Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

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SuperSGL
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Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by SuperSGL »

Anyway to control Movies in Moho pro? I want two separate screens (or panels) as AVI's, The first is looping while the second one waits a few more frames before starting, can that be done?
The persist first frames doesn't seem to do anything? Persist Last frame works as expected.

Last but not least (I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one but...) Can you loop a movie (imported AVI) at certain frames ? like an avi with 120 frames looped at 90 inside Moho.
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Re: Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by Greenlaw »

I'm not sure you can loop an avi in Moho but you can loop an image sequence. Just output the avi to frames from a video editor or compositor. If you don't have an editor, some players can do that. Actually, you can probably use Moho to output the image sequence too...but I think you'll get better results using an editor, compositor that can do this directly without 're-rendering' the frames.

To start an image sequence layer at a later frame, you can slide the layer in the Sequencer to where you wish it start playing. To keep the first on screen until then, enable Persist First Frame.

Hope this helps.
Last edited by Greenlaw on Thu Feb 23, 2017 3:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by dueyftw »

I'm repeating Greenlaw, but if you can avoid video and replace with Sequence images, do so.

You might want to learn After Effects if your using Moho as a compositor.

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Re: Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by SuperSGL »

Great Idea! never occurred to me. Im so use to using avi's in the old days I forgot these were mp4 and done in MOHO :oops: It was just getting to complex so exporting out as mp4 and importing it back was saving resources and simplifying. Thank you!
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Re: Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by Greenlaw »

You'll probably find that performance and frame accuracy will improve since individual PNG frames take up less RAM than a whole movie file and you don't have compression affecting the images.

If you use JPEG sequences, performance is even better since the frames are smaller for streaming, especially across a network. (In RAM, however, JPEG pretty much use the same memory as PNG, so no savings there.) I like to use JPEG if the image sequence is meant to be used for reference only, like an animatic. PNG is better if the sequence is part of the final rendering.
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Re: Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by SuperSGL »

I used a png sequence with images of poser characters (awhile back) and I seem to remember getting key frames and able to space them out for better timing (I think), but now in Moho Pro I get a Layer with the animated images in it, doesn't show me the separate images, I can change the FPS but there are no key frames Is this something new on purpose a Bug or am I just missing something? Pretty sure I used version 11 for the poser stuff.
This is for something slightly different than my original post was for and Im assuming I could just change it out as Switch layers to get the timing I want (one of the screens is going to be like a slide show.
Last edited by SuperSGL on Fri Feb 24, 2017 12:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by synthsin75 »

SuperSGL wrote:I used a png sequence with images of poser characters and I seem to remember getting key frames and able to space them out for better timing (I think), but now in Moho Pro I get a Layer with the animated images in it, doesn't show me the separate images, I can change the FPS but there are no key frames Is this something new on purpose a Bug or am I just missing something? Pretty sure I used version 11 for the poser stuff.
Right-click the Image Sequence layer and convert to a switch.
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Re: Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by SuperSGL »

That was quick thanks!! :lol: Sometimes I think they need a better manual so many different things you forget about. Glad this sight is here Thanks again!!
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Re: Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by SuperSGL »

Quick tip I already put the image sequence inside a mask and trying to convert it to switch layer crashed the program... Importing an image sequence by itself and converting it to switch layer worked just fine FYI
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Re: Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by SimplSam »

SuperSGL wrote:Anyway to control Movies in Moho pro? I want two separate screens (or panels) as AVI's, The first is looping while the second one waits a few more frames before starting, can that be done?
The persist first frames doesn't seem to do anything? Persist Last frame works as expected.

Last but not least (I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one but...) Can you loop a movie (imported AVI) at certain frames ? like an avi with 120 frames looped at 90 inside Moho.
Some great advice already given. I also find that Moho is not the best place to manage Audio and Video.

That said... you can also achieve everything you requested with just Movie files:

1) Persist first: As stated by @Greenlaw - This will work after you have dragged the Movie forward in the Sequence timeline.
2) Loop/Cycle: You can use the [Animation] > [Restart Movie] menu item to create a keyframe on the "Restart Media" channel, which will jump back to the Movie start. Theoretically you should then be able to use the Cycle interpolation to repeat the keyframe action forever, but this does not seem to work on Movies (works OK on Audio). So you just have to add additional keyframes - i.e. (double click) on the new "Restart Media" timeline - at your desired frame interval.
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Re: Controlling Movies in Moho Pro?

Post by Greenlaw »

I generally avoid loading movie files into animation and compositing programs because most codecs will not allow the playback to be frame accurate when you step it.

You can work around this by choosing to save whole frames in the movie file, like PNG or JPEG, instead of using H264 or some other compressed codec. But if you're going to do that, you may as well be using image sequences anyway.
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