Moho Animation Forum

"In the 3D program, render 360-degree turntables of parts (i.e., head, torso, limbs, etc.,) of a 3D character, and then import these elements as 2D images for switch layers inside ASP/Moho. In the 3D program, fix the camera and lights so the lighting is consistent for all frames of the turntable render. If you need interactive lighting, you may want to light the scene somewhat evenly and use ASP/Moho's 2D directional lighting on the layers. After you have the turntable renders for all the body parts, it's easy to rig the characters for turnarounds because you have all the views ready to drop into switch layers that can be controlled by smart bone actions and dials. And because these are 2D images, you can deform them more easily and predictably than imported OBJs. (Especially so in Moho Pro 12, thanks to Smart Mesh.)"

I have done this and found that the memory of the system took a hit, so the next approach is to use the render image of the turn table as a guide for moving the vector point that I have trace over the turntable animation. If you are going to use that method that Greenlaw suggested, then there are some other ways to lower memory usage, export as minimal color(safe color) for the web, lower resolution, minimal frame rate 12fps for a full turntable of each segment. I have never done it for each limb, but I have for multiple hands motion. But in the end LDNSYNS Media method of hand animation works out very well.

@ruscular the edge in that example was all prerendered as with all the bmx and body in hash. I was just careful to match the results.
Also as I comped inside Moho (ASP) I could tweak the head outline
Hash did have a great toon render , but I stopped using it when it went subscription (f that)

Lightwave made major improvement in toon render, as for Hash Animation master I try to buy it at trade shows when they hand out the CD permanent edition for the same price of the subscription. I hope they still do that. I have a permanent v18. I also don't like subscription. I have not done Moho on Lightwave 2018 yet, but I know I can do a better job with it. If you wonder why Moho character face is being use on a 3D rendered body. I choose this because you can get more expression out of a larger head and toon face than risking the "Uncanny Valley" syndrome. The big eyes and small mouth character can connect with the viewer as a character with stronger emotion, also the Moho lip syncing system is also quite friendly to use. Moho I find does a pretty good job of tracking. Hash Animation master does a great job of rigging with using smart skin system. I can use the Hash Animation rig to drive a cage mesh over the Lightwave toon render body and plop a Moho rig head on top!

Smart Skin with Smart bone and smart mesh, which I call it the smart smart smart system

ruscular3d wrote:Lightwave made major improvement in toon render...I have not done Moho on Lightwave 2018 yet, but I know I can do a better job with it. If you wonder why Moho character face is being use on a 3D rendered body. I choose this because you can get more expression out of a larger head and toon face than risking the "Uncanny Valley" syndrome.

Yay, LightWave! I've been using LightWave since 1998 or so.

This is really old but I used 2d animation for the mouth shapes in one of my LightWave 3D shorts:

Happy Box

I drew the mouths in Photoshop and imported them to a program called Magpie Pro. In Magpie, I was able to quickly lipsync the data and rendered out an image sequence which was mapped onto black matte versions of the geometry in LightWave. Then, this pass was rendered out and composited to the character pass in a compositing program called Fusion. In Fusion, I was able to add highlights and shadows to better integrate the element. It was done this way because I was making this short for a Halloween themed art show and only had about six weeks to create it--not a lot of time when you only have evenings and weekends for it. Plus, I thought this technique would make the 3D characters look more consistent with my comic strip. Looking at it now, I think the result looks a little weird, but I"m okay with that. It's a weird little short anyway.

Magpie is no longer available but I can do the same thing using Moho or Papagayo. Nowadays I'd probably animate the mouths in Moho so I can make the animation smoother. (I used Moho to animate 2D mouths for compositing in a TV program recently. I'll point it out when it comes out.)

Here's another oldie. I originally intended to use the same 2D mouth technique in this unfinished 3D project:

Brudders 2 Excerpt

I still did the lipsync in Magpie Pro, but instead of rendering the 2D mouth shapes, I had Magpie export morph data using the same shape names. Then, in LightWave, I had modeled 3D mouths shapes hidden inside a black matte version of the character's head, and used the morph data to push the shapes to the surface. The mouths were based on the same 2D mouths I used in Happy Box, but scooped out to have dimension. This 3D mouth pass was rendered out and composited just like the 2D mouths, and I applied an edge blur to help it blend in with the fur. I did it this way for the same reasons I did the 2D mouths in Happy Box: it was fast and easy. Also, this was a very difficult project for me and I didn't want to deal with potential errors in the face fur by using an actual moving mouth shape. (This project really kicked my butt and I shelved it a while back. Sigh! I'll finish it one of these days.) BTW, Mike Green, who is mentioned earlier in this thread, wrote a LightWave plugin that lets you do something similar between Papagayo and LightWave.

I used LightWave for cel-shaded elements in a few episodes of the Croods TV show, notably a swarm of bees and shapeshifting worms. LightWave's cel-shading made it easy to match the hand-drawn 2D animation created in Harmony. (I'm talking about the regular 2D animation in the show, not the cave painting animations, which we created using multiple programs including Moho.) In my own projects, I used LightWave to animate the Boeing 727 exterior scenes in Scareplane.

As for LightWave 2018, I'm using it to make a new short film, but there's no 2D animation in it. Maybe I'll try making a hybrid Moho-LightWave 2018 project after I finish this one.

Hopefully, that wasn't too off-topic. Maybe some of this info will give users ideas for their own 2D/3D combos.

One of the feature request that I wish Moho will have is multiple tracking. I think lip syncing in Moho would so much better with multiple tracking, and maybe be able to cross over to other 3D program. I love how you use 2D mouth on a 3D character!

If you are also into Lightwave, and have Lightwave 2018, I highly recommend getting Jamil's Metamorphic plugin for Lightwave 2018

ruscular3d wrote:Jamil's Metamorphic plugin

Yes, I have it! I'm not using it yet but it will soon come in handy on my current project.

Also, if you do a lot compositing and post effects like I do, Origami Digital's UberPass for 2018 is incredible. The name of this tool is fitting; it's like Moho's Layer Comps but for creating 3D layer passes, outputting custom buffers, and about 100x more powerful. I'd love to see Moho's Layer Comps get an update like this. Imagine outputting Layer Comps with only the strokes or only the fills in your comp, or just specific Style or effects, or motion vectors or a depth buffer for post blurring fx, etc. This stuff is pretty standard in many 3D animation programs, and I could certainly use it with 2D output from Moho.

I'm starting to like the new LightWave a lot. At first, switching over was frustrating because the brand new render engine completely changed the shading workflow and how we approached shading and lighting in general. I mean, it's easier and the results more realistic now, but the usual tricks are obsolete and some old habits have become a hindrance. Because of this, it will be too much trouble to update Brudders 2 to LW 2018, but I'm excited about using it on my current project and future new projects.

Ok, really straying OT now. Back to our regularly scheduled thread....