Moho Forum

Does anyone know how to create a spotlight effect, sort of like being on stage? If someone could direct me to a tut, that would be great.

There is a simple way to do this and I will try to explain it.

You want a spot light on a character on a stage. The trick then is you want the areas outside of the spot light to be darker and have the circle spot light area to not effect the character or stage, the spotlight is actually a "hole" punched through a dark shadow area.

Now you need to MOVE the spot light around, which isn't hard using a single bone. In my opinion a bone layer would be easier. If you don't use bones you would need to use masking and move the spot light as a layer. Masking is a bit more tricky to set up.

step 1 create the spotlight/shadow "shape"
Simply draw a big box (no shapes yet). This box should extend well beyond the render area.
Now draw a circle for your spotlight in the middle of the big box (also no fill shapes yet).

Select ALL the points and choose the "Create Shape" tool. Create the shape.
You should now have a big box shape with a hole in the middle.
Adjust the fill color to your liking, make it slightly transparent so the stage and charcter will still show through the shadow area, adjust the color if you like or just use black. Add a soft edge fill effect if you want the spotlight to not have a hard edge. If you add soft edge this is why you made the box area much bigger than the render area so that the soft edge won't go inside the render, only the "hole" spotlight will have a soft edge.

Step 2 - Set up the bone layer
On frame 0 create a new bone layer.
Put the spotlight layer created previously, inside the bone layer.
Select all points. Under the Bone menu select Release Points.
Select the bone layer
Draw a single bone over the circle of the spotlight shape.
Select the spotlight vector layer
Select the bone
Press "I" or choose the Bind Points tool.
With the bone still selected select ONLY the points of the circle.
Click Bind Points or press the space bar.

This spotlight bone layer should be over all layers you want to effect with the spotlight.
Go to frame 1 and translate the bone around. The spotlight "hole" in the shape will move around the scene and create your spotlight effect very nicely. If you want to scale the spotlight you will need to use point motion on JUST the circle points. (There is a way to set this up for scaling with bones, but it requires 4 extra bones and some constraints.)

This is just one way to do this but it works pretty well. If this explanation isn't enough for you I will try to do a video or post a file later.

-vern

I made this one with a similar setup. I used the circles "punched" through a rectangle as Vern described. But instead of using a bone, I animated the points of the circles with the "Translate Points" tool. Same thing at the end for the helicopter but I used a cone shape instead of a circle. It is a bit tedious. I think I just used the "Mouse Cap" in the "Lost Layer Tool" to animate the spots. PLUS all the spotlights are in a masking group but honestly when it comes to masking I still feel like a monkey on crack just hittin' buttons in the mask settings until I get what I want

Honestly I would try Vern's rig first, I'm just throwing another method out there to chew on.

Wow, thanks to you both.

Drum, that's exactly what I'm looking for.

Vern, sure a vid would be greatly appreciated, because I'm a visual learner. I'm gonna to try to follow your instructions though.