Potential new user but.. Questions!

[piptheyounger]

Hi all!
Have been lurking around here for a couple of days now and is very tempted to buy Moho, but due to the nature of my style/project I do have a few questions to ask. I have a degree in puppet/clay animation, but do not have the space to build my own studio so I got the idear of using my (clay) puppets with a cut-out animation program. I bought a license to Creatoon, took photos of my puppet and imported them into the program, however, it did not take long before I found Creatoon to be to limited for my use so, back to square one.
Then I stumble upon Moho and I really like what I see, but..:

1) -If Moho is vector based can I photograph my puppets, import them into Moho and retain the puppets texture or will all the "real world detail" get lost? Can I keep bitmaps as bitmaps after import?
And can I still use bones on these imports?

2) -How on earth does any one get things done when no realtime preview is possible? Will I have to render a whole scene to check the timing, readjust a bit and then render again (and again)?

3) -Can a 2D character cast shadows on a 3D landscape?

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to enlighten me. And sorry for the spelling, english is not my first language.

Martin

[Toontoonz]

Download the demo version of Moho, spend a few hours going through the tutorials and I am guessing you will find all the answers to your questions.

[T]

1) Moho can import pictures and animate them, yes. They're handled in what is called an image layer. Bones should work, although you may have better success with some puppets if you break them into sections (but only if bones on the whole thing give you troubles.)

2) There is a preview in Moho, you can hit play on the timeline and watch your animations. I'm not sure if I understood the question correctly, if not please let me know.

3) 2d Shadow on 3d landscape... hmmm. It can be simulated, but can the Moho renderer interpret a realistic 3d shadow that bends with 3d contours? Probably not at the moment. There is a tutorial on shadows with the program I believe.

Hope this helps... I'm far from an expert on this forum, but I figured I could provide more info than "do the tutorials".

[Toontoonz]

That´s one of the nice things about Moho vs. other graphic, art, cartoon, 3D animation programs. Other programs take weeks, months, years to figure out. With Moho one can spend just a few hours of doing the very informative and helpful tutorials and then one can do just about everything that Moho offers.
With other programs frustration grows because one is limited by a person´s level of knowledge (or lack there of) of the different functions of the program. Since Moho is fairly easy and quickly learned, one finds with Moho instead of being limited by lack of knowledge of the program`s functions that a user is only limited by their talent, imagination, creativity and time to devote to it.

----------------
Before one buys any software they should download the demo (if it is available) and try it out.
Moho is a nice "2 1/2D" animation program, but it is not necessarily the right solution for every animation situation. Without investing too much time one quickly sees what it can and can´t do and if one likes to work with it. I can´t necessarily say that for other programs I have tried out or own.

[T]

That's definitely true. I've used other programs that had no tutorials, no manual (believe it or not), and pretty much depended on other users for whatever info I had. Moho rocks in that regards.

[myles]

Hello Martin,

1) -If Moho is vector based can I photograph my puppets, import them into Moho and retain the puppets texture or will all the "real world detail" get lost? Can I keep bitmaps as bitmaps after import?
And can I still use bones on these imports?

Yes, yes, and yes. See Tutorial 4.1 for a quick and simple example.
You may be better served by exporting image cutouts to .avi or Quicktime .mov rather than Flash .swf (so you can use transparency for anti-aliased edges). You can also get more sophisticated - you might want to use rounded overlapping cutouts with possibly some cloned texture for smoother joints, for example.

2) -How on earth does any one get things done when no realtime preview is possible? Will I have to render a whole scene to check the timing, readjust a bit and then render again (and again)?

You can get realtime preview. However, there are a number of things that will hinder getting the "realtime" part. See the FAQ entry on playback speed for some more detail.

3) -Can a 2D character cast shadows on a 3D landscape?

If it is a flat landscape, you can fake it (see Tutorial 6.5). Otherwise, it is easier to create the shadows in the 3D software. Map your character onto a simple rectangular polygon as an animated texture (or whatever terminology your 3D program uses), and use the 3D software's lights to create the shadow.

Regards, Myles.

[bupaje]

Also check out this old thread by nobudget ...

http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtop ... light=clay

[piptheyounger]

Thanks for all the replies! After downloading the manual I'm sold. Now all I have to do is decide on a camera and lightning setup.

More questions are sure to follow!
Best regards, Martin