Moho Animation Forum

Hi, from time to time I see people asking about how to work with vector handles and bones during the animation and avoid unexpected behaviors.

In order to take advantage of bézier handles, it is key to understand how they work and why they move the way they do.

Moho adapts the bézier curves during the animation. This is one of the software's biggest strengths, it is at the core of its movement system and allows any drawing to bend smoothly without much effort.

Here, for example, the bone is moving this arm and you can see how the bézier curve automatically adapts its rotation to follow the bone's movement (and, over that, you can still animate the bezier handles by hand if you want):


Now, this means the same will happen with corners like this one below. If you move the point at the top (using bones or moving the point itself), the bézier handles related to that point will also move:


So if you need to have a sharp corner and curves next to it, but you don't want it to be 'adapted' to the movement, the best is, instead of extending the bézier handles from the corner, to keep the corner totally sharp and add some extra points to control that curvature at the sides


That way, you will be able to animate both the corner and the curved sides exactly in the way you want, without unexpected changes


Look at this example below. At the top, the shape is created using bézier handles coming from the points in the middle. At the bottom a similar shape is achieved with extra points instead.
You can see how the shape at the bottom remains more consistent when it's rotated by the bones


I hope this clarifies some concepts and help you to have more control over vectors.

Thank you, Victor! These are excellent examples!

Thx Victor!

that Is a clear clear explanation.

i had this question regarding animating bezier handles, which i posted on discord...

How do i adjust only one point of a vector shape that has bezierhandles, without it affecting the spline handles of the points directly next to it?
i'm trying to use a smart bone to modify a simple shape but i get an unwanted rotation of the handles on the adjacent points.

See image, i pushed the lippoint up but the bezier in the mouth corner turns around.
I can work around this issue when creating a single frame but it is very hard to neutralize this shape change from the animation.
because i tried making a keyframe halfway where i adjust the bezier handles to counter this distortion, but it just results in smaller but even more messy motion.

After watching your explanation the solution would be to add a point halfway the lips to keep that corner point from moving..