Moho Forum

Hey everyone. I'm new to ASP, but have been doing motion graphics for years. I'm designing my first complex character with many different switch layers.

I've made a fairly complex character, basically facing left. I want to have the ability to turn the whole character right. I've duplicated the character bone layer and put them both in a switch layer to move the characters angle back and forth. Totally works great.

Now, my question: I've now got 2 independent characters... and duplicates of the mouth switch layer, hands, eyes, eyebrow expressions in the RIGHT facing character. So that means I have to update each character (RIGHT or LEFT) with the same small changes I make to a mouth, or a hand or whatever.

Is this the best way to design a character and have updatability AND flexibility?

Additionally, I've duplicated the LEFT facing character and flipped the "scale" layer so it's basically an identical layer but flipped. I've noticed that if I add something to the RIGHT facing character, and duplicate the layer and drag to the LEFT facing character, it does the flip for me since the character is a flipped scale duplicate. That's handy. Seems like I should be able to make a "duplicate" layer that updates from the parent.

Does that make sense? Like a CLONE layer in AE or Motion.

1. You should get used to the idea of rough design and cleanup as separeate stages. As long as you're still experimenting with the look of your character, don't start a second view of it, or at least treat it as just a temporarily thing.

2. Don't ever create a left and right version of a character (as long as it isn't clearly non-symmetrical). Instead flip the whole root layer of the character in animation when needed.

Aha! So simply scale the layer horizontally 180? Would it be smart to make an action for this called "turn" or whatever?

Now, what about if the head turns left and right? I assume can't really do the same thing? I will try, but it seems like it would be better to have a discreet left and right head turn to control with the bone structure.

I'm still interested in figuring out how to design a character so there is a single place to make changes to eyes/expressions/mouths and have it update ALL the corresponding positions. It seems like a lot of extra work to have to update EACH individual layer. Maybe this is why animators make the big bucks?

There's a simple button within the tools to flip any layer at any time. In teh old version it was always visible, in the new version 6 it's somewhat hidden, but still there. No need fpr actions.

Got it! Yes, somewhat hidden. That should be perfect. Thanks man. Much less work, which is what I like!