How about rotating 2d objects in 3d space in Moho?

[Greenlaw]

I'm glad slowtiger clarified that point because I'm always moving the camera. As a matter of fact, not being able to move the camera could make my job very difficult. But, yes, it's a good idea to complete your animation first, before you move the camera.

That said, I wish Moho allowed for multiple cameras, so I can set up view presets to make it easier to work in 3D space. This capability is very useful in 3D animation and compositing programs I use. Interestingly, in 3D animation, I usually do my camera choreography first, before I do any detailed animation in the scene. But having multiple cameras to work with does make this workflow much easier.

Tip: If you've already animated the camera and you need to work on a section without being distracted by the camera motion, remember you can temporarily mute the camera's motion channels.

[Greenlaw]

BTW, if you don't move the camera, you will never see a true parallax effect in the layers, so if that's important to you, it's something to think about.

For example, one of my first Moho animations was this animated title sequence: Hearts Like Fists. I think I'm animating the Moho camera in most of these shots.

(Yikes! Has it been seven years since we did that already? How time flies!)

[synthsin75]

BTW, if you don't move the camera, you will never see a true parallax effect in the layers, so if that's important to you, it's something to think about.

To be fair, z-separated layers in a translated group will show parallax too.

[slowtiger]

In one project I had used the tilt settings of a layer to put a newspaper nicely into perspective. But when I added the camera move it became disconnected to the character.

The easiest solution was to render out the tilted layer separately and re-import it as an image, which clung to the character nicely and didn't distort any further in the camera move.

You can do this with moving objects as well. Saves you a lot of time and trouble.

[striker2311]

In one project I had used the tilt settings of a layer to put a newspaper nicely into perspective. But when I added the camera move it became disconnected to the character.

The easiest solution was to render out the tilted layer separately and re-import it as an image, which clung to the character nicely and didn't distort any further in the camera move.

You can do this with moving objects as well. Saves you a lot of time and trouble.

Yeah what an incredible tip!!!
I thought of doing the same to reduce the time that would spend in rendering and it's good to know that some people out there uses this type of makeshift..

[chucky]

Moving the camera is something I do for almost every shot.
I even import animation from toon boom just to use the camera with z depth of the layers ( mainly because the motion graph is so much better in Moho than toonboom)
Sometimes though as has been suggested it is wise ( mainly when tracking sideways) to put all the layer in a group and move that instead.
You can even set up smart actions that way to get bone level control on what look like camera moves, but is the group moving.
Moho's camera works best for z motion, zooming , pan and tilt. XY tracking can get weird, though it shouldn't.
Point layers at camera is an awesome feature.
Be sure to understand lens angle/ focal length. Camera problems normally arise when using an inappropriately wide angled lens.

[MrMiracle77]

There are a couple of established techniques to simulate camera movements with a 2d background, but they tend to involve learning to draw the background using slightly warped perspective lines such as the oversized Banana Pan. Moho could also probably simulate the Fleischer Rotograph shots fairly easily. Parallax backgrounds would be easy too, just by giving different background elements different speeds.

[Greenlaw]

IMO, it's easier and more 'accurate' to simply push layers out in Z-space and then animate the camera. This is more or less what I do in dedicated compositing and 3D animation programs for animation and vfx work.

Moho has a very cool feature to aid in this: Press Shift+Alt will push a layer in Z-space and automatically re-scale the layer to match the original appearance. I wish other the programs I use could do that.

Tip: When adjusting for 3D, open two viewports, one for the camera view and one for an orbit view. This makes it easier to tell what's going on when you move the layers or the camera.

Feature request: I wish the extra views updated in realtime. It's not a deal killer that the extra viewports only update after releasing the mouse button, but it would be much easier to work with if they stayed in sync. I'm guessing this is 'performance' feature but I'd like to see an option for realtime updates. Other programs I use can do this or have the option to do this.

[Greenlaw]

Tip #2: if you're animating the camera, and you find that this is making it harder to stay 'focused' on the part your animating, you can temporarily disable the camera motion by clicking its mute button. This also works if you're animating a grouped environment in front of a static camera, and you need to edit something inside the group--just disable the group motion by clicking its mute button. When you're ready to continue, disable the mute buttons.

Tip #3: When rendering from Moho, there is an option in the rendering windows that let you render as if the mutes are disabled even when they are not. This is useful when you're the type that forgets to disable the mutes. (Like me!)

[synthsin75]

Feature request: I wish the extra views updated in realtime. It's not a deal killer that the extra viewports only update after releasing the mouse button, but it would be much easier to work with if they stayed in sync. I'm guessing this is 'performance' feature but I'd like to see an option for realtime updates. Other programs I use can do this or have the option to do this.

Just add:
MOHO.Redraw()
After line 509 in the transform layer tool. That allows the other view to update as you interact.

[Greenlaw]

Fantastic tip Wes! I'm going to try it right now.

[Greenlaw]

Shoot, not working here.

I edited a copy of the tool script placed inside the Custom Content folder's Tools folder...this is correct, isn't it? Also I tried moving the layer with GPU Acceleration on and off, if that makes any difference. (It didn't here.)

Maybe I did something wrong or overlooked something...will revisit tonight.

When it is working, should this edit work for the other Transform tools like Transform Bone?

No hurry to reply, just curious.

[synthsin75]

Shoot, not working here.

I edited a copy of the tool script inside the Custom Content folder's Tools folder...this is correct, isn't it? Also I tried moving the layer with GPU Acceleration on and off, if that makes any difference. (It didn't here.)

Maybe I did something wrong or overlooked something...will revisit tonight.

You just need to go to the end of line 509, hit enter, and add MOHO.Redraw() to line 510. Capitalization is also important.

Works here, with GPU on or off.

When it is working, should this edit work for the other Transform tools like Transform Bone?

I wouldn't suggest doing this for other things, as it can affect performance, being in the OnMouseMoved function. Now, you could have it update only every so many times the function is called, but it'd probably take some trial and error to find a good balance.

[chucky]

Just add:
MOHO.Redraw()
After line 509 in the transform layer tool. That allows the other view to update as you interact.

What THE?
Really? OMG.
Wes, that's brilliant! This should definitely be in the preferences.
My workflow would have changed years ago.... permanently.

Often I use a split camera for facial dials but the redraw means that, well ... you know.

TO the batcave! I mean Lenny's... although nope I'm bogged down in work, still glad I checked in to see this.
Thanks!

[Greenlaw]

You just need to go to the end of line 509, hit enter, and add MOHO.Redraw() to line 510. Capitalization is also important.

Huh...I'm almost sure that's what I did (I cut and pasted from your post to a clean line 510)...but will triple-check this tonight.

Thanks for clarifying the steps. In my 'lunchbreak' haste, I probably did something dumb here. I'll let you know how it goes.