360º Smartbones using cycles

[Daxel]

in the action you need to have the rotational range of the Smartbone match what you want it to do in mainline.

so, as you've set the smartbone to move from 270 to 1170 (that's 5 "half turns") in the action you need to set the starting pose to allow rotation left and right in mainline, so you'll need to set the bone to 270+360 = 630 degrees (or that plus another 360 = 990); then rotating it clockwise or anticlockwise (counterclockwise) within the range 270 to 1170 will achieve what you want.

another approach could be to set the action to have a range of -360 to +360 (or any multiple thereof - e.g. -1080 to +1080); then in mainline start the bone at 0 and constrain its rotation to the range in the action.

hope that's clear! Shout if not.

Exactly. I hope I didn't bored him too much haha.

[farabi213]

Thanks to both of you
Now I have no problem with positive angle
But the negative angle fully not cleared.
say I have smartbone which move 90º to -870º
what should i put at 0 Frame?

[hayasidist]

well, first up -870 is a weird choice ... -990 would be more logical (3 whole turns) but -1350 (4 whole turns) would give you two full rotations ether side of the middle.

but working on the assumption that "90" is where you want to start, the "right" starting angle would be 90 - 360 = -270, or another -360 round, making -630

(if you went for -1350 as the end range, starting at -630 would be the logical choice)

[Daxel]

Thanks to both of you
Now I have no problem with positive angle
But the negative angle fully not cleared.
say I have smartbone which move 90º to -870º
what should i put at 0 Frame?

Negative angle values are not different. If you want your smartbone to be able to rotate the same degrees in each direction, then it's initial angle (at frame 0) has to be in the middle. The middle between two numbers is (X + Y)/2, so between 90º and -870º the middle is: (90 + -870º)/2 = -780º/2 = -390º

But I think that the design steps I gave you yesterday are simpler: starting by looking at your 0 frame smartbone angle and then deciding how many degrees do you want it to be able to travel in each direction. And not only simpler but more convenient, because the way you did it, calculating your frame 0 smartbone position at the end, you don't know how the smartbone will end up looking. Maybe it will look to the left and you didn't want to have it looking like that by default. Also, I don't know why you decided to make your smart action from 90º to -870º but the traveled distance there is 90 + 870 = 960º, so a smartbone in the middle will be able to rotate 960/2 = 480º in each direction, which is not a very beautiful number, right? it means it can rotate 480º/360º= 1,33 full turns in each direction. Was that what you wanted? If not, I recomend you to try to understand and follow the 3 steps I gave you yesterday and keep asking if there is any step that you dont understand.

[barik99]

I am also a beginner
and I also tried but
in mainline frame 25 to frame 48 the bone should be rotating anticlockwise but it automatically turn in clockwise
the video and the project files are included in the link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... XURVaiqJBA

What's the problem?
I'm not good at English.

[Daxel]

I am also a beginner
and I also tried but
in mainline frame 25 to frame 48 the bone should be rotating anticlockwise but it automatically turn in clockwise
the video and the project files are included in the link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... XURVaiqJBA

What's the problem?
I'm not good at English.

The bone is not rotating anticlockwise because when you use the Manipulate Bone tool to rotate a bone, Moho only knows the final direction in which you want the bone looking at, but the interpolation, the way that Moho moves the bone, uses the shortest route, even if you rotated it in a different direction. For example if the bone was looking up and you used the manipulate bone tool to make it looking right, it doesnt matter if you did it rotating it to the right (shortest route) or if you rotated it to the left taking the longest route to put it looking to the right, Moho always will use the shortest route so in this case, from up to right, it will always turn to the right (clockwise). The solution is simple: use the Transform Bone Tool, that will keyframe the specific angle every time so you will always have control about the turn direction. Delete that animation, make it with the Transform Bone Tool and it will work fine.

Aside from that, you have two little problems:

Your cicle, on the vector art, has to return to the second frame, not to the first, because if you look at it, your vector art's final frame usually looks the same as the first frame, so if the cicle goes from the last to the first it would be repeating that same frame twice.

And the animation of your smartbone has a keyframe at frame 73 that has a different interpolation mode than the rest, producing an akward movement each time the cicle plays that frame.

[barik99]

The bone is not rotating anticlockwise because when you use the Manipulate Bone tool to rotate a bone, Moho only knows the final direction in which you want the bone looking at, but the interpolation, the way that Moho moves the bone, uses the shortest route, even if you rotated it in a different direction. For example if the bone was looking up and you used the manipulate bone tool to make it looking right, it doesnt matter if you did it rotating it to the right (shortest route) or if you rotated it to the left taking the longest route to put it looking to the right, Moho always will use the shortest route so in this case, from up to right, it will always turn to the right (clockwise). The solution is simple: use the Transform Bone Tool, that will keyframe the specific angle every time so you will always have control about the turn direction. Delete that animation, make it with the Transform Bone Tool and it will work fine.

Aside from that, you have two little problems:

Your cicle, on the vector art, has to return to the second frame, not to the first, because if you look at it, your vector art's final frame usually looks the same as the first frame, so if the cicle goes from the last to the first it would be repeating that same frame twice.

And the animation of your smartbone has a keyframe at frame 73 that has a different interpolation mode than the rest, producing an akward movement each time the cicle plays that frame.

Thanks, mate, It's working.
My another question is it possible to rotate the transform bone continuously
like, manipulate bone for the head turn?

[Daxel]

Thanks, mate, It's working.
My another question is it possible to rotate the transform bone continuously
like, manipulate bone for the head turn?

Mmm can you expand on the question? Right now I don't understand what do you mean.
Do you mean, to make a head turn smart action like we are doing here but that the head could rotate an infinite number of times?

[barik99]

Mmm can you expand on the question? Right now I don't understand what do you mean.
Do you mean, to make a head turn smart action like we are doing here but that the head could rotate an infinite number of times?

Yes. But is it possible to rotate the transform bone infinity in the mainline?

[Daxel]

Yes. But is it possible to rotate the transform bone infinity in the mainline?

Any bone can be rotated as much as you want with the transform bone tool. You can go to frame 10000, and with the transform bone tool write on the angle value 10000 and you will see the bone rotating like a Beyblade. Is that what you mean? And if what you want to do is something like a car wheel then this 360º smartbone technique is not really needed because a wheel is a simple drawing that only needs to rotate like the bone, so you can just bind it to the rotating bone without making any cycle or any smart action.

[barik99]

Any bone can be rotated as much as you want with the transform bone tool. You can go to frame 10000, and with the transform bone tool write on the angle value 10000 and you will see the bone rotating like a Beyblade. Is that what you mean? And if what you want to do is something like a car wheel then this 360º smartbone technique is not really needed because a wheel is a simple drawing that only needs to rotate like the bone, so you can just bind it to the rotating bone without making any cycle or any smart action.

Yes, it cleared up all my doubts.

[hayasidist]

just a word here on rotating points using the transform point tool (as was done in one of farabi213's examples that kicked this latest discussion off): each point follows a straight line path between it's starting and end positions .. a large rotation will cause anything to appear to shrink then expand.

[Daxel]

just a word here on rotating points using the transform point tool (as was done in one of farabi213's examples that kicked this latest discussion off): each point follows a straight line path between it's starting and end positions .. a large rotation will cause anything to appear to shrink then expand.

Exactly. My demo file also has that shrink-expand effect and that's the reason. It was just a ciclic animation that represented the looking position of a head so it didn't matter how it looked like. But that shrink-expand effect is another good reason to not use this technique to animate the rotation of static drawings when you could just bind them to a normal bone.
This technique is to make complex non-static drawings rotating, like heads, torsos, legs, etc, to be able to rotate, usually horizontally, more than one time thanks to the use of cycles to avoid having to animate the turning head more than one time. I know you know it but wanted to make it clear for any begginer reading.