Rotation causes unintended scaling - Please Help!

Wondering how to accomplish a certain animation task? Ask here.

Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger

Post Reply
animationfan
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Nov 28, 2024 10:34 am

Rotation causes unintended scaling - Please Help!

Post by animationfan »

This learning curve is proving to be more challenging than I thought. Well to put it simply, I drew a square shape into the artboard, and using a simple transformer tool did the rotation animation and guess what it scales. no matter what shape I tried. With layer being selected it works as intended BUT setting the ORGIN to the center is a pain(at least I went through forum and didn't find anything straight forward). Cant it be done simply with the T tool? Well I am coming from After effects.
Last edited by animationfan on Wed Dec 25, 2024 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Greenlaw
Posts: 10396
Joined: Mon Jun 19, 2006 5:45 pm
Location: Los Angeles
Contact:

Re: Rotation causes unintended scaling - Please Help!

Post by Greenlaw »

If I understand the description of the problem, Moho shouldn't be doing that. I'm guessing there's something odd about the setup. Can you post a sample project?

One thing to be careful of is not to expect Moho to work exactly like After Effects. As layer-based animation programs, they share similarities, but the programs are quite different in many ways. In my experience, some things work better in Moho, and other things are better in Ae. But they do compliment each other nicely. Over time, you'll figure it out.

FYI, I work routinly with After Effects...in fact, almost everything on our Little Green Dog Channel, was created using Moho with After Effects. I also used Moho with Ae for much of my DreamWorks Animation work.

I'm planning a mini-series about my Moho-After Effects workflow for next year, but in the meantime, feel free to ask questions here.

Image
Last edited by Greenlaw on Tue Dec 24, 2024 9:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Víctor Paredes
Site Admin
Posts: 5814
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:18 am
Location: Barcelona/Chile
Contact:

Re: Rotation causes unintended scaling - Please Help!

Post by Víctor Paredes »

If you rotate the layer, it will work as you expect. If you rotate the points, each individual point will move to reach its new position.
Image Image Image Image Image Image
Moho co-owner

Previously Rigged animation supervisor: My father's dragon, Wolfwalkers & Star Wars Visions "Screecher's Reach"
My personal Youtube Channel
User avatar
Greenlaw
Posts: 10396
Joined: Mon Jun 19, 2006 5:45 pm
Location: Los Angeles
Contact:

Re: Rotation causes unintended scaling - Please Help!

Post by Greenlaw »

Ah, that makes sense! Thanks for chiming in, Victor.

@animationfan, yes, in Ae terms, this is kinda like the difference between editing the path in a Shape layer vs. transforming the Shape...these can have different origins. And,of course in Ae, the layer itself has yet another origin.

When editing the points in a Moho vector layer using Trasform Points, the origin does not remain fixed, as this would cause problems as you continue to draw in the layer.

If you need a fixed origin, you should either move the art closer to the layer origin or move the layer origin to the desired position. Then, use the Transform Layer tool to transform the layer.

Note that moving the layer origin is more helpful in the rigging and animation stages and not particularly helpful for drawing. In the drawing rigging stage, it's generally good practice to avoid transforming the layers and groups at frame 0. You can do it; just be aware of the transformation issues that can occur if you edit the layers after you've begun animating the project.

Bonus tip: In Ae, I often work with a hierarchy of nulls so I can have different 'origins' for an item to transform or animate with. In Moho, you can sort of do this by nesting Group layers, and giving each Group a unique origin position.
animationfan
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Nov 28, 2024 10:34 am

Re: Rotation causes unintended scaling - Please Help!

Post by animationfan »

Greenlaw wrote: Tue Dec 24, 2024 8:56 pm If I understand the description of the problem, Moho shouldn't be doing that. I'm guessing there's something odd about the setup. Can you post a sample project?

One thing to be careful of is not to expect Moho to work exactly like After Effects. As layer-based animation programs, they share similarities, but the programs are quite different in many ways. In my experience, some things work better in Moho, and other things are better in Ae. But they do compliment each other nicely. Over time, you'll figure it out.

FYI, I work routinly with After Effects...in fact, almost everything on our Little Green Dog Channel, was created using Moho with After Effects. I also used Moho with Ae for much of my DreamWorks Animation work.

I'm planning a mini-series about my Moho-After Effects workflow for next year, but in the meantime, feel free to ask questions here.

Image

oh GREAT! I am in for the Moho Aftereffects workflow tuts, and yes I am one of your subscriber! have seen your vector drawing tutorial. Well here is the file please checkhttps://filebin.net/096pdt8h6mumhm0x/Square.moho
Post Reply