I've read the Moho documentation mate... i'm not totaly in the dark see? Moho is just a new way of working... all of last week i've been using it with some good results but i hit 'snags' of wich i want to fix see? I want perfection.
I drew a guy facing to the right and i rigged him up see? I animated him going to the right and i want him to face left.... now the question is.... here it comes ' there are nodes on the time line everytime you animate a bone see? but when you translate the whole layer there's no node in the time line... only a line in the main workspace wich tells you where the character has been. I want to know if there's a way to mange this translation thing much better that i dont know about.'
The second aspect is that of the fliping layers. If you flip a layer it goes some distance to where the original was (and might i add this is in frame 149 of the animation) so then where was i? yes, when i try to move the fliped layer to the original position my animation gets messed up, why?
I'll upload the Moho file so you know what i mean if you dont get it.
help....
Animr and character rigging techniques, illustrator files...
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
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TheTallGuy
- Posts: 32
- Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:16 pm
- Location: California
Re: maybe you dont get it...
Hmm... There are channels on the timeline for controlling layer translation, rotation, flipping, etc. So perhaps I'm just not following your example. When you say you translate the whole layer, I'm assuming that you mean that you use the layer translation tools, not the normal point translation tools.thedoc wrote:there are nodes on the time line everytime you animate a bone see? but when you translate the whole layer there's no node in the time line... only a line in the main workspace wich tells you where the character has been.
Well, it sounds like there's an issue with the layer origin, since that's the point around which flipping/rotating/scaling happens. But it's hard to tell from your description. You should post your moho file to a website and provide the link here. It may be something obvious that we can easily help you with, or perhaps you're doing something Moho doesn't do easily.thedoc wrote:The second aspect is that of the fliping layers. If you flip a layer it goes some distance to where the original was (and might i add this is in frame 149 of the animation) so then where was i? yes, when i try to move the fliped layer to the original position my animation gets messed up, why?
Each type of layer has it's own types of keyfames, and if you hit the settings button in the timeline, you can choose which ones to display. If you are tranlating a bone layer, the line that displays keyframes for layer translations and rotations is just below the bone keyframes if you have them set to display. I don't remember what the defaults are, but hit that setting button and make sure the checkbox to display layer translation is set. If it already is, you might have to either scroll down in the timeline window or make the timeline window bigger so you can see it all the time.
Layer flipping, as well layer rotations, are done around the Origin. Thats the little pinkish cross made up of 2 arrows pointing upward and to the right. You set it using the Layer Origin tool, which is the first one in the layer tools toolgroup. You need to set the origin so that it is in the middle of your character. If you don't, when you flip the layer the character will be just as far from the origin on the other side as it was on the original side, and that's what you are seeing. Move the origin to where it looks right, and the go back and forth between the Flip and Origin tools until you have it looking the way you wan't.
Any more questions, feel free to ask. Most of the problems that pople have starting out are from not knowing about a basic, underlying working principle of the program, and once you get it lots of things yet plenty easy.
--Brian
Layer flipping, as well layer rotations, are done around the Origin. Thats the little pinkish cross made up of 2 arrows pointing upward and to the right. You set it using the Layer Origin tool, which is the first one in the layer tools toolgroup. You need to set the origin so that it is in the middle of your character. If you don't, when you flip the layer the character will be just as far from the origin on the other side as it was on the original side, and that's what you are seeing. Move the origin to where it looks right, and the go back and forth between the Flip and Origin tools until you have it looking the way you wan't.
Any more questions, feel free to ask. Most of the problems that pople have starting out are from not knowing about a basic, underlying working principle of the program, and once you get it lots of things yet plenty easy.
--Brian
Sounds like 7feet and TheTallGuy have the answer to your flipping offset (ermm, maybe that should be offset flipping ?). In Moho 4.6, it may not be the first tool, as it is in 5.0b4 - in any case, it looks like a "+" symbol.7feet wrote:You set it using the Layer Origin tool, which is the first one in the layer tools toolgroup. You need to set the origin so that it is in the middle of your character.
Oops - except in 4.6 there isn't a settings button (sorry, Brian) - you just have more scrolling to do. How easily the new version 5.0 improvements become natural, eh?7feet wrote:Each type of layer has it's own types of keyfames, and if you hit the settings button in the timeline, you can choose which ones to display.
thedoc - You need to select a layer in the layers window (hierarchy) to see the timeline for that layer. If you flipped the bone layer, you won't see the keyframe marker for the flip unless you once again activate the bone layer. If you flipped a group layer, you won't see the keyframe marker until you activate the same group layer.
To see layer-specific nodes for a bone layer, as Brian (7feet) notes, you may have to scroll the timeline down - there's probably one-half to two-thirds of the timeline not showing on the screen.
This is covered (although the need to scroll down is admittedly just a brief mention) in Tutorial 5: Animation, in the 4.6 docs.
It's not enough to read the docs mate - you actually have to work your way through the tutorials hands-on, see ?
Seriously, it sounds like you're getting there fast - it's a slightly different style of working (some Moho concepts come more from 3D animation than 2D), but it has its rewards.
Good luck!
Regards, Myles.
files
okay here are some of the files that i've been working on so you can see what i mean...
this one http://members.lycos.co.uk/nqobizitha/n ... 0test.moho
Is the main cahracter file which i wanna animate
this one herehttp://members.lycos.co.uk/nqobizitha/n ... 2.MOH.moho
Is the animation where i was testing moton and expression.
One more thing... Myles? are you the one who wrote the Pamela documentation and the tutorial about separate fills so a chatacter can over lap itself? If so you'll see in the abopve files that i tried and could'nt do it... I'm going wrong somewhere are'nt I? where?
this one http://members.lycos.co.uk/nqobizitha/n ... 0test.moho
Is the main cahracter file which i wanna animate
this one herehttp://members.lycos.co.uk/nqobizitha/n ... 2.MOH.moho
Is the animation where i was testing moton and expression.
One more thing... Myles? are you the one who wrote the Pamela documentation and the tutorial about separate fills so a chatacter can over lap itself? If so you'll see in the abopve files that i tried and could'nt do it... I'm going wrong somewhere are'nt I? where?
Sorry Myles, I have been so completely into the Beta that I forget that there are, I'm sure, plenty of people still using 4.6. My bad. I haven't even installed 4.6 on my new machine, so I can't refer to it for specific interface questions. I'll have to correct that.
I also agree about working through the tutorials. Many programs I just ignore them. But Moho is so much its own thing. When I was starting with it, I was often frustrated, but finally running through the tutorials made a huge number of things clear. Highly recommended to check them out.
--Brian
I also agree about working through the tutorials. Many programs I just ignore them. But Moho is so much its own thing. When I was starting with it, I was often frustrated, but finally running through the tutorials made a huge number of things clear. Highly recommended to check them out.
--Brian
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spasmodic_cheese
- Posts: 330
- Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:02 am
Haha. That, my friend, is a little animation I made in Moho. It's based on a still from the last film I did special makeup FX for, "Metamorphosis:The Alien Factor". It was a 7 1/2 foot tall foam latex, fiberglas and pnuematic controlled beastie. Scared the bejeesus out of the lead actress (from New Zealand) who'd never seen a horror flick in her life. It was good fun. The guy who did the designs I built went on to design the bugs in Starship Troopers. There's some more legible bits of it at my site, SevenFeetDesign, along with a few other things I've worked on over the years. 90% of what I used to do has been taken over by 3D computer shite, which is one of the reasons, i guess, I like Moho so much. If I can't always sculpt for a living, cartoons might just work.
Sorry if you were "shocked" it's a wierd bit, but damn if that thing wasn't fun to build originally. I just wish the avatars weren't limited to 6K, it's a much better animation around 10K.
Oh, yeah, I added the backgroung lights and the arcs in Moho. The body and neck are separate images, attached to separate bone layers, actually 2 copies of the same bone layer with either image layer turned off. I made it to use as a bit on my site, don't look near as good in only 7 frames, but whatcha gonna do? Using the bone based tweaking of images is a pretty handy thing.
--Brian
Sorry if you were "shocked" it's a wierd bit, but damn if that thing wasn't fun to build originally. I just wish the avatars weren't limited to 6K, it's a much better animation around 10K.
Oh, yeah, I added the backgroung lights and the arcs in Moho. The body and neck are separate images, attached to separate bone layers, actually 2 copies of the same bone layer with either image layer turned off. I made it to use as a bit on my site, don't look near as good in only 7 frames, but whatcha gonna do? Using the bone based tweaking of images is a pretty handy thing.
--Brian
cool
i got this other cartoon about last fighting the giant penis? then they had to fight the bogers.... truly sick but i like the camera movements though...the story? it's gross but funny.
I want an in depth case study of how you done it... is that possible? How many people were there to do the production, how long it took in pre-production and in actual production...
I want an in depth case study of how you done it... is that possible? How many people were there to do the production, how long it took in pre-production and in actual production...
hey there
sorry bout last post... two windows open....
I found the other nodes in the timeline! I did'nt see the translation and other nodes coz i did'nt see you could actually scroll down....
Now i truly believe MOHO is in a level of it's own! wow.... but i still wanna know what its possibilities are! I want to attempt a feature film of about 50-70 minutes in length!
some other questions that were'nt answered.....
the whole gap in the arm thing... you can see what i mean in the MOHO files i posted...when you bend an arm too much it goes all bad!
I found the other nodes in the timeline! I did'nt see the translation and other nodes coz i did'nt see you could actually scroll down....
Now i truly believe MOHO is in a level of it's own! wow.... but i still wanna know what its possibilities are! I want to attempt a feature film of about 50-70 minutes in length!
some other questions that were'nt answered.....
the whole gap in the arm thing... you can see what i mean in the MOHO files i posted...when you bend an arm too much it goes all bad!
Doc-
Even though using a bone system for 2D can be a whole lot like magic, it still takes some prep. Now, I can see you're getting that since you set up a bone to control the placement of the elbow point ( an idea I am promptly going to steal ). Since I don't have version 4.6, which from the file I believe you are using, I can't remember which tutorial it was. or even if it was in the official eve ther was one tutorials. But I believe there was one that describe using bone, controlled by the angle of another bone, to make it look like a character's bicep was swelling when he flexed his arm. I've often used this technique to tweak pesky individual points at a joint when they insist on making things ugly.
I was going to tweak your file a bit to show you what I was talking about, but since you are using 4.6, it won't work. I would suggest you install the latest Beta (install it in a different folder than the version you are currently running) and play around with it. The current Beta 4 is pretty stable, and the way that bones work in the new version is different enough that if you are just starting with Moho, you might as well just learn the new system. Version 5 is dope. 'Cause of the additions of things like bone strength, anything I tried to do wouldn't translate back a version..
Okay, just reinstalled 4.6. Anyway, what you're talking about is the "leftarm.ai" layer. First, you have a lot of points on that layer you you really don't need. The simplest way to avoid wierness around joints in Moho is to not have points you don't need for the drawing. I try to make my own characters as multi-purpose as I can, and I probably spend as much time making the joints work as all the rest of the work combined. Part of that is because I'm going for a pretty realistic, completely non-cartoony kinda style. But that also because there are just some basic restrictions in the way bone manipulation works in Moho.
One option is to make the upper and lower parts of the arm on separate layers. With portions of the outlines invisible you can make them seem like they are one piece but move in a more predictable manner. I'd still go with some well placed angle controlled bones.
Sorry, I'd go into more detail but I have to sleep so I get up for work.
--Brian
Even though using a bone system for 2D can be a whole lot like magic, it still takes some prep. Now, I can see you're getting that since you set up a bone to control the placement of the elbow point ( an idea I am promptly going to steal
). Since I don't have version 4.6, which from the file I believe you are using, I can't remember which tutorial it was. or even if it was in the official eve ther was one tutorials. But I believe there was one that describe using bone, controlled by the angle of another bone, to make it look like a character's bicep was swelling when he flexed his arm. I've often used this technique to tweak pesky individual points at a joint when they insist on making things ugly.I was going to tweak your file a bit to show you what I was talking about, but since you are using 4.6, it won't work. I would suggest you install the latest Beta (install it in a different folder than the version you are currently running) and play around with it. The current Beta 4 is pretty stable, and the way that bones work in the new version is different enough that if you are just starting with Moho, you might as well just learn the new system. Version 5 is dope. 'Cause of the additions of things like bone strength, anything I tried to do wouldn't translate back a version..
Okay, just reinstalled 4.6. Anyway, what you're talking about is the "leftarm.ai" layer. First, you have a lot of points on that layer you you really don't need. The simplest way to avoid wierness around joints in Moho is to not have points you don't need for the drawing. I try to make my own characters as multi-purpose as I can, and I probably spend as much time making the joints work as all the rest of the work combined. Part of that is because I'm going for a pretty realistic, completely non-cartoony kinda style. But that also because there are just some basic restrictions in the way bone manipulation works in Moho.
One option is to make the upper and lower parts of the arm on separate layers. With portions of the outlines invisible you can make them seem like they are one piece but move in a more predictable manner. I'd still go with some well placed angle controlled bones.
Sorry, I'd go into more detail but I have to sleep so I get up for work.
--Brian
7feet wrote:
( an idea I am promptly going to steal
7feet, If you break the arm and upper arm into separate layers... how do you avoid the gap? unless you make the extra bone and the nodes at each end are tied to that bone... it might work.
I am attempting a feature film and i'll need two hours worth of footage in the end so i need a multi purpose chracter(s) and its going to be tough... I might make most body parts switch layers so that hands, feet and other parts are more animatable.Version 5 is dope. 'Cause of the additions of things like bone strength, anything I tried to do wouldn't translate back a version..
as far as animation goes... I'm getting the hang of it and i think i'll post a sample i done here...
The next obstacle is lipsync. Do any of you use Pamela? I've downloaded it but it looks complicated... how robust is it... can it handle a project of the size i want to do?
http://www.xembo.everywebhost.com/Mohotest_DOC.wmv
==nqo
sorry
take out the 'www.' from the URL and it'll work
Okay, I uploaded a modified version of you're file as main test-b.moho. One shows a bit of what I was talking about with splitting the arm in to top and bottom sections.
The other is less manipulated but solve a lot of the problems. One, having a lot of points right near a joint is generally not such a good thing. I got rid of the vector that went across the middle of the arm, and move the points closest to the elbow on the inside of the arm down a little. I also moved the bones around so that the pivot point was closer to the problem area, so the points won't move as far. At this point the elbow control bone is only attached to one point at the outside of the arm. To automate things a bit, I set it so the angle of this bone is automatically controlled by the angle of the forearm bone. Using one bone to control the angle and position of other bones can really go a long way towards fixing a lot of those little problem areas, and once its rigged you can forget about it..
Hope that helps a little.
--Brian
The other is less manipulated but solve a lot of the problems. One, having a lot of points right near a joint is generally not such a good thing. I got rid of the vector that went across the middle of the arm, and move the points closest to the elbow on the inside of the arm down a little. I also moved the bones around so that the pivot point was closer to the problem area, so the points won't move as far. At this point the elbow control bone is only attached to one point at the outside of the arm. To automate things a bit, I set it so the angle of this bone is automatically controlled by the angle of the forearm bone. Using one bone to control the angle and position of other bones can really go a long way towards fixing a lot of those little problem areas, and once its rigged you can forget about it..
Hope that helps a little.
--Brian
okay
I took an in depth look at the file.... nice!
I can see the logic you used but as usual... question:
The arm ends in a circle like shape. the lower arm overlaps the upper right? How do you do it so that the lower arm's outline fill isnt all the way... uhm let me try again. The circle at the end of the arm wasnt complete so how did you make a hlaf outline fill?
Then how did you make so it isnt odd when you ben the arm? I knw the answers are there in the file but your explanation coupled with the file will be effective.
By the way... what do you use for lipsync?
I can see the logic you used but as usual... question:
The arm ends in a circle like shape. the lower arm overlaps the upper right? How do you do it so that the lower arm's outline fill isnt all the way... uhm let me try again. The circle at the end of the arm wasnt complete so how did you make a hlaf outline fill?
Then how did you make so it isnt odd when you ben the arm? I knw the answers are there in the file but your explanation coupled with the file will be effective.
By the way... what do you use for lipsync?