Moho Forum

Hello everybody! My name is Law and this is my First Post here

I'm new to Moho and I'm excited to be learning animation again. I'm a old Flash/AnimateCC vet and I'm in the difficult process of switching over. Part of me is kicking myself that I didn't try to pick this up sooner. Remember that feeling of learning something new, connecting with an active community and catching inspiration from MAJOR projects happening in the animation industry? I'm experiencing that again and it's AWESOME! I tried and tried to learn 3D (3DS Max and Cinema 4D) but I couldn't stick with it. So far, Moho is the tool I think I always wanted in a 2.5D animation package.

I run a YouTube channel called Rig Theory- https://www.youtube.com/c/RigTheory which (up to this point) focused on AnimateCC tutorials and the Flash Power Tools plugin. A few of my subscribers urged me to look into Moho. If any of y'all are here, plz let me know!

Here's a short video documenting a head rig I set up. There a few issues with the turn, but the ease of setting up the controller is unreal!
https://youtu.be/KNrkypNR_0c

I'm looking forward to sharing what I learn and keeping an eye on all the cool projects coming out of the Moho community.

It looks like I'm the first to welcome you to the MOHO forum community. I just subscribed to your YT channel. You're an experienced and knowledgeable animator. You'll learn MOHO quickly.

Welcome!

I like how you including drawings from your sketchbook in your video.

Hi Law,

Welcome to the Moho forums! I'm curious to hear what you think of Moho after using it for a bit, so I hope you stick around.

Where I work, we use pretty much everything available, and for me Moho is the favorite for puppet-style animation. I've used Moho on dozens of TV shows for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Apple and others since 2015.

Since you're coming here from another animation package, here's some info for what you can expect, listed from bad to great.

Compared to Animate, I think you'll find Moho's Freehand drawing tools lacking and problematic. Needless to say, this affects using Moho for FBF as well. The devs are aware of this so hopefully we'll see improvements for freehand drawing in near future.

Many Moho artists draw their vector art in Moho using a click and drag method. It's slower to work this way but there are benefits to this approach. For example, you achieve the best bone deformations and performance through precisely positioned points, which isn't possible with freehand drawing. I tend to think of 'drawing' in Moho as being like modeling for 3D animation. (Since I work in both 2D and 3D animation, it's all the same to me anyway.) Anyway, with practice, click and drag drawing isn't too slow...it's just something to get used to.

Alternatively, you can use almost any paint program to create bitmap art for Moho and use Moho's fully customizable mesh warping system to deform the artwork. And if your paint program supports layered PSD export, Moho can keep track of the layers, even when you change the stacking order, merge layers, or create new ones. (For this to work reliably, a few layer naming rules apply.)

Moho's other key strengths include its rigging tools, Bones/IK system, and Smart Bone Actions. Once you understand how they all work, Moho is easy to use with pleasing results.

Moho plays well with other programs too. It can import image sequences of footage from other animation programs (I sometimes import FBF I've created in Harmony, Photoshop, or TVPaint.) And with the Layer Comps window and Moho Exporter, Moho can export separate render passes for programs like After Effects, Fusion or Nuke with just a couple of mouse clicks.

Moho may appear to be a modest animation program but secretly it's quite powerful and capable. I hope you enjoy using it as much as I do!

Thanks for posting the link to your YouTube channel. Will be sure to check it out later.

Greenlaw, Hoptoad, 3DeeGuy, thank you for the warm welcome! I'm so excited to be here.

Thanks especially for the heads up about the drawing tools. I've seen tutorials work fast and loose with the vectors/points and I've seen tutorials (the wonderful Chinese animator) who is really meticulous with vert and bone placement. Her stuff is unreal! I think MoeU33 is her name.

I thought it was so funny that in the rules it says "do not ask how to do a 360 turn LOL! You know that's what I'm working on next, but I promise I'll do my part to learn what it takes before bothering anyone here.

Any tips on how to proceed? Connect with other pros. Get a job?㋛

Greenlaw wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 6:07 pm
Where I work, we use pretty much everything available, and for me Moho is the favorite for puppet-style animation. I've used Moho on dozens of TV shows for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Apple and others since 2015.

Sir, you are a legend! Just came from your reel on Vimeo. WHOA!

Wow, jumping into the deep end, making your own smart bone joystick controllers.

Welcome aboard!

I already knew your work with Animate and I'm very happy to have you with Moho too.

I know it will contribute a lot to the community!

Be welcome!

Thank you @LucasFranca and @synthsIn75

RigTheory wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 6:39 pm I thought it was so funny that in the rules it says "do not ask how to do a 360 turn LOL! You know that's what I'm working on next...

Any tips on how to proceed?

First the bad news: there are many ways to approach 360 degree turning rigs in Moho.

Now the good news: there are many ways to approach 360 degree turning rigs in Moho!

The 'basic' way is to create multiple rigs, that is one rig per view, and then use the Switch layer to switch between the rigs. I put 'basic' in quotes because I actually used this method for a project only a few years ago, but for various reasons this not my preferred method. The only time I might use this approach when I need to create many characters in a very short time and there are people waiting to animate the rigs. However, these kind of rigs are not the easiest or most fun to animate with with.

Another way is to use Smart Bone Actions and Dials to slide elements of the character and reshape the profiles during the turn. For 'simpler' characters, you can use the method for the entire turn, and it can look very smooth, almost 3D like. My Puss In Boots rig is a good example of this approach and you can see it in action here:

My 'Puss In Boots Interactive' Demo Reel (2018)

I put 'simpler' in quotes because it's really not a simple rig but the concepts behind it are.

To make Puss appear to turn, I mainly using Smart Bone Actions to slide bones with layers attached or sliding instances of the Image Texture effect, and using vector shapes as masks. The Actions are also used to reshape the vector art (head, body, hat, etc.) during the turn. There are separate turn controls for all the major body parts: head, torso, arms, legs, and tail.

One thing that made creating the Puss rig easier was not having outlines in the art. When I built the rigs for Boss Baby: Back In Business, things got more complicated because all of the characters had outlines in that show. Fortunately, my experience with using Moho for Puss and The Croods helped get me prepared for the challenges of Boss.

Oh, and don't go too crazy with adding Smart Bone Actions. Smart Bone Actions are great for repeatable animations but if you create a Smart Bone Action for every possible thing the character does, that can actually constrain your animation choices. It's better to use Smart Bones for truly tedious tasks and leave other character features flexible and open to interpretation. Your Moho animations will look more lively this way.

Here's an example: it's fine to use Smart Bones to open and close eyelids, you might even have separate controls for each eye, and a third control to turn the first two controls together. That's a timesaver. But adding multiple Smart Bones to move the eyes left and right and up and down is getting pretty silly because all you really need is to do is parent the iris to a bone and move the bone wherever you like to animate it.

So...I would start off creating simple characters at first and sticking with 3qtr or 180 turns, at least until you have a strong understanding of how the tools work. Then try applying advanced techniques with simple character designs (i.e., with limited details, no outlines.) Once you've mastered that, you can move up to working with more detailed designs.

Hope this helps.

BTW, I don't really know a whole lot about Animate these days, at least not in its recent versions, so I'll be checking out your YouTube channel.