Non animated background

[Niko]

I have scenes where I need to draw several backgrounds with buildings and scenery that won't be animated. Is it best to just do that in Adobe and import or freehand it in Moho?

Thanks!

[Greenlaw]

I use Layer Comps to set up different render passes. In your case, separate background layers and animation passes. Then, using Moho exporter, I can split these out to separate renders, and set the BG passes to render only 1 frame. This means much faster renders because Moho only needs to render 1 frame for the BG taking up the entire frame, and the animation passes are quicker because they are likely taking up half or less of each frame. When all the layers are rendered, I comp them in After Effects.

Here's my Moho render workflow:

1. Set a Master Layer comp as my 'default'. This layer comp includes everything you want to see. I typically add 00_ the front of the name so it stays at the top of the list.
2. Set up layer comps for each render pass. Save the project
3. Launch Moho Exporter (Ctrl-B.) Moho will automatically load all open projects. Delete any projects you don't wish to render.
4. Set the destination for the project you wish to render, and apply any common render settings you want. I highly recommend PNG Image Sequence and enabling Overwrite Previous Renders. If you haven't already done so, make a preset for your preferred settings so you don't need to keep doing this in the future.
5. Click the Split By Layer Comp button. This creates a project for each render pass using the common output settings you set in step 4.
6. Before clicking Render, save the Render Profile so you don't need to re-do the above the next time you render. I save this in the destination folder with the shot name to make it easy to find.
7. Click the Render button. Moho will save each render pass to its own unique folder.

Once you get used to this workflow, it's faster and more convenient for compositing than using the standard Moho render command.

When you need to re-render any passes for improvements or fixes, you can load the Render Profile and delete all but the passes you wish to render. All your previous settings (including destination) will automatically be loaded, and you shouldn't need to change anything.

When the layer comp files finish rendering, load all the image sequences in After Effects, apply any processing or effects you wish to add, and render a movie file for editorial or distribution. If you're using a recent version of After Effects, use the Media Encoder button in the Render window to submit your file. Media Encoder has much better codecs and options than native Ae. (I use Prores 422 for editorial use, and Prores 422HQ if it's for final delivery and archiving. For YouTube or sharing the file directly, use H265 (HEVC)...the quality is pretty decent and the file size is significantly smaller; it just doesn't hold up as well for re-encoding like Prores does.)

Hope this helps.

[Greenlaw]

Oh, wait...I think I totally misunderstood your post. Did you just want a recommendation for which program to use for drawing the background? If that's the case, it depends on how you want it to look. If I misunderstood, sorry; I thought you were asking if it was better to render a Moho scene with a static background in Moho or composite it an Adobe product like After Effects. D'oh!

If you want a painterly look, definitely do it a paint program like Photoshop, Krita, Clip Studio, or Procreate. Moho's vector drawing tools can do a reasonable simulation of painting but it's not very efficient for large complex 'paintings'. The only reason to do this in Moho would be for scalability. But, personally, I would rather do my painting in a paint program at the appropriate resolution.

If the backgrounds need to be simple and have a graphic look, then I recommend doing it in Moho. You will have full scalability, and the renders will probably be faster too.

Also, there's nothing to keep you from using both. I often combine bitmap and vector elements in my Moho environments. A good example of hybrid bitmap/vector art for the backgrounds is our short film Scareplane. Actually, Hearts Like Fists may be a better example...most of the background art in this one are vectors, but the shapes and strokes are filled with bitmap textures. Whatever method works most efficiently for creation and final rendering works for me.

I suggest experimenting with different techniques to see what works best for your designs and production.

[slowtiger]

I vote for simplicity. Whatever software I use to create the background in, when it's finished I'll render it as bitmap (JPEG) and import to Moho. The same applies to any element which isn't animated in itself. Reduces my render times greatly.

Now if you ask which workflow you should use to paint a background: this totally depends on your choice of style.

[cgrotke]

Another option: I've drawn backgrounds on paper and just scanned them, then used them. No software needed at all, other than the scanner and Moho.

It will depend on the style you are going for, like slowtiger says. You could fingerpaint, or render a hi-res computer-generated image. Or take a photo of something.

As long as you can turn that into a still image - a jpeg or png - you should be able to bring it in as a background.