Rigging Tail with Thin End Point

[hkmarsh1]

Hi, everyone! I'm fairly new to Moho, but I'm already falling in love with it. It's such an intuitive software and the quality blows me out of the water! I'm trying to rig a dinosaur tail that has a very thin end point, but the thinner the tail gets, the more distorted and angular it becomes. I've posted an example below. The goal is to do some curling towards the tip. Does anyone know a good work around this? I'm currently working with Moho Pro 12.

Thanks again!

[Greenlaw]

Hi hkmarsh1! Welcome to Moho!

I made a tutorial about rigging and animating tails here...

Sketch Bones! Rig and Animate a Tail in Moho!

This tutorial was made for Moho 14, but the lesson is mainly about Sketch Bones and should apply to Moho 12. (This technique is how I rigged and animated tails for many years at Dreamworks.)

In Moho 12, you can get smooth deformations by making sure your vector art is appropriately segmented and that the bones line up with the points. If you want to use bitmap art, combine Sketch Bones with a custom Mesh Warp layer.

You can also make nice curves by selecting a group of bones and rotating them at once. However, I find it easier and more organic to animate using Sketch Bones. (See the video for how to animate with this tool.)

In Moho 14, we also have Curver, which, when combined with Sketch Bones, can help a tail bend more smoothly. I'm making a separate tutorial about Curver, but it's not needed for a basic tail setup. Just mentioning it in case you decide to upgrade later.

Hope this helps.

[Greenlaw]

Oh, this reminds me...

T-Rex from Boss Baby: Back In Business

This character has a tapering tail which was rigged and animated in Moho 12 using Sketch Bones. The second example shows a bit more curviness in the tail motion. Another Sketch Bones example can be seen in my Puss-In-Boots reel. Puss' tail isn't tapered, but there's a lot more wiggly-curvy-ness in the motions.

[hkmarsh1]

Hi hkmarsh1! Welcome to Moho!

I made a tutorial about rigging and animating tails here...

Sketch Bones! Rig and Animate a Tail in Moho!

This tutorial was made for Moho 14, but the lesson is mainly about Sketch Bones and should apply to Moho 12. (This technique is how I rigged and animated tails for many years at Dreamworks.)

In Moho 12, you can get smooth deformations by making sure your vector art is appropriately segmented and that the bones line up with the points. If you want to use bitmap art, combine Sketch Bones with a custom Mesh Warp layer.

You can also make nice curves by selecting a group of bones and rotating them at once. However, I find it easier and more organic to animate using Sketch Bones. (See the video for how to animate with this tool.)

In Moho 14, we also have Curver, which, when combined with Sketch Bones, can help a tail bend more smoothly. I'm making a separate tutorial about Curver, but it's not needed for a basic tail setup. Just mentioning it in case you decide to upgrade later.

Hope this helps.

Hi, Greenlaw!

Thanks for answering my question. I actually found your tutorial online and while it is helpful, I was only able to follow through with it until I got stuck trying to find "Bind Layer." Is there another way to do Bind Layer, or am I completely blind and can't find it? ha ha.

[Greenlaw]

Hmm...I should review the tutorial today because you shouldn't need Bind Layer to bind tail art. Normally, you would use...

...Link Bones in Moho 14...or...

...Use Selected Bones for Flexi-binding in Moho 12.5

These are the same commands, but the name was simplified for Moho 14.x (thanks goodness!)

You can access this command from under the Bone menu. To use it, select the layers you wish to bind, then select the bones (i.e., tail bones,) and select the command or press Shift+Ctrl+F. In Moho 12.5, I suggest remembering the shortcut becauase you'll use it often. In Moho 14.4, there's also a button called Link Bones.

(Note: In my MQC button panel for Moho 12.x, I have a button for this. I'll be releasing new versions of MQC for Moho 12.5, 13.5, and 14.4 soon.)

If I used Bind Layer in the tutorial, it was probably to 'lock down' the rest of the character for the demonstration. I'll check today to be sure.

Anyway, Moho has several binding methods available, and Bind Layer and Link Bones (aka, Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding) are only two of them. Each method has different uses, so it's good to become familiar with all of them. To learn about each binding method, watch this tutorial...

Moho Basics: Learn the 5 Bone Binding Methods!

By the way, Bind Layer is a tool, and it has this icon...



It's used to bind selected layers to a single bone. To use it, select the layer(s) to bind, then click on a bone. To learn more about this and the other methods, be sure to watch the entire binding tutorial.

Hope this helps!