Questions :)

[Shelde]

Hello everybody!

I’ve recently bought Moho Pro. I wanted to do some motion design/ storyboard animating of my illustrations within a short amount of time & Moho seemed ideally for that. Being an animator (Pixel & Photoshop) I always sought out to find a good and easy programme that would allow me to animate vectors that I created in inkscape/ AI. (After Effects generally seems nice but testing it for a week hasn’t made me an instant fan - I liked the demo version of Moho so I went ahead last week and turned "pro" haha)

In the past days a few questions/ problems arose that I couldn’t find an answer for (neither on youtube tutorials nor this board - searched via google though or found old threads that seemed kind of outdated), that maybe some experienced user can answer/help me with- while I was able to bypass some of these issues or create solutions that kinda work - they are very far from perfect and not suited for the work I’d like to do.

My workflow so far is to use Inkscape’s native svg + hi-res png files of backgrounds that have a lot of layers (for example the buildings) - any input there would also be greatly appreciated

So here are my questions (sorry that my first post is a ton of questions, I'll be sure to share any of my gained knowledge of the past days concerning moho / years of animating with any of you! )

1) Is there any alignment tool? Align layers to each other, Align layers to the center of the screen (horizontally, vertically) —> this has been one of the major issues for better video transitions later in video editing for me + having several graphics that would need to be aligned perfectly causes a lot of headache for me.

2) Is there a vector merge, cut, etc - (as seen in inkscape, ai, etc)

3) Is there a way to properly resize elements (as seen in inkscape, ai, etc) —> to tell the vector, image, etc to be x pixels in height and y pixels in width.

4) Is there a quick way to create an after image effect that is not blurred and has different colors (besides the obvious way of duplicating the layer and copying the timeline specs adding them a few frames later)

5) Is there a way to create bones for each layer separately? So far I made all the character animations by altering the bezier curves and angle points - that said, can one also set a origin point that actually stays in place there? Setting a point where the limb would rotate.

6) Is there a way to animate a single line in any direction? (see the LeaveCar video I made when the different Icons communicate with each other) Ideally I’d love to have the line move completly straight between them

7) What is the best way to create a looping animation - the loop command (right mouse click at the last point in timeline always adds some kind of lag to the animation

What’s the best way to create a constant zoom in effect - I’ve seen a tutorial on here that sounds plausible yet very time consuming.

Enclosed my very first works (they aren't finished yet & low res because I have no dropbox space left)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/27c8uqcymxpb ... j1Fra?dl=0


Best greetings!

[slowtiger]

Let's give it a try:

1. No. There's the grid, but it's layer-specific, there's no universal one.
2. No. Some people here try to achieve this with welding points, masking and transparent fills, but if I need this, I use Illustrator.
3. No. The numbers you see at the top of the window are somewhat arbitrary, "1" being the height of the frame. If I need something in exact pixel dimensions, I work in TVPaint.
4. No, except somebody did a script for it.
5. Of course. Create a bone layer and put in all layers which you want to bind to this skeleton. You can also have nested bone layers.
6. I do this with a long rectangle inside a mask, for more precise control.
7. Set the loop frame count to loop minus 1 – I build loops with identical first and last frame, but of course want to show only one of them in the loop.
8. I don't know any faster way than what I've figured out so far.

In general I've found Moho less than ideal for that certain kind of pixel-exact motion graphics. I can do it, but need more time. For each problem there's either some trick, or I try to find a different idea which is easier to visualise.

[Shelde]

Hi Slowtiger!

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions!

I found out by trying that for
1. An alignment is possible if one clicks on the layer tool on the left and then on the top right the options are available. (didn't test how precise it is though)
3. Pressing on the Point Transform Tool there seem to be exact x&y coordinates that might do the trick (I need to test that)



Lg aus Österreich

[Greenlaw]

You can perform boolean shape operations using the Weld Crossings command. It's not fully automatic as you might find in other drawing programs but it works well enough for many situations in Moho.

After applying Weld Crossings using the selected shapes, you then use the Delete Edge tool to remove the bits you don't want to keep. For example:



The above is a very basic example but with a little forethought it's possible to perform very complex cuts and merges using these tools.

[Greenlaw]

It's also possible to do certain operations without actually cutting the shapes. To do this, select multiple paths and create a single shape. Then, when the separate parts of the shape overlap, they will subtract. Like this:



This is useful for animated boolean effects.

I learned this trick from Victor Paredes, who uses it to contain many 'masked' face elements in a single layer without actually using a mask. It's also a good trick for avoiding the OpenGL masking error that can occur in display previews.

Hope this info helps.

[Shelde]

Thanks! These tricks will certainly be useful in the near future