Change the style for the entire character

[cherrytomato]

The character I drew has no textures on the strokes, different parts have different stroke colors. Is there a way to change the entire character's style to texture strokes with it's own color?

[cherrytomato]

Anyone can help?

[Greenlaw]

You need to create custom Styles for that. When custom Styles are applied throughout, they can be changed globally at any time.

For example, I sometimes create a custom stroke Style to change line thickness or color for the whole character in one go, and keep the individual fill color and texture styles. This is useful when the character is too far or very near, and the linework is not quite the weight you want, or when you need to change the line because of a particular scene lighting or environment. Saves me a ton of effort becauseI only need to make one change one time.

[cherrytomato]

You need to create custom Styles for that. When custom Styles are applied throughout, they can be changed globally at any time.

For example, I sometimes create a custom stroke Style to change line thickness or color for the whole character in one go, and keep the individual fill color and texture styles. This is useful when the character is too far or very near, and the linework is not quite the weight you want, or when you need to change the line because of a particular scene lighting or environment. Saves me a ton of effort becauseI only need to make one change one time.

Thank you, Greenlaw. Do you know is there a tutorial of how to do it? I'm new to moho, still exploring around a lot.

[Greenlaw]

I'm not aware of any, except maybe some of the old ones by Chad and Victor on YouTube. (I really need to get on that bandwagon. All my tutes are basically in text and pics form in this forum, and even I can't find most of them.)

Anyway, I can offer some tips:

Custom Styles are like presets you create in the Style window. These Styles are independent of the Shapes you can apply them to, and you can use them over and over again. When you edit a Custom Style, the changes appear in every shape that uses the style.

After you apply a custom Style, you can still change specific Style properties for that shape. For example, you can apply only the custom Style's stroke properties but change the fill for that shape. (This is what I was talking about earlier.) Or, you can apply only part of a Style...for example, the line thickness of a Custom Style but not its color. It's a very flexible system once you get the hang of it.

To create a Custom Style, look under Styles in the Styles windows and select New. (In Moho 14, you will notice that several Custom Styles already exist there. These are mostly 'brush' styles. You can create and save your own global Styles in your Custom Content folder.) After creating the Custom Style, you can set the properties for that Style. When you're done, it's ready to be applied.

To apply the Custom Style, you need to select the Shape using the Select Shape tool, as normal, but instead of editing the current Style directly, you choose the Custom Style from the Style 1 or Style 2 menus. You can override the Custom Styles settings in the normal place above. For example, you might have a Custom Style that applies a certain line weight or brush style, but you want a different color. There is no need to change the Custom Style; you can just change the color here.

As you may have guessed, you can apply and stack two Custom Styles to a shape. When you use both slots, you can still make unique changes at the local level for the shape.

If you have the style applied throughout the drawing, you can change any of the properties all at once by selecting the Styles from under the Styles menu in the Styles window and changing it there.

In short, the main Style window is normally used for local shape edits, and when you select a Custom Style, it's for making global edits.

Bonus Tip: If you're using Custom Styles for a character, but you want to make variations for multiple copies of the character, use Import to import the character and rig and enable Unlink Shared Styles. This keeps the Custom Styles for the imported drawings but sets a unique Style ID for its Custom Styles. For example, I might use this technique to create many differently colored cats, like in the Boss Baby scenes on my demo reel. (Actually, for that Boss Baby example, I did that the hard way by editing the Style IDs from inside the project's code, but afterward, Chucky and Mike told me about the Unlink Shared Styles option, and I've been doing it that way ever since.)

There's more you can do with Custom Styles and it's best to learn that through experimentation. The above info can get you started.

IMO, Moho's system is not as flexible as using nodal texturing systems found in some other animation packages, but it gets the job done directly and efficiently. And it's surprisingly flexible in its own way once you get the hang of it.

Hope this helps.

[cherrytomato]

I'm not aware of any, except maybe some of the old ones by Chad and Victor on YouTube. (I really need to get on that bandwagon. All my tutes are basically in text and pics form in this forum, and even I can't find most of them.)

Anyway, I can offer some tips:

Custom Styles are like presets you create in the Style window. These Styles are independent of the Shapes you can apply them to, and you can use them over and over again. When you edit a Custom Style, the changes appear in every shape that uses the style.

After you apply a custom Style, you can still change specific Style properties for that shape. For example, you can apply only the custom Style's stroke properties but change the fill for that shape. (This is what I was talking about earlier.) Or, you can apply only part of a Style...for example, the line thickness of a Custom Style but not its color. It's a very flexible system once you get the hang of it.

To create a Custom Style, look under Styles in the Styles windows and select New. (In Moho 14, you will notice that several Custom Styles already exist there. These are mostly 'brush' styles. You can create and save your own global Styles in your Custom Content folder.) After creating the Custom Style, you can set the properties for that Style. When you're done, it's ready to be applied.

To apply the Custom Style, you need to select the Shape using the Select Shape tool, as normal, but instead of editing the current Style directly, you choose the Custom Style from the Style 1 or Style 2 menus. You can override the Custom Styles settings in the normal place above. For example, you might have a Custom Style that applies a certain line weight or brush style, but you want a different color. There is no need to change the Custom Style; you can just change the color here.

As you may have guessed, you can apply and stack two Custom Styles to a shape. When you use both slots, you can still make unique changes at the local level for the shape.

If you have the style applied throughout the drawing, you can change any of the properties all at once by selecting the Styles from under the Styles menu in the Styles window and changing it there.

In short, the main Style window is normally used for local shape edits, and when you select a Custom Style, it's for making global edits.

Bonus Tip: If you're using Custom Styles for a character, but you want to make variations for multiple copies of the character, use Import to import the character and rig and enable Unlink Shared Styles. This keeps the Custom Styles for the imported drawings but sets a unique Style ID for its Custom Styles. For example, I might use this technique to create many differently colored cats, like in the Boss Baby scenes on my demo reel. (Actually, for that Boss Baby example, I did that the hard way by editing the Style IDs from inside the project's code, but afterward, Chucky and Mike told me about the Unlink Shared Styles option, and I've been doing it that way ever since.)

There's more you can do with Custom Styles and it's best to learn that through experimentation. The above info can get you started.

IMO, Moho's system is not as flexible as using nodal texturing systems found in some other animation packages, but it gets the job done directly and efficiently. And it's surprisingly flexible in its own way once you get the hang of it.

Hope this helps.

Thank you, Greenlaw! I follow along with your instructions. It's really clear. When I click on the shape, I notice it shows the SHAPE instead of style. Do I change the individual colors here? When I draw a character that has his skin color line and fill, different shirt color line and fill from the skin ones, do I draw with the style first, then select the shape(using select shape tool), then change the SHAPE fill and stroke color?

[Greenlaw]

When I click on the shape, I notice it shows the SHAPE instead of style. Do I change the individual colors here?

Yes, when you select the shape with the Select Shape tool, you are editing only the style for that shape. The name of the shape you are editing will appear in the Name box at the top. A shape may also be selected from this Shapes menu.

When a shape is selected, the style settings in the panel are specific to that shape, and it can include any Custom Styles selected that are applied in the two Style menus (the two lower ones inside the panel.)

To edit a Custom Style, you need to select the style from the Styles menu (the one at the top of the panel.) When you edit the settings here, you will see the update occur on every shape that uses this style.

Some examples:

You can make a Custom Style called Skin that has the color of your character's skin, and apply this to every vector shape representing the character's skin. Later, if you decide to change the character's skin color, you only need to do this once in the Custom Style called Skin.

The custom style can include Strokes if you wish, but it doesn't have to. Strokes and Fills are two separate properties and can be prepared that way if you wish. As mentioned, this system is pretty flexible.

The downside is that if there are many Custom Styles, it can get unwieldy to manage them all, so I try to be selective about where I use this feature. Hopefully, we'll get a better system for managing Styles in a future release.

Oh, one last thing: you can copy and paste styles using the Copy/Paste buttons on the panel, and you can store styles in the Library to re-use for other projects.