The Gradient tool in Moho.

[Toontoonz]

The Gradient tool -

A couple of thoughts:
1. The Gradient tool is a bit too limited, not enough choices - only two colors at a 50:50 ratio - half one color, half the other.

2. When animating the gradient colors move relative the Moho window, not the object. This causes color problems in the animation.
Example: I just did an animation of a woman. The skin color is a gradient. Her arms move within a 180 degree range. As her arms sweep up and down (down on her lap and then straight up above her head). AS the arms move the gradient animates changing the color of the arms.
There are points where the color flashes from light to dark and seems unnatural to me. (See link below).

I am of 2 opinions of this - should the gradient move relative to the Moho window or to the object (or is that the same)? Or that one could lock the gradient relative to the object so that it stays always oriented in the same position.

Perhaps if the gradient was able to be divided up more (like in Adobe Illustrator) things could be matched up better.

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In the animation clip link below - note the changes in the arm colors as her arms move - the colors change due to the gradient being fixed relative to the Moho window.
When the arms are at the top waving, the colors switch quickly from dark to light. It seems unnatural to me.
http://toontoonz.com/testgrad.html
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Any thoughts on gradient usage?

[stephen]

In Moho the gradient does not "move with the object".
It seems like this is a bad choice for moving objects, especially ones that rotate. Your animation points this out very well.

What would be real nice is if you could specify colors at arbitrary control points of the object. This would cause the gradient to stay fixed with relation to the object no matter how it moves, and also be general enough to allow for more than two colors.

Stephen

[Toontoonz]

This situation with the gradient and its orientation really puts a limit on how and when one can use a gradient in a Moho animation.

The Moho gradient seems to be only usable in an object that is static (background, wall) or only moving in a straight 90 degree latitude or longitude angle - no rotating or moving around much - unless the changing color is the effect one wants.

[7feet]

Judging from the way that other things are writen, I believe that Moho applies the gradient depending on the "center" of the shapes points. When you move them, the orientation of the static way that gradients are applied changes. I look at it as kind of a legacy thing, kept to keep compatibility with older versions. What you are trying to do would probably be better accomplished using the "image textures" technique (section 4.4 in the tutorials section of the manual). That allows both more complex gradients, if thats what you want, and makes them move properly with the shape.

--Brian

[Toontoonz]

I did a test of two balls rotating to demonstrate the gradient being fixed or orientated to the Moho window.

As a ball rotates the colors should rotate with the ball. However if the ball has a gradient color assigned to it, the colors stay in the same orientation no matter which way the ball rotates.

See demonstration and more notes of this Moho gradient situation:
http://toontoonz.com/testball.html

(1.1 Mb file).

[LittleFenris]

Wow Toontoonz tests really show how limited the gradients are right now. 7feets suggestion is one way of getting around the problem, but then you aren't using all gradients and if this was for a Flash animation it would make the file size much larger than it needs to be.

[Toontoonz]

Doing the gradients as 7feet suggests is a possible solution (I haven´t tried it yet), but my first think through is:

A) lots of extra work.
B) getting the "image textures" to perfectly match up would be problematic.
C) One might as well just draw the object as an image instead of a vector drawing with an image texture .png file tacked on top.
D) and as LittleFenris notes - a Flash file would really balloon in file size.

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Attached is a new test to compare the Moho vector version with gradient added in Moho vs. just making .PNG image object of the original and animating it in Moho.

http://www.toontoonz.com/testgradarm.html

(Larger 2.2 Mb file)

[7feet]

The basic reason for not just using image layers (at least for me) is that you lose control over which specific points are controlled by which specific bone. Sometimes... well often, things like elbows and knees can be problematic if you want a good range of movement, and I might want to use point binding instead of flexi binding for a couple of points. And actually, since I don't believe Moho exports images in Flash, you couldn't use it if that was your format.

-- Brian

[Lost Marble]

Moho does export images to SWF, but not if they're being warped by bones. So, using images as texture would not work if your target format was SWF.

[Toontoonz]

And actually, since I don't believe Moho exports images in Flash, you couldn't use it if that was your format.

-- Brian

One would have to export from Moho as a .mov then import this .mov into Flash to work on.

I noticed that Moho will export images to .swf format as long as they don´t have a bone in them. (What good that is, I have no idea.)

[Lost Marble]

What good that is, I have no idea.

Well, you could use an image as a background. Or, parts of your character could be images and the rest vectors (think celebrity heads on cartoon bodies).

I think there are endless uses for images, even if you can't warp them with bones. Flash can't do image warping, that's why the limitation when exporting to SWF.