Incompletely boned...

macweenie · Post by **macweenie** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 11:27 pm

Hello all,

It will come as no surprise that I am new to Moho (pause for jeering to subside 2, 3, 4...) but not to animation in general. My question is about boning a character PROPERLY.

I am currently working on a project with some singing fetuses which were all originally created in Photoshop and saved as .png files for the transparency. Each fetus is currently comprised of layers saved in a group named for example "guitarist". So far I think this much of my arrangement is correct, but the problem (I think) is that instead of one skeleton controlling multiple layers I have a bone layer for the front arm, the body, and the fret hand (in the case of the guitarist).

Now when I manipulate the bones in the body for a rocking/head thrashing motion the arm does not move with the body. I can only imagine that I need to have ONE bone layer attached to multiple layers. Is this possible? If it is can anyone direct me to a good tutorial? If this is not the case can anyone please clue me in on the correct technique I would need to use - unless the technique is that each layer will need to be moved individually to match up as close as possible.

Anyhow, thanks for listening and I hope this makes enough sense that an answer can be offered.

mwtoons · Post by **mwtoons** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 3:00 am

You can lock layers to a bone so that a layer follows the bone. I have an animation with eyes on a switch layer seperate from my layer with body parts, so I locked the eyes switch layer to my "head" bone so the eyes move with the head. Look at the bone tools, there is a "bind layer" tool. Select the layer then the bone using the bind bone tool. This might solve your problem, if I understand you correctly.

...on a side note...your animation sounds pretty twisted(ie. .....singing fetuses ......) ....no offence....

macweenie · Post by **macweenie** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:10 am

That sounds so plausible it just might work!

I will have to try that out immediately...

Hmmmm, didn't work, at least as I understood it.

The above image (if it shows up) shows both the Layers and Main work area window. What I want to do is bind the ArmFore.png layer which is under the ForeArmBones layer to the selected bone in the spine under the BodyBones layer. When I select the ArmFore.png layer, click on the "bind layer" tool, and then select the BodyBones layer and click on the "spine" bone the arm does not move with the spine as I had expected. Am I doing something wrong?

Okay, dumb question. OBVIOUSLY I am doing something wrong but can you maybe tell me what it is? Thanks mwtoons - sorry if the animation causes any offence.

AcouSvnt · Post by **AcouSvnt** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:23 am

To bind anything to any bone, it has to be in that bone layer. Most likely your best bet is to have a single bone layer for the whole character, containing all the bones you need. Then make sure the bones have the right parent child (no pun intended) relationship.

Edit: are you using the bones to warp the images? If so, I believe instead of a group layer you will want a bone layer at the top level ... not 100% sure, but I think you can then have bone layers within bone layers. So the higher level bone layer will be used to manipulate the whole picture, whereas the bone layers within it will only contain/warp their individual parts.

Edit 2: try dragging the hand bone layer into the forearm bone layer, and then dragging the forearm bone layer into the body bone layer, so that they form a hierarchy. If I'm understanding correctly what you're trying to do, this should get you on the right track.

macweenie · Post by **macweenie** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:47 am

AcouSvnt,

That did it! Or at least it did it as far as I know because with that big tangle of bones I am not sure how it will animate. So far so good though - Thanks.

macweenie · Post by **macweenie** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 5:01 am

Aaaargh! I have to walk away from this before I go postal! Now either every bone affects every graphic on every layer (even with bound layers) OR the layer moves around as one solid graphic and is unaffected by the bones at all...well except to spin it around like a pinwheel.

It's getting dark man... so dark, and cold...

Edit: Didn't notice your edits so I will try those later - I think I'm done for the night.

AcouSvnt · Post by **AcouSvnt** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 7:03 am

Yeah, I should have waited until I fully formulated my answer before submitting a response. When you said "that did it" I was thinking "uhhh, I hope he means the second and third thing I typed", because not much time had elapsed since I'd added them.

But hey, you don't learn anything by doing everything right all the time.

JohnO · Post by **JohnO** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 1:10 pm

I'm new to Moho and still learning, and also may not fully understand what you're trying to achieve - so pardon my ignorance if what follows is drivel...

As I understand it you want the forearm to be bound to the spine...?

Wouldn't the correct procedure be to make the whole skeleton on the topmost layer with all of the various vector layers inside it? If the fore upper arm bone is made a child of the bone shown selected in your pic it ought to follow any thrashing actions of the spine.

'Tutorial 3.4 - Character Setup' in the Moho help files explains this much better than I can.

AcouSvnt · Post by **AcouSvnt** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:05 pm

JohnO: that's what I initially thought because I wasn't reading carefully enough - his character is made of image layers, not vector layers.

macweenie · Post by **macweenie** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:23 pm

Sorry for the delay...work and all that. Anyhoo, yeah, my character IS a sequence of .png bitmap layers as opposed to vector images. I tried to convert the bitmap images to vector through Flash and a few freeware/shareware programs but they all came out HUGE. Way too many control points and ultimately an unsatisfactory image also.

Moving forward I want to export as Flash so will create my characters/elements as vector images but for now I have what I have. When I get home I intend on trying the two edits AcouSvnt mentioned but if I must I will shift the arm, guitar, and hand layers manualy to get the desired results. Not a big deal, I just wanted to actually learn how to do it right from the beginning. Not like I usually learn it, after I'm done.

AcouSvnt · Post by **AcouSvnt** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:42 pm

Just be aware moho won't export image warping (among other things) to Flash.

Edit (my god I'm getting bad with this!): oh, I see that you already understand that. Don't mind me.

macweenie · Post by **macweenie** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:46 pm

Sadly I found that out before I even posted this. Eh, so I post it as a .mov or .avi file, as long as it looks good it matters very little to me. Sorry to anyone who still uses dial-up I don't mean to exclude you I just have no choice right now.

nobudget · Post by **nobudget** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:09 am

Hello Macweenie,

I'm sorry if your question has already been answered since I kinda lost track after your desire to "bone your character" and then proceeded to talk about a fetus...with a guitar. And the word "weenie" is in your name. That's just too silly to be a coincedence...

Anyway, maybe chapter 3.4 of the Moho manual will explain what you are trying to achieve.

Btw, I like the artwork.

Good luck,

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com

macweenie · Post by **macweenie** » Wed Dec 22, 2004 4:02 am

Sorry I haven't had time to post (or even the desire to turn on my PC once I got home from work) but I think my job is trying to kill me mere days before X-Mas.

AcouSvnt: I tried the hierarchy idea and it does work... for the most part. For this animation I think I may just have to move each arm layer at the keyframes because of some unwanted deformation and seperation between the fret hand and the back arm. Outstanding to know going forward but might not work this time around. Thanks for all your ideas and help.

nobudget: My moniker stems from friends who have mocked my Macintosh ownership throughout the years referring to me as a weenie, a badge I wear proudly. Even though I now work about 60% on a PC the name has stuck. The singing fetuses and the subject line regarding character boning just reveals my inability to be politically correct and love for the vulgar. My motto has for years been that if I am not offending someone with my art then I am not doing it right.

AcouSvnt · Post by **AcouSvnt** » Wed Dec 22, 2004 4:33 am

I was going to mention the discrepancy between you being a mac weenie and having Win XP in your screenshot, but by that time I'd already typed too much garbage.