Newbie actions question

[Greenlaw]

I'm more familiar with the term 'morph' as it's used in 3D animation programs, but this explanation might help: In one 3D program I use, they're called Morph Targets and some 3D programs call them Blend Shapes, but regardless, a Morph Target is the original geometry reshaped into a new pose.

For example, a face geometry might be reshaped from a neutral pose (i.e., one 'frame') to a frown pose (another 'frame'), and this would be saved as a Morph Target called 'frown'. Then the original geometry could be reshaped into a smile pose, and saved as a second Morph Target called 'smile''. Now, when we're animating the character, we can use morphing/blending to animate/interpolate the character's face from a neutral pose to the 'frown' or 'smile' poses using the Morph Targets. With planning, you could create a wide range of Morph Targets for different parts of the face that can be mixed to create completely new face poses during animation.

In Moho terms, it's pretty much the same thing, just in 2D: The original vector drawing or bone rig is posed or reshaped, and this state is saved as a Morph Action. Then, during animation, the vector drawing or rig can be morphed/blended into the Morph Action's pose.

As a matter fact, Moho's Blend Morphs window described earlier, is similar to the morph mixing window typically seen in 3D animation programs to animate between Morphs/Blend Shapes. So, yeah, it's basically the same idea.

The reason many Moho animators don't use Morph Actions and the Blend Window so much nowadays is because Smart Bones and/or Switch Layers can give you better control, and can be easier to animate with. I'm not saying Morph Actions are useless these days, they're just not as useful as they once were because we have better tools now.

Hope this helps.

[Hoptoad]

Ah! I have zero experience with 3D software, so I would not have guessed the prior use of the word. But now it makes sense. Thank you.