Moho Forum

hi,
i m quite a newbie but i have a problem i dont understand :

i can import everything made with vector layers in director as .swf ,
but
why does it not work when these same anims comport image layers .. ?

if i try to animate a .PNG file , if i export it as .swf , i wont see the anim in DIrector ! i will see an empty box instead ..

Why ???

up is there anything i can dio ?

You told me that when you just open the swf, you don't see the animation.
So I guess you need to specify to Moho that you have bitmap in your animation, before exporting. But i don't know how to do that.
any ideas?

ok , solved ... almost ..
in fact i needed to affiliate the Image to the bone , so it appears in Director ..


but the new problem is , that now my bones are moving but not the image..
see , i want to make a man raise is arms aver his head without separating his body into several layers as in Tuto 4.1

how can i do that ??

'cause if i turn on the Warp using bones box , my swf is not openable .. (even in the flash player)

heeelp plize ! i feel like i ve been abandoned ...

Flash is not capable of warping images the way Moho does with bones. That kind of effect is just not possible to export to SWF.

I don't quite understand why layers with incompatible effects are not rasterized, and used in the SWF that way. It may not be as efficient as a Flash vector, but Flash can certainly support it. I think this would be a really good improvement to Moho.

TDR wrote:I don't quite understand why layers with incompatible effects are not rasterized, and used in the SWF that way. It may not be as efficient as a Flash vector, but Flash can certainly support it. I think this would be a really good improvement to Moho.

It would also make the swf files HUGE. Even using bones on vector layers and exporting to swf format makes for huge filesizes compared to doing a comparable animation directly in Flash (minus bones of course).

I saw in my own animations that if you restrict the bone action to rotation (using the Rotate Bones instead of the Manipulate Bones tool), there seem to be no problems exporting to Shockwave Flash.

LittleFenris wrote: It would also make the swf files HUGE. Even using bones on vector layers and exporting to swf format makes for huge filesizes compared to doing a comparable animation directly in Flash (minus bones of course).

Yep. No question. But in a lot of cases, that really doesn't matter at all. My Flash files get integrated into Director, and run locally from a hard drive. I don't need Moho to determine for me what is an efficient file size for download, I need it to output my animations in the way I design them. Let me worry about file size optimization.

TDR wrote:I don't need Moho to determine for me what is an efficient file size for download, I need it to output my animations in the way I design them. Let me worry about file size optimization.

One part of file size optimization is keeping your imported elements optimized before they are integrated into your Director project. On your hard drive file size may not matter, but what if you want to export your Director file for the web? I guess it all comes down to where the project will be used, and if there is a possibility that it will need to be published to the web at some time. If so, you should start the optimizing process as early as possible.

LittleFenris wrote: One part of file size optimization is keeping your imported elements optimized before they are integrated into your Director project. On your hard drive file size may not matter, but what if you want to export your Director file for the web? I guess it all comes down to where the project will be used, and if there is a possibility that it will need to be published to the web at some time. If so, you should start the optimizing process as early as possible.

No argument there.

If I want to output for the web, I'll deal with optimization. Moho's warnings are sufficient. My point is, if I DON'T have any intention of outputting for the web, it would be great if Moho would rasterize (individual) layers, and maintain the appearance of my design. Flash is used for bitmap based animation ALL THE TIME. This is nothing new. Many programs will create a raster-based SWF. Look at After Effects... it will create vector layers, until you add unsupported effects, then it simply rasterizes them. As a designer, I'd like to have that choice. Currently, it is being made for me... and preventing my use of Moho for some aspects of my projects.

You could always export to a raster-based format like QuickTime, and then convert it to Flash Video (FLV) format.

Lost Marble wrote:You could always export to a raster-based format like QuickTime, and then convert it to Flash Video (FLV) format.

True. But I lose my layering, and the use of alpha channel. Director can drop out the background of layered Flash... and maintain programmability of the Flash layers. Ideally, I'd like to get a layered file, with alpha, that has all of my groovy Moho effects in place. Animation is generally the start of my work, not the finish. Once I have an animated file, I need to make it interactive. Moho could really help there.

I may try some FLV stuff, but I'll lose my layers, so it isn't going to be optimal. In the end, I may end up back in After Effects, even though Moho is better suited to the animation work, just because After Effects has the output options.

Moho will output an alpha channel if you export to QuickTime, but FLV may not support alpha - I don't know about that.