Moho Forum

Does anyone have a solution to smoothing other these shoulders. As the characters walk the shoulders get kinda funky. I tried to bind points but then the arm wouldn't swing at all, it would just smear when I dragged the bone in either direction. Any solutions/advice would be very much appreciated.

Not sure what's happening here, but one tip I would recommend is using circle guides to locate the shoulders properly within the torso.



You can enhance it further by animating the line profile.



Here's the file, but it's pretty straight forward.

Hope that helps.

Well not sure if this helps you but maybe you should animate the lines using the smartbones so no automatic solutions you should control what happen when both bones rotate

neeters_guy wrote:Not sure what's happening here, but one tip I would recommend is using circle guides to locate the shoulders properly within the torso.



You can enhance it further by animating the line profile.



Here's the file, but it's pretty straight forward.

Hope that helps.

How did you create that little red dot right in the center of the pivot circle...if I set up all the limbs like that it'll definitely help me out a ton. And also, when you say "animating the line profile" I'm guessing you did that with smart bones? Please explain to me how to do that, I haven't been able to figure it out as of yet.

gjordan wrote:Well not sure if this helps you but maybe you should animate the lines using the smartbones so no automatic solutions you should control what happen when both bones rotate

yes...I understand that. the problem is I don't know how to do that, so if either of you would be kind enough to explain the process step-by-step to me, I'm all ears (:

chiefr_suthrland wrote:
How did you create that little red dot right in the center of the pivot circle...

'Joint center' art easy to create, and you can do it in any program.

1. Use a circle tool to make a stroked circle.

2. Copy and paste the circle in place.

3. Without deselecting the copy, scale it down, constrained to center. In Moho, hold down Alt to constrain to center; in other programs, like Photoshop for example, you may also need to hold Shift to scale proportionately. (Be sure you're scaling the selected circle art and not the whole layer.)

4. After scaling down the circle, fill smaller circle. The result is a circle with a dot in its center. (Note: if the stroke is thick enough, you may not need to fill the circle.)

In Moho, I put the 'joint center' drawing in a separate layer from the limb so I can use the Don't Render This Layer option.

This is useful for bitmap art too. We sometimes do this when setting up limbs in Photoshop for bone rigging in Moho or Harmony.

Tip: If you don't want to keep drawing it from scratch, put a copy of the Joint Center art in the Library.

chiefr_suthrland wrote:...And also, when you say "animating the line profile" I'm guessing you did that with smart bones? Please explain to me how to do that, I haven't been able to figure it out as of yet.

Sorry, the correct term is "curve exposure tool" (the button looks like a sine wave). You can find an explanation on how to use it in the Moho help file (p. 86). You don't need a smart bone to use it. Here are two useful threads:

Stroke exposure reversal weirdness

Changing the 'origin' point for Stroke Exposure

Greenlaw's explanation is exactly how I did the pivots.

chiefr_suthrland wrote:

gjordan wrote:Well not sure if this helps you but maybe you should animate the lines using the smartbones so no automatic solutions you should control what happen when both bones rotate

yes...I understand that. the problem is I don't know how to do that, so if either of you would be kind enough to explain the process step-by-step to me, I'm all ears (:

I usually try to rig without smart bones. But if you must, here are the basic steps:
1) While in the bone layer, select the upper arm bone (eg. Arm)
2) Go to menu, Bone->Make Smart Bone Dial... (creates two actions, Arm and Arm 2)
3) Inside each of the actions, move the cursor along the timeline until the shoulder needs help. Adjust the arm or shoulder points.
4) Go back to the main timeline and test movement. Repeat step (3) as needed.

See funksmaname's video here: Rigging and smart bone question

Hope that gives you a starting point.

I don't know if I would make a dial for this situation.
Just name the action the same as the bone and you have a smart bone.
THe dial script does a bunch of other stuff that is more suited to smart 'dials' like off rig facial controls.

neeters_guy wrote:

chiefr_suthrland wrote:

gjordan wrote:Well not sure if this helps you but maybe you should animate the lines using the smartbones so no automatic solutions you should control what happen when both bones rotate

yes...I understand that. the problem is I don't know how to do that, so if either of you would be kind enough to explain the process step-by-step to me, I'm all ears (:

I usually try to rig without smart bones. But if you must, here are the basic steps:
1) While in the bone layer, select the upper arm bone (eg. Arm)
2) Go to menu, Bone->Make Smart Bone Dial... (creates two actions, Arm and Arm 2)
3) Inside each of the actions, move the cursor along the timeline until the shoulder needs help. Adjust the arm or shoulder points.
4) Go back to the main timeline and test movement. Repeat step (3) as needed.

See funksmaname's video here: Rigging and smart bone question

Hope that gives you a starting point.

Okay, so I selected the "right arm" bone layer, but with that bone layer selected the "Make Smart Bone Dial" becomes transparent/unselectable.



So I went to my character's bone layer and used the "Select Bone" tool to select the right arm on my character, then I went to the menu and selected "Make Smart Bone Dial".



I created 2 arm smart bones like you said and this is what I ended up with.



And when I move the smart bones this is what I get...



Can you explain to me where I went wrong. It seems like all I was able to accomplish here was pull the right arm bones out of my characters body...& also, was I supposed to adjust the min/max angles or just leave them on default?

Don't use the dial script for an attached limb, just make an action with the same name as the bone, then edit the action to rotate where you want and change the vector positions to fit.
There are lots of tutorials and a good manual.

chucky wrote:Don't use the dial script for an attached limb, just make an action with the same name as the bone, then edit the action to rotate where you want and change the vector positions to fit.
There are lots of tutorials and a good manual.

Yea. I got it working now. That tutorial Neeters provided did the trick

Greenlaw wrote:

chiefr_suthrland wrote:
How did you create that little red dot right in the center of the pivot circle...

'Joint center' art easy to create, and you can do it in any program.

1. Use a circle tool to make a stroked circle.

2. Copy and paste the circle in place.

3. Without deselecting the copy, scale it down, constrained to center. In Moho, hold down Alt to constrain to center; in other programs, like Photoshop for example, you may also need to hold Shift to scale proportionately. (Be sure you're scaling the selected circle art and not the whole layer.)

4. After scaling down the circle, fill smaller circle. The result is a circle with a dot in its center. (Note: if the stroke is thick enough, you may not need to fill the circle.)

In Moho, I put the 'joint center' drawing in a separate layer from the limb so I can use the Don't Render This Layer option.

This is useful for bitmap art too. We sometimes do this when setting up limbs in Photoshop for bone rigging in Moho or Harmony.

Tip: If you don't want to keep drawing it from scratch, put a copy of the Joint Center art in the Library.

Thx man. I'll keep that in mind...