Moho Animation Forum

Hello All

Ok, I'll be the first to ask what's probably going to be a silly question.

In AS10 Pro, I no longer can use the Manipulate bones(Z) tool to Manipulate the parent bone on any other frame than frame 0.
AND, Once I move off of frame 0. now when I use the Manipulate bones(Z) tool to Manipulate the parent bone it grabs the bone and moves it as if I were using the Transform bones(T) tool.

I hope that makes sense.

So, my question is, Is this suppose to happen? Is this just one of the new features? It seams odd to me that it does this.

HammerJammer

The Manipulate Bones tool (Z) now drag a parent bone by default, instead of rotating it. It's useul when animating characters (specially when using target bones). Anyway, you always can rotate a single bone by pressing Alt in the keyboard.
I recommend you to check the status bar when using a tool. Many times they change between versions, but its behavior and modifier keys are always explained in that bar.

Hello Segin

selgin wrote:The Manipulate Bones tool (Z) now drag a parent bone by default, instead of rotating it. It's useul when animating characters (specially when using target bones). Anyway, you always can rotate a single bone by pressing Alt in the keyboard.
I recommend you to check the status bar when using a tool. Many times they change between versions, but its behavior and modifier keys are always explained in that bar.

Ok, I understand. Thank you. Thank you Sir.

By the way, I was just messing around with the new Characters, Very well done. They all have so much life and flexibility. Assuming you had something to do with them. Very well done to whom ever was involved with them.


HammerJammer

hammerjammer wrote:By the way, I was just messing around with the new Characters, Very well done. They all have so much life and flexibility. Assuming you had something to do with them. Very well done to whom ever was involved with them.

I'm glad to help
Yes, I was in charge of that characters. I'm happy you like them
They were designed by Óscar Chávez and Alfredo Cáceres, two very talented chilean illustrators. I took their illustrations, retraced and rigged them in AS. I wanted each character to be special and with its own style challenge. The new constraints were specially useful with them. Animating the plant is extremely easy thanks to the new target bones, The hair of the pirate always points down thanks to the new independent angle constraint, etc. For the robot, the new elastic interpolation fit perfect with its personallity (in my opinion).
It was very fun to work on it and on the video. If anyone likes AS, I sincerely recommend this new version, it continues the path of 9 and 9.5, great features focused in the Pros (and easy enough for the new ones).

I'd like to add my praise for the new character's also. They demonstrate immediately on opening the software what AS is capable of. I studied each one of those for a good 10 minutes before doing anything else.
Great work Selgin and co

(edited) I don't completely understand the answer to the "simple question". Let's take the Pirate as an example: there is an action B19 when the right leg moves in a big arc. When I made this hidden bone visible and moved it, nothing happened. When the action is activated, the bone it's named for doesn't move, 4 other bones do the job. This is a bit confusing for me.

PS. Green bone angle, blue bone angle? Seems important on the timeline, but for what?

PPS. Tried some more - I notice the manipulate bone tool works in the timeline (not on frame zero) and that the foot angle can be changed with the new translate bone tool (not the manipulate bones tool). So part of this is starting to click.

exile wrote:(edited) I don't completely understand the answer to the "simple question". Let's take the Pirate as an example: there is an action B19 when the right leg moves in a big arc. When I made this hidden bone visible and moved it, nothing happened. When the action is activated, the bone it's named for doesn't move, 4 other bones do the job. This is a bit confusing for me.
PS. Green bone angle, blue bone angle? Seems important on the timeline, but for what?

PPS. Tried some more - I notice the manipulate bone tool works in the timeline (not on frame zero) and that the foot angle can be changed with the new translate bone tool (not the manipulate bones tool). So part of this is starting to click.

B19 is the bone of the right thigh. In its smart bone action, when it rotates, it also rotates the bones of the skirt (to simulate the clothes movement).
An important point is that when you create a smart bone which involves a target bone, the target bone chain doesn't work inside the smart bone action. This is designed that way to make you able to edit the bone you want without rotating anything else (something that would be impossible with the target bone working inside the action).

I decided to hide this thigh bone, because you probably won't need to manipulate the bone itself. This rig is using the new target bone feature, so the thigh automatically rotates when you move the Right foot target bone.

The bone colors are just to keep things clear in the timeline. In this case, I painted green the bones levers of the eyes (blink and pupil movement) and blue the bones of the mouth (open/close and squash/stretch).
This colors doesn't affect the actual animation, but are a form to keep the timeline clean and organized. For example, you can see exactly when the mouth is moving and when it's not, just checking that colored lines.
For my workflow, I have discovered I prefer to continually change the colors depending of what part of the body I'm animating. Maybe once I already animated the mouth, I don't need to see its keyframes in color, so I just change their color to plain and continue working in some other part.
Hidding bones is also great for this kind of workflow. If you already animate the mouth, you just hide that bones and they won't appear on the workspace nor in the timeline. It's a huge simple feature I really like.

Thanks for your patience, Selgin. I'm not the fastest learner, but I'll keep plugging away.

exile wrote:Thanks for your patience, Selgin. I'm not the fastest learner, but I'll keep plugging away.

Don't worry, exile. It's a new version and a rig using new features. I have been working with AS10 for awhile and I'm happy if I can help.

selgin wrote: Don't worry, exile. It's a new version and a rig using new features. I have been working with AS10 for awhile and I'm happy if I can help.

Yes, we know! We're lucky to have you (and of course other good teachers) in this forum.