How to composite Moho animation on top of other video

Answers to the most commonly asked Moho questions.

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Lost Marble
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How to composite Moho animation on top of other video

Post by Lost Marble »

You can quite easily composite Moho animations on top of other video using programs like After Effects or Final Cut Pro. To do this, you need to export your animation with an alpha channel. When exporting a movie file, Moho always computes the alpha channel - the trick it to choose an output format that supports alpha.

If you're exporting to QuickTime, use any codec that offers "Millions of Colors+" in the color depth option. The "+" is QuickTime's shorthand notation for an alpha channel. The Animation codec and the PNG codec are two that support alpha. If you choose "Millions of Colors+", the alpha channel will be included automatically.

If you're exporting to AVI, things are a little more difficult. None of the default AVI codecs support alpha, but there are third-party ones that do. Huffyuv is a free codec for Windows that supports alpha. Once you turn on the alpha option for Huffyuv, Moho will automatically insert an alpha channel into any exported movies.

If you're exporting a series of still images, then the PNG and Targa formats both include an alpha channel as well.

Finally, you might be interested in the "Do not premultiply alpha channel" option in Moho's Export Animation dialog. Depending on the capabilities of the video editing program you plan to do compositing in, you may want to turn on this option. The exported movie will look strange if you play it back on its own, but there's more data available in the file to do a higher quality composite.
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