Cartoon Animator to Moho -- Step One: 13.5 Debut, more questions!
Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2023 4:06 am
Before jumping feet first into Moho Pro 14.0 I thought I'd pick up a cheap (less than $30) copy of Moho Debut 13.5. While the trial version of 14 Pro will allow me more features to test, some of the tests involve importing other file formats, so I thought I'd try Debut first to see how the tools work and, more importantly, to see if I can actually use them (if I can't, it's probably not a reflection on Moho but on me, which has been my experience in the past). As well, I wanted to be able to render out movie files to help in analyzing the software.
First issue: I'm unable to import layered PhotoShop files. I should be able to import files with up to 10 layers, but no go, Moho either won't see the .psd file as importable or if it does, it comes in as one flattened layer. I've made sure there's no masks or anything; I've made a very simple, 2-layer .psd but no luck.
I exported a multi-layer PSD as multiple .png files (one per layer) and imported them perfectly, they came in in-place and with the correct z-depths layer so I now have a multi-layer star ship bridge where people can sit in front of their chairs and behind their consoles, and the doors open to a hallway leading out of the room. A bit more effort, but it does work.
My current plan is to focus on moving my Cartoon Animator characters over to Moho as quickly as possible to start using Moho for future animations in my series, so things will be rasterized images until I take the time to recreate the characters in Moho vectors for smoother animation.
With this goal in mind, I tried bringing in a character's head and features (one layer at a time) and it also worked well, with the eyes, ears, brows and mouth shapes all coming in sized and ready to go. I made a quickie switch layer out of the mouth shapes and applied some auto lip sync, and again, everything worked as it should, mostly. I imported the audio, applied the lip sync and the keyframes were added nicely, but I wasn't able to hear the audio play until I'd saved the file, quit Moho, then reopened Moho and the file and then I could (so manual key framing for lip sync is an option, just not my first choice). I generated a very quick test with two back-to-back audio clips just to see the mouth sync in action and to test multiple auto files (I'll need that once I have two or more people chatting):
https://sterdan.com/wp-content/uploads/ ... c-Test.mp4
I'm not able to set the eyes up properly as it's my understanding that I need the Pro version to use mask layers, so that's for later, when I purchase Pro.
As far as I can tell, Auto lip sync doesn't really pay attention to which mouth specific shapes are in my Mouth switch layer analyzing volume of audio rather than specific phonemes and using shapes appearing at the bottom of the switch layer first. Is there any way to maintain the "automatic" feature while helping it better understand the audio it's analyzing and choosing specific phonemes/visemes/mouth shapes? I'd like to do it directly in Moho if possible; I know Papagayo is an option if needed, but I'm open to any other suggestions.
Next up, creating two smart bones to turn the head left-to-right and up-and-down (with the accompanying movement/reshaping of the facial components), bringing in the body parts and assembling a full character, with rigging.
For rigging, has anyone used THE 2D RIGGING TOOLBOX 3.0 by Motion Gears (https://www.motiongears.net/products/2d-rigging-toolbox? would it help speed up my character rigging? Is it worth it?
So far, so good. Even though it's an older Debut version, I can see where someone could use it to do some pretty cool animations even with the restrictions. It helps cement that idea that I will be switching to Moho.
First issue: I'm unable to import layered PhotoShop files. I should be able to import files with up to 10 layers, but no go, Moho either won't see the .psd file as importable or if it does, it comes in as one flattened layer. I've made sure there's no masks or anything; I've made a very simple, 2-layer .psd but no luck.
I exported a multi-layer PSD as multiple .png files (one per layer) and imported them perfectly, they came in in-place and with the correct z-depths layer so I now have a multi-layer star ship bridge where people can sit in front of their chairs and behind their consoles, and the doors open to a hallway leading out of the room. A bit more effort, but it does work.
My current plan is to focus on moving my Cartoon Animator characters over to Moho as quickly as possible to start using Moho for future animations in my series, so things will be rasterized images until I take the time to recreate the characters in Moho vectors for smoother animation.
With this goal in mind, I tried bringing in a character's head and features (one layer at a time) and it also worked well, with the eyes, ears, brows and mouth shapes all coming in sized and ready to go. I made a quickie switch layer out of the mouth shapes and applied some auto lip sync, and again, everything worked as it should, mostly. I imported the audio, applied the lip sync and the keyframes were added nicely, but I wasn't able to hear the audio play until I'd saved the file, quit Moho, then reopened Moho and the file and then I could (so manual key framing for lip sync is an option, just not my first choice). I generated a very quick test with two back-to-back audio clips just to see the mouth sync in action and to test multiple auto files (I'll need that once I have two or more people chatting):
https://sterdan.com/wp-content/uploads/ ... c-Test.mp4
I'm not able to set the eyes up properly as it's my understanding that I need the Pro version to use mask layers, so that's for later, when I purchase Pro.
As far as I can tell, Auto lip sync doesn't really pay attention to which mouth specific shapes are in my Mouth switch layer analyzing volume of audio rather than specific phonemes and using shapes appearing at the bottom of the switch layer first. Is there any way to maintain the "automatic" feature while helping it better understand the audio it's analyzing and choosing specific phonemes/visemes/mouth shapes? I'd like to do it directly in Moho if possible; I know Papagayo is an option if needed, but I'm open to any other suggestions.
Next up, creating two smart bones to turn the head left-to-right and up-and-down (with the accompanying movement/reshaping of the facial components), bringing in the body parts and assembling a full character, with rigging.
For rigging, has anyone used THE 2D RIGGING TOOLBOX 3.0 by Motion Gears (https://www.motiongears.net/products/2d-rigging-toolbox? would it help speed up my character rigging? Is it worth it?
So far, so good. Even though it's an older Debut version, I can see where someone could use it to do some pretty cool animations even with the restrictions. It helps cement that idea that I will be switching to Moho.