The "floating" or "flowing" Moho look

Have you come up with a good Moho trick? Need help solving an animation problem? Come on in.

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RASH
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Post by RASH »

stephen wrote:How did you convert Moho's output to an animated gif?
Output as PNG, imported each file into Gimp as layer, exported as animated GIF, reduced colors with Gifworks to a minimum.
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cribble
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Post by cribble »

To be honest, i think its all down to key frames and possibly frame rate. I predict that if you work at a lower frame rate, you cut out more frames and make the animation look less fluid. I'm not saying i'm right, i'm saying what i think.
--Scott
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Nichod
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Post by Nichod »

Well, you could always try to animate, plan your movement, put in the nessesary breakdown keys, make use of ease in/out, rest positions and so forth.
Use different interpolation types depending on whats needed.
One great help when planning a movement is to quickly sketch it up with white board pens on your monitor along with motion charts and arcs as a guide and then follow that.
rylleman had the answer in his second message. Bones simplify the process and allow you to quickly create a movement. But you still need to go back and tweak the movement. This isn't a Moho issue. Moho is interpolating the frames, giving an estimate, you have to tell it what bone needs to stop moving here, or which one needs to move faster. I'd recommend take a look at Preston Blair's book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... s&n=507846

And when the site comes back up: http://www.freetoon.com

Brian
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Rasheed
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Post by Rasheed »

IOW Know how to animate before using Moho (or any other animation program) if you want to create good animation.

Good animation cannot be learnt from books, only from years of practice, constant renewal of oneself, and skillful guidance and tutoring from those who have mastered the art. Just as with any other artform.
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Post by Nichod »

Good animation cannot be learnt from books, only from years of practice, constant renewal of oneself, and skillful guidance and tutoring from those who have mastered the art. Just as with any other artform
Very true. And Preston Blair was one of those masters and he was nice enough to share some of his techniques in book form. I'm glad we agree. And practice makes perfect.

Plus I'm sure that you'd agree that a book or movie can be an excellent source of inspiration. This book is one of those sources. I'd also recommend The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 18-3923310

An excellent source of inspiration and a great read on how some of the original masters did it.

Brian
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Rasheed
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Post by Rasheed »

Nichod wrote:excellent source of inspiration
Unfortunately, inspiration is not the same as tutoring. I learnt more from an art painter about painting than I ever could from books. He was very patient with me and gave positive critique, not imposing his own style (unlike some art painters I've tried). Unfortunately, his (unsubsidized) fee was rather high -- but worth every guilder -- and when he raised it once again, I had to quit after only a few years :(. I tried homeschoolarts.com (free art lessons), but that didn't quite work for me. I guess nothing beats a small group of enthousiastic art students guided by a skillful and experienced art teacher.

So for now, I settle for just becoming an animator one day -- unless I somehow mysteriously (but legally) get hold of a lot of cash ;) Character animating just for fun (as I want to do) can be very rewarding, but has no commercial value whatsoever.
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Post by Nichod »

I agree :D hands on experience works better then anything. I remember my time apprenticing at the Disney Institute. Some of the best years of my life. Almost went all the way and to art school fulltime, but unfortunately I decided that I didn't want my hobby to become my job, I enjoyed it less when it was an "ondemand" task. Best thing for all of us to do is practice practice!
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j0llyr0ger
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Post by j0llyr0ger »

I have only recently realized that I want to make cartoons.

I started with Blender and was making good but slow progress until I discovered Moho and started working in 2D.

Having made some animations I was satisfied with in Blender and currently working on a project which will be far from perfect, but with which I think I'll be satisfied as a first 2D work, I agree with all the comments about knowing what you are doing being important and how hard work is the one true way to make your animations the best they can be.

But I think one thing that can make getting motions to look right much easier is the ability to manually tweak the shape of curves in graph mode.

In Blender these curves are set the same way they are in Moho- the value of a parameter is specified discreetly in a frame- a key- and interpolated between keys. Just like in Moho, a number of interpolation curve profiles can be selected, linear, ease-in/ease-out, etc.

However, in Blender when I view the curves in what Moho calls 'graph mode' I can manually modify the curves by grabbing Bezier control handles surrounding each key.

It is my experience that having the ability to tweak the curves in this way makes it a great deal easier and faster to get the effect I want without having to manually set a bunch of keys surrounding a base pose.

If I could do this in Moho, my cartoons would look a lot better.
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