A simple cel-shadedish effect. Any elaborationism welcome

[Toontoonz]

Here is a another shading idea I was experimenting with - use gradients in your shading and animate the shading movement:

Instead of using the Moho built-in style shader, I created a shade shape for the bottom half of the ball figure and made it a black-to-black gradient with top gradient alpha at 0 & bottom gradient alpha at 50.

I also did a similar do-it-yourself shading for under the eyes.

With Moho´s shader one can´t animate it´s placement or movement.
With the DIY shader you can, as seen in this short clip of a ball thing falling:
Animated gradient shading

[MarkBorok]

The other pluses with do-it-yourself shading are that:
...
- Moho shading puts the shading where Moho wants it to go on the shape - you don´t get to decide.

That's kind of a weird complaint. In real life shading goes where it needs to go - opposite the light source - and you don't get to decide. In Moho it works the same way, which is the main reason I can think of for using it.

Your system looks very nice, but if you have a ball lit from above (say) with the shading on the bottom and you turn the ball upside-down the shading will end up on the top. Which was, up until that point, the surface being lit from above.

To get the most out of Moho's shading, my advice is; don't use shading in combination with outlines (or if you do, use the hard-edged shading style) and also add a tint to your shadow. Your artwork will stand out if your shading has a bit of a violet or greenish or other tinge to it.

[Toontoonz]

With Moho shading you are stuck with where it decides to make it (other than you can adjust the angle, offset and color), the size it decides to make it, moho decides how it moves, etc, etc, etc. You, the artist, have basically no control over the Moho automatic shader. And it gives everything a rounded, 3D look to the edge. Plus you can´t even see it unless you render it.

Look at your Green Alien character on your website. Nice character! Do you think you could get that nice shading in your style, placed where you want it from the Moho´s automatic shader? No way.
For example - The eyes on your character in the animation have larger, more dramatic shaded areas than the rest of the body parts (and in the eye balls the shading even disappears). Moho makes shading all the same amount of shading everywhere. Or the shading on the legs - I can´t imagine you getting the same effect in Moho.

And by doing the shading yourself, one can also move it around how one wants when the animating the object.

Do you happen to have an animation on your website where you used Moho´s automatic shader?

I don´t really care for the Moho automatic shader so I experimented a bit using my drawing style I use in Adobe Illustrator and other vector drawing programs and I liked how the shading transferred to Moho.
I threw this out as an alternative for people to try and maybe somebody will even find a new or better way to do shading. People can use whatever works for them - this is just an alternative to the Moho automatic shader.
I am now working on an idea with a second layer over the character layer involving masking and the layer blending mode.
Experiment with Moho, there are lots of ways of achieving different effects and styles.

[MarkBorok]

I think it would be nice if shading, along with everything else in Moho, could be animated. However, shading only moves when the light source moves. If the light is coming from above and to the right, the shading should be below and to the left, regardless of how the shape moves and rotates.

I used shading (without outlines) in my first Moho project. I already posted it here once, but the link is http://www.restlesspixels.com/PetsCat.mov and also PetsBird.mov. Note how, when the bird does a loop-the-loop in the air, the shadow remains at the bottom and the highlight at the top. Without Moho's automatic shading I would have had to adjust it by hand in every frame. It would have probably looked a bit better if I had used the color tinting I mentioned in my last post. One of my past art teachers once told me that the shading on an object should be tinted the complementary color of the object's main color (i.e. yellow object = purplish shading, green object = reddish shading, etc). Right now the black shading on the little girl makes her look like she's got a beard and hairy legs, kind of.

I would like to see a shading option that allows for more of a rounded look, rather than the relief look that Moho gives you right now. Mainly, it would be nice if the highlight (you can use the shading option to create a highlight like I did with my bird) wouldn't just appear along the top edge, but also closer to the center of the object. You could get this effect with gradients if Moho allowed you more control over the way gradients appear (hint, hint).

[Toontoonz]

I wonder if it is even possible to make a new gradient system in Moho. Note when an object moves the gradient´s orientation is to the screen, not the shape. It is more like a mask-type arrangement.
And a multiple-color gradient like one can make in Photoshop or Illustrator (and lots of other graphic programs)- and that could be animated; that would be nice.

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What program did you use to make your shaded Green Alien animation on your website?
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I guess the other problem I have with using Moho´s shading system is that it is what everybody uses in Moho - so it is spotted a mile away - just like the "moho flow".

And how do you get the shading to move (and grow and shrink) in Moho if the object does not move, but the light source does?

[MarkBorok]

I'm sure it's not impossible to make gradients that move with the object. If Flash can do it, Moho certainly should be able to (and Moho doesn't have to calculate the gradient on the fly, only at render time). However, I'm getting the impression that Lost Marble would like to discourage using vector shapes in favor of bitmaps. A great many of the features are clearly intended to break up the "flatness" of the vector look. Unfortunately with bitmaps they have to be really huge if you have a lot of camera zooming in and out - my last project I had an enormous multi-layered background because I needed to go from wide shots to close-ups.

The alien on my site was made with Flash.

Yes, you can tell a Moho cartoon from miles away, but Moho is so infrequently used (unlike Flash) that most people haven't gotten used to "the Moho look". As for the "flow", that's easy - do all the inbetweens by hand. Even if Moho had better control over motion graphs, I would only use automatic inbetweening for mechanical objects, not characters. The computer doesn't know how to animate with personality. Unfortunately I had to use Moho's automatic inbetweening on two previous commercial projects due to tight deadlines. Even then you can minimize the problem by developing a sense of timing. Most inexperienced computer animators make everything move too slowly and haven't gotten the hang of alternating periods of movement with periods of stillness, slow with fast. That way you build up a rhythm. It helps to have a good soundtrack.

Another thing; movement doesn't always have to be smooth. You can make it jerky from time to time.

[Toontoonz]

I'm sure it's not impossible to make gradients that move with the object. If Flash can do it, Moho certainly should be able to (and Moho doesn't have to calculate the gradient on the fly, only at render time).

I use to think that, too, but now that I´ve come to think of Moho not as a vector program like Flash, but rather a spline-based program like Hash Animation Master. What one thinks can work in a vector-based program such as Flash or Illustrator does not hold for the spline-based Moho.
To me Moho is making 2-D "models", rather than Flash or Illustrator-like vector drawings.

All the effects in the Style window (shading, glow, splotchy, gradient, etc ) that one can apply to a Moho shape seem to be oriented to the Moho main window, not the shape. (Whereas in a vector illustration program the gradient is aligned in relationship to the vector shape.) All angles that one can set for these style effects in Moho are in relationship to the main window, not the shape or any other layer or object. (When one puts in 90 degrees for the shade effect ,this is 90 degrees in relation to the main X and Y axis of the main view window, not any shape or layer.)
It would be nice if one had the option to orient any gradients or other effects to the shape; however, it is probably not something that we will see in the near future or ever. Hence, as you say, LM pushes the use of image maps. (Even all the brushes in Moho are image bitmaps - jpeg or png files- crammed together, not vector-type brushes.)

[hard as snails]

hi this is done by using the shaded affect when creating a shape,first add the the darker colour using shaded effect 1(i used a darker green in the pop up box than the base and change the orientation as desired),to get the highlight go to effect 2 and again choose shaded(i used a lighter green than the base colour and change the orientation,perhaps the opposite direction to the shadow?).next i choose a dark green with soft edges for the outline,then i hit the space bar....i next went back and hid the edges that were next to the parts that have highlights(leaving the shaded area with an extra shade)

ps how do you get pics directly onto your posting???

[gavi dvan]

This topic just won't die will it!

hi this is done by using the shaded affect when creating a shape,first add the the darker colour using shaded effect 1(i used a darker green in the pop up box than the base and change the orientation as desired),to get the highlight go to effect 2 and again choose shaded(i used a lighter green than the base colour and change the orientation,perhaps the opposite direction to the shadow?).next i choose a dark green with soft edges for the outline,then i hit the space bar....i next went back and hid the edges that were next to the parts that have highlights(leaving the shaded area with an extra shade)

It's done pretty much how I explained it... there are no outlines. I haven't hidden any, there are none to hide. The only effect I've used is shading (layer shading and shape shading). You don't need to worry about choosing different shades of colours, just choose the one colour you want, and the shading will make a darker shade of that colour.

ps how do you get pics directly onto your posting???

I used Photobucket http://photobucket.com/ Nice and easy