Possible to export brushes?

[Fallingfeather]

Is there a way to export or copy a bitmap or other brush settings for a particular brush in Moho to export it into other art programs? I ask as in the future I may need to draw a few frames by hand to help make smoother transitions between rigs, but obviously that’s hard to do if my raster art programs can’t mimic Moho brushes. Suggestions are appreciated!

[slowtiger]

All Moho brushes are PNGs. On OSX you'll find them in Moho/Contents/Resources/Support/brushes.

[hayasidist]

Is there a way to export or copy a bitmap or other brush settings for a particular brush in Moho to export it into other art programs? I ask as in the future I may need to draw a few frames by hand to help make smoother transitions between rigs, but obviously that’s hard to do if my raster art programs can’t mimic Moho brushes. Suggestions are appreciated!

just curious - why not use moho fbf?

(see this: http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtop ... 70#p180070 -- the "bake vector" script was created for just such purposes - to allow an fbf drop-in to make the transition between rigs where moho bones etc won't hack it...)

[Fallingfeather]

Not gonna lie, I’ve only just started getting into Moho’s more advanced features like vitruvian and smart bones. I’m primarily used to frame by frame animation, so I’m used to using that to fill in the blanks that puppets leave. I’ve never used a script before… ever, unfortunately. Does the “bake vector” option allow you to draw directly in Moho, like with the removed bitmap tools? Im afraid I don’t actually know what “bake” means in this context. As it stands I can draw one or two frames in a standalone art program a lot faster than I can to make a satisfying vector of the same poses in Moho (which I would likely have to sketch first in an art program anyway). And from there, the question is “how do I get my art program brushes to resemble the Moho brushes well enough that the effect isn’t jarring when I drop those frames in”, hence my question. If you can explain how your script works/what it does more though, I’d be happy to take a look!

[Fallingfeather]

All Moho brushes are PNGs. On OSX you'll find them in Moho/Contents/Resources/Support/brushes.

Oh fantastic, thank you! I dug through the folders but I think I missed that one. Much appreciated!

[hayasidist]

Not gonna lie, I’ve only just started getting into Moho’s more advanced features like vitruvian and smart bones. I’m primarily used to frame by frame animation, so I’m used to using that to fill in the blanks that puppets leave. I’ve never used a script before… ever, unfortunately. Does the “bake vector” option allow you to draw directly in Moho, like with the removed bitmap tools? Im afraid I don’t actually know what “bake” means in this context. As it stands I can draw one or two frames in a standalone art program a lot faster than I can to make a satisfying vector of the same poses in Moho (which I would likely have to sketch first in an art program anyway). And from there, the question is “how do I get my art program brushes to resemble the Moho brushes well enough that the effect isn’t jarring when I drop those frames in”, hence my question. If you can explain how your script works/what it does more though, I’d be happy to take a look!

I assume you know how to animate using moho's bone / point motion features.
From your comment about "transitions between rigs" I assume you can do something like switch between (say) front view and 3/4 view rigs
and what I took from your desire to "draw a few frames by hand to help make smoother transitions" is that you want to switch to fbf to do that...

so:
when you get to the point that the first rig (e.g. front view) has reached its limit you can make a vector copy of that pose but with all transforms applied (so the vector layers you get in that "copy" are as though they're unanimated on frame 0.) You can now use those layers in fbf mode, adding, deleting, tweaking shapes until you reach the desired configuration for the next rig whereupon the fbf segment has done its job and you're back to using moho's bones / point motion etc.

what the script does is make the starting vectors for the fbf segment

[Fallingfeather]

Not gonna lie, I’ve only just started getting into Moho’s more advanced features like vitruvian and smart bones. I’m primarily used to frame by frame animation, so I’m used to using that to fill in the blanks that puppets leave. I’ve never used a script before… ever, unfortunately. Does the “bake vector” option allow you to draw directly in Moho, like with the removed bitmap tools? Im afraid I don’t actually know what “bake” means in this context. As it stands I can draw one or two frames in a standalone art program a lot faster than I can to make a satisfying vector of the same poses in Moho (which I would likely have to sketch first in an art program anyway). And from there, the question is “how do I get my art program brushes to resemble the Moho brushes well enough that the effect isn’t jarring when I drop those frames in”, hence my question. If you can explain how your script works/what it does more though, I’d be happy to take a look!

I assume you know how to animate using moho's bone / point motion features.
From your comment about "transitions between rigs" I assume you can do something like switch between (say) front view and 3/4 view rigs
and what I took from your desire to "draw a few frames by hand to help make smoother transitions" is that you want to switch to fbf to do that...

so:
when you get to the point that the first rig (e.g. front view) has reached its limit you can make a vector copy of that pose but with all transforms applied (so the vector layers you get in that "copy" are as though they're unanimated on frame 0.) You can now use those layers in fbf mode, adding, deleting, tweaking shapes until you reach the desired configuration for the next rig whereupon the fbf segment has done its job and you're back to using moho's bones / point motion etc.

what the script does is make the starting vectors for the fbf segment

Yep, I do know how to use bones and point motions, and I was thinking about switching between front and 3/4s view (or something like that), perhaps even with some fancier frame by frame breakdown frames. While I do like the idea of making a puppet at the "end point" of an animation though, my desire here was that I didn't WANT to use (tweak, add, delete) vector shapes to make those fbf frames. if I'm only doing 1-5, it's honestly faster to just open up a bitmap/raster art program and just draw them instead of trying to manipulate the vectors to look ok. I'll definitely check your script out for other uses though- does it come with instructions on how to install?

[Greenlaw]

Moho FBF is a pretty good way to transition to a puppet rig. There's an example of this on my 2019 demo reel...watch the beginning of the KFP segment here at around 0:17s...

My 2019 Demo Reel

I built a single rig for Po that can do a full 360 turnaround but it can't tumble in z-space the way he does at the very beginning of the shot, so for the first 4 or 5 frames, I drew the tumble using Moho's FBF layer and vector tools. The rigged puppet version appears as soon as the feet touch the ground, so the second leap and twist in the air is the puppet. Because I'm using the same vector strokes and fills for both the FBF and puppet artwork, the transition is pretty seamless.

[Fallingfeather]

Moho FBF is a pretty good way to transition to a puppet rig. There's an example of this on my 2019 demo reel...watch the beginning of the KFP segment here at around 0:17s...

My 2019 Demo Reel

I built a single rig for Po that can do a full 360 turnaround but it can't tumble in z-space the way he does at the very beginning of the shot, so for the first 4 or 5 frames, I drew the tumble using Moho's FBF layer and vector tools. The rigged puppet version appears as soon as the feet touch the ground, so the second leap and twist in the air is the puppet. Because I'm using the same vector strokes and fills for both the FBF and puppet artwork, the transition is pretty seamless.

OH yes, I watched your demo reel just this morning! Beautiful work! My only reason for wanting to do the FBF portions is because it takes much, much longer for me to draw in vector than it does in bitmap- not to mention I usually need to sketch the pose in bitmap anyway. In normal vector animation this doesn't matter much as the difference is made up for by the fact that once a rig is made, you can do a LOT with it without having to draw everything, but if I had to pick between drawing frame by frame in Moho versus my art program of choice... it wouldn't be Moho. I recognize that it's possible! I think it would just be a faster workflow if I could avoid it, that's all.

I am interested in learning how to make puppets that can turn 360 degrees someday though. I've made a few efforts, but after a certain point it gets to be so many layers and bones that I can't keep track of them anymore, and the bones usually don't work as expected at certain points in the rotation so I can really only use them if the character isn't in the middle of a transition. I'm sure I'll figure it out, but for now it's frustrating, which is why I'm trying to figure out workarounds in case I want to start a project sooner rather than later.

[Greenlaw]

...but if I had to pick between drawing frame by frame in Moho versus my art program of choice... it wouldn't be Moho. I recognize that it's possible! I think it would just be a faster workflow if I could avoid it, that's all.

Yes, I understand what you mean. That KFP scene was a chance for me to try Moho's FBF workflow in an actual production shot and while It turned out well, drawing those few frames took longer than it should have because the Freehand art required too much correction. Since then, except for the simplest FBF bits, I mainly use a third party program to create FBF for Moho. But the one issue I find with using bitmap FBF for Moho is that it's harder to match to the look of Moho's vector art for seamless FBF-to-Puppet transitions. I'm still hoping Moho's Freehand tool will see improvements because I'd use it a lot more if it was just a little more reliable.

I do like using Moho's point-by-point drawing tools though (e.g., Add Points, Curvature, Magnet, etc.) This approach may not be as fast or fluid as drawing freehand but it allows me to create highly optimized vector drawings that deform well with bones and Smart Bone Actions in ways that are impossible with bitmap drawings. And with practice and experience, you can draw relatively quickly with these tools.

[hayasidist]

... If you can explain how your script works/what it does more though, I’d be happy to take a look!

for now, ignore how to install and run the script.

Here's a very rough and very simplistic worked example:


And here is the layer structure


The main group "action" holds foreground and background "terrain" along with "bird", "fbf" and "human" groups

the "bakes" folder holds vectors that are "as though they're on frame 0" free of any animation -- there are two groups here: one is a bake of the human on frame 321 (the "local" means keep the local camera settings) and the other is the bird on frame 1.

What I did:

design and rig the human and bird (really basic stuff - no smartbones, v-bones or ...)
animate the human flapping and getting off the ground (it's in a cycle to make my life easy..)
I chose frame 321 to start the transition - it was an adequate "match-cut" position for the frame 1 bird - so I did a bake of the human group at that frame, and a bake of the bird at frame 1 to create the extremes for the breakdown in the fbf sequence.

just to make life hard, the "body part structure" in the two actors is different.

I set up two fbf groups: Body - to get from human head to bird body; and Wings: to get from human body to bird wings. [An aside moan here: fbf really should allow groups!!]
In the first breakdown frame (on 1s), I restructured in "wings" to separate the human arms from the torso and I added the torso to the head group.
Over the next 12 frames (on 2s) I added / deleted points and reshaped the vectors (including curvatures, stroke width, segment visibility...) to effect the transition -- just to emphasise: all vectors, no rasters - so no issues with trying to match moho vector stuff (not just brushes, but all shape effects) with an external program.


I used the sequencer to move the fbf segment to start at F321; then animated the bird from the end of the transition - I switched visibility of the bird, fbf, human groups on / off (although I could have used a switch, but didn't!!)

Total time to do from blank moho file to what you now see: not much longer than preparing uploads for YT / IBB and typing this post - an hour or so...