Any chance of a UI overhaul?

[Palhil]

Hope this helps.

Yes, thanks for the clarifications.

I still think that Moho could do with some modifications to it's UI to make these things a bit easier to use and understand when you first start using it. If we want Moho to become more successful and widespread, then removing as many obstacles as possible is a good start.

[gilcartunista]

[p8guitar]

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5. Customization.
Years ago I already suggested that the intervall of vertical lines in the timeline (indicating seconds) should be more flexible. The real seconds must stay, of course, but I like to see my 24 frames raster, and maybe be able to indicate every 8th frame, and wouldn't it be great to be able to type in a BPM number and get the beats shown (a bit blurred because of odd numbers) for animating to music?
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Especially a bpm number would be great, because most of the time I try to animate to music videos of my band. And I'd like to set the 24 frames grid to 30 or 60 frames.

[p8guitar]

I'd also like to add that I've always found the Styles panel a bit counterintuitive. It never works quite how I imagine it to. In particular those tick boxes on the right-hand side of Fill and Stroke. For a newbie, it's just not obvious what the purpose of them is....It just never communicates easily how it is supposed to function.
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I think what I found most confusing was the order in which you would have to do things. Binding a layer to a bone means selecting the layer first and using the tool to click on a bone. Binding points means selecting the bone first, then the layer and then using the tool to select the points. Flexi binding doesn't have a tool and instead, you have to find it in the menu. It would be great if there was a way to combine these three methods into one tool. Also at the same time have something that more obviously highlights in what way a bone is influencing artwork layers. ...
One last thing, I'm forever getting lost in masking. Maybe having visual icons next to the descriptions in the Masking panel may make it easier to work out what each option is going to do. I don't know. Maybe I just have difficulty with it as it's nothing like any other program I use.
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100% agreed, and I like your suggestions to improve the UI. I really like what one can do with Moho, but for me as a beginner the UI/workflow of styles, bone binding and masking are not intuitive and clear at all but rather confusing, and I often run into a dead end. Luckily there is this forum...
I didn't use another software before for animating, so my expectations how something might work come mostly just from common sense (I hope ), from the experience with music software like Ableton Live or Logic (which do have a timeline, too) and CAD software.
Maybe CAD is a good example for intuitive and unintuitive UIs and workflows. With Catia and Creo, often you must learn and remember how the programmers think - first select this, then click there, not the other way round. You need several weeks of training to be able to do the same things that you can achieve with Solidworks without even looking into the manual...

[arglborps]

If you get things mixed up and you become unsure which binding method(s) are in effect, select the affected layers and choose Reset All Bone Rigging. This command's name might sound scary and destructive, but what it does is it resets the selected layers to use only the default Flexi-binding settings; the rest of your character remains bound with their existing methods. When I get lost, I find this is much quicker than trying to figure out the problem and how to correct it. Just reset it and re-bind it.

WHAT?! That works only on the selected layer?
I never dared to use it, because it would destroy all my work – or so I tought.

Thanks! Talking about bad labeling in the UI. Man, I'm a UX/UI designer/consultant by trade, and if Lost Marble would ever need one I'd maybe even give up my current (well paid) job to fix their UI, because I love the app so much and I think it could be so much better than it is right now.

[SimplSam]

That's my problem with the sequencer, each and every time! Should be possible to add a numerical input, and a feedback during dragging showing me the frame offset I'm creating. (Every video editor has this when I shorten clip lengths.)

Exactly! I use Sequencer this way all the time, and it makes me nuts...every time!

Just added a new Moho Sequencer tool at: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=33741 - which hopefully deals with some of the frustrations of using the current Sequencer slider.

Features:

• Show current Offsets
• Allow numerical entries
• Dynamic Realtime updates - allowing you to see effects of changes in Timeline and Viewport
• Reset to zero offset
• Nudge Left / Right
• Cancel to undo changes
• Indicates offset inherited from Parent groups
• Use Relative or Absolute frame referencing

[Greenlaw]

Sounds cool SimplSam. Downloading now and will check it out this afternoon.

Thanks for creating this!

[x-vishon]

I think largely the interface is fine. but there are areas for improvement that seem to work oddly. like styles and effects only having 2 fixed slots instead of a layer system and having to nest them oddly for some effects. generally color styles interface could improve to list the colors and list them more clearly.

Masking is still odd both in its layout and in its the fact not all masking shows up until render with nested masks.

Some common animatable stuff would be great in the layer window without opening the individual settings. a toggle animatable attributes button, hide show, opacity and a few other things would be nice to have as part of the layers window for animating fades and cuts more easily.

Additional types of smart bones / controls would be great. also a Control layer that could have controls from different bone layers selectively added to a master layer would be nice for more complex rigs to layout controls for animators. lots of things could be done but I would not say that the current set up is bad. There is room for improvement though.

[Palhil]

also a Control layer that could have controls from different bone layers selectively added to a master layer would be nice for more complex rigs to layout controls for animators. lots of things could be done but I would not say that the current set up is bad. There is room for improvement though.

This might be the same sort of thing that I'm thinking of. It would be handy to have a separate window that contains controls for your character rig so they can be kept separate in either a floating or dockable window. In a similar way that you can open a window for the switch layers. Also perhaps some prebuilt controls like sliders and tick boxes. I don't know how much of this is doable in the current software. I know there are scripts that can add further functions to Moho. Perhaps I just haven't dug deep enough yet. I'm working on a Toon Boom Harmony project at the moment and the rigger has built a secondary display window that shows specific controls for each character so you don't have to see them in the main scene view.

[SuperSGL]

I would still like to see a RMB click for context sensitive menu's (MOF I still use the right mouse button every now and then...but nothing happens )

[SuperSGL]

Also while I'm thinking of it. We have Alt click to switch to a vector layer while in the bone layer maybe an alt click or ctrl alt click to go back to the bone layer. That would speed things up greatly

[SimplSam]

I would still like to see a RMB click for context sensitive menu's (MOF I still use the right mouse button every now and then...but nothing happens )
Also while I'm thinking of it. We have Alt click to switch to a vector layer while in the bone layer maybe an alt click or ctrl alt click to go back to the bone layer. That would speed things up greatly

[Shift + Alt + Right-Click] will take you to the artworks' parent Group Layer (Group/Switch/Bone). So depends on how your artwork is nested.

[Ctrl + Alt + Right-Click] is already used to bring up a Switch Layers' pop-up child selector.

But as suggested a simple Right-Click context menu (ideally customisable) would solve many woes.

[x-vishon]

I rather wish rightclick scrubbing on the timeline zoomed in and out smoothly rather then moving the start point around.

[Greenlaw]

I agree, the current right-click command to move timeline messes me up sometimes, even after years of using Moho in production. It's just too easy to do this accidentally, and I may not notice it's happened until after I've been animating the scene for a while.

If moving the timeline required a modifier key instead, it's less likely to occur unintentionally.

As for Timeline zooming, I think the mouse-dragging command suggestion would make more sense if Moho's Timeline scaled smoothly. But until we get that, I'm okay with the two zoom buttons above the timeline.

Maybe a sliding/scaling bar like the one in Ae would be good in Moho? Naturally, it would require smooth scaling too. I don't expect that anytime soon, so just a thought.

[Lukas]

I find myself constantly tracking with two fingers over the timeline to scroll through time (which doesn't work). It's totally what you'd expect to work, but it doesn't.