Moho Forum

Here is my first true vector test in Anime Studio. I have never really experienced working in vector before and I now feel I have a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of vector animation and Moho.

http://www.studioartfx.com/video/firsttest.mov

For those willing to dare trying to see it in HD at 14 MB try this:

http://www.studioartfx.com/video/firsttest_HD.mov

I can see the attraction of anime studio, and I can especially see where it can be advantageous for the lone artist or small team doing series work. There are certainly things I would not try to do in AS just as there are things I would prefer to do in AS. I think an artist attempting a series would certainly want to design that series for the strengths of AS in advance. The greatest being in the creation of the most versatile rigs.

Would I want to attempt a feature in AS? It certainly is possible if one knows what they are getting into. It wouldn't be the same feature I would do in another package or in 3D cel shading. Still, I can see it. It's also not something that I would expect to do quick, which is why I see the greatest potential being in planned series work, at least speaking for my style of drawing or characters.

I will say this. I love vector! I can't wait to do a lot more!

Eeeehhh!
No bones layers? No switch layers? Only points movement?

Yeeeaaah! You can say you love vector layer!

Wow!!

Awesome!!

Wow!!! this is looking sooo good, and you've made it with only point motion? It must be a huge work, how long time did it take to accomplish?
Great work!!

Looks great!

Good first attempt. Next time, if I were you, I would also include some secondary animation (hair and clothes moving). IMO that is easiest done with bone animation.

Well done!

Nice work.

Wow.

If that is your first scene in AS, and still without bones, I'd say you found your perfect tool. If anime TV series were of this quality no one would speak so badly about it ...

Geeeeez...

That was incredible.

Please, post some more work.

Holy crud. That was awesome.

Thanks for all the kind comments! I really appreciate it.

I did use a basic bone setup for the overall body, but I see now I totally missed out on the power of what bones can offer.

Rasheed - After I did this I had an overwhelming flow of ideas on using bones, and you are right. Bones for hair and clothes motion would be ideal and easy to use and reuse. I am even thinking of an idea of nested bone layers (you can do that right?) to control what would be point morphs, so even a simple system could be setup to turn the head in every direction.

Slowtiger - I would be very happy if I could get up to speed in AS to make some anime at this quality. I agree that a showing of quality would bump up the perceptuion of the artform.

It's tough to say how long this took. I am learning so there was a lot of experimentationa dn trying things and throwing them away. The bulk of this was done yesterday afternoon over maybe 2-3 hours, but a lot of learning the tools and trial went before that.

So far I see great potential is AS and maybe have finally found the road to make what I really want to make.

Fabulous!

Can you speak a bit in detail on how you accomplished the smooth head movement?

Hi,

Great work!

Looks good and the model holds very well through out the motion.

One of the things I find great with AS is that a pose to pose animation works very well. This works great with charcater animation and is very dynamic and fluid.

You are using the same kind of set up we use, the bones being the set up/pose and the points providing the main animation work.

Making a feature is not adifficult task with the software as long as you prep right and the fantastic thing is it is possible with a very small team. We just finished work on a feature and have started work on a second a few weeks back.

Keep up the good work, looks great and fluid. I'll look forward to seeing more!

GK

Sweet, baby jeebus!! That's some seriously awesome work. Can't wait to see more.

- g

Aside from solid drawing, I especially like the small details.

- The facial features are reduced. That's clever, things which aren't drawn can't get animated lousily.
- Facial features (eyes, nose, mouth) move on a different layer than the overall face shape. Clever, because one can do small head turns with this quite effectively. The same is true for the hair which is divided into two parts.
- The seams of the sweater on the shoulders move! Great trick because this indicates the direction the torso is leaning to.

I really like to see more animation which spends that much attention to detail.