Moho Forum

Toontoonz wrote:If you think what I am doing is incorrect then what is the purpose of welding? When and why should one use it?
As you say in the tutorial about welding: "The resulting shape is much cleaner and easier to work with:"

No, I'm not saying that what you're doing is incorrect. I'm just trying to give you a deeper idea about what's going on. Welding is not specifically the thing that makes your shapes move better. If it works for you, that's great (and I do expect that it would work). The more important point I'm trying to get across is about point placement:

Bones move points, not curves. So, if you have two shapes that line up and you wanrt them to move together with bones, they should have points in the same spots as well. You can do this with welding, but welding is a tool - I'm trying to explain the concept, not just the tool.

Rasheed wrote:I'd like to comment on this, because I'm trying to find out how to use bones effectively.

Not only the number of points matter, but also the complexity of the shape. Look at this setup:


I think this shape will be very difficult to animate with bones. It seems that these kinds of shapes will require tweaking with points translations as well.

Not necessarily, you can add more bones to prop up the shapes wherever you are getting unwanted distortions. Think of them as "muscle" bones.

Rasheed wrote:I think this shape will be very difficult to animate with bones. It seems that these kinds of shapes will require tweaking with points translations as well.

Also, as a general rule, it's better to set up bones lined up "straight", and then bend them in your animation. If your bone structure starts out bent, it can be harder to correctly set up the regions of influence, because they will overlap in unexpected ways.

For a person, for example, it's usually better to draw the person with their arms and legs sticking straight out. Then set up the bones, and then on frame 1 put the person into a more natural position.

Lost Marble wrote:For a person, for example, it's usually better to draw the person with their arms and legs sticking straight out. Then set up the bones, and then on frame 1 put the person into a more natural position.

Ah, that is exactly the same pose when you create a 3D model from a real human being.

Ah, that is exactly the same pose when you create a 3D model from a real human being.

Well, yes and no.

What is most important (speaking from working in 3D but I'm sure it translates to Moho just as well) is planning where your control points/vertices will be and how the bones will affect them.

In 3D it is frequently better to model joints slightly bent and rig them that way to improve the appearance of joint deformation.

For simple character shapes drawn in orthographic views, it could be very possible that simply drawing them straight out and then laying the bones out straight could be best.

However if your shapes are complicated, or need to move in a specific way, or they are not drawn orthographically (3/4 instead of profile), then it may take some more thought (or a great deal more thought...) about where to put the control points and how to position the bones to get the best results.

The bottom line as LM said, is that bones move control points. Therefore to get the best results it is necessary to plan ahead of time where both your points and bones will be to make the shapes move exactly the way you want when animated.

Sometimes that is not easy (it can be very hard), but in the end it makes all the difference in making something look amazing instead of pretty good.