Hello Folks,
First, greetings and thanks to the admins for approving my request to join the forum.
This is my first post. It's a question from a guy who has yet to pull the trigger to purchase Moho. My question to the forum is as follows. Are there any tutorials on how to "prepare" or "cut up" an image for animation purposes?
I did a search across the forum. I believe due to my ignorance of the program, I may not be using the correct terms for the proper search.
I found a vid on youtube where a guy "chopped up" a T-Rex. It was awesome. It's the type of tutorial I'm looking for.
Is there a dedicated book or list of tuts specifically geared towards preparing jpg/png images for boning and animating?
Thanks for your time.
Preparing images for animation
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Re: Preparing images for animation
Hi and welcome to the forum!
What exactly is bothering you, about the image preparation?
The tutorial you've mentioned explains pretty much the whole process and also has some useful tips on how to do it for other cut-out image characters.
I believe it's this one:
The only thing I'd add is to have images in scale to the frame/shot in the animation. If you'd go for some close-ups, then acquire the image of the appropriate size. As it appears, there's no rig to fit them all but if you plan your shots ahead, you'll have guides for building up your rig more efficiently.
I'd say everything else is an artistic license or already explained in the tutorial.
What exactly is bothering you, about the image preparation?
The tutorial you've mentioned explains pretty much the whole process and also has some useful tips on how to do it for other cut-out image characters.
I believe it's this one:
The only thing I'd add is to have images in scale to the frame/shot in the animation. If you'd go for some close-ups, then acquire the image of the appropriate size. As it appears, there's no rig to fit them all but if you plan your shots ahead, you'll have guides for building up your rig more efficiently.
I'd say everything else is an artistic license or already explained in the tutorial.
-
hayasidist
- Posts: 3525
- Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 8:12 pm
- Location: Kent, England
Re: Preparing images for animation
Moho has two main ways to animate an image - a warp (smart) mesh and bones. You can mix them in the same image.
https://www.youtube.com/@mohoanimation is a good place to start for inspiration on how to (possibly break up and) rig an image for animation.
The approach to choose depends a lot on what sort of animation you're planning to do. An image of a character in a "typical" front-on A or T pose (or, as in the previous post, the side view of a T-Rex) against a transparent background is a different problem from (say) animating an image of a ship on a stormy sea or a child on a swing. Sometimes you'll need to break the image into many parts (and maybe even back-fill where you've extracted something -- e.g. cutting the child on a swing from the image leaves a "hole" in the scenery which you'll need to fill if you want to have the swing swinging...)
If you have a specific image in mind, you can post it (or a "surrogate" if you don't want to share the actual image) and usually plenty of people will chime in...
And - welcome from me too!!!
https://www.youtube.com/@mohoanimation is a good place to start for inspiration on how to (possibly break up and) rig an image for animation.
The approach to choose depends a lot on what sort of animation you're planning to do. An image of a character in a "typical" front-on A or T pose (or, as in the previous post, the side view of a T-Rex) against a transparent background is a different problem from (say) animating an image of a ship on a stormy sea or a child on a swing. Sometimes you'll need to break the image into many parts (and maybe even back-fill where you've extracted something -- e.g. cutting the child on a swing from the image leaves a "hole" in the scenery which you'll need to fill if you want to have the swing swinging...)
If you have a specific image in mind, you can post it (or a "surrogate" if you don't want to share the actual image) and usually plenty of people will chime in...
And - welcome from me too!!!
Re: Preparing images for animation
There are several ways to prepare images for Moho (Hell, I already sound like ChatGPT!). It depends on what you want to do with them.
- BG images: just import them as they are. Images of more than 5000px or so of height tend to slow dwn Mmoho, so avoid this.
- Props: cut them out in your favourite bitmap software and save with alpha channel.
- Characters: same, only that you need to cut out limbs or anything you want to move independently as well. You'll need to fill the remaining gaps in the character.
Lots of users do that last step in Photoshop and save the whole character as a multi-layer PS file, which Moho understands and will import those layers as Moho layers with the same name. I prefer to save all parts as separate image files (PNG with alpha). Just a matter of taste.
- BG images: just import them as they are. Images of more than 5000px or so of height tend to slow dwn Mmoho, so avoid this.
- Props: cut them out in your favourite bitmap software and save with alpha channel.
- Characters: same, only that you need to cut out limbs or anything you want to move independently as well. You'll need to fill the remaining gaps in the character.
Lots of users do that last step in Photoshop and save the whole character as a multi-layer PS file, which Moho understands and will import those layers as Moho layers with the same name. I prefer to save all parts as separate image files (PNG with alpha). Just a matter of taste.
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Re: Preparing images for animation
Hardly anybody does it this way, but you can do the whole thing in Moho.
Duplicate the image a few times, depending on how many separate pieces you want. Then, for each individual image, use masking to "hide" the parts of the image you want hidden.
Duplicate the image a few times, depending on how many separate pieces you want. Then, for each individual image, use masking to "hide" the parts of the image you want hidden.
Re: Preparing images for animation
Thanks for responding everyone!
@maestral - I think the video is great. Was looking for examples go bipeds, vehicles, just a variety of objects to work with. But yes, it's great vid.
@slowtiger - filling in the gaps is the advise I'm looking to see/hear. Thank you!
@hayasidist - heading to the channel now.
I'm gonna have to get my hands dirty and play around with this app.
Thanks again everyone!
@maestral - I think the video is great. Was looking for examples go bipeds, vehicles, just a variety of objects to work with. But yes, it's great vid.
@slowtiger - filling in the gaps is the advise I'm looking to see/hear. Thank you!
@hayasidist - heading to the channel now.
I'm gonna have to get my hands dirty and play around with this app.
Thanks again everyone!
Re: Preparing images for animation
Checking those videos on MohoAnimation would get you to know Moho's "mechanics" better, and later on you might have a better understanding of why most of us here don't see image preparation as complicated. It's more like cake coating but you need the cake first 
Many other apps provide similar results of raster image manipulation but I believe Moho is the most versatile while being easy to handle. Not exactly Plug'n'Play mode but in comparison to other apps - most definitely close to it.
I'd point out Vitruvian bones and "Masking" with Mesh (making hole/s in meshed images) as an interesting addition for manipulating cut-out images.
Many other apps provide similar results of raster image manipulation but I believe Moho is the most versatile while being easy to handle. Not exactly Plug'n'Play mode but in comparison to other apps - most definitely close to it.I'd point out Vitruvian bones and "Masking" with Mesh (making hole/s in meshed images) as an interesting addition for manipulating cut-out images.