Moho Forum

I'm wondering about best practices of designing in Illustrator for svg import into Moho. Currently, even tho new svg import has been introduced, I'm experiencing issues with the below:

1. Adding line boil and stroke - I'd like to change all them strokes on svg imported into Moho while also adding line boil.
Is it possible to to this for all the design at once? There are some groups and masks, so "select all" in select shape won't work, scripts I've found only change line width, shift-selecting multiple layers and clicking into them doesn't give that option (unless I've missed something during my research). Perhaps I could use chosen Moho brush while designing in Illustrator already? But the line boil conundrum remains.
I'm going changing them one by one now - quite a meditative task, but my daily meditation hours are already checked from "to do list". This simply cannot be.

2. I have a group where one layer serves as mask for multiple other layers in Illustrator (shadows, patterns). Svg import to Moho is spitting out:
-line separately in one vector layer
-fill - same, separately in vector layer
-masked shadows and patterns separately in a group
I'm assuming there must be another way to mask so that mask is also visible as vector layer (I'm using cmd +7 in Illustrator to mask).

Is there a way to improve my Illustrator designing so that it comes out more clean upon import to Moho?

3. Upon svg import most of my illustrator layer/group names are substituted with svgID091208128301. Is there a way to fix this?

I'd like to develop smooth workflow of designing in Illustrator for import into Moho.
Could design in Moho also if it's a better solution, but a lot of clients would send Illustrator files that I could perhaps tweak to then have it all looking sleek in Moho.

Appreciating being pointed in the right direction.

Forever excited about the new update,
libellini

It's complicated ... there are some general recommendations though.

Anything which will not be animated (backgrounds, props) should be imported as a PNG.

Anything which will be animated more than just being shoved around will likely be better created in Moho anyway, because of the differences between Moho points and Illustrator Bezier points, which most likely be at places not optimal for animation.

Illustrator masks ... well, I'd just create them as shapes on seperate levels in Illustrator, then import and make them a mask in Moho.

As for boiling lines, I think they are not included in styles, but I'm not sure about this one. Would be nice. You know that you can have a similar effect with brushes? Brush settings are included in styles, so that's faster maybe.

Many thanks slowtiger for your quick reply!

Watching this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4f1JjNbJnM&t=104s made me think the SVG import from Illustrator will go smoothly.
I understand design made in presented vector software (not sure which one but irrelevant) feeds through smoothly to Moho, but Illustrator would still be causing troubles?

To sum up:
-Vectors - If I wish to design vectors I should go do it straight in Moho to save myself these challenging issues I've been struggling with all day (masks, liquid shapes, styles, textures using brushes - a lot of things to go crazy with)
-Rasters - please confirm - it's best to import PSD file that I can then make changes to if necessary (didn't test how this feeds through yet)? In case I'm pretty sure no changes to design will need to be made best to use PNG's with mesh.

All the best!

To illustrate it well, the very same vector layer created and imported from AI and created in Moho.
Liquid shapes are helpful and truth be told it's done in seconds, although thought I'd save some time when getting graphics in Illustrator directly from clients and not having to recreate them in Moho.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ovhnsmkl ... nptls&dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/fva9zm93 ... 3akfg&dl=0

When creating from scratch, I'd always go for drawing in Moho but I've also been in a similar situation, where the client is providing rather complex or numerous ai files. Redrawing in these situations is time-consuming but fortunately, Illustrator has several options for "taming" the nodes.

- Open paths (not closed shapes) can cause a lot of trouble, but several scripts/plugins are there to help with it.
- Smooth Points and Simplify (especially in new editions) could be your new best friends.
- Masking, clipping and similar is best to convert into shapes/layers and then apply in Moho as desired. Whenever possible (when these are used as helpers for designing and not as preparation for rigging or usage in Moho a general), re-shaping or applying masks/clipping within Illustrator is something I'd do.
- Gradients with transparency are a lottery - some would work just fine where others are "loathing in Las Vegas". Some colours are not exactly the best match/neighbours for gradients and could cause similar issues so I'd always redraw these in Moho, now without any hesitations. First, I'd edit them to opaque or more friendly neighbours in Illustrator and then replicate them in Moho.

- about the SVG naming - FAIK, SVG as a format does not recognise layers (grouped or single). Those are here just for the UI where in the file, these are labelled/indexed/treated (not exactly sure about the proper term) as groups along some default routine. From what I could remember, when available, lowering the precision/fidelity (could be set to several decimals / o.00000), which affects that labelling, should produce shorter "labels". Again, FAIK - perhaps something has changed in the meantime.

Usually, I'd first import the ai files, to identify the issues, and then apply remedies afterwards.
Hope this helps.


On a side note, it happens sometimes that even a single colour is not accurately imported - perhaps somebody would know which colour profile Is preferred in Moho?

Maestral, many thanks for your tips!
Wondering if you did test it in Moho 14 already are are you talking of workaround you've been using prior?

1. There is currently no scripting ability to allow the fully automatic application of Line Boil. The best that I can think would be a small additional script that sets the content of all selected layers to a selectable style. i.e. Before import you would create a style with line boil, then after import run the script to set the content of those layers to use that Boil style.

2. For the SVG masking, I think a sample source file will help to see where adjustments & improvements could be made.

3. Those wacky svgID layer names are not created by the SVG import, but inherited from Illustrator. Not sure what version of Ai you have, but you can try Export As - with minimal Object ID's. Similarly - seeing a sample source file may help.

I just imported SVG with Consolidate layers OFF, and it imported all the hierarchy I had in AI, just each <Group> and <Path> in Moho got own 'Layer N' name; yet the AI 'Layer 2' even maintained part of its name, 'Layer 2-2'. More than that, I also tested, it works with non-ASCII characters in the layer name, just might get prefixed with underscore e.g.'_Šķūņi', and it works with quite lengthy names, tried 28 characters long.
Moho 14, Latest Illustrator, used File -> ExportSelection..