question about joining overlapping shapes

[tiatridis]

Hello,

Hopefully coming back to Moho, I used to use the Anime version years ago. One thing I need the app to do is when I have two separate shapes, for instance the upper and lower part of an arm which are say brown and both have a stroke which is black, where they overlap I need the stroke to disappear. I seem to remember this was possible but I don't recall how. Some sort of joining peg or something? Also I have seen that some people animate just the mouth for lip syncing in Adobe Character Animator and bring it into Moho as a png sequence. That's the one thing that Character Animator does really well, have any of you played around with that idea?

Thanks so much,

Tony

[alanthebox]

Also I have seen that some people animate just the mouth for lip syncing in Adobe Character Animator and bring it into Moho as a png sequence. That's the one thing that Character Animator does really well, have any of you played around with that idea?

You may want to take a look at this script by Simple Sam. Allows you to use Character Animator to generate the lip sync timing, but then apply it directly to a vector switch layer in Moho (bypassing the need for hundreds or thousands of PNGs).

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=34795

[tiatridis]

Very cool, I'll have a look at that, certainly preferable over the massive amount of pngs that would be needed. Thanks!

I remember back when I used anime studio early on I used some trickery to make my upper arm and lower arm thing work without the strokes overlapping. Thinking there's a better way nowadays but I may be thinking of something I saw in another app not sure.

[MrMiracle77]

The Patch Layer feature can be used to remove strokes from overlapping layers. It generates a small circle that you can use and re-shape to define the area where layers overlap. I have found that it can sometimes 'patch' unintended layers as well.

There are other ways as well. I like using stroke exposure to adjust the overlap, then use a smartbone to move the exposure based on the lower arm's position. This allows the arm to form a more pronounced 'crease' at steeper angles. To do this, though, the first and last point defining the arm's shape need to be inside the overlap area. You can use the alt key to remove strokes in the opposite direction.

[Greenlaw]

Patch layer is a good trick but has some limitations. Some of us in this forum came up with an alternative method that works with groups and arbitrary shapes. A search should turn up the details.

Smooth Joint is another good options...it's what I used for the interactive episode of Puss-In-Boots on Netflix. To split the limbs so I can wrap them around the body with Smooth Joint, I just duplicated the layers and used a sliding mask controlled with a Smart Bone Dial. (Actually, what I used was a animated stroke exposure as a mask but that setup was more complicated than necessary and I stopped using it ages ago.) Smooth Joint works exceptionally well for certain designs (like the Puss rig for example,) and it offers a few unique animation tricks not possible with other rigging methods.

The technique I mainly use now is to draw an un-stroked vector line at the elbow or knee joint to split the limb art shape into two halves. Then when I duplicate the layer for 'near' and 'far' versions, I simply make versions of the limb with one of its two shapes deleted, but keeping the whole paths so it deforms identically to the other layers. This means adding more layers to switch between for the 'wraparound' effect but it doesn't require any masking at all...which is simpler to work with and always displays correctly in the viewport.

The one catch is that you might see a slight gap where the un-stroked line is, but this can be overcome by adding a single point in that line and pulling it slightly over the overlapping shape. I used this technique all over the original Boss Baby TV show and it worked perfectly, and I still prefer this technique today.

Hope this helps.

[tiatridis]

Wow. Thanks to both of you for the prompt input. I'm going ahead with the purchase of Moho. I needed to figure out these few points and now I'm ready to go.

[Greenlaw]

Yeah, that last suggestion (my current method) might be hard to visualize from the description alone. The extra point in the joint line is a trick I picked up from Victor or Mike several years ago. I'll show what happens when you don't add this point and demonstrate how this fixes it and post an example project when I have time.

And welcome back!

[tiatridis]

That would be awesome, thanks.