Referencing Behaviour of Styles (in Context of Characters)...

[martin_mrt]

Hello Everyone,

Here's my current problem:
I have 2-3 characters in separate Master files. All layers are set up with styles (8-12 per character).
I imported them into several scenes where they interact.
Everything is fine.
Now I changed the characteristics of a texture layer in each character. All styles have unique names.
When I go to my animation files to update, the first character works without a problem. The second character updates but changes a number of styles (what appears to be random) on the first layer. If I then update the first layer again, it changes styles randomly on the second. From there on, all updating doesn't change anything anymore, but most of my styles are off and basically unusable.

My fix was to update only the first character and then apply the texture changes manually on the others... it's a fix for now but generally unsatisfying. From that point on, I have to make each change manually just because I changed a brush in a texture layer. That's not how I intended to work with the referencing system...

By the way: reimporting works fine to fix it. That's what I did with the characters which had no or only animation on bone layers.

So it's somewhat contained for now, but overall I would love to see improvement in that area.
On quick research, I read that it could have something to do with the original character files stemming from the same file and being made through saving under a new name, etc. That can very well be. I'm not sure if that is the issue. (Is it?) If so, it feels like a bug. Saving under a new name should make the file "unique" in all namespaces.

Resulting Feature requests:

1) If it has in fact something to do with files being the children of the same base file: either automatically make namespaces unique on saving with a new name, or add some option in the menu where this can be done. A "Delete history" for master files used for referencing.

2) An option to block only specific aspects from being updated when updating a reference, or "lock" parameters. That way I could "lock" character B when updating character A and vice versa. Also: in some scenes, I will recolor the characters using the styles in the scene (not the master styles). In those situations, I could still update the rig or features but keep the altered styles through "locking" them.

[Greenlaw]

Hi,

Custom Styles don't care about names; you need to make sure each Style has a unique Style ID. Unfortunately, Moho doesn't display this information within the program, but you can ensure each character gets unique Style IDs when you import them.

To do this, make sure the option Unlink Shared Styles is checked in the Import window (it's in the lower right corner). After importing, you will notice 'duplicate' styles listed in the Styles Window, which can be uniquely changed for each character. This happens because Moho changed the Style ID for these styles but kept the original names. To make this easier to work with, I like to add a short prefix to the style names (usually 3 letters), so I know which characters they belong to.

(Note: if you give the Styles unique names before importing, I believe Moho will keep the new Style names and assign new Style IDs.)

Personally, I hope LM comes up with a better system for managing/editing Style IDs and Names in the future, but for now, the current system works okay if you follow the above instructions.

[Greenlaw]

The first time I ran into this situation was when I needed to animate many dozens of cats for Boss Baby: Back In Business (the footage can be seen on my DreamWorks 2019 demo reel.) Back then, I made 4 duplicate cats, each with unique style names, thinking this would allow me to give each cat unique Styles. For the reasons mentioned above, I immediately ran into trouble when I multiplied the cats, and I could not consistently vary the cat colors.

Once I learned about the Style IDs, I proceeded to edit them directly in the file data for each cat using Notepad++. Later on, I learned that all I really needed to do was switch on the Unlink Shared Styles option in Moho's import window, and create individual 'master' cats this way. This allowed me to keep the variations, and edit their Styles easily if I needed to. And if I had to, I could have added more variations this way.

Hope this info helps.

[Lukas]

I would prefer to save styles outside of the project, so all shots of a movie can refer to the same color and changing that color would affect all Moho files of the movie. But I guess that would make animated styles impossible. Anyway, the current system is nice until it breaks. Maybe a 'bake all styles' script would be nice to have as a failsafe

[martin_mrt]

Dear Greenlaw and Lukas,

Thanks for your answer! My quick research led me to IDs already but I couldn't figure out how to manipulate them.
I do have all the Styles with character-specific names. However it could be that they are created as a copy, when I copied the character file and made a new one. I think i didnt start from scratch but copied the file, made the new character, saved it as a new name and renamed everything. That way the IDs maybe stayed the same which leads to conflict now.
I usually have the “unlink shared styles” checked on importing the reference.

It might be best to try to “repair” the Master Character files which I import to the scenes by altering the file itself.
Greenlaw, can you maybe give me some information about what I have to look for in the file?

Lukas to your input: Maybe that works if you have the styles in a master file on some “neutral elements”? In my setup colors change globally when altered in the master file, so there might be a way you can set it up according to your needs.

Anyhow it would still be awesome if changes of styles in a file could be kept if wanted so colors for night/day in/out shots could differ slightly.

[Greenlaw]

Hi martin_mrt,

Importing with Unlink Shared Styles enabled should work, but it does so only when it detects a conflict with what already exists in the project.

So, the trick is to import the project into itself. When Moho detects that the character (or rather those same styles) already exists, it will change the Style IDs for the imported 'copy' of the Styles. After it's been imported, delete the original, and then SAVE A COPY of the project. The only difference between the two files now is the Style IDs. To make it obviously distinct, I would rename the Styles in the copied project at this stage and resave again. Now, you should be able to use this copy of the character with the original version of the character or with another character rig that uses the original Style IDs.

This process should work even with a different character that happens to use the same Styles. When the option is checked on, Moho is looking for conflicts only in the Styles IDs, and it doesn't care about other differences in the rig. If it doesn't change the IDs, it's because the Styles IDs are already different, or the option wasn't checked on.

If you've already tried this and got incorrect results, try the process with a very simple project (i.e., a few simple shapes with custom Styles) to be sure it's working and that you understand it. If it's still not working, then something may be broken with Moho (at least, on your computer.)

TBH, it's been a while since I've dealt with Style ID conflicts, because I haven't animated a scene with multiple characters in a long while. I'll try it here later today to make sure it's working correctly in 14.4. I'll let you know how it goes for me.

[Greenlaw]

That said, I really hope a future version of Moho allows us to at least see the Style IDs in the Styles Windows, if not change them.

This would remove any doubt, and it could have saved me a lot of trouble when I first ran into this issue many years ago.

[Greenlaw]

Ok, I ran a quick test, and importing with Unlink Shared Styles enabled does work in Moho 14.4.

The test: I made a circle with a custom Style that used crazy colors, a star brush, and extra wide thickness to make it obvious, and I named the custom Style 'Blarp' to make it even more obvious. After importing the circle project into itself, a second 'Blarp' appeared that could be edited to look different from the first 'Blarp'.

One 'simple' thing I wish Moho could do is add a 1 after the ID-altered Style's name to clearly differentiate it from the original (since we can't see the ID difference). This would help me understand which custom Style belonged to the imported circle.

Also, this behavior would be consistent with how Moho handles duplicate items elsewhere in Moho.

NOTE: Make sure you're not overriding the settings in the Style (the check boxes.) It's okay to use these options, but if you're not aware they're on and why, it can be confusing when resolving a Style ID conflict. (I just ran into this because I was messing around.)

Hope this info helps!

[martin_mrt]

Dear Greenlaw,
Thanks for looking into it! I will try this, propably also with a demo file first. (I will aim to set it up in a similarly obvious way! <3) ((also I agree that new styles should be marked. how should I pick the correct one? is it the one applied or not applied??))

I just want to ask you about the overrides:
The checkboxes in the style. If they are on, they override those settings on the shapes etc. the style is applied to correct?
I did use these overrides a bunch to keep linewith consistent etc.
Now that you mention you had a problem with this I wonder if the conflict i witness might not stem from there...?
What type of conflicts did you encounter with the overrides?

We will see..

[Greenlaw]

It's not really a conflict because the point of the override is to replace the setting from the Custom Style. This can be color and/or line thickness. It's useful when you only wish to use some aspects of a Custom Style, and not the whole Style.

To see the full application of the Custom Style on the shape, you need to disable the overrides.

This is actually expected behavior when using the override options, and I mentioned it in case it wasn't clear.

Note that you can override Brushes as well, but if the Custom Style uses a Brush, you can only change it to a different Brush. In situations where you want to override to use no Brush, you may as well not use a Brush in the Custom Style.

Tip: I like to use Custom Styles mainly for Stroke thickness and color, without Fill. This allows me to control the line weight globally for a character, and I can override the color and/or line thickness if I choose to. The Fill can be a separate Style if I really need that; otherwise, I just use a Regular Fill.