Moho Animation Forum

I'm sure this is nothing new to most people on the forum but I'd like to share it all the same in case it could be useful to 'perennial newbies' like me: I just realised (doh) that gradients are influenced by bones!
The case: I have an animation of a bird lifting in flight off a branch. The bird's body's style contains a gradient effect, but when it started moving off the branch the gradient would shift inside the body. After poking aimlessly at various random solutions, I tested the same gradient on a simple, non-rigged shape (a circle). I moved its layer around and the gradient stayed nicely in place. So, by exclusion, the bird's gradient problem had to have something to do with its rigging. In fact, the bird's body had somehow come unbound from its bone. Re-binding the body's layer to its bone made the gradient stable again.

Now, I need to find out how gradients behave with point binding and whether the above solution also will work with to texture fills, (which in the past have given me similar shifting problems.

With point binding, you will need bone strength to influence the gradient.

synthsin75 wrote:With point binding, you will need bone strength to influence the gradient.

Ok, thanks, that's very useful because the said bird has similar (albeit less visible) gradient issues on his wings, which in fact are each point bound (wing shape bound to two bones). I suppose less bone strength = more gradient stability.

Reindeer wrote:Ok, thanks, that's very useful because the said bird has similar (albeit less visible) gradient issues on his wings, which in fact are each point bound (wing shape bound to two bones). I suppose less bone strength = more gradient stability.

No, less bone strength means less control of gradients.

synthsin75 wrote:

Reindeer wrote:Ok, thanks, that's very useful because the said bird has similar (albeit less visible) gradient issues on his wings, which in fact are each point bound (wing shape bound to two bones). I suppose less bone strength = more gradient stability.

No, less bone strength means less control of gradients.

I guess I was influenced by the behaviour of textures. I am under the impression that textures get 'pushed around' inside the shape by bone strength. I found at least in one case that reducing the strength stabilised the texture fill.

Reindeer wrote:

synthsin75 wrote:No, less bone strength means less control of gradients.

I guess I was influenced by the behaviour of textures. I am under the impression that textures get 'pushed around' inside the shape by bone strength. I found at least in one case that reducing the strength stabilised the texture fill.

If you're using flexible binding (bone layer settings), then all bones have some degree of influence over the whole workspace. But if you use regional binding, each bone only effects what is within its strength region.

synthsin75 wrote: If you're using flexible binding (bone layer settings), then all bones have some degree of influence over the whole workspace. But if you use regional binding, each bone only effects what is within its strength region.

Ok, super useful, thanks!