The "floating" or "flowing" Moho look

[Toontoonz]

In another forum topic: http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1602

A comment was made:

I notice the typical "floating" look Moho interpolation often has (I'm guilty too!),

I, too, have noticed that this is a trademark of Moho animation. I first saw it in my animation tests and did not like the look. Other than a jellyfish-type character, most characters parts are not always in motion, flowing from here to there.


Since then I have been experimenting with ways to stop the "Moho Flow" - other than lots and lots and lots of frame-by-frame animation.

The one reason I thought that the Moho floater or flowing look came about is because characters movements are always in motion - from arm down to arm back, to arm up, the arm (or whatever part) is always moving to that next keyframe.
My method (so far) to stop this "Moho flow" was to put some stops in the motion. At certain keyframes along the way (when the arm is all the way to the top or bottom or where ever) I stop the arm for a few frames before resuming its motion.


Anybody have any other tips or techniques to stop the "Moho flow"?

[rylleman]

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.

[Toontoonz]

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.

I plead ignorance. Could you explain that a little more, I don´t understand it. You actually draw lines on your monitor´s screen (the glass part - with white pens?)

[Toontoonz]

And what is a " breakdown keys" as opposed to a regular keyframe?

[rylleman]

I plead ignorance. Could you explain that a little more, I don´t understand it. You actually draw lines on your monitor´s screen (the glass part - with white pens?)

Yup. Not white pens, you know those whiteboards you had in school which you draw on with erasable filt pens?, that kind. They don't stick on your monitor and you can just wipe it off with a piece of cloth.
It takes a couple of seconds to plan a sequence this way and you got a guide available through the whole sequence, easy to edit and when you don't need it anymore just wipe it off.

And what is a " breakdown keys" as opposed to a regular keyframe?

In Moho every little dot is called a keyframe, in animation in general however a keyframe is a whole frame, the whole character, in an important pose for the scene. You start planning your scene by drawing all your keyframes and position those in time. Then you break down this animation by adding frames that are not keyframes but still very important for the motion, breakdown keys.
If we try to apply this on Moho we could say that keyframes are the important frames, say an arm in its lowest postion and in its highest. Then we break down this by adding keys between those, at positions vital to the motion.
Since those are also called keyframes by Moho the answer to your question would be that there are no difference as such between those but that it helps when animating to give different names to keys depending of how important they are.

[Toontoonz]

Instead of drawing with white on your screen, why don´t you just add a layer in Moho and draw your arcs and lines there?

What advantage does drawing on the glass of the monitor have?

[RASH]

I would like to give you this advice: do frame-by-frame where applicable and interpolation where possible.

Typically, when a change in velocity is involved (like the moment when a moving arm changes from moving backwards to moving frontwards, and vice versa) you almost can't escape using frame-by-frame near these positions. However, sometimes there are solutions possible between pure frame-by-frame and pure interpolation.

The following is probably a bit off-topic, but I mention it nevertheless, to explain what I mean.

I found some shortcuts when animating acceleration of simple objects. See this bouncing ball, which bounces up and down in 24 frames. It could be animated in 9 keyframes instead of the full 24 keyframes. If the ball moves horizontally, it modifies things a little, as is shown in this animation. Nevertheless, only 9 keyframes per 24 frames were needed, namely at #1, 7, 9, 13, 15, 17, 19 and 25, for the vertical positions 0.5, 0.25, 0, -0.25 and -0.5.

I used Newton's Laws of Motion here for the calculations, but could have used the Cartoon Laws of Motion just as well, to create my own type of accelerated motion. The principle remains the same, however you want to animate it: don't use more keyframes than is absolutely necessary. It saves time and makes your animations more fluid.

I guess this also applies to arcs in character animation. If you pick your keypositions carefully, you need less guide keyframes* and let Moho do the rest (via interpolation).

*Note: a term I invented to indicate inserted keyframes (as are used in Moho, not in traditional animation) to guide Moho in its interpolation proces. In traditional animations these frames are seen as inbetween frames.

Those are my 2 cents.

[rylleman]

Instead of drawing with white on your screen, why don´t you just add a layer in Moho and draw your arcs and lines there?

What advantage does drawing on the glass of the monitor have?

It's faster and it's easier.

[Toontoonz]

I would like to give you this advice: do frame-by-frame where applicable and interpolation where possible.

That just about sums up how every animation is made.

Instead of the single ball bouncing - which doesn´t really demonstrate the Moho flow - there needs to be multiple parts of a character all moving at once which creates this floating or flowing (Moho flow) motion as it goes from one action to another.

For example, a character with arms, hands, legs, feet, head, hair, body all together moving in a running motion then shift to standing with just one arm waving and then to another movement of head and hair shaking and the other arm moving and one leg kicking?
The character must go from action A to B to C without the floating "Moho flow" look.

[RASH]

I read in the article Computer Animation 101: A Guide for the Computer Illiterate Hand-Animator the following about function curves in 3D animation:

Function curves are one of the most important tools a computer animator has. The term varies from program to program. Motion graph, velocity and channels are just some of the names used. Using function curves you can edit the slow in and slow out between key frames. By default the inbetweens created by animation software give you smooth, mechanical inbetweens that do not change speed. This is why so much computer animation looks weightless and slick, as if the characters are floating in outer space where there is no gravity. To avoid this problem, the animator needs to spend a large amount of time adjusting the exact shape of the function curve between each key frame. This determines the exact amount of movement per inbetween.

Wouldn't it be cool if something simular were possible in Moho (functional control over bones, instead of frame-by-frame control)? This could solve most of the problems with "floating animation".

[JCook]

There are curves in Moho, in the timeline. I haven't used them all that much myself. Don't they work with bones? I would think they would work with most motion.

Jack

[RASH]

No, I just checked. Only 3D layer and camera manipulations (translate, rotate, sheer and so). No bone or shape manipulations, which would make tweaking your animation much easier.

[Toontoonz]

No, I just checked. Only 3D layer and camera manipulations (translate, rotate, sheer and so). No bone or shape manipulations, which would make tweaking your animation much easier.

I don´t think this is correct information.

Try doing Tutorial 5.3 "Animation Curves".
There you will see the bones being adjusted using the Graph Mode of the Timeline.

[RASH]

@Toontoonz: You are right. Give the bones names and you can control them.

Wouldn't this solve the problem of floating animation?

[Toontoonz]

Wouldn't this solve the problem of floating animation?

To some degree - in that if one adjusted every bone so that all parts did not look like they were moving at the same "floating" rate.
But the Moho Flow appears mostly between movements as one "flows" from one movement (standing > sitting > throwing a ball) to the next.
As I stated in my initial message I had my own solution to it, just thought others had experienced the Moho Flow and had figured out a different and better solution.

Try making a multi-appendaged character move from one action to another and see if you experience the Moho Flow.