Video editor with z axis movement

[FoundPebble]

I did start thinking about trying Davinci Resolve, but then when I saw tutorials on the stuff I wanted to do like color grading, I would have to use nodes. I struggled a lot when trying to use blender and working with nodes, and I would rather work with the sliders I see other programs have. I don't want to give up everything I wanted to do for the sake of simplicity if you know what I mean. I may give up the 3D camera thing, but only if I'm able to move characters on the z axis convincingly and do all that other stuff like parallax without it. If not, I'm sticking with hitfilm free.
I did see that Resolve 18 is new and does have colors wheels, but I'm not sure if I would have to use nodes anymore because all the tutorials I saw were from 17 and before.

[FoundPebble]

Davinci Resole is free though and can do alot so maybe I will try it, and see how much I can do without getting into nodes or fusion.

[Greenlaw]

FWIW, working with nodes in Fusion is pretty easy, and technically, it's still basically working with layers just like with After Effects.

For example, at the most basic level, you add a Loader to import your background image and then add a second Loader to import your character animation. Then you add a Merge node to, well, merge your character on top of the background. Think of each Loader and Merge node as basically a layer in Ae and you've got it. At the very end of the chain, add a Saver node to render the result. And that's it...you're compositing with nodes in Fusion!

From there, you can add more Loaders and Merge nodes to stack more layers, and you can also add nodes between the nodes for processing the images or adding FX (i.e., particles, displacements, etc.,). If you need an animateable mask, just add a mask node and pipe that into the node you want to mask. At it's most basic, editing a mask is just like working with a vector layer in Moho. Wow, look! Now you're 'advanced' compositing in Fusion!

Tip: Experienced users will lay out the nodes in a top/down and left/right structure, like a flow chart, so they can easily follow the comp from start to finish.

Some cool things about working with nodes: you can reuse a single node or group of nodes by branching it to multiple points in your comp. This makes it super easy to make global changes and/or make slight variations to processing different parts of a comp without recreating stacks of effects (like you must in Ae.) Also, you can add multiple Saver nodes at the end so you can save the render in multiple formats or save different versions of the comp in a single render. These are some simple things you cannot do in a layer based compositing program, not easily anyway.

Setting up network rendering with Fusion is really easy too (but I think you still need the paid version for that.)

That said, Fusion is super cheap these days, especially compared to the another popular nodal compositing program Nuke (which is what I use at my workplace, along with After Effects.)) Back in 2001, when I bought my first Fusion license, I got it for $2000 and that was with a hefty work discount; the full price back then was $4000! Nowadays you can buy Fusion for $295! (I believe Nuke is even more expensive now, at least $5000.)

Of course, when you need to, Fusion can let you get way much more sophisticated with your comps...but that's up to you. It's a great program even if you only do very simple comps. If you ever change your mind about nodal compositing, I highly recommend Fusion.

One of these days, I'll take the time to break down some of my Scareplane shots that were comped in Fusion. I think Moho users may find that interesting.

[Greenlaw]

Last thing I'll say about Fusion for Moho (for now anyway.)

Since Moho has limited PNG export right now, Ae is totally great for compositing Moho too.

But if Moho ever starts supporting EXR with aux channel buffers like I described in another thread (depth; IDs for styles, strokes & fills; motion vectors; normals; etc.,) I would definitely be doing all my Moho comps in Fusion. Ae's EXR support is...well, I guess it has it...but it's clunky compared to Fusion's EXR support.

[FoundPebble]

The way you explain it makes nodes sound not difficult. Maybe I shouldn't rely on past experiences with other programs to determine how I will feel about another one. I will look into davinci resolve again and see how much I understand with nodes.

[Greenlaw]

Ok, I lied...here's one more thing I'll say about Fusion and Moho:

To keep this relevant to this topic, in Fusion you can insert a Transform node to manipulate your image, or you can add a 3D Camera node place the image in a layer in 3D space and move them around there. You can have the best of both worlds this way. (This part is actually very 'Moho-like'.)

[Hoptoad]

I did start thinking about trying Davinci Resolve, but then when I saw tutorials on the stuff I wanted to do like color grading, I would have to use nodes.

Color grading? Are we still talking about making an animatic?

Here is an incredibly well-done animatic for a two-minute scene in "Zootopia" with a side-by-side of the actual completed cartoon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rTNT4J2FGo

I doubt this example was color graded, as it's mostly loose drawings with some gray fills.
And there are no 3D effects evident - just basic zooming, tracking and camera shake. Any NLE could handle the editing job, in my opinion. This "Zootopia" example could even be reproduced in Moho.

Will your animatic be more "completed" than this example? If so, wow.

[FoundPebble]

I meant for everything to be in an animatic style in the sense that there are no fluid movement. Every character jumps from pose to pose and certain images flip bck and forth. However, I still wanted there to be color and lighting like a final animation. I was thinking of using the color grading only for stuff like night scenes so I wouldn't have to copy old drawings, but with a different color pallete and take up even more space on the external hard drive than what I was hoping. I know doing it this way will already take up a lot of space though.

Not really animatic in the traditional sense like rough drawings or a storyboard put together like a video. It will still have final drawings, and look almost finished except without the actual movement. The movement that is there is not frame the animation itself, it would be from me literally messing around with the images like stretching and squishing them when a character talks, throwing them around the screen, flipping them around, and stuff like that. If I were to complete the actual animation, If I even had the talent XD, it would take a very long time to complete five minute episodes, even if I did reuse a lot of images/ frames. The closest thing I could call it was either animatic like or a very stilted motion comic. However, some of the motion comics I've seen have some actual animation, even if it is something like the cape bloing in the wind.

I wasn't really going to use the 3D camera for any spinning or any crazy 3D effects, just for depth, parallax, zooms, and moving a character infront of and behind other objects occasionally. I might be able to do that last part without a 3D camera, but I really liked the way zooms looked with multiplane cameras. I'll try to figure out how to do that stuff without the 3D camera though.

[Greenlaw]

If you're working with the final assets, you're not really talking about an animatic; it sounds like you're already in production.

At this stage, I wouldn't bother with animating camera choreography inside the video editor, simulated or otherwise...you may as well do it properly in Moho (or whichever program you're animating in.) With some exceptions, doing the camera work inside a video editor seems like extra work that would be easier to do in an animation or compositing program.

I still recommend using a traditional production workflow:

1. Storyboard - sequential still drawings (rough sketches)
2. Animatic - the storyboard on a video editor timeline with scene durations set and audio added (temp or final.)) Some animatics feature limited animation (panning and zooms) but it's really not necessary.
3. Animation - final animated scenes created on shot-by-shot basis to match the timing and duration based on animatic. Can be done in an animation and/or compositing program. (i.e., Moho and/or Ae or Fusion, or whatever. TBH, for this type of animation, a comp program isn't necessary unless you need specific features from it.)
4. Final Edit - the final animation inserted on the timeline in video editor. Use the animatic edit as your base, and overcut each animatic scene with the final animation version as you complete them. Just import the final footage to a layer above the animatic layer. After you've replaced all the animatic footage with final footage, and mixed the audio, you're done!

There are good reasons many animators (pro and hobbyist) and all pro studios follow this workflow: it's simple and efficient, and if you stick with it you're more likely to complete the production.

This are just suggestions of course. Hope this helps.

[Hoptoad]

I meant for everything to be in an animatic style. . .

Ah! Your visual approach to the project sounds pretty cool.

Personally, I like to do a lot of camera-type editing in Moho. In that department, Moho is far, far more powerful than DiVinci Resolve (imo).

DiVinci Resolve is where I stitch my exported Moho animations together, add transitions, maybe add a slow zoom, do audio things, and eventually render a finished video.

[FoundPebble]

I meant for everything to be in an animatic style. . .

Ah! Your visual approach to the project sounds pretty cool.

Personally, I like to do a lot of camera-type editing in Moho. In that department, Moho is far, far more powerful than DiVinci Resolve (imo).

DiVinci Resolve is where I stitch my exported Moho animations together, add transitions, maybe add a slow zoom, do audio things, and eventually render a finished video.

Thank you. If I were to do this completely in moho, how would I do this without having too many switch layers? I have anime studio 9.5. I don't want to do any rigging yet, and I was thinking I might upgrade to 13.5 or higher if I did want to rig. I would be nice to draw in moho and just keep flat colors on the characters. Moho, especially old versions aren't really for frame by frame animation though. I could draw everything in a separate program, but since Moho is for animation, if I were doing it there, I might at well draw there too. I know stuff like Adobe Animate and Toon Boom have symbols so you can reuse drawings within the program but does moho, or any program have an equivalent? I think it's useful for saving space and not having a bunch of pngs on my eternal hard drive, but those two programs are way out of my price range right now.

[FoundPebble]

If not, I'll probably try it in Davinci Resolve and end up filling 1TB. Then I'll just get a 16TB, and continue. Unfortunatley that means I have to keep the hard drive connected to my laptop anytime I want to continue a project, but I guess that is fine. I don't really trust too many cloud based storages other than Goggle Drive. I do like how Moho has that easily made jitter effect, but I think I can do it in Davinci Resolve with fast noise.

[Hoptoad]

If I were in your shoes, I might do this. . .
Make a Moho project titled "Unit 1" (or whatever).
Make a group of 5 or so switch layers, ones that would be re-used a few times.
Make another group of single-use switch layers.
And then I would animate maybe 30 seconds and render the animation.

That "unit" is done. Then I would create a wholly new Moho project and call it "Unit 2."
I would use the handy-dandy "import Moho file" feature to import certain backgrounds and characters from Unit 1 into Unit 2.
Then I would create a new Moho file for the next 30 seconds, and repeat.

For a 5-minute cartoon, that would be 10 units. I would stitch them together in Divinci Resolve.

Important: I would let certain scenes run a second too long, because it helps when making transitions in Divinci Resolve. Many transitions need an extra second or so to fade or slide or whatever.

I might also do some of this:
Duplicate a character several times and drag the characters to areas far apart, so you will only see one character at a time in the actual workspace. Then I would alter the characters for various purposes, like raising the arms of character 2, changing the facial expression of character 3, and so forth. Then I would use camera tracking and step interpolation to "jump" instantly from one character to another in the timeline. If you haven't done this sort of thing before, it's pretty easy. I'll explain.

Duplicate a character and move the duplicate far away.
Go to frame 24. Choose the camera tracking tool and click in the workspace to create a keyframe on the timeline. Then go to frame 48 and track the camera from character 1 to character 2. Press the play. You will see the camera slide from character 1 to character 2 over the course of a second. Now go to frame 24 and right click on the camera tracking keyframe and select "step" from the list of possible interpolations. The tiny circle that represents the keyframe on the timeline with change slightly. That's it. Press play and you will see nothing happen from frame 24 to frame 47. And then, suddenly, on frame 48 the camera will teleport to the location of character 2.

You could use this technique to jump around to different areas and focus on different things. It also works with zoom and other nifty features. Step interpolation is awesome.

But switch layers are easy, as long as you don't get so many that it becomes confusing.

[FoundPebble]

If I were in your shoes, I might do this. . .
Make a Moho project titled "Unit 1" (or whatever).
Make a group of 5 or so switch layers, ones that would be re-used a few times.
Make another group of single-use switch layers.
And then I would animate maybe 30 seconds and render the animation.

That "unit" is done. Then I would create a wholly new Moho project and call it "Unit 2."
I would use the handy-dandy "import Moho file" feature to import certain backgrounds and characters from Unit 1 into Unit 2.
Then I would create a new Moho file for the next 30 seconds, and repeat.

For a 5-minute cartoon, that would be 10 units. I would stitch them together in Divinci Resolve.

Important: I would let certain scenes run a second too long, because it helps when making transitions in Divinci Resolve. Many transitions need an extra second or so to fade or slide or whatever.

I might also do some of this:
Duplicate a character several times and drag the characters to areas far apart, so you will only see one character at a time in the actual workspace. Then I would alter the characters for various purposes, like raising the arms of character 2, changing the facial expression of character 3, and so forth. Then I would use camera tracking and step interpolation to "jump" instantly from one character to another in the timeline. If you haven't done this sort of thing before, it's pretty easy. I'll explain.

Duplicate a character and move the duplicate far away.
Go to frame 24. Choose the camera tracking tool and click in the workspace to create a keyframe on the timeline. Then go to frame 48 and track the camera from character 1 to character 2. Press the play. You will see the camera slide from character 1 to character 2 over the course of a second. Now go to frame 24 and right click on the camera tracking keyframe and select "step" from the list of possible interpolations. The tiny circle that represents the keyframe on the timeline with change slightly. That's it. Press play and you will see nothing happen from frame 24 to frame 47. And then, suddenly, on frame 48 the camera will teleport to the location of character 2.

You could use this technique to jump around to different areas and focus on different things. It also works with zoom and other nifty features. Step interpolation is awesome.

But switch layers are easy, as long as you don't get so many that it becomes confusing.

That's an interseting idea. Atleast doing it this way vs pngs in a video editor, I can actually move the limbs, such as rotating them. I do like though how video editors have media panels though where you can see preview images of all your file before you put them into the timeline. If I'm doing this long term in Moho, would I have to keep jumping from file to file to find a specific asset I want to reuse or is there a better way to organize everything? If I were doing it with a video editor, I would make one big folder for everything. Then I would make a folder for each character inside that folder. Then more folders inside that is labelled after wat pose each character is doing. Then referencing the storyboard, I would know exactly which folder to go to in order to import a specific facial expression or pose.

[FoundPebble]

Maybe what I should do is still draw the pngs so I can have that folder organization. Also, I do have an easier time making my raster drawings look good than vector. Any time I draw anything in moho, I still have to draw it on paper first to make it look good. With Affinity designer I just go into the pixel persona and draw there first before doing vector. Now, I'm just debating on whether I import those files into moho, have the easily accesible 3D camera, and work with switch layers, and have to divide everything, including the audio, then import into Resolve or just do everything in Resolve, be able to adjust the lighting on everything individually since everything is separate, but have to learn fusion in order to do certain things, like having a 3D camera for parallax if I really needed it.
There probably is a method that is simplest aned most practical, including using vectors in moho, but my head is so conflicted on what to do and likes to make things complicated.