steps to be sure that you can do it, cause, for example, if you don't change the "width of your points" you don't need Reset it... The key is know that change the line width with Line Width Tool (the same for Random Line Width) disable the capability of change the line (shape) width in the Style window... And yes, I know about all others line width issues, but well, what can I say that you don't know...

[Toontoonz]

The line width tool does not let one specify what size one wants the line to be, it is just a "seat of the pants" move the mouse or drawing pad pen until it looks kind of right. Try doing that with about 100 different lines and get them all the same width...and then add a new line and see if it matches all the ones you just changed.
Why not just select all lines and then put a number in a window so that all lines are changed exactly the way one wants? (Just like every other vector drawing program.)
I suspect that Moho has some deeper issues in line creation and what really is a moho line that makes this possibility perhaps not possible. (Since moho seems to have a different definition of what a vector drawing is compared to other vector drawing programs. But just guessing on my part; I just draw, I know nothing about the making of a program.)

[Toontoonz]

Tip & Info:
When one uses the Freehand drawing tool and selects in the "freehand options" menu:
Variable line width:
Use Pen pressure.
Then one sets the min and max width. The largest Max width one can draw with is 32. (Put in a larger number and it automatically reverts it to 32.)
One must use a drawing pen and pad to get the max 32 line width.

However, If one switches to the mouse one can put the line width in the Style window up to 64. (Put in a larger number and it automatically reverts to 64.)

[Toontoonz]

I must be doing something wrong with the using of brushes in Moho.

Here is the brush file (Moho supplied):


Here is how it looks when drawing with the brush in Moho:

Click on image for closeup.
Note different shades of grey in brush.

Here is how it renders (640 x 480 pixels in size):

Click on image for closeup.
Everything is a solid black. What happened to the shades of grey? What did I do wrong?
(Also note how the angles of the paint brush strokes changed in the render.)

[Rai López]

Seems like if you'd be using Sketchy effect, are you??