more and even more switch layers!

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ZeHa

more and even more switch layers!

Post by ZeHa »

Hello!

I think I really get used to Moho and my results are getting better, but I still got a little problem:

I want to do a cartoon, and the characters should have different faces. I use switch layers for different mouth shapes, but all of them are kind of a "happy" mouth shape. But now imagine that my character should get angry from one moment to the other.

Of course it's no problem to move eyebrows or something, but the problem is the mouth: now I'd need an "angry" mouth shape, but he shall still be able to talk.

I control the mouth opening and closing via a .wav soundfile. But this is only possible to one "mouth look". So is there an easy way to switch also between different "mouth looks", without exchanging the whole character?

I'd be very glad if someone could help me!
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Hiddicop
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Post by Hiddicop »

Well... If I've understood your problem correctly the solution is to have switchlayers within a switch layer. Lets say you have a switch-layer for all mouths. But when you want to switch "mode" of the mouth you can have severel swichlayers within the mouth-switch-layer. In that way you can switch between a angry mouth speeking and a happy mouth speeking.

I'm not sure though how it would work with interpolation...
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Lost Marble
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Post by Lost Marble »

You can also add bones to a switch layer, and then use the bones to bend the mouth into a smile or a frown. It won't totally change the shape of the mouth, but it may work in some situations.
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AcouSvnt
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Post by AcouSvnt »

You could also double or triple the number of layers in your switch layer, and name them in a consistent way, i.e. the first part of the name is the phoneme and the next part is the mood; it would then be easy to write a simple script (you wouldn't even need moho scripting for this, it could be done in anyone's language of choice) to merge two switch data files into one.
-Keith
ZeHa

Post by ZeHa »

Okay, if I did it like Hiddicop said, the problem would be that I don't know how to switch the layers manually.

I only use the wav-files to control the mouth opening, but I never found a way to manually set a keypoint in the timeline where I can define which Layer should be switched to.

Yesterday I thought of just building some different switch layers and then making all of them visible except of the one I want to be used at that time. But I didn't have the time to test it so far, so I even don't know if it's possible to hide layers temporarily. If it won't work, I think I'd have to move those layers out of the screen (e.g. via bone resizing) and just fetch them if I need them.

I think this evening I'll give it a try...
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7feet
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Post by 7feet »

2 ways. Well, 3.

1. Go to the frame where you want the new mouthshape to appear. Right click on the switch layer (or it's equivalent if you're on a 1 button Mac) and a list of the sub-layers in the switch layer will pop up. Click on one, and it will be both visible and a new keyframe will be created.

2. Use the Switch tool. It's the next to last button in the "Layer" section of the Tools window. This puts a dropdown list of the available sublayers at the top of the main window. The rest is the same.

3. Make a master switch layer, and then put your separate angry and happy mouth switch layers inside of it. Feed both sub-switch layers the same audio file as usual, and use the methods above on the master switch layer to toggle back and forth between the two. If you are used to the audio triggered switching, you hardly need to change a thing.

--Brian
ZeHa

Post by ZeHa »

Thank you very much! The 3rd way seems to be the best for me :)

If one day my films are finished, I'll post them here ;)
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