Moho 12

[Greenlaw]

First, make sure you're using the Transform Bone tool.

When you hover over the pin bone, make sure you see the Scale cursor before you try to scale. You don't want to be directly on top of the center, that will only Translate the bone. To see the Scale cursor, hold CTRL and hover slightly off from the center of the Pin bone, then click and drag to scale it.

BTW, if you hold ALT and hover off-center, you will see the Rotate cursor icon instead.

Alternatively, you can Right-Click Drag in the Bone's numerical fields to change values.

Hope this helps.

Edit: Sorry, I guess you're on a Mac. Replace CTRL and ALT with CMD and OPT.

[aongus]

Make sure using the Transform Bone tool.

When you hover over the pin bone, make sure you see the Scale cursor before you try to scale. You don't want to be directly on top of the center, that will only translate the bone. Hold CTRL and hover slightly off from the center of the Pin bone until you see the Scale cursor, then click and drag to scale it.

If you hold ALT and hover off-center, you will see the Rotate widget icon.

Alternatively, you can Right-Click Drag in the Bone's numerical fields to change values.

Hope this helps.

Edit: Sorry, I guess you're on a Mac. Replace CTRL and ALT with CMD and OPT.

I had the same issue -- until I realised I'd been attempting to scale a pin bone on frame zero. Works fine from frame 1 onwards, that being the whole point!

[synthsin75]

Hi,
perhaps I am stupid – I can not scale Pin Bones – that's it.
In the webinar "What is new in Moho 12", I saw, that Pin Bones was scaled (Cmd + l Mt) – but, if I try it, nothing happens.
In the manual (page 91), I found this: "... You can translate and rotate Pin Bones..." – not scale!?
Does anyone know that?

With the transform bone tool, hold ctrl/cmd to scale (says it in the tool status bar).

[mattchee]

With the transform bone tool, hold ctrl/cmd to scale (says it in the tool status bar).

I always forget that the tool status bar is there. It's so helpful!

[Psmith]

Ahhh, yes - but what about the case where one wants to scale the Pin Bone representation, starting from frame zero? - (I find the default Pin Bone size to be too big for the shape I am using them on.

How can I reduce the size of the Pin Bones so that they appear smaller all through the frames of my animation?


Greg Smith

[Greenlaw]

Ahhh, yes - but what about the case where one wants to scale the Pin Bone representation, starting from frame zero? - (I find the default Pin Bone size to be too big for the shape I am using them on.

How can I reduce the size of the Pin Bones so that they appear smaller all through the frames of my animation?

Pin Bones recognize decimal values lower than 1 (and even negative values.) Just move your cursor to the left and it will scale down the affected region, or you can enter smaller values directly in the Scale field, or you can right-click-drag to the left in the Scale field to dial in a smaller value.

As with any vector layer, the deformation quality of the reduced Pin Bone scaling depends on how well you construct your mesh.

Here's a simple example. The tiny red dot is a Pin Bone scaled down to 0.1:



As for animating from frame zero, you wouldn't normally do that in Moho because 0 is the setup frame. In Moho, animation keyframes start at frame 1.

Tip: When I need smooth animation transition from an earlier 'non-rendering' frame, I start my 'rendered' animation at frame 11 or 101. This is useful when you need to preroll dynamics or with to smooth out a path before your first frame. I haven't tested the new realistic motion blur yet but I imagine starting your render frames at a later frame (like 11 or 101,) also allows you to properly motion blur the first rendered frame.

Hope this helps.

[rave]

Hi,
thank you for the tips.
@ Greenlaw: It was the frame "0" – on frame 1, 2, 3 ... it works fine

Thank you

[mattchee]

As for animating from frame zero, you wouldn't normally do that in Moho because 0 is the setup frame. In Moho, animation keyframes start at frame 1.

I see that you can't set the bone scale in frame 0. It's grayed out. But, I think Greg's situation is where the starting shape small, and wants a smaller pin bone representation from the get-go. Scaling down (and there for scaling whatever the pin bone is tied to) on frame 1 wouldn't solve that - - if I understand the problem correctly.

I had an interesting situation where I put new pin bones in on frame 0 where the bones appeared smaller (like your .1 bone) when they are first placed. The scale adjustment is still grayed out (and said "1" - in fact if I moved over to frame 1, it still said 1). Not sure why they go in so small. I created a new bone layer and the pin bones go in at the normal 1 size there, but on the bone layers in my rig, they go in small. I can't figure it out. But it makes me wonder if there is a setting somewhere (that I used accidentally) that achieves what Greg is looking for.

[Psmith]

Greenlaw:

Good pointers - but that was not what I was asking.

I don't like the "Look" of the Pin Bones, because the circle with the cross inside (the Icon of the Pin Bone), by default - is too large. I'm not talking about scaling the effect of the Pin Bone on Vector Layers - or Mesh Layers - but rather how the Pin Bone is represented on screen - starting from the very beginning. The Icon representation of the Pin Bone takes up too much space.

By default, when you first are adding Bones (on frame zero - yes, the setup frame) one click on the screen creates a Pin Bone of a specific Icon Size - the default size. I think that size is too big for my purposes. How do I either set the default Pin Bone Icon Size to a smaller size? Or, how can I scale that Pin Bone Icon down - so that it looks smaller all through all the frames of my animation?

Unlike regular Moho Bones, (which change their Icon representation Size in accordance with how far you drag them out), Pin Bones have no such function.


Greg Smith

[Greenlaw]

Greg,

Sorry, I misunderstood you.

I agree that the display representation of the Pin Bone should be scalable by the user. For me, I really wish vector points could be scalable too. On a high-density screen, I'm finding that points can be too tiny to work with unless I reduce the resolution of the screen. I haven't run into this problem with Pin Bones yet but in the above example, I actually wished the Pin Bone was bigger to make it easier to reduce in size.

I'd like to see these custom sizing options added as 'UI Appearance' settings under Preferences.

[synthsin75]

I'd like to see these custom sizing options added as 'UI Appearance' settings under Preferences.

Agreed.

[Psmith]

Greenlaw & Wes:

Silly me. There is an obvious way to get small Pin Bone Symbols, starting from frame Zero - after all:



This video demonstrates that process as well as giving a general introduction to the Powers of the Pin Bone.


Greg Smith

[synthsin75]

Nice trick, Greg. I'm not sure it will work for all situations, but should for most common ones.

[mattchee]

Okay this makes sense. NOW I see what I did. It was exactly the same thing, but I didn't realize it because I set up my layers first, THEN scaled down, THEN placed my pin bones, which showed up super tiny. And that's why they showed up normally on other layers. I just replicated what I did, and confirmed.

That's a good work around, but it was actually detrimental in my case because I didn't want them that small. This is a really good thing to be aware of.

Thanks!

[mattchee]

Follow up, here is exactly what I did to wind up with the smaller-than-expected pin bones:

Imported PSD that already had a folder structure set up with Moho rigging in mind. Meaning, there was even a group included that was intended to get converted to a bone (in addition to others set up for switch layers, etc).

When I imported the PSD it was huge on the stage (my character could eat the stage*) so I scaled it down so the character was the size that I wanted.

Converted one of the group layers to a bone layer.

NOW when I go to add a pin bone to that bone layer, it has already been scaled, and therefore the new pin bones added to that layer are tiny.

Once I figured that out, I experimented with adding a new bone layer into the folder structure of the character, and on that layer, the pins were added at the size you would expect. It's all relative to the scale of the bone layer you're working on (even if converted AFTER scaling). Therefore the solution to NOT having tiny pin bones is to make sure and not add bone layers until all of my scaling is done. However, the reverse of all this, is the solution to Greg's problem (of needing smaller pin bones).

Thanks again for figuring this out, Greg! I'm certain you have saved me LOTS of frustration!

*(I feel like I'm using the wrong term - I mean the live camera area - I've been doing a bunch of after-hours illustration work and my brain is fried - apologies)