Procreate to Moho best practices

[Jkoseattle]

From what I can tell, what I see in Moho is exactly what I see in Photoshop.

Well I'll be. Why did it work for you first try and never worked for me???

One thing I might have done differently is to draw the character in a neutral and symmetrical pose because this makes it easier to rig and pose predictably. I'd probably use far fewer layers too, but this depends on what the character is expected to do. In general, I try not to include anything unnecessary in the rig because it can complicate the rigging process and affect rig performance during animation.

Those two exact notes were given to her yesterday actually. I removed every layer that wasn't visible very first thing.

For a design like this, I would probably make the legs and arms straightened out and each merged into a single layer so I can use Smooth Joint to deform them. Smooth Joint is the easiest way to rig this kind of design and it looks great. You can see an example of how this looks in my Puss rig as demoed here:

Never used this. I'll give it a try momentarily.

Oh, cute art by the way.

I'll let her know. It's my daughter by the way. She drew me three characters actually. Took her like two hours. I was impressed as usual.

[pihms]

I know I’m jumping in a little late, haven’t read everyone’s comments. I had some similar difficulties. I was surprised that the free online program, Photopea, did what my paid programs couldn’t do. I even imported the PSD files from the programs that couldn’t seem to save the files correctly into Photopea, exported them as a PSD, again, and they worked great.

You might try opening the saved Procreate PSD file in Photopea and then export it from there as a PSD, then open in Moho.

[Jkoseattle]

Thanks! I just tried, unfortunately same problem.

[Greenlaw]

Well I'll be. Why did it work for you first try and never worked for me???

Hmm...that is very strange.

Just to be sure we're doing the same thing....

Software:

• Moho 13.5.5
• Phototoshop 24.1.0
• Windows 11 22H2

I don't think I re-saved the file in Photoshop but if I had, I would have used Photoshop's default settings. The Windows release version shouldn't make any difference either.

When importing the layered PSD, I used File>Import>General Import.... but Import>Image, or drag-and-drop, or choosing Image from under the Add Layer button in the Layers Window should also work.

After the file is selected, a window should pop up with three choices: Individually, Composite, and Select Layers. You want to choose Individually.

For anyone still learning, here's what these options mean:

• Individually - Attempts to preserve the layer structure as seen in a PSD compatible paint program (i.e., Photoshop, Krita, etc., ...) Note that certain layers types can be incompatible with Moho.
• Composite - Flattens the image so there is only 1 layer. (This option is non-destructive and you can still the layers separately in your PSD compatible paint program.)
• Select Layers - Lets you select a subset of layers from the PSD.

That's pretty much it.

BTW, with the PNG import I described as my previous workflow, yeah, this doesn't place images relative to their positions from Photoshop, so I would also export a flattened image to use as a positional reference. The process only takes a minute to move the pieces back into place, and the remember their correct positions after any updates.

But with the new layered PSD system, you don't need to worry about that...the layers should come positioned in-place and should update that way, while being more adaptable to changes than the old layered PSD system.

Hope something here helps.

[Greenlaw]

One other thing I can think of that might cause a potential problem is where the PSD is stored while you work with it.

For example, I found that Moho projects located in a Dropbox directory do not get saved properly by Moho, so I make sure all my work files are stored somewhere on our local network while I'm working with them, and not on a cloud server or cloud server directory (like my local Dropbox folder.) If the files need to be shared by other users through cloud sharing, that's fine but the files should be copied to an actual local or local network directory.

When I'm done, I use a file syncing program like Vice Versa Pro or the free Free FileSync to sync the files to wherever I keep my archives, which could then be a Dropbox folder.

I'm speaking specifically about Moho project files here but I suppose this can be true for other file types.