Moho Forum

I'm loving using reference layers - I'm finding that it's like using precomps in After Effects, except kind of even more efficient. I'm confused about one thing, though - can reference layers inherit the point binding of the original layer? I feel like I'm missing something, because it doesn't seem to be working like that right out of the box. I would have thought that point binding data would propagate to reference layers without any additional setup...

Referencing using point binding works OK here. I'm on Win10. Have you tried "Update Layer Reference" from the Layers right click Quick Menu?
You can also try "Sync All channels To Original" from the same menu, but you'll lose any unique changes you made to the Ref layer and revert it back to the original.
Failing that, you may need to delete the Ref layer and create a new one.

The answer would currently be: Yes and No.

Yes: If you create the Reference after you have Point Bound the Points

No: If you modify the Point Binding after the Reference is created

i.e. Modifications to Point Binding are not currently propagated to reference layers.

I think this is because that's not a keyframeable property.

The same applies to Bone Strength. When you import a rig as a reference, the assigned bone strengths will come in, but when you edit the bone strength in the master file, those changes will not carry over to the reference when updated.

This is especially important to know when you're working with a team: if the rig is updated and bone strengths or point binding is changed, you need to let the team know that if they need the updated settings for existing projects then they may need to manually update these changes. (Of course, they should check first. If their animations look fine, they should not update the references.)

I believe everything that's keyframeable in the master project will come through when updating the reference. That's how it's supposed to work. But, if you edit something that doesn't have keyframes, it's probably going to need to be updated manually in projects that reference it.

In practice, it's not a deal-killer so long as you understand the limitation, but hopefully, this is something that can be addressed someday.

SimplSam wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 3:54 pm The answer would currently be: Yes and No.

Yes: If you create the Reference after you have Point Bound the Points

No: If you modify the Point Binding after the Reference is created

i.e. Modifications to Point Binding are not currently propagated to reference layers.

AHHH. That's the issue. I expected that, in using the commands to update the reference from the original, it would sync point binding data as well. Huh... I'm still getting used to Moho's idiosyncrasies. Call me crazy; this seems like odd behavior. I would think generally one would be primarily creating reference layers while setting up the character layers (masking, and so forth), rather than creating many reference layers after you've started binding points. Are there many use cases where this wouldn't be the situation, with the exception of creating duplicates of rigged objects / characters? Are there many use cases where one wouldn't want changes to point binding to be able to propagate back to the reference layers?

So the solution here is to either a) create the rig and bind layers / points to it first, and then set up complex masking, etc., using reference layers, or b) to set up the character with reference layers, and then rig the original layers as well as any reference layers?

I agree that the expected behaviour for "Update reference layer" is to take all the original properties including the rigging options and everything.

Sometimes I want to update a reference layer to make it the same as the original but the update reference option is not able to update it entirely so, because I have some unique animation on the reference that I don't want to lose, I have to copy the animation somewhere before deleting the reference and creating a new one.

Not the end of the world. But it would be a nice improvement.

I have updated the Reference Layer Update script at: https://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=206888 - such that it now ReSync's Point Bindings.

For the Point Binding Resync to work, the ref layer must already be in sync (green arrow) - or the Replace Mismatched Vectors option also selected.

SimplSam wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 8:50 am I have updated the Reference Layer Update script at: https://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=206888 - such that it now ReSync's Point Bindings.

o: Thank you!

Ooo! Yes, thank you very much SimplSam!

Oh, I just noticed I commented on that thread a while back and then forgot it existed. D'oh!

SimplSam wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 8:50 am I have updated the Reference Layer Update script at: https://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=206888 - such that it now ReSync's Point Bindings.

For the Point Binding Resync to work, the ref layer must already be in sync (green arrow) - or the Replace Mismatched Vectors option also selected.

Oh DAAAAANG. Thank you! That's AWESOME.