Slow Playback Speed

[lankydan]

Hi There,

I'm a fairly new user to Moho and am having some problems with the playback speed of my animation. I've tried the four tips in the FAQ (smaller main window, fast buffer on, timeline closed and frame skipping on) but even with these measures I'm still getting a max rate of 12fps (project setting is 24). Before I tried the FAQ tips it was playing back at 1fps!! I think it may be related to my source images. I'm working with characters that were originally hand drawn, scanned, exploded in PS and then imported as "limbs" in Moho. When I opened them in Moho they were really large, so I scaled the bone layer down. Does anyone know if this is causing my animation to slow down because the original image is too large. It shouldn't be my system as it's sufficiently beefy (and the tutorial animations play back at full speed). I also tried converting the .PNG limbs to vectors but it didn't make a difference (I prefer the hand drawn look anyway...) I really get the feeling it could be something related to how I'm preparing/setting up my characters. If anyone has any suggestions it would be most appreciated.

Cheers, Dan.

[myles]

When I opened them in Moho they were really large, so I scaled the bone layer down. Does anyone know if this is causing my animation to slow down because the original image is too large.

Hello Dan,

Yes, you've guessed it. As I understand it, Moho is still working with those really large images, and continuously re-scaling them down for screen display, which is probably chewing up any spare beefiness your system has available.

If you don't need them that big (if you're not going to zoom right in on numerous areas to show magnified fine texture detail), you'll get better playback speed (and probably faster final export rendering) by resizing your images in PS (Photoshop?) to about the final render size (at 96dpi screen size rather than, for example, 300 dpi print size) before you import them into Moho.

By the way, how did you convert your .PNGs into vectors? You need a proper tracing technique to do this. Just exporting them as AI or EPS won't do this (a common error) as both AI and EPS can contain bitmap/raster information - all you get is an AI/EPS file with your PNG image embedded in it. Also, converting detailed images into vectors doesn't always help, as you just end up with vector data with unworkably huge numbers of points. Vectors, particularly for Moho use, are best for "clean" flat-coloured smooth-edged cartoony images.

Regards, Myles.

[Rasheed]

I think it may be related to my source images. I'm working with characters that were originally hand drawn, scanned, exploded in PS and then imported as "limbs" in Moho. When I opened them in Moho they were really large, so I scaled the bone layer down.
...
(I prefer the hand drawn look anyway...)

The solution is quite simple. Temporarily replace your original bitmap drawings by scaled down versions, do the animation, and as a final step replace the scaled down bitmap files by the originals (and perhaps do some minor tweaking).

However, if your character doesn't have to be viewed close up, there is no need to create bitmaps larger in dimensions than the display size in the final animation. If Moho has to perform the scaling down, it will slow down Moho considerably, as Myles has written.

[lankydan]

Cheers Myles and Rasheed, that clears things up then.

As for the vectors, I trace the drawings in freehand and then fill the outlines in flash and export them as .ai. So maybe "convert" wasn't the best word to use, probably should have said "created vector files". If you play around with the trace settings for a while you don't get too many points. But as Myles said, it does tend to suit a more simplified style. You also get that "flashified" look to your character.

Thanks again for your help guys!