Timeline logic

[elif]

Hello everyone.
I just started using moho.
I used ae before.
I'm having a hard time understanding the timeline logic.
Would not it be more obvious if we could see all the layer and bones names on the timeline?
there are colored bones in view_timeline chanels settings. What do they do?
Can I personalize the timeline?
I would be glad if you can help.

[Lukas]

Hello everyone.
I just started using moho.
I used ae before.
I'm having a hard time understanding the timeline logic.

The timeline is very different from After Effects. In Moho, you need to get used to the layer panel, which is a seperate window. Forget everything you've learned in AE

Would not it be more obvious if we could see all the layer and bones names on the timeline?

The timeline usually only shows the current layer.
In the latest version of Moho you can check multiple layers in the layer panel and see more than one layer at the same time. (the stopwatch checkbox)
Optionally having bone names in the timeline is not possible right now, but it's a good request.

there are colored bones in view_timeline chanels settings. What do they do?

colored bone channels show up if you have a keyframe for a colored bone, the keyframes are also present in the 'all bone' (black) channels and if you've selected the colored bone in the 'selected bone' (red) channel. I recommend checking the manual's Timeline chapter.

Can I personalize the timeline?
I would be glad if you can help.

You probably want to turn off all colored bone channels when you're just starting out. Go to 'View' > 'Timeline channels...' and click the minus option on all those channels. (That's where you can personalize the timeline, it goes for all layers).

Good luck.

[jahnocli]

Go to the manual (it's under Help | Help, for some reason), and work your way through the tutorials. They are in nice easy bite-sized chunks, and should answer most of your questions. Lucas is right, forget about AE -- that can't help you now...

[synthsin75]

that can't help you now...

'Abandon hope all ye who enter here'

[Víctor Paredes]

Here's a nice article comparing AE and Moho Timelines:
http://lesterbanks.com/2016/09/comparin ... -timeline/

[Greenlaw]

The timeline can be overwhelming to new users...there's just too much information there. TBH, a lot of it is unnecessary most of the time. Fortunately, you can hide a lot of that stuff.

For example, I like to color code my bones based on the side of the character they exist and other designations. By default, the timeline makes me deal with this nonsense:



But if I go into View: Timeline Channels... I can hide all those 'unnecessary' colored bones channels.



So now my timeline looks like this, which is a lot easier to take in (well, it is to me, anyway):



Beyond that, you really only need to pay attention to two top categories, the white and red channels:



The white channels are a global representation of the keys in your rig, and the red channels represent the currently selected bones. I usually only animate in the red channels but I use the white channels to help me find the keys. That might seem limiting at first, especially if you're used to only animating keys in the AE timeline but this actually works very well once your start animating with it.

As in AE, using timeline markers really helps keep things clear and comprehensible too.

Also, you can display channels for multiple layers in the timeline. Just select a couple of layers that have animation in the Layers Panel to see them both at the same time. To make any Layer's channels stay active all the time, click the Timeline Visibility box for that layer in the Layers panel. This will make that layer's channels persist until you uncheck the box.

Finally, if you need to retime or edit globally, you can temporarily collapse the timeline by using the Consolidate Layer Channels command. You can access this command from the menu or right-click on the channel icons. This feature collapses all the keys to one channel, which is great for retiming or scaling an animation.

Hope this helps.

[Víctor Paredes]

This topic is interesting. I think I have never mentioned it here, but in my case, I prefer to change the color of the bones several times during the animation process, rather than using fixed colors for the characters' bones.

For instance, if I'm animating a character and at some point I need to isolate the arms animation from the rest of the body, I select the arms and apply a color to them.
That way I their keyframes appear over the colored channel and I can always read and modify when the arms are moving, even if that bones aren't selected.
Once I'm done with the arms or don't need the isolation anymore, I set back the Plain color for them.
Some times I do the same for facial animation. For instance, I set the mouth related bones to green and the eyes/eyebrows bones to blue. Once the facial animation is done, I select the plain color for them.

I prefer to work this way because I find it more flexible and keeps the timeline clean, not always showing me information I don't need at that time.

[Greenlaw]

Oh, that's a good way to work too. Thanks for sharing your workflow and ideas Victor.

It is interesting to compare approaches.

In my case, I like to use the L/R skeleton color coding because we frequently have characters turning around, and since the character's SBD's have corresponding color codes, the bone colors make it easier for me to spot the right SBD controls without 'reversing' my thinking. (I hope that makes sense.) But since I need this color code to be active all the time, it creates too much screen clutter if I don't disable Colored Bones for the timeline.

I also suspect having all these redundant keys in the timeline slows down the program quicker than if we have only a few active channels. (I need test whether that's actually true though. That should be easy enough to find out.)

Anyway, it's great that Moho has all these options, making it flexible for a variety of workflows.

[jahnocli]

that can't help you now...

'Abandon hope all ye who enter here'

Heh heh! Well, I wouldn't draw any parallels with Hell, but it's certainly a commitment to something different...