Start? Feeling a bit overwhelmed..

[Darquesyde]

Hello all Very new user here. A quick little background on me and why I am here (this may answer a lot lol) My boyfriend's grandmother has started a non-profit organization over the past year, focusing on awareness for abused children, identifying it, and empowering them to seek help. She wrote some children's books about it, and apparently it has really taken off. So, they needed people to animate her stories and also scenarios for children to react to on their website. We are also doing a few small games on the side as well.

We are all novices at this, and I'm kind of just jumping in with both feet. I have minimal schooling from years ago with photoshop, and some gaming engines, so I get the whole animation thing. They got us the full version of Moho, and I am all set up at my home office. I have watched a bazillion you tube tutorials from building back grounds, creating cool characters, animating bones, etc. And yet. I sit here with a new workspace, and I just go blank. Everything I just watched that looked so easy just slips away.

And here I am. I just don't know how to start. Everything is pretty much being created from scratch and her drawings are guidelines, so creatively I have a lot of freedom. I am wondering if any of you have a process maybe? Everything I need to create just seems so simple on paper but when I come into Moho my mind explodes lol.

Any guidance at all would be super appreciated. I know that as I use it, it should become so much easier, but I really am struggling with getting simple ideas from my head into this program...

[slowtiger]

You have the double problem of learning Moho and creating a film at the same time. Congratulations! That's how most of us learned.

For a good start concentrate on the filmmaking aspect first. Get a bunch of paper and start scribbling.
- what kind of film is it going to be? Educational, funny, PSA, documentary, other?
- who's going to be the audience?
- how long will it be?
- which kind of storytelling will you use? Is there a narrator? Are there characters? Do they have dialogue?
Write down all answers to this, and you will have a good first idea of your film.

You should have a rough script. Now do a storyboard. Break down the script into scenes (a scene is what happens between two cuts). Do a scribble of each scene:
- where is this happening?
- who's in the scene?
- what are they doing?
- how long is this scene (in seconds)?
Now you know which kind of movement is required in every scene. With this knowledge you can start to design your characters. If they take a cup and drink from it, you will need arms which are long enough, a rig which bends at the elbow, and a head small enough so the cup reaches the mouth. See? Every previous decision determinesthe following. Do they walk? Then they need legs and a full rig for it.
Now is the point to test the first stuff in Moho. I suppose you want to use bitmaps from photoshop (scans or drawn digitally)? Create a first version of a character with all necessary parts for one certain movement. Don't worry about details like color, you will trash this later. This is to learn the sequence of importing and rigging stuff, get familiar with the tools, etc. You will animate a very basic version of your first movements in Moho. Hooray!

And so it continues. You will refine your characters, you will design backgrounds, put the characters on top of it, adjust colors, and so on. You will make mistakes and learn from them.

Tips:
- Only do one scene per project. You will assemble all scenes later, in a video editor.
- Don't try to create one perfect rig for a character. Instead have different rigs for different views. Keep it simple.
- Take care of naming your assets. Scene number, character name (short), body part. Don't use non-Ascii-characters or spaces in these. It's recommended to have a folder "moho scenes" on your drive, inside that a folder "assets" with all bitmaps used.
- What you see in the project window is not what the final render will look like. Render tests, as often as necessary.

I think this is already too much for a first lesson ... let us know how it goes!

[alanthebox]

This thread might be helpful: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=34731

[cgrotke]

I'd suggest a day of playing around.

Take one of the characters you'd like to work with in the future and try to build it, then animate it. Make mistakes. Try things. Can you get a ball to bounce? A character to blink and wave? A bird to flap wings in a a cycle? Practice making things go faster and slower by adjusting the timeline. Try to end the day with one little example that you really like watching. (I think one of my first projects was to make a quick character and get them to juggle... it was a mess, but I got it to work and learned what I needed to learn more about.)

On your second round, try to do one short scene from the film. It's sometimes good to work on a scene somewhere in the middle, so that by the time you do the beginning and end scenes, you'll be much better. Easier to hide a mistake in the middle. : )

In terms of planning your project, look for ways to simplify. Bringing an illustrated book to life can take many forms. Disney opens the book then jump into full animation. That's a lot of work! Sometimes some very minimal motion is all you'll need if the backgrounds look great and the narration and music are good.

The book might be a pretty good storyboard if it is a picture book. One early step might be to try to get all the background art finished off, separating out the characters.

Some cheats for making animation simpler:

- close ups - if you can get to a close-up, you don't have to worry about animating what isn't seen
- off screen action - if a car goes of screen and there is a crash sound, the car crashed but you didn't have to animate it.
- walking behind things - put your character behind a bush or wall and you don't have to worry about animating the legs and feet. Also, can they slide? Or ride in on wheels?
- some eye blinks and minimal head and body moves can keep a character looking alive

[Darquesyde]

Thank you all sooo much! It's a lot to take in but seeing as I am sick anyway this is perfect for me to do as you all suggested. I have sketch pads so I can make some rough drawing and get some ideas out at least. Then once I am able to sit at the computer again I'll do just that. Mess around with it. I think thats why I am so nervous I feel a lot is expected of me and I am a perfectionist, so I expect a lot from myself as well. But I just gotta go baby steps first.

Thank you all again huge help