Moho Forum

Anyway, until they add this really obvious feature, I'm resigned to either not having any detail inside my character's mouths or not having outlines on the mouths (which means no mouth drawn at all when it's closed). And only black irises/pupils for my characters' eyes (since my outline color is black).

All of which really kind of sucks.

I am still unclear why "duplicate layers" are so horribly frightening and awful monsters?

It is almost like you are punishing yourself as a protest against the "bad evil" feature by not doing what you want in the style you want. Does efrontier or Smith Micro really care that you don't stroke the mouth shapes in your creations because they get added to the mask?

Yes it requires a bit of extra effort to edit those duplicate layers later but still... how often do you need to edit those shapes? At some point you are "done" and you start to animate. If tweaks need to be made then make them and move on. For pro users there is a script to handle point duplication automatically. There is also a layer script to "slave" switch layers. I use that one a lot for masking switches (previous post).

(Sorry about the standard users and no scripting... however I will say that if you have the standard version you probably aren't as concerned about missing features like this.)

I admit it is unfortunate that the stroke is included with the mask. I think it is silly and annoying and I'm sure I mentioned it in the feature request forums, but I would NEVER let the lack of a certain feature dictate the style of my work IF THERE IS A WORKAROUND. If I want something bad enough I will do what it takes to get that result.

Actually, teeth inside a mouth using a switch layer wouldn't work with masking very well anyway. I put all the layers for the mouth on one layer and layer the shapes to create the "masking". The teeth are "inside" the mouth between the lips and the mouth back (in my previous post).

Wouldn't it be better to do what ever it takes to get the results you want if you want them that bad? Why hold yourself back? If it is too much work for you... <sigh> considering how much work animation requires period... this seems a small thing.

Anyway, there is another 2 cents worth from Vern. I don't let lack of features dictate results. I try to find alternative solutions. If there is one use it.

Take all of this with a grain of salt. I'm a bit grumpy this week and I get annoyed when someone says they make their work "look bad on purpose" because a feature doesn't work exactly the way they want it to. When you do that you are only hurting yourself. No one else will know why (or care) it looks that way.

-vern

That's what *I* did, Vern -- I agree with you. Bite the bullet and make it work the way you want.

I created the mouth shapes and, yes, it was a whole lot of work but I only had to do it once and now I reuse that mouth (I did not use the mask on top but rather edited with multiple shapes all on the same layer).

Still, would be nice to have this feature (actually, I'd just like to see *any* new version of AS -- Mike is so clever I'm sure whatever he adds/fixes will be worth it).

Well it seems everyone has a different way of doing things in this program. I too discovered the problem with no outlines on masking and quickly abandoned using masking for any mouth or eye shapes. Attached is the way I would set up your character if it was me:

http://www.mediafire.com/?cojxjmydm0p

Since you want interpolation and all the layers in your switch layer have the same number of points, why even use a switch layer at all? (delete the switch layer in my file- I forgot to delete it)

What I did was just take the mouth, teeth, and tongue shapes from one of the switches and put them onto the face layer. No need for the 2 other shapes. Create a new shape using the mouth outline for the "throat/ inside mouth" fill, and then lower that shape until it's behind the teeth and tongue. I then deleted the beard fill, and created a new fill with the beard and mouth points selected. This creates the "mask" needed to hide the teeth and tongue and also provides the mouth outline.

Now just setup actions for all the different mouth shapes. You now only have one layer to worry about, and you can use the actions-to-dat script if you use Papagayo for lipsync (unless you don't have pro version). This would also provide a very easy way for making changes to the mouth shapes anywhere in the timeline, without have 10 different layers (each with different point motion) to worry about. You can also now have jaw movement with each phoneme, which you really should anyways (I find it very hard to talk and keep my jaw motionless lol).

EDIT: I just realized I may have reiterated what Vern was explaining- Vern is my setup similar to yours?

Yes, that is the way I would set up a mouth. Use the layering of the shapes on one layer. Sometimes I put stuff on separate layers but it's the same concept. The action idea is pretty good to.

I use bones for my faces more these days so on frame 0 my mouth "parts" are all over the place... I use bone offset.

-vern