Question: Hiding objects

Nichod · Post by **Nichod** » Wed May 25, 2005 7:38 am

Is there a way to hide an object other then hiding it via a layer. For instance can I select a series of points and hide them temporarily?

If not I'd like to add this to the wanted features. Thanks for any help.

Brian

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Wed May 25, 2005 7:53 am

You can hide the outline and fill of a closed shape by changing the alpha values to zero. This will not work for non-closed shapes (lines and curves); these will always show as a 1 pixel wide black line if you turn the outline alfa value to zero. I don't know if this is intentional or if it's a bug, but this is how it is. You can keep track of the keys of your fill and outline colors in your timeline window by setting the appropriate channels as "visible" in the Settings... dialogue (timeline window).

I hope this helps.

Nichod · Post by **Nichod** » Wed May 25, 2005 7:54 am

I'm referring to hiding the objects in the view window only. To ease editing and avoid accidental selecting. A kind of temporary hide function. Objects would still render.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Wed May 25, 2005 8:01 am

No, I don't think so, but I'd put it in a seperate layer and put it back when all the editing is done. And if you mean during an animation, I would leave it in a seperate layer.

7feet · Post by **7feet** » Wed May 25, 2005 8:28 am

Rasheed - I've never had a shape, closed or unclosed, fail to disappear if I dropped the alpha to zero. It's mostly been tests, but simple open outlines seem to work the same asany other shape. In the editing view you'll see a line if the layer is selected and you've got construction curves visible, but on render (in my experience) there's nothing there on render. That's one thing I've never had a problem with. Since the transparency level has nothing to do with line width (from everything I've been able to work out about how Moho works at a really basic level) I don't see any reason for that to happen. If you've seen that, I'd be interested to know the circumstances. It'd be a kind of a ugly bit to run into unexpectedly as I do it a fair amount. Okay, caveat - if you have any line effects enabled, I'm not sure, but I don't use 'em much but still don't think it should make a difference.

It probably wouldn't be that hard to throw a "make/unmake transparent" toggle button into the Select Shape tool for that purpose. As long as the shapes components initially have no transparency. Otherwise you have to keep a database of all of the original alpha values for any shapes you might change, and thats a can of worms I'd try to avoid myself. But an on/off switch should be pretty straight.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Wed May 25, 2005 8:59 am

Well, I've prepared a Moho file for you, demonstrating my claim that non-closed curves will not be rendered invisible if you turn the alpha value to zero. Download here.

Here is the animated GIF
In the animation a closed shape and a non-closed shape were selected and given an outline and fill (purple and blue); this is the first object. There is also a seperate non-closed shape (green) that was given a seperate outline; this is the second object. The alpha value of the outlines of both objects were turned into zero over six frames.

The outline of object 1 disappears, but the outline of object 2 turns into a pixel wide black line, just as I had written above, with the modification that it only applies to non-closed objects. If one of the shapes in an object is closed, the outline of the non-closed shapes in the same object will disappear.

(BTW the outline is here less than 1 pixel wide, because I have exported at half dimensions -- 160 x 120 instead of the 320 x 240 Moho file.)

Edit: Here is frame 6 at 320 x 240:

7feet · Post by **7feet** » Wed May 25, 2005 2:36 pm

I'm not sure how you are drawing it, but there are actually 2 shapes there. There is a single pixel black line that lies below the 10 pixel green line, using the same points. That's the bit that's staying visible. If that underlying shape is deleted, it works as it should.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Wed May 25, 2005 3:12 pm

Sorry for that!

That black line underneath was bugging me all that time. I still don't understand how it came there. I feel like the dummest person alive to use Moho.

[memo to self]Reread the Moho tutorial ... again

[/memo to self]
(And I've already been through it twice)

Nichod · Post by **Nichod** » Wed May 25, 2005 3:13 pm

Yeah as I was first using Moho, I kept doing that. You end up adding more then one shape on accident. At least thats what I was doing.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Wed May 25, 2005 3:43 pm

It would be nice if outlines and fills that are exactly in top of each other simply merged into one shape or curve, as is the case in many other vector drawing programs. Or if fills could be done, even if the object has a small gap in it, like in Flash. I would like to see more fuzzy-logicness and less binary-exactness.

Hiddicop · Post by **Hiddicop** » Wed May 25, 2005 4:30 pm

Perhaps the line comes from having the "Auto outline"-option turned on in the freehand-tool (or whatever tool you used).

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Wed May 25, 2005 6:37 pm

Well, that really worked! I keep forgetting to check those tiny option markers. When I traced the parts of this dino with the Freehand tool from a photographed pencil drawing, I turned off outline and fill. There were no unexpected errors.

Here's a little animation I made, to prove (to myself) that I am still in control of the Moho program. Only not always as efficiently, it seems

Don't mind the "Moho flow" or the missing details; this was just raw animation to see if this model works and learn how to set up the bone and switch layers.

It seems animation can be learnt from a lot of practice, but if what you practice is wrong, you don't learn much.

myles · Post by **myles** » Thu May 26, 2005 1:21 am

Actually this has the potential for all sorts of creative (ab)use.

Here are a couple of examples:

The outer object is actually a single line with two outlines applied - a black outline 10 units wide and a cyan outline 7 units wide - potentially useful for tubes, pipes, roads and tracks, etc. The nicest part is how you can move the line about without needing to worry about keeping the two objects in synchronisation.

The inner object is using a radial gradient (with the default fill colour made partly transparent) overlaid on a linear gradient - possibly not the best example, but it shows the potential for creating interesting multi-gradient fills.

Regards, Myles.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Thu May 26, 2005 8:57 am

myles wrote:The nicest part is how you can move the line about without needing to worry about keeping the two objects in synchronisation.

I don't understand. How do you move that line (which are actually two lines on the same position) about? When I tried Move Points and only one of the lines moved.

My confusion comes from past experience with vector drawing programs, but I'm now slowly beginning to understand how Moho deals with points, vectors, lines and fills. I now understand why there are two tools to manipulate objects. In many other vector drawing programs you use the same tools for creating and modifying lines and fills. In Moho you have to set a kind of mode to either create or modify outlines and fills.

So instead of the toolbox containing a fill and outline tool, the toolbox contains a "Mode of Operation" tool (create/modify) and the manipulation is done in an altogether other dialogue screen. IOW One tool creates a new shape, while the other selects an object or shape. This wasn't clear to me until now. Stupid of me, because the tools are clearly marked as: "Select Shape" and "Create Shape".

Clearly, whoever created the user interface was a very technical minded person, or at least someone who is used to "procedural handling" (do this, and then that), instead of the more solution minded "object orientated dealing with matters" (this is the result that I want). Some people may be confortable with that, others (like me) have to adjust. I want to convey to the program: "This is what I want, now do it", instead I have to describe the steps how to achieve a certain effect.

Post by **Lost Marble** » Thu May 26, 2005 4:53 pm

One of the big things about Moho that is different from other vector programs is that in Moho there is a separation between the shape of things and the appearance of them. The basic curves you draw do not create visible objects in the final output. Visible objects are only created when you apply a fill or outline to a set of curves.

The reason Moho works this way is mostly to reduce the number of points you need to work with. With most other programs that don't do animation, using huge numbers of points isn't really a problem. But when you start to animate, it's helpful to have fewer points to deal with. Plus, objects that are supposed to be connected can actually stay connected if you weld them together in Moho.

Anyway, back to the question:

Rasheed wrote:I don't understand. How do you move that line (which are actually two lines on the same position) about? When I tried Move Points and only one of the lines moved.

What Myles did was to create one curve, and then apply two outlines to it. Here's an example file:

http://www.lostmarble.com/misc/double_outline.moho

There is only one curve, but two outline shapes. Try using the Select Shape tool to select one outline or the other. Also try moving the control points around with the Translate Points tool - you'll see that both outlines move together because they were both created using the same set of points.