how do I mask a patch layer, or can I?...

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cabbage0896
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how do I mask a patch layer, or can I?...

Post by cabbage0896 »

When masking a fully rigged character (with patch layers) the patches are not masked when needed. for instance walking behind a tree: the patches are visible when the rest of the character is invisible in the masked area. My guess, I cant mask a mask(or patch) is there a workaround for this? Sometimes the layer the patch is masking also appears when it is supposed to be invisible, is there a fix besides removing the patch and making all the changes to my characters? Thanks.
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Re: how do I mask a patch layer, or can I?...

Post by Murgatroydals »

cabbage0896, … I recently purchased Moho Pro 12 and familiarizing meself, working the mannequin character with Character Wizard into what I thought would be a working character only to find none of the patches function. The female character I created has no capacity to remove all the round balls to the body. There are objects of some kind inside the mannequin character I can reveal if I hide certain parameters …, and I thought well, I'll have to design everything myself. Thought I'd check out these forums first, and here is your post and others that detail these little minor bugs that simply shouldn't be there after ten years of software development.

Sad to think I'll have to switch to another animation program. Moho Pro is not quality software. Bugs will pop up all the time as I learn it, I feel. #bummer
René Descartes drew the first ones.™ ©
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synthsin75
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Re: how do I mask a patch layer, or can I?...

Post by synthsin75 »

Murgatroydals wrote:Moho Pro is not quality software.
Even though it is used daily by big studios. :roll:
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Re: how do I mask a patch layer, or can I?...

Post by Murgatroydals »

synthsin75 wrote:
Murgatroydals wrote:Moho Pro is not quality software.
Even though it is used daily by big studios. :roll:
Perhaps the wording should've been, "Finding answers and solutions to problems encountered with animation software through the many internet platforms is difficult."

Three-quarters of the preinstalled characters in Moho 12 are perhaps only to study how they're put together. Great if one is ten, twelve years old and have the next ten years to fiddle around with it. I have two characters and two pieces of background props on my MacBook Pro (i7) and spinning wheels are up the kazoo with every other click of the mouse. Sure, close it down and fire it up again. Things speed up for awhile. I need a Mac Pro? Ha-ha.

Drawing tools? Take me six months to master the drawing tool idiosyncratics, and like many others I have graphic design software that is superior. Get rid of them and streamline the package. For $200+ make it easy to bone up, perfect camera functions, importing from other sources, and make the timeline and sequencing and FX capacity a priority.

Animation with Apple's Keynote software was a breeze to figure out and produce a movie with. Too many of the various capacities of Moho Pro appear half-baked, and not simple to cause to function. For instance, what! are!? those dumb balls doing on the mannequin in the Character Wizard? Why did anyone think to put them their, and thus rendering the mannequin worthless for all intents and purposes? Did, and after all these years does anyone utilize that character for any purpose at all? If not, what is it doing there? Something left over from the year 2011? Someone didn't take out the garbage, visitors arrive and how embarrassed by their asking, "What's that smell?"

I hope frustration doesn't have me move on. For a couple hundred dollars, animation software is wanted; that's all I wanted and expected. Ask me in a month and if I'm in the mood I'll probably have a few more bits of critique. I gotta go do something else now … .
René Descartes drew the first ones.™ ©
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Greenlaw
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Re: how do I mask a patch layer, or can I?...

Post by Greenlaw »

cabbage0896 wrote:When masking a fully rigged character (with patch layers) the patches are not masked when needed. for instance walking behind a tree: the patches are visible when the rest of the character is invisible in the masked area.
I haven't had problems like this, but it almost sounds like you've layered the elements incorrectly. Can you post an example?

Generally, the character should be in its own group, and the tree in another group, so the patches in the character should have no effect on the tree. If the character needs to move from front to behind the tree, you have three options:

1. Put everything inside a group and enable Animated Layer Order so you can move the character layer from front to back.

Or...

2. Physically move the character in z-space. To do this, you'll need to put everthing in a new group and enable Sort Layers By Depth for that group.

Or...

3. Make a reference of the character and place the reference behind the tree. Disable the visibliity for the reference (you'll first need to enable Allow Animated Layer Effects of course.) Then, when the character moves behind the tree, switch the visibility between the two. Note: be sure to only animate the original, not the reference. I like to append the reference's name with (REF) to make sure I don't forget. Another option: set the layer to the red color to alert me not to animate it.

Hope this helps. If that's not what you're looking for, you need to post a an image or project file to better illustrate the problem. Good luck!

Edit: TBH, I haven't used Patch layer for several months. I'll try a quick test tonight to make sure the feature hasn't broken in the latest release. (It should be okay; some of the animators I work with are using rigs I set up with patch layers and I haven't heard any complaints about it. We're using Moho Pro 12.4 at work.)

@Murgatroydals, I'll let my boss know we're not using professional software. We'll both have a good chuckle over that. :)
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Re: how do I mask a patch layer, or can I?...

Post by Murgatroydals »

Greenlaw wrote:
cabbage0896 wrote:When masking a fully rigged character (with patch layers) the patches are not masked when needed. for instance walking behind a tree: the patches are visible when the rest of the character is invisible in the masked area.
…,
@Murgatroydals, I'll let my boss know we're not using professional software. We'll both have a good chuckle over that. :)
Two months ago cabbage0896 asked, and you responded now? Better late than never, I suppose. #chuckle :idea:
René Descartes drew the first ones.™ ©
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synthsin75
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Re: how do I mask a patch layer, or can I?...

Post by synthsin75 »

Murgatroydals wrote:Two months ago cabbage0896 asked, and you responded now? Better late than never, I suppose. #chuckle :idea:
Wow. Way to be grateful for someone trying to help you. :roll:
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Re: how do I mask a patch layer, or can I?...

Post by Murgatroydals »

synthsin75 wrote:
Murgatroydals wrote:Two months ago cabbage0896 asked, and you responded now? Better late than never, I suppose. #chuckle :idea:
Wow. Way to be grateful for someone trying to help you. :roll:
More like, Wow-Mee-he-he! isn't it? :shock: …  :lol:
René Descartes drew the first ones.™ ©
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cabbage0896
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Re: how do I mask a patch layer, or can I?...

Post by cabbage0896 »

Thanks Greenlaw you have been an exceptional reference in this forum and I just saw you're response to my question( in mid jan.) which I thought was going unanswered. It's too bad someone else answered with bad attitude instead of constructive ideas. I am going to study you're response soon and see if it works for me, it makes sense with the whole character in a group layer in order to mask maybe that was my mistake. I'll try it and let you know..thanks again... C
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