changing an object's center of rotation?

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sarhound
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Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 12:19 am

changing an object's center of rotation?

Post by sarhound »

I'm animating an object (magic wand) along a path to inscribe a "magic symbol." Is there a way to change the object's center of rotation so I can use the Drawing rotation tool, or do I have to rotate the entire layer to achieve the effect I'm trying to get? (I'm trying to translate my knowledge from Flash over to Moho, but some things aren't equivalent.) There's no Motion Path equivalent that I've found yet in Moho, so this is turning into a manual keyframing thing.

Thanks!
myles
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Post by myles »

You can rotate the layer - set the layer origin to the object's center of rotation to make it easier.

Brian (7feet) made a version of the drawing rotation tool that allows you to set the object's center of rotation - check the scripting forum, in this thread.

Another technique in Moho would be to assign the wand to a bone and animate the bone.
sarhound wrote:There's no Motion Path equivalent that I've found yet in Moho, so this is turning into a manual keyframing thing.
Yes - definitely feature request material.

Regards, Myles.
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7feet
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Post by 7feet »

Yeah, mine was written to work on a specific object, or really any set of points, within a single layer. I was just going to throw in the "reset point origin" bit someone had requested, but I realized that another button would kill some of the basic key combination tips, especially if you are working at a lower resolution. I wish there was some way to tell Moho that I want the upper main window linw to be "two tiered". I really sometimes want to be slap a lot of buttons up there, especially for the folks who aren't working at an extravagant screen resolution like I usually am. These days that would be mostly the laptop folks, but it is only recently that I've had a non-salvaged CRT over 15", so I'm concerned. The interim solution is to make a help button, and right this second I don't feel up to wrestling with the script-to-program interface to consolidate everything. If I was a proper programmer, mebbe that'd be easy. And I haven't been working enough to memorize 'em all, even on my own stuff.

One thing to keep in mind using the tool (as it is), is that you can't press the (<CTRL> <ALT> <SHIFT>) key combo and click on the mouse and expect the point origin to move. You have to move the mouse, however little, to make the script understand what you want it to do. Otherwise, it seems that it will place the rotation origin dead on the nearest point that you clicked. Not what I planned on, but not the worst thing that could ever happen either. When you move the mouse the lil' red origin cross will move where you want.

I've never really used Flash much for animation. Too much work for the effort. But I'm not an expert, and I see it can be done. But I would suggest a combination of point rotation of the object, with some layer translation if necessary, and connecting it all to a bone. Maybe a bone that is connected to the end of the wand, to control the position of the entire layer (after you've connected the sublayer to the wand layer). Then you could control the orientation of the "magic symbol" layer, following the wands skeleton, and still be able to tweak the "magic symbol's" rotation as an object. Gives you the ability to give it some life of its own, aside from how it is being dragged around.

You don't get a path displayed if you are doing point animation, but you can if you are doing layer animation. Given enough keyframes, you can drag the path around as you choose.

--Brian
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