HOLLYC** VICTOR, Need a detail explanation how to do this!

[voltus55]

Dear Smith Micro,
can you give the detail tutorial about flowing things like Victor do in this supergirl animation?
the skirt, the cape, the hair....


long time not see a webinar, can you make a detail version about this topic?

I know ShoNuff93(@youtube) has made this kind of, but, I think the official need to explain about this on their channel, as a webinar.

[Shelde]

What exactly don't you understand how it is made in that animation?

[Greenlaw]

Coincidentally, I've been doing a ton of cape animations lately. Here are tome tips:

Mostly, I've been using two layers, and inside and outside layer, for the cape, and animating the cape points directly. It's not so difficult if you understand how to animate cloth motions. If you don't know how to animate flowing cloth, I would practice by animating simple waves before tackling this. It's not hard, just takes a little practice.

When drawing the cape, don't use more points in the shapes than necessary, and make use of the Magnet tool to animte it. The Magnet tools is much faster for this sort of thing than using the Transform Point tool.

Sometimes I need a version of the cape art that has more or less points in it. In this case, I'll create different versions of the cape in a switch layer. Also, I never animate the cape until all the body motion is done. It's a huge waste of time to animate the cape while your still animating the character's body. In fact, I will hide the cape group till I'm ready to animate it so I won't be tempted to mess with it.

If you want to re-use hand-animated cape motions, just copy/paste the keys in regular Actions. (Actions can now be exported/imported between scenes.) Some common motions I've saved are: Cape rising up and down (front view/back views), blowing to the side, whipping to side. TBH, I don't find much opportunity to re-use any motions since the character animations tend to be unique for every scene. If I ever re-use any of these motions, after inserting the keys, I'll probably have to take another pass with Magnet tool and retime the keys depending on the character animation.

When the character is standing still and I need the cape waving in a looped motion, I'll make this in a Smart Bone Dial. Just animate it once inside the SBD Action, set loop keys, and then set the dial's frame range to allow it to loop several times. Then, when you animate the dial, you can control the speed and timing of the wave motion. One time I needed to change the angle of the wave, so I added a smart mesh to warp it.

If you add these setups to the switch layer, you can switch between reusable loops and the hand animated motions. This is really useful when you have multiple looping setups in the switch. To smoothly transition between different loops, use a short hand-animated swithc layer/group to blend between them.

Another trick is the combine bones with hand-animated points. Just use one or two bones...this can be used to swing the shape in a nice arc. Then push the points around for the details.

It's also possible to rig a cape with bone chains and use Sketch Bones to animate it. Personally, I think the above methods will look better, and can be animated quickly once you get the hang of it. If you do go with Sketch bones, you might want to keep it to a single chain down the middle and also combine point animation to help it look more natural.

I've also used the FBF layer for cape motions. This is good way to knock out short transition animations to blend between capes using any of the above techniques.

Finally, make use of Onion Skin mode. I find this helps make it easier to animate capes (or any flowing element) smoothly. I suggest setting it to wires only--IMO, this makes it clearer to distinguish the current shape from the past/future shape than using the filled mode. BTW, Onion Skin even works between switched drawings!

Hope this helps. I actually have a bunch of other tips and tricks for cape animation. I'll see about making a tutorial on this subject. (Hopefully before I have to move on to something else and forget about it.)

[hayasidist]

A question for Dennis to satisfy my curiosity about

I've been using two layers, and inside and outside layer, for the cape

Why 2 layers and not 2 (or 3) shapes on one layer for insides and outsides? I've been playing around with using stacked shapes in preference to multiple layers (IMO the Moho 12 layers window is a pain when working with deeply nested layers)?

And ... one of the things I found with point animation is remembering which points you keyed when (assuming you don't always freeze all points whenever you move just one or two). So this tool might help .. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=31612

[Greenlaw]

Working with nested layers is actually pretty easy in Moho Pro 12. To select a nested layer, just alt-right click the artwork (a shape in the cape layer in this case,) and it's selected. To make the selected layer persist in the timeline, just enable the Timeline Visibility and you can animate it along with the bones keyframes. To reduced 'clutter' in the Layers panel*, you can also use Filters in the Layers window to help manage which layers are visibie to the timeline for editing.

There's one really cool trick related to this I'd like to share but I need to check with another user here before discussiing it.

As for ideal number of layers/shapes, it really depends on the character and what the character is expected to do. In my current tasks, I haven't needed more than two layers for the main 'hanging' part of the cape. Technically, the shapes could be in one single layer, but for me it was easier to split the cape in two because of the two color tones, and one other reason (see below.) The two layers are kept in a single Cape group, which are then kept in a cape Switch layer with other Cape groups.

(Okay, technically, again, there are three visible layers for the cape if you include the piece that goes around the neck. I don't really count this because it's not animated to 'flow' like the rest of the cape.)

Anyway, you can use as many layers in the group as you'd like...whatever makes the task easier. I try to use fewer to keep it more manageable, but I avoid using only one single layer because I may need to 'wrap' part of the cape around the front of the character. (There's a lot of tumbling, twisting, and flipping going on, and you can't 'wrap' the cape parts using animated shape order in a single layer, you need animated layer order for this.)

*This is one big reason I hate having other panels docked above the Layers panel: Characters can have hundreds of nested layers so this panel needs as much vertical screen height as possible, and it makes me nuts when I accidentally press the tilde key (when meaning to hit esc or tab,) and Moho re-docks the Actions panel above it. Argh! I seem to have to manually un-dock Actions several times every week. I really wish Moho was smarter about window management. Same goes for the Actions panel...we typically have 100 or more actions in a rig, so we need maximum vertical height for this panel too. If these panels are docked in the same window, they should be tabbed side by side, not stacked on top of each other.

[Greenlaw]

I checked your link to the points animation script. Wow, that sounds super useful!

Thanks for creating it. I'll give it a try today.

[voltus55]

What exactly don't you understand how it is made in that animation?

i try to mimic the wave cycle, and it very confusing me. and the wave cycle seems not a popular topic on the internet especially with Moho (the tutorial)

Coincidentally, I've been doing a ton of cape animations lately. Here are tome tips:

Mostly, I've been using two layers, and inside and outside layer, for the cape, and animating the cape points directly. It's not so difficult if you understand how to animate cloth motions. If you don't know how to animate flowing cloth, I would practice by animating simple waves before tackling this. It's not hard, just takes a little practice.

When drawing the cape, don't use more points in the shapes than necessary, and make use of the Magnet tool to animte it. The Magnet tools is much faster for this sort of thing than using the Transform Point tool.

Sometimes I need a version of the cape art that has more or less points in it. In this case, I'll create different versions of the cape in a switch layer. Also, I never animate the cape until all the body motion is done. It's a huge waste of time to animate the cape while your still animating the character's body. In fact, I will hide the cape group till I'm ready to animate it so I won't be tempted to mess with it.

If you want to re-use hand-animated cape motions, just copy/paste the keys in regular Actions. (Actions can now be exported/imported between scenes.) Some common motions I've saved are: Cape rising up and down (front view/back views), blowing to the side, whipping to side. TBH, I don't find much opportunity to re-use any motions since the character animations tend to be unique for every scene. If I ever re-use any of these motions, after inserting the keys, I'll probably have to take another pass with Magnet tool and retime the keys depending on the character animation.

When the character is standing still and I need the cape waving in a looped motion, I'll make this in a Smart Bone Dial. Just animate it once inside the SBD Action, set loop keys, and then set the dial's frame range to allow it to loop several times. Then, when you animate the dial, you can control the speed and timing of the wave motion. One time I needed to change the angle of the wave, so I added a smart mesh to warp it.

If you add these setups to the switch layer, you can switch between reusable loops and the hand animated motions. This is really useful when you have multiple looping setups in the switch. To smoothly transition between different loops, use a short hand-animated swithc layer/group to blend between them.

Another trick is the combine bones with hand-animated points. Just use one or two bones...this can be used to swing the shape in a nice arc. Then push the points around for the details.

It's also possible to rig a cape with bone chains and use Sketch Bones to animate it. Personally, I think the above methods will look better, and can be animated quickly once you get the hang of it. If you do go with Sketch bones, you might want to keep it to a single chain down the middle and also combine point animation to help it look more natural.

I've also used the FBF layer for cape motions. This is good way to knock out short transition animations to blend between capes using any of the above techniques.

Finally, make use of Onion Skin mode. I find this helps make it easier to animate capes (or any flowing element) smoothly. I suggest setting it to wires only--IMO, this makes it clearer to distinguish the current shape from the past/future shape than using the filled mode. BTW, Onion Skin even works between switched drawings!

Hope this helps. I actually have a bunch of other tips and tricks for cape animation. I'll see about making a tutorial on this subject. (Hopefully before I have to move on to something else and forget about it.)

Mr.Greenlaw, you're a life saver if you making a tutorial about this subject, I hope you have time to spare...
point animation is like an other way, but if you have a trick with bones, dynamic bones with automation like for example (give noisy keyframe on the root bones), it could be helpful too. but i trust you to give a best method. I try a point animation just like victor do on this video, , its simple, but i cant have that results like victor do, i dont understand where did i go wrong.

A question for Dennis to satisfy my curiosity about

I've been using two layers, and inside and outside layer, for the cape

Why 2 layers and not 2 (or 3) shapes on one layer for insides and outsides? I've been playing around with using stacked shapes in preference to multiple layers (IMO the Moho 12 layers window is a pain when working with deeply nested layers)?

And ... one of the things I found with point animation is remembering which points you keyed when (assuming you don't always freeze all points whenever you move just one or two). So this tool might help .. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=31612

Wow..thanks for the info..i will try to found out and try to understand.

[voltus55]

Oh, i was made this with point animation...but as you can see, it's so stiff and not natural.