Switch Layers with Bones

[Guest]

I am having probs geting bones to controll vector art in a switch layer. An example would be that a character has a variety of arms; bend down, bend up, palms out, palms flat, ect. When I put them into the switch layer the arm bone loses the controll that it had. Trying the other way, to create a bone layer in the switch layer, caused nothing but trouble.
I am very new to this program so I think it must be somthing easy that I'm overlooking, it also says in the tutorial: Layer Type : Switch,
"switch layers can be set up with skeletons, just like bone layers. More accurately, a switch layer is a bone layer, just a specialized one. If you add bones to a switch layer, you can use them..."
Any help would be appreciated. Once this program frees me from Flash, I will rule the world...with my cartoons

thanks,
Eric Max Power

[7feet]

Okay, I'll give a shot at this, hope I'm hearing you right.

Well, I just erased a bunch because I was wandering all over the place. Anyway, I would say the first rule is never rig anything with bones until it's where you want it to be. I have limited experience using the bones in switch layers, and am not really going to depend on things working correctly when you try to retrofit things. That said, I tried a quick experiment. First, setting up 2 separate bone layers as children on a switch layer, using your bend up/down example. Each bone layer woked fine individually on frame zero. Okay. Then I tried to set up a little animation, and I wasn't seeing at all what I expected. And the reason is that, especially with switch layers, what you see is very dependant on the layer you currently have selected. In this particular case, if you have one of the individual bone or vector sublayers selected. things are going to look wierd. If I have the switch layer selected, viola! I see what I was expecting. The same goes for using vectors directly controlled by the bones in switch layers.

If you have a problem with a vector layer you've moved from on kin of bone layer to another, you might try selecting the vector layer, go to Bone>Release Layer and then right back to Bone>Flexi-Bind Layer. It might still be connected to bones that no longer have jurisdiction over the layer, and are blocking the proper bones from acting on it.

In general, I leave most of the riggging until I have drawings I like, just to avoid potential problems like this. I also tend to put each of my characters, and often the whole project, inside a Group layer. Then I alway know what layer to have selected if I wan't to see what it's going to look like ('specially with switch layers), and it also leave everything set up if you're going to use masking..

Unless you're doing something really odd, I've found bone sublayers to work fine in switch layers. I've tried a fwe things where I wanted a ridiculous amout of detail, and set up switch layers for the hands, attached to a bone at the end of the arm (select the bone in the master bone layer, select the layer you want to attach to it , and then use the Bind Layer tool), and then set up separate bone layers for each hand shape, but with bones for each finger joint in each of the different hand shapes. Then having the character drum their fingers, pick something up, make a fist, and flip you the bird in one shot is pretty easy. I'd suggest using this to separate the different body parts ,e.g, even if you use a switch layer for the arms, I think its better to use another sub switch layer for the hands., etc. You would have to put each arm in the switch into a group layer, and then put duplicates of the hand switch layer into each group. It may sound complicated, but it's all setup. When it comes down to animating, you only need to think about movement, and have a lot of flexibility.

If I'm being confusing, lemme know and I'll whip up an example file of what I'm talking about.

--Brian

[Barry Baker]

I'd really like to see an example - it sounds very useful, but it's making my head spin trying to picture it.

[7feet]

Sorry, I knew I was gonna get way beyond the basics as soon as I started writing, but whatthehell. Still, if you can pick out the few really pertinent sentences, the basics are there. I'll try to post as aexample as soon as I can. A lot of the stuff I've seen done in Moho is pretty cartoony, which I like but ain't my style. I've been doing a lot of experimenting to see how hard I can slam the program up against the wall towards making it do what I want. Beyond the massive needs for shading, (and sad fact I'm not nearly as good an illustrator), something that gets towards an old EC comic, with a little old John Byrne era Xmen, and the overwhelming presence of my own, uh, style, is what I'm shooting for. Not really comic book, but fairly representational. It's the bones that make it work. In traditional animation, I wouldn't even be thinking about it... Most other software, not much more. Welll, anyway, back to the salt mines and I'll see if I can whip out something useful tonight (E.S.T)

----Brian

[Lost Marble]

Eric, it sounds like you set up your character's arms like this:

Code: Select all

Bone layer
   Switch layer
      Arm1
      Arm2
      Arm3
      Arm4

Bone layers can only control the layers directly inside them. So, the bones have no influence over the Arm layers in this case. Try setting it up like this instead:

Code: Select all

Switch layer
   Arm1
   Arm2
   Arm3
   Arm4

Then, use the bone tools to add the bones in the switch layer - you don't need a separate bone layer in this case. Switch laters are bone layers, and if they have bones they can control the arms in the example above.

[Guest]

Thanks much 7feet and LostMarble forum mod, I appreciate the info and hopefully I will get my charecters to work properly today.

This program is great though, I have to say it makes Flash seem obsolete to me. After one week on Moho I can do things that 6 months on Flash never could do.

So, Props to Lost Marble for making such a bad ass program that is still accessable to an amature animator like me. I am working hard on my first Moho project so that I can hopefully be involved in the contest.

Thanks again to everyone,
Eric aka Max Power aka Ho-Ju...aka Guest

[Barry Baker]

Now I am exploring this feature of Switch layers, but can I select region binding as is possible with regular bone layers? It doesn't seem to have that tab in the properties.

[Lost Marble]

Oops - you're right, we'll have to add that tab for Switch layers as well.

In the meantime, if you're comfortable working with Moho files in a text editor, look for a line like this:

binding_mode 1

and change it to:

binding_mode 2

Make sure that you're only doing this for the switch layer in question, and that will set it to region binding.