Still struggles using binding :(

[mmmaarten]

Hi Folks,

After days of trying and searching for GOOD AND COMPLETE (!!) DOCUMENTATION on binding I am at the point to give up (although I will keep grinding 'till I fully grasp it). I feel like the way everything is done in the UI is so overly complex for what it actually is and so inconsistant in terms used etc. that it's almost impossible to grasp all advanced binding methods. While I even came from Spine, Blender and other (broadcast/graphics/animation) software, I am devevloping software and interfaces for 25 years, and am very familiar with the methods used underwater (both meshes and bone systems). I even programmed my own graphics, FK and IK systems myself so I don't see myself as a beginner. But still it is especially difficult to learn Moho because there is no decent documentation on this to be found nowhere and it's a little overkill to watch every tutorial video out there just to really understand what the totally confusing UI names actually do (and what not). And get actual information on how it works, and not only the superficial first day usage scenarios.

Please Lost Marble; add some decent and complete documentation for Moho!! A introductionary tutorial PDF targeted at beginners just isn't enough. I see that many things in the software are basically very easy stuff underwater to understand, but the way it's implemented in the UI makes things so unnecesary difficult to get while it shouldn't be that hard. And it shouldn't be needed to find out how everything works by trial'n'error for days now (and still having struggles). This shouldn't take all this time for a professional already familiar with such systems, it should be just a lookup in documentation on well known terms, or better: quickly find in an intuitive UI and recognisable consistant naming. But many terms aren't even in the only official PDF documentation I could find when we search for it.

I am documenting everything for myself now after lots of testing and trial'n'error to create my own documentation, and even now it still doesn't work as expected and there are still things unclear and issues. For UI naming alone. This is crazy to me.

I'm so far as that these are the possible methods:
- Point binding (= direct point binding)
- Flexi point binding (= point binding with influence)
- Layer binding (= direct layer binding)
- Flexi binding (= flexi layer binding)

And that we could use for Vector layers:
- Layer binding (direct)
- Point binding (direct)
- Flexi Point binding (influence)

And for image layers:
- Layer binding (direct)
- Flexi binding (influence)

And for warp layers/meshes (which could be applied to both Vector and Bitmap layers):
- Points binding (direct)
- Flexi Points binding (influence)

But I still have issues and lots of questions I cannot find nowhere, like:
1 - Is above actually true and complete?
2 - It's crazy enough that already things get deformed when not even setting any binding. And it seems impossible to turn this unwanted behaviour off. To me it would make more sense to manually bind bones to layers, but now we need to take care on how to turn off the unwanted default behaviour first? And the way to do this seems to be to bind all bones to layers??? But what if we want some things not to be bound?
3 - And what type of binding is this?
4 - As I understand (and found on this forum) is that 'Release layer' doesn't do what we think it does. As it destroys the way to later use flexi binding on that layer again??? Totally unclear what this does. And cannot find no info on this. I would expect this to do the opposite of binding; releasing. But it obviously does more than that and prevents for further binding. Which is confusing to say the least.
5 - I found somewhere on this forum that 'Reset all bone rigging' resets this so we can flexi-bind again??? I just don't get it. Why isn't release layer enough and why doesn't it just do what it says; release the layer, so the opposite of bind layer??
6 - And from what bones does 'release layer' release the layer? All bones? Selected bones? I have no clue
7 - What is this 'Reset all bone rigging?' actually doing? And does this work on selected bones? or on all bones? Or is this layer dependent??? To me it doesn't make much sense to use a feature I don't understand what it does. And again; nothing to be found about this.
8 - What is 'Flexi Bind layer' in the menu? Is that yet a 5th method? How is this different to 'Flexi binding' we use with bones?
9 - Several menu items related to binding seems to be active (not disabled in the menu), even though I don't think they are actually possible to use in the selected situation? Not sure
10 - Why the weird places of the divider line in the Bone-menu? They seem to group things that I don't think belong to each other and that makes things even more complicated and confusing.
11 - Is it possible to bind the same bones to multiple layers with flexi binding? (where is this binding stored internally? In the bones or in the layers?)
12 - When we use meshes controlled by bones, do we still need to release the image layers it controls to stop the effect of the default bone influence?? Or is that taken over completely by the controlling mesh/warp layer?
13 - How can we see what is bound to what? Using what method?

Because of this several times already I had the issue of some bindings 'suddenly' not there anymore. Only because I don't understand the inner workings because I cannot find any info about it.

Also when not knowing 100% sure how things are supposed to work, how could I know I bump into a bug or am missing something?

- And why is the following situation STILL deforming layers that were never bound to these bones and were released, both with release points as well as release layer??? [please see video below]



Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad at nobody and not at Lost Marble, but I am pretty frustrated by all of this by now. Because I'm normally not struggling to get software like this and this could've been prevented by just a decent documentation. It all feels like find out everything for yourself or struggle by searching through the forum. And every user should do it this way? To me that just doesn't make sense and it shouldn't be that hard to just have some consistant and understandable UI naming, placing, workflow. And reading the forum it's clear I'm not the only thinking this way, but it doesn't seem to have changed over the years.

Sorry for the rant, but I just don't get it. And I really would like to get it. I really would like to advocate Moho so much, but some things are just so weird to me. I think it's just a missed oppertunity that we all need to go though all this struggle while it shouldn't be that hard to prevent all this by just some good documentation with all features explained in detail. With a good explanation on the possible binding methods, pros/cons and when to use what. And not only about a simple binding, but also about stuff like releasing and do more advanced mix'n'match combinations. etc. Not just only the superficial first usage questions.

[JoelMayer]

But... did you see this PDF?

https://lostmarble.net/Manuals/Moho%20U ... ual_HQ.pdf

This is the Manual. The Beginner Tutorial is a separate document.

It has everything about the layers/binding methods.

(Chapter 21: Bone Menu)

[mmmaarten]

But... did you see this PDF?

https://lostmarble.net/Manuals/Moho%20U ... ual_HQ.pdf

This is the Manual. The Beginner Tutorial is a separate document.

It has everything about the layers/binding methods.

(Chapter 21: Bone Menu)

OMG, thanks for this response. I'm having some PDF here that looks just like it on the front, but says 'Tutorial Manual' instead and has completely different content. Not sure how I could've missed this manual and where I could've found it and why it didn't show up while searching for it (probably my bad), but that looks way more like it! Going to dive in now to see if there's light on the end of the binding tunnel and see if it answers my questions!
Thanks again Joel

[Greenlaw]

I would be careful not to overthink this. In most situations, you only need these three modes:

• Use Selected Bones for Flexi-binding
• Point Binding
• Layer Binding

I generally don't bother with other methods until I need something specific that the above three don't provide.

Here are a few guidelines for how I decide which method to use.

Flex-binding - the default mode where every bone influences everything. The degree of influence is based on bone strength and distance. This mode results in an organic, squishy deformation, which is generally okay for characters and other organic subjects, but I feel I have more control using other methods. So, except for the simplest rigs, I hardly ever stick with this method. It's a good place to start, though.

Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding - or as I prefer to call it, 'Selective Flexi-binding'. (It's not officially called that, but it's easier to say.) This is like Flexi-binding, but you can constrain any artwork layer to be affected by specific bones. This mode is incredibly useful, but when I use it, I generally apply it to every layer that's not using one of the other binding methods. This is because applying this mode to certain layers does not mean these bones can't still affect other layers. Remember, with regular Flexi-binding (the default,) every bone affects the layer. Note that this is NOT a bug; it's just something to be aware of.

When I was starting out in Moho, this was the mode I used the most. It's used all over the place in my first Moho animation Scareplane, and I used it almost exclusively in the Netflix shows All Hail King Julien and Puss In Boots. Afterward, I started combining it with Bind Points (described below.)

Bind Layer Tool - is the easiest binding method and very useful for adding non-deforming (by bones) items to a rig, like props or parts of a face. It's one of two binding Tools in Moho, unlike the other methods, which are applied as Menu commands. Using it is easy: Select the layers you wish to bind, then click the bone you want to bind to. Note that you can bind Groups to bones using this tool, but if you do, Moho assumes you don't want to use other bones at all for any of the items inside the Group. Again, this is not a bug; it's just something to be aware of. When I need to use a bone for an item contained inside a group, I just select all the other items inside that group and bind them all at once to the bone. This leaves the remaining item available for other binding methods.

Bind Points Tool - After Selective Flexi-binding, this is arguably the most useful mode. This method lets you bind any point in a vector layer to any bone in the rig. Like Bind Layer, it binds the selected point or points rigidly to a bone, and nothing else can affect it, not even turning off bone strength. You can bind individual points in a drawing to different bones, but each point can only be bound to one bone. Also, you can leave some points in a drawing unbound so they can be bound by other methods. Personally, I like combining Bind Points with Selective Flexi-binding, especially in limbs.

Some users prefer using this method to bind an entire drawing to a bone, but I prefer using Bind Layer for that because it's cleaner and easier, and produces the same result.

Create Smooth Joint For Bone Pair - is a curious mode. It creates a circular zone between two bones where the artwork can bend with minimal distortion. I found it works surprisingly well for painted artwork, and used this for Puss' arms in the interactive episode of Puss-In-Boots. There are many limitations with this method but when it works, it works very well.

Some of the limitations: It works best for artwork that's fairly straight. For example, I used it for Thighsander Plunderhorse's arms and legs in All Hail King Julien, but the technique did not look very good for her partner Norge Grendlefist who has really beefy arms. Also, it technically only works between two bones, however, Victor figured out a clever workaround for this by using duplicate layers and masks. A search on YouTube should turn up his explanation of the technique.

This is really all that's needed to work with binding in Moho, and realistically, the three mentioned at the top should cover most binding needs. Depending on the designs and the style of animation one is going for, it's conceivable to need only one type of binding for an entire production.

Hope this helps.

[Greenlaw]

On more tip:

I mentioned that Flexi-bind is a 'good place to start' even though I hardly stay with it. What I meant is that it's a predictable baseline for building what I need because I know exactly what Flexi-bind doing by default, and I know how to change things from there to get exactly what I need.

This leads to the topic: 'How do I fix my binding when I REALLY mess it up?"

Instead of potentially wasting hours trying to reverse engineer bad binding settings, the easiest way is to select your artwork layers and then choose Reset All Bone Rigging. This will reset the selected layers to the default Flex-bind mode, and then I can simply apply the binding method intended (hopefully avoiding the mistake I made the first time.)

New users tend to shy away from this command because it sounds destructive, but when you understand how it works, it's very useful and a great timesaver. The key is to make sure you select the problem layers before using the command because it affects only the selected layers. If you don't select any layers, Moho will assume you want to reset ALL of the layers, so be careful.

Hope this helps.

[mmmaarten]

On more tip:

I mentioned that Flexi-bind is a 'good place to start' even though I hardly stay with it. What I meant is that it's a predictable baseline for building what I need because I know exactly what Flexi-bind doing by default, and I know how to change things from there to get exactly what I need.

This leads to the topic: 'How do I fix my binding when I REALLY mess it up?"

Instead of potentially wasting hours trying to reverse engineer bad binding settings, the easiest way is to select your artwork layers and then choose Reset All Bone Rigging. This will reset the selected layers to the default Flex-bind mode, and then I can simply apply the binding method intended (hopefully avoiding the mistake I made the first time.)

New users tend to shy away from this command because it sounds destructive, but when you understand how it works, it's very useful and a great timesaver. The key is to make sure you select the problem layers before using the command because it affects only the selected layers. If you don't select any layers, Moho will assume you want to reset ALL of the layers, so be careful.

Hope this helps.

Hi Greenlaw,

Thanks again for the response and although most of this I knew there are some answers in there. My questions aren't about how the methods work. That's mostly clear to me by now. The questions are more about when to use what method, where stuff is in the UI (with these confusing and sometimes wrong naming) and how to disable bindings the right way without losing other bindings etc.. Also in advanced situations like overlapping things, using meshes on several layers, why some things don't work as expected etc.. That's not overthinking, that's having a serious and professional mindset to me in wanting to know how stuff really works under the hood to know what methods to use and what not to use in order to get above the stage of just fiddling around and get the most of it while being creative with it.

For one I noticed you didn't mention the 'Flexi Point Binding' mode. Was that intentional?

T.b.h. I think the two methods I would use the most would be:
- Layer binding
- Point/vertex binding with weight painting (just like in Spine and Blender for instance) used together with custom meshes

But the latter isn't available unfortunately. The issue with Point binding is that only a single bone is able to control a point and there is no way to set the amount of influence. And the issue with Flexi Point Binding is that we have some form of influence of a bone to the points, but we lack all control. It's too little direct and we cannot manage the influence on each 'vertex' individually. I really miss that from Spine and Blender t.b.h. because it's very powerfull and gives us all the control we need. Yes, it's more manual work, but it can give us exactly what we're after and is as flexible as it can be. With flexi-binding now, as is your finding, it's hit or miss and with direct binding with points we get extreme hard bendings and many things are impossible to do in that mode. I cannot see myself using that direct point binding tbh.

I really hope a new version could have such a weight painting mode.

Reset All Bone Rigging. This will reset the selected layers to the default Flex-bind mode, and then I can simply apply the binding method intended (hopefully avoiding the mistake I made the first time.)

New users tend to shy away from this command because it sounds destructive,

Yes, of course! they should! How could they not think 10 times before using it, if it's called "Reset ALL Bone Rigging"???? I mean; what is 'Rigging' in this case? Normally you call the process of adding bones and controls to an object 'rigging'. So 'Reset Rigging' implies it removes all bones and bindings!! Which I would definitely not use during binding. By your words I now even get that the 'All' description is not true as you say that it only affects the SELECTED bones... Why isn't that in the name than? Of course this gets users confused. And the UI is full of situations just like this. That's my point. If the descriptions aren't telling what they do already, than it's pretty difficult to intuitively use and learn new software. No matter how much you know about any software or technique. That's part of my point.

The questions I have now are not that much about how these methods work, but about how to actually use them, how they are implemented, what are the exact limits, what are pros and cons, how can they be mixed and matched, how can we actually have full control to make it do exactly what we want it to do, how can we check which binds we actually have, how can we turn off unwanted default bindings etc.. In other words; the important nitty gritty to actually use them in real world professional projects where we don't want hit or miss, but need to know exactly what we're doing. What do functions like 'Release' REALLY do. Why do things stop working suddenly? How to work around the unwanted default 'global' flexi bindings that messes up the bindings I made? Those aren't little details, those are the things that make the difference between just fiddling around and exactly knowing what you're doing to actually make things work to use it exactly the way you want things to work.

Also you added a few times in your post that things are not a bug, but 'just as they are'... but the fact alone that you felt the need to write that underscribes exactly my point. And when I read older posts by you you were as confused as I was, just like many others here. You only got used to things that aren't intuitive and remapped them in your head. But if every new user needs to go through the struggle to learn non-intuitive things, why not change it and make it intuitive instead? Even simple naming changes could change the world in understanding the UI.

Yes, I will master the way it's build now and I hope to find these answers in the manual now, which I am reading now. And you answered some important ones in your post. But the next new user, but also ourselves in later time when using that software or feature after not using it for a while, will have the same questions again... that's what I meant by 'I don't get it'.

Hope this makes sense.

[Daxel]

In my experience, most users don't use flexi-binding at all, because we prefer to have more control over what is affecting each point using point binding instead.

As you guessed, flexi-binding is automatic, so we usually make sure that it is not affecting any point by selecting all bones (ctrl+A) and reducing the bone strength to 0. This is annoying and prone to errors if you keep adding bones and you have to remember to turn their strength off each time, and that's why I made a proposal asking for an option for the add bone tool to have an editable default or initial bone strength here, and we even have a nice script thanks to Sam: https://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewto ... 02#p205802

Let's hope it will become a built in option sooner or later.

If you are rigging a background prop like a simple flower or things like that, it can be faster or easier to set up with flexibinding but honestly I don't even use it in those cases, I'm just fast enough using the bind points tool at this point. In my opinion Moho "favors" or encourages the use of flexibinding more than it should, while most users see it as something that rarely is the best option.

[mmmaarten]

Thanks for your very insightful post Daxel. Appreciated! I agree with you, although I would personally prefer to not even having only the strength at zero, but no default binding at all. Because everybody works differently, so why should software assume everybody wants to use any binding method for all children of a bone group?
The other day I created a ticket with a feature request to add a checkbox to the global settings to disable the automatic binding alltogether. To me it makes much more sense to start clean and mix'n'match binding modes on selected bones where needed. And if things are not bound, we have a reason to do so I think.

BTW thanks for the link to that script! Very convenient!

[Greenlaw]

...I noticed you didn't mention the 'Flexi Point Binding' mode. Was that intentional?

AFAIK, that's just a way to assign Flexi-binding to a point, and not a separate binding mode. The command is there if Flexi-binding was released from the selected point(s) and the user needs to restore it. (A released point is completely unaffected by bones.)

Applying Flexi Bind Points to a point is basically the same as using Reset All Bone Rigging but to the point selection instead of the entire layer.

[Greenlaw]

Applying Flexi Bind Points to a point is basically the same as using Reset All Bone Rigging but to the point selection instead of the entire layer.

Hmm...that got me thinking, "But does it, though?" Specifically, I wondered if it would even remove Bind Points mode. I thought maybe not since this binding mode is applied using a Tool. But I tested it just now and it removes Bind Point from the selected points and restored the default Flexi-binding to those points, but left unselected points alone with their existing Bind Points.

So, it's not just for released points; it's for resetting any binding to Flexi-binding, but for any selected points.

Don't think I've ever had to use this (because I just use Reset All Rigging to reset) but good to know.

[mmmaarten]

I wondered if it would even remove Bind Points mode.

tbh I think it should do that. Together with better descriptive naming and a default of no binding to start with. I really think that would make a lot of things way easier to get (see above)

So, it's not just for released points; it's for resetting any binding to Flexi-binding, but for any selected points.

Yes, and don't forget that there are also IMAGE layers.... what is it doing there? Is the default on Image layers Flexi Bind Layer?

So without doing any binding these are the defaults?:
- on Vector layers: Flexi Point binding
- on Image layers: Flexi Layer binding
- on Mash warp layers/meshes: Flexi Point binding

?

And when an image has a Warp layer applied to it, does it still ALSO has influence by the original Flexi Layer binding before the warp layer was applied? Or is Flexi Layer binding completely ignored on Image layers when we choose a warp layer on them?

And another question I currently have: We have 'Use All bones for Flexi-binding' and 'Flexi-bind layer' menu items... They seem to do the same thing: bind the current layer to all bones. So is there any difference? Why are there two menu items?

It's very late here now, so will stop with this now and continue tomorrow testing some more. But this was very useful. You guys really helped me with some great answers and together with the manual I'm finally getting at the point that I get the complete picture without needing to guess why stuff doesn't work as expected. Thanks a lot for that!

BTW thanks a lot for all this help! Really appreciated. I've read the parts in the manual about this now btw, which also answered some things

[Greenlaw]

Yes, and don't forget that there are also IMAGE layers.... what is it doing there? Is the default on Image layers Flexi Bind Layer?

Yes, it is. When you bind an image layer, Moho generates a mesh internally, and that's what's actually getting the Flexi-binding.

At one time, this was the only way to bind an image layer in Moho, but nowadays, when you create your own Mesh Warp layer, this layer replaces the internal 'auto-generated' mesh.

In many situations, the internal mesh usually works well enough, except that it's not editable, and sometimes the mesh resolution isn't high enough and can result in faceting along the edges.

I think I first ran into this problem back on All Hail King Julien with Thighsander Plunderhorse's long lemur tail. Then, lucky for me, custom meshes came along and allowed me to address the problem by making my own mesh as detailed as needed.

So without doing any binding these are the defaults?:
- on Vector layers: Flexi Point binding
- on Image layers: Flexi Layer binding
- on Mash warp layers/meshes: Flexi Point binding

It's all Flexi-binding. The binding is done to vertices, whether it's in a Vector layer, Image layer, or Mesh Warp layer.

[mmmaarten]

It's all Flexi-binding. The binding is done to vertices, whether it's in a Vector layer, Image layer, or Mesh Warp layer.

Ah yes, that makes sense. So under water everything is probably either Flexi-Point binding or (direct) Point binding. Very insightful. Thanks for this addition!

Now I go to sleep

[Greenlaw]

And another question I currently have: We have 'Use All bones for Flexi-binding' and 'Flexi-bind layer' menu items... They seem to do the same thing: bind the current layer to all bones. So is there any difference? Why are there two menu items?

They're two different things.

When you use Use Selected Layers For Flexi-bind, it constrains the selected layers to selected bones.

I think the Flexi-bind Layers command is kinda the same as what I described for Flexi-bind Points but for layers. If you have a layer that's been released from binding, you can restore its default Flexi-binding by using this command. It's like Reset All Rigging but for more specific selections. (Hmm...in writing this note, this is sounding very similar to what Reset All Rigging does. I'll need to check for what the differences are.)

Okay, now you can go to sleep. Good night!

[Greenlaw]

Ah yes, that makes sense. So under water everything is probably either Flexi-Point binding or (direct) Point binding...

Yup! That's it.

Then there's Bind Layer, which is great when you want a group or layer to follow only one bone. I use Bind Layer mainly for props, ornaments, and any part of the body that doesn't need to be deformed by bones. In my rigs, that's often the entire face or a hand group. These items are usually point animated with Smart Bone Actions, Mesh Warps, or with regular layer transforms (or a combination of these.)

That rounds out the three I mentioned at the top of this discussion (Flexi-binding, Bind Points, and Bind Layer.) It's really all I need most of the time.