record the movement of bones by moving them in real time ?

[calogiga]

Hello.

As I am not yet comfortable with animation in "controlled mode", I was wondering if it is possible to record the movement of bones by moving them manually in real time ?
(i.e. while the timeline advances, if I move a bone, its movement is automatically recorded by keyframes)

I know that this thing is possible in Blender (I've used it), but for Moho, I can found anywhere such information if that feature exists or not...

Have a nice evening.

Calogero

[slowtiger]

It is in fact possible, but nearly impossible to give useful results with anything other than the most basic rigs. You may want to set the frame rate lower for recording.

[calogiga]

Yes, I guess I couldn't handle 10 bones at the same time.
But nevertheless, if I know how to do this real-time recording for a few bones, I can already set up the movements of the main bones.
How to activate this?

I don't see a button anywhere that says auto-save keyframe?

[calogiga]

OK, I found it.
To act as a puppeteer, simply move the bones in Z mode while the timeline plays and scrolls.

Thanks for your answer, slowtiger.

[Greenlaw]

Hi calogiga,

This is technically possible in Moho: tap the spacebar and start moving bones. Moho will attempt to record keyframes based on your movements. When you're done recording, tap the spacebar again to stop. Now, you can edit keyframes like normal.

However, animating this way is far from ideal because Moho was not designed for this type of puppetry. Adobe Character Animator or Reallusion Cartoon Animator are better suited for real-time puppetry because they use a webcam to follow your movements and apply them to a puppet. IMO, the result looks exactly like what it is, though: live-puppetry or motion capture rather than keyframed character animation.

I don't think there's anything wrong with motion captured animation, but to make it look 'good' can take as much work (or more) as hand-keyframing the animation. (Trust me, I've worked on a LOT of motion capture productions.)

If you're using Moho, I highly recommend learning how to hand-keyframe animation. It's not that hard once you get the hang of it, and it will look 100 times better than live-puppeted animation.

[Greenlaw]

An alternative technique in Moho is to assign hotkeys to Regular Actions. Then, you can hit the space bar and tap the hotkey for the motion you want Moho to insert into the timeline. These triggered animations will be recorded in real-time. To assign a hotkey, choose Rename for the Action, and you'll see a box to enter the hotkey.

This can look better than moving the bones by hand during capture because you're using animation 'presets' that were keyframed in advance.

Hope this helps.

[calogiga]

Let's say that it is a way to animate to know.
For some control bones, which manipulate actions, and which stay in the same place while I move them, this can be useful. No ?

Thanks for your answer full of details...