Organising the workflow

[Sketch_Turner]

Hi everybody! I'm a newcomer to Moho, I think the software looks very promising, and I've got a ton of questions, so you're probably going to see a lot of me here in the days to come. I hope you don't find my questions to be utterly stupid - we all have to start somewhere, right?

Now, let's get to business. The thing I'd like to ask right away is this: How do you organise your workflow? I have to admit, I was shocked when I realised Moho 12 doesn't have shot / scene / movie differentiation, like Adobe Animate and other applications. As far as I can see, the only plausible method to create a complete movie is to create separate project files for each individual shot and then render these shots and assemble them together in a 3rd party application. This looks really cumbersome, since: a) If the movie is longer than just a couple of minutes, there would have to be HUNDREDS of project files; b) It would be rather difficult to make necessary alterations later on even if you import Moho objects; c) In order to avoid repeated encoding and subsequent quality loss you would have to render the video files in .AVI format, and they would take, like, ALL the space on the HDD. Although I'm a bit fuzzy on this one: I tried exporting video using H.264 compression then importing them in Premiere and encoding them with H.264 again, and I didn't notice any apparent quality loss. But the logic tells me there should be. Am I right here?

So tell me, what process do you follow to get from an idea to a finished movie? Do you use the method I've described above? Or maybe I'm just missing something and there is a nifty trick that makes working with Moho much easier?

[slowtiger]

You already nailed it. One project for each scene, render to a lossless format, assemble in a video editing program (where you do the sound as well). That's the professional workflow.

It is normal to have hundreds or even thousands of files, with all different versions of everything, plus all sound files and other assets.

Example: this 6 minute film http://vimeo.com/75950196 consists of 55 scenes = AS projects, and with all the separate bitmaps and quicktime videos and stuff fills a folder with about 1300 items, taking up 52 GB of disc space. Add to this several renders of the whole movie with sound, in different dimensions, codecs, and languages: several more GB.

So you need a really big disc to start with, and then some work volumes and some backup volumes. Fortunately discs are really cheap today, a TB for under 100 €. And you have to train yourself to organize stuff: name files according to a system and in dedicated places, do backups daily, check dimensions and codecs and settings and write that down.

[Greenlaw]

Breaking up a show into multiple 'scene' files is actually common practice in 2D, 3D, and vfx production. The results are typically assembled by an editor using a program like Avid, Premiere, Vegas or Final Cut. Some animators (like me,) break the individual scenes down even further by rendering out layer comps and assembling that in a compositing program (like After Effects or Fusion,) usually to apply effects not possible with Moho alone or to combine the animation with elements created in another program or with live action footage. Sometimes, an individual scene may even be broken into multiple scene files and assembled in comp just because the scene may be so complex that it's just easier to manage and animate it as separate scene files.

It's entirely possible to do everything in a single scene file but depending on how long it is, and how many characters and scene changes are involved, you may find it unwieldy and slow to work with before you get too far. (And TBH, Moho is actually one of the better programs I've used for managing a ton of hi-res art and animation data--but I still wouldn't want to animate every scene in a single file.)

Also, if you're working with a crew, even if it's just one other person, it can be difficult to share much of the workload when everything is contained in a single file.

Then there's the risk factor--if the entire production is contained in a single file, you could potentially lose all your work if the file becomes corrupted.

My typical workflow is to first create a storyboard and an animatic using temp audio tracks. I'll then output each scene with audio from the animatic separately (usually a low-to-med quality JPEG image seq and audio tracks,) to use as background reference in Moho. Next, if the project is big or complex enough, I might create a dope sheet using a spreadsheet program.

The animatic output (image sequence and audio file) for each scene is then imported into individual Moho scenes as artwork and timing reference. You'll probably want to place these layers in a group and set the group to Do No Render This Layer and Immune To Camera. Sometimes I'll scale the group and move it to a corner and the uppermost layer so it acts like a PIP. Next I like to add timeline markers to note frames where events and bits of dialog occur.

Now, I can import character rigs, backgrounds and props from the library, and start working on the animations. When I'm done, the animations can be exported as frames or movie files, depending on you editorial workflow. Usually, I just overcut the rendered 'final' footage in a new layer on top of my animatic edit.

That's my personal workflow and it's more or less what I've experienced at the various animation and vfx studios where I've worked.

Hope this helps.

[Sketch_Turner]

Thank you for your answers! I guess it'll take me some time to adjust to this "multiple files" work scheme, but in the end that's nothing I can't manage.

[chucky]

If you make Scene folders with all the gathered media and a render folder inside, you'll see it will become pretty easy to tame.
Greenlaw and Slowtiger have given excellent advice there.

[Hello mootion]

Hi, everyone!
I would like to continue this topic,
please advise me if a new plot is required.
----
A few years ago I happily realize that character animation in Moho works better for me than
Ae + Joystic or Ae + Duick.

Since then, I start to animate characters in Moho and the rest of the scenes + montage in Ae.
(Typically, I do explainer animations which are around 1 minute long,
so for less complex animation, my process works well
- here sample of that kind of animation
https://hellomootion.com/mazovian-startup-academy-promo)


However, some difficulties showed up during complex and fast productions.
I realized that I'm wasting amounts of time synchronizing the movement of the character, which is in moho,
with the movement of the rest of the scene in Ae.
I typically do 7 versions of png sequence for each scene... going forward and backward ...
saving the sequences, importing, exporting ... then another alteration...
and then the whole process gets really messy ..

Question time:
How would You plan Your workflow in Moho + Ae for this animation:
https://www.animwood.com/work/quickframe

Is it even possible to optimize workflow anyhow while character animation is in Moho and rest in Ae ...?
Should I animate whole scenes objects which are in interaction with character in Moho and then only montage scenes in Ae?
What are the best practices?

Please help!

[slowtiger]

Wow, great work! I like your characters, fluid and full of life.

OK, the main problem is that the whole video is basically one long uninterrupted scene, or appears to be that. There are some tricks to that:

- avoid this. Instead of slowly moving from one scene to another, consider fast pans - those can be done with rendered videos and some motion blur easily.

- plan a lot in storyboard. Identify the parts which should be done as one project file, then look for the best way to do the transition. I try to incorporate "halt" points which I can stretch or shorten if necessary. Use the tricks Hitchcock used for "Rope": let some object get close to the camera so it covers the complete scene, then reveals the next.

- act out the timing. Once the VO is spoken/recorded, you can film yourself and act out all movements with your hands. This gives you a better feeling for the timing of each element. If I need to create assets in different programs, I make sure I know their duration in advance, frame-exact.

- do a timing dummy with just the VO and some coloured blocks. You may even use your scanned storyboard drawings for this. It's much easier and faster to arrange these back and forth until you find the timing perfect, then go into separate projects and create the real scenes to that timing.

- I'm a bit posessed with overall rhythm, so I often have an underlying beat to all movements: every 6th or every 8th frame, or just whole and half seconds. This way I have a grid in time to which I attach all my movements and events.

- whenever possible, do a complete scene in one program only. I don't use AfterFX at all, just using Moho. You can emulate AFX' workflow with compositions a bit by creating your scenes in separate Moho files, then in the end create a master project into which you import all the different parts - but that crunches heavily on the processor. I often find it easier to import rendered videos instead, there's no visual difference.

[Greenlaw]

Yes, nice work!

A few years ago I happily realize that character animation in Moho works better for me than
Ae + Joystic or Ae + Duick.

That's pretty much been my experience.

At work we started out using Ae and DuIK. This system was fine for simple puppets but it got too unwieldy and slow for the shows we were making at the time. Also, we needed to do more complex character animation than Ae+DuIK allowed. From there, we migrated to Harmony for 2D puppets, which was a mixed bag. Getting Harmony's FBF capability was a big plus but Harmony's puppet system still didn't do everything we needed in a 2D puppet. At this time, I had already had personal experience with Moho and I was asked to give it a try on one of our shows, and we've pretty much stayed with Moho for puppets ever since. We still use Ae and Harmony, of course, but Moho is our go to program for 2D puppet animation.

For character animation, I find I'm able to do pretty much all of the motions required inside Moho. Then I use Moho's Layer Comps to export layers and custom masks to use in Ae. I don't normally alter the Moho animation in Ae except for lighting, vfx and particles, and anti-aliasing (via the free OLM Smoother), but occasionally I'll use Liquify to improve a pose or a facial expression in Ae. Then from Ae, I render out a movie file for video editing and final output.

The only 'back and forth' between Moho and Ae happens when I need to change the animation. I find it helps to save a Profile from Moho Exporter. After I make the animation changes, I just open Exporter, delete the existing file(s) when present, load my profile for the scene, and click the render button. For this to work smoothly, I work in enumerated files in a WIP (work-in-progress) folder, and when I'm ready to render I save an unnumbered file outside of the WIP folder. This way, the Moho Exporter profile always loads the latest version of the animation, and consistently renders the output to your preferred directory. Oh, yeah, and set Overwrite Existing Files as a default.

Note: This is the render workflow I use at home for personal work. It works well but I wish Moho Exporter was smarter and more streamlined. At present, there are too many steps involved to render a file and it's too easy to render the files to an incorrect folder, which can really mess things up for the compositing artist. At work, we have our own Moho render controller that avoids these issues. But IMO, much of this could be solved if Moho allowed us to set a preferred project-specific output path in the Project settings window that Moho Exporter's output settings could be set to automatically refer to.