Need to render

[Albo]

Hello,
Just wondering... I added a shadow to an image.
It looks like I need to render to see the result.
Is there any way of seing this without rendering?

A lot easier to work , not only with shadows, and see what we are doing.

Thank you.

[Greenlaw]

You could reference the group that is casting the shadow, and position and distort it to be the shadow. Then use that as the mask for your shadow's fill color.

In my opinion, animating lighting/shadow effects interactively is easier and more efficiently done as a 'post' effect (i.e., in After Effects or another compositing program.) In this case, I'm just duplicating the character and using it's alpha channel to mask a color, and then placing/distorting it as the shadow. Since the image is pre-rendered, there's very little animation processing going on so the interactivity is immediate and fully visual.

If you must do this in Moho, much of what I described can be applied there. It's just more work to set up the masking group and to apply the distortion or warping effect. (i.e., a simple layer transform or a more advanced mesh warp, depending on what you want to do.)

Here's a different take: If the shadow doesn't need to be literal, like a soft 'contact' shadow, I just use a soft edged ellipse or a vague shape and constrain that to follow the character around. I've used this trick even in some 'realistic' 3D animations, and when it's done well, it can be surprisingly effective.

[Albo]

So I would need to import into AE my character on their own layer and add whatever effect I need ?
Do this for every character or object ?

I will try this out.
Thanks.

[Greenlaw]

That's what I do at work work. It's really not a big deal and I have way more control this way.

That said, I've done a lot by creating lighting/shadow effects in Moho too. For example, check out the Decker Moonboots footage (from Boss Baby) near the beginning of my 2019 demo reel. This was a special case because the producers wanted very specific lighting effects for the character, and the helmet complicated it further. The lighting in this case was drawn in a separate layers and there are Smart Bone controls to move it around for different lighting directions, and to turn it off completely. Because this is a drawn effect, the lighting and shadow is fully visible in Moho's workspace even without rendering it. This another way to light a character in Moho but it's obviously a lot more work to set up.

The lighting for Kung Fu Panda footage on the same reel was mostly comped in Ae too. Again, this was because the producer wanted very specific lighting effects which were just easier to do in Ae. In this case, I made a separate reference rig for the shadows that used drawn shadows, and rendered this as a custom matte pass using Moho's Layer Comps.

For Ae, as described earlier, I just use duplicates the character's alpha to construct edge lighting and shadows, and it only takes a minute to setup. I essentially did the same thing in Fusion for Scareplane*. The nice thing about doing this in post is you can achieve more interesting looks, interactively and without too much extra effort.

In Ae, you can alternatively use Layer Styles, specifically Inner Shadow, which can be used for lighting by using a brighter color for the 'shadow'. I tend to avoid using Layer Styles because the UI is a bit clunky but it's pretty straightforward to use.

Another option is this: https://reubenlara.gumroad.com/l/2Drimlight

This is a terrific add-on by Reuben Lara and I've used it on a few personal projects. It's basically a preset for Ae's built in features but gives them a nice UI. Cost is $10 and well worth it if you do a lot of this stuff.

But if you don't want to do any of that, Moho's native lighting and shadow effects work well too. A lot of my early stuff for Puss-in-Boots and King Julien, as well as a lot of Boss Baby stuff just used the standard Moho lighting tools. The nice thing about doing it in Moho is you can control them with Smart Bones...it's a little more work to set up but having this kind of interactive control is very useful in special situations (like in the Dekker Moonboots rig.) Some effects may require rendering to see them but most standard effects are interactive in the workspace (just make sure the display options are set to show the effects.)

There's no single 'right way' to do this...I would suggest making a few simple tests to see which works best for your production. I would go with whichever method is easiest and quickest for you that also achieves the look you want.

Hope this helps.

*Edit: I just revisited Scareplane and I think I mostly used Moho's standard lighting and shading tools for this (it was my first Moho animation,) and I just treated the effects in Fusion for the look. I used the alpha trick in Fusion for a few shots where I didn't think the Moho tools correctly what I needed, but for the most part, native Moho was fine.

[Albo]

Thanks for a very informative answer and the link to 2Drimlight.

Always a lot to learn !

[Rosemarie]

Thanks for sharing these informations.