Moho Forum

Good afternoon everybody!

I got Moho Pro 13 earlier this month and I love how feature-rich and powerful it is, which is why I wouldn't be surprised if it has some sort of color masking feature. I'm posting here because I just can't seem to find any mention of such a feature on the rest of the internet.

I'll try and explain what I'm looking for to the best of my ability: I am wondering if Moho has the ability to mask only certain colors. For example, I want to mask a shadow onto a character's face for a 2D cell shading look, but only on the skin, not the hair, eyes, etc. I suspect this may be possible because Moho uses Styles similar to Toon Boom's swatches, meaning that if you change the style it will change any instance of that style across the entire project. I know color masking is possible in Adobe Animate/Flash with ActionScript, and in Toon Boom with nodes. I haven't been able to find it, but I could see Moho being able to use a specific style to be the "white" revealing part of an alpha channel, and everything else is the "black" obscuring part, even if it's an add-on script or something.

The reason this feature would be powerful is you could cut down on the number of layers for things you don't want affected by masks (e.g. a separate layer for eyes, hair, mouth, etc.). Not the end of the world if this isn't possible, but awesome if it is.

Background about me, I am very new to Moho but I find it relatively straightforward to learn thus far. I am very familiar with Adobe Animate (I had it back when it was Macromedia Flash) but I'm trying to move away from Adobe wherever possible (I like to own programs, not rent them). I've tried Toon Boom Harmony (too glitchy/expensive for me), OpenToonz (not enough features and the text functions are horrible) and I have Clip Studio Paint (awesome for drawing, limited for animation). I found Moho to be the best middle ground between all these programs in features and capability - and best of all it doesn't have a subscription model - which is why I plan to use it going forward.

Anyway nice to meet you and thank you for your time!

The first thing I think of would be the "shaded" effect in each shape. Simple and good enough for some time.

If you want to animate the shading, then you need to create a sepearate shape or stroke and mask it within the shape. You can use a complete character with lots of levels as a mask, although I think it will be difficult to animate a shade correctly with this.

Dakacha wrote: ↑Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:50 pm
The reason this feature would be powerful is you could cut down on the number of layers for things you don't want affected by masks (e.g. a separate layer for eyes, hair, mouth, etc.). Not the end of the world if this isn't possible, but awesome if it is.

Welcome!
I haven't seen that feature in Moho, but maybe another user knows if there is a script or something.
To do the shade of the head I would use a shape that has transparency, so it could shade the eyes or the mouth aswell without hiding them.
Or if you only want the skin of the head to be shaded by that shape, put only the head drawing and the shade shape on a group with masking, and the eyes and the mouth out and above that group so they won't be affected by the shade.
There are also some automatic tricks you can use for shading like shading effects on the style menu or shading options that are on the layer settings. You can even animate those automatic shades changing the angle and more.

If you want to know more about masking with moho, these two videos are the best I've seen (they have english subs):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIt-ziSviHA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kshIIL6nfoU

slowtiger wrote: ↑Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:33 pm The first thing I think of would be the "shaded" effect in each shape. Simple and good enough for some time.

If you want to animate the shading, then you need to create a sepearate shape or stroke and mask it within the shape. You can use a complete character with lots of levels as a mask, although I think it will be difficult to animate a shade correctly with this.

Yes sir, I did try the built-in shading effects and - while neat - just weren't the style I was going for this time (but maybe in a future project).
True, for the style I'm going for it would require many complex layers if I do it per-item (as in a separate shadow layer just for the skin, eyes, hair, etc.).

Daxel wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2020 8:28 pm Welcome!
I haven't seen that feature in Moho, but maybe another user knows if there is a script or something.
To do the shade of the head I would use a shape that has transparency, so it could shade the eyes or the mouth aswell without hiding them.
Or if you only want the skin of the head to be shaded by that shape, put only the head drawing and the shade shape on a group with masking, and the eyes and the mouth out and above that group so they won't be affected by the shade.
There are also some automatic tricks you can use for shading like shading effects on the style menu or shading options that are on the layer settings. You can even animate those automatic shades changing the angle and more.

If you want to know more about masking with moho, these two videos are the best I've seen (they have english subs):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIt-ziSviHA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kshIIL6nfoU

Thank you, that's a good idea about the transparent shape covering multiple layers!

I'm still crossing my fingers for color masking but these suggestions do help!