Moho Animation Forum

There may be something in the manual about this but I could not find it. Let me explain what im doing first in case someone might have a suggestion or two to improve my work habits. You can dl this file at

http://www.mediafire.com/?ur9h577fc8d29ot

Since this is a simple video game character I only need a few frames for each thing. I start with a standard pose, Frames 1, 24, 48 ect ect and do each move as needed. Ive simply been copying frame one for the start of each segment. Up till this last one. I changed stuff on the head. Like eyelids and mouth. And when I copyed frame one this time, to frame 90, the eyelids and mouth remained the same as I just edidted. Im sure theres something Im not doing. Question is what? I manualy changed the mouth and eyelids but then the frames before it changed.

Which brought up question 2, How can I edit a keyframe withOUT affecting previous frames? Or can it be done.

Also any suggestions or ideas on how Im going about my work. I try to keep things simple and in order. I would have more groups but I have trouble controling whats inside them :/ How I got my eyemask group to start working again is beyond me. But I did it.

Thanks

Ok, I think you first must understand how keyframes works.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but most channels are divided in two, one gray and the other red.

The gray one shows you every key you have made on the layer.
The red one shows you only the keys your selected item (bone, point, shape, etc) has.

If you don't assimilate this it will be easy to get lost on your animation.

For example, if you animate and arm, you can't expect the legs be keyed too. If you want a key on that frame (even when this would be a "hold" key), you must add it manually by right clicking on gray timeline channel and chose "add keyframe" on the frame you want, this way you'll be sure all your bones (points, shapes...) be keyed.

Now, for the kind of animation you are doing, I think the best would be to use actions. Check the help if you don't know how to create and use them.

A simpler layer construction would help too. Your character can work with very few layers. If you don't need them, don't feel forced to create too many layers.

selgin wrote:Ok, I think you first must understand how keyframes works.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but most channels are divided in two, one gray and the other red.

The gray one shows you every key you have made on the layer.
The red one shows you only the keys your selected item (bone, point, shape, etc) has.

If you don't assimilate this it will be easy to get lost on your animation.

For example, if you animate and arm, you can't expect the legs be keyed too. If you want a key on that frame (even when this would be a "hold" key), you must add it manually by right clicking on gray timeline channel and chose "add keyframe" on the frame you want, this way you'll be sure all your bones (points, shapes...) be keyed.

Now, for the kind of animation you are doing, I think the best would be to use actions. Check the help if you don't know how to create and use them.

A simpler layer construction would help too. Your character can work with very few layers. If you don't need them, don't feel forced to create too many layers.

I understand alot more on keyframes now. And I read more in the manual. And changed the keyframe in question to a to a "step" Type also. So Problem solved. But If you dont mind, Id like you to elaborate on

"The gray one shows you every key you have made on the layer.
The red one shows you only the keys your selected item (bone, point, shape, etc) has."

Im just not grasping the difference OR relationship of the two. Could you give me another example on that?

And thanks for your help.

I'm glad to help you
Ok, check this image

This is the way how AS works. Every single bone has its own independent keyframes and you can see them by selecting each bone and look at the red channel. If there is no bone selected, the red channel will disappear.

So in this image we have two bones and keyframes on frames 6, 12 and 18, right?
The first channel shows all the keyframes of any bone, but the red one shows only the keyframe which is on frame 18.
It's because the bone selected has only one keyframe, only in frame 18. It doesn't matter what the other bones do, this specific selected bone has only this keyframe, so the movement of that specific bone will start on frame zero and stop on frame 18, even if you see more keyframes on the gray line.

This happens with almost any parameter on AS: points (position, curvature, width), shapes (color, transparency, effects), bones (scale, rotation, translation), etc.

So, if you want to hold a position, you will have to be sure that all the bones, points or shapes have keyframes on the desired frame, even if they are doing nothing.
To easily add keyframes to all bones (points or shapes...), just go to the desired frame, right click on the gray channel and select "add keyframe". This will add a keyframe to every single bone.


I hope this let things a little clearer.

selgin wrote:I'm glad to help you
Ok, check this image

This is the way how AS works. Every single bone has its own independent keyframes and you can see them by selecting each bone and look at the red channel. If there is no bone selected, the red channel will disappear.

So in this image we have two bones and keyframes on frames 6, 12 and 18, right?
The first channel shows all the keyframes of any bone, but the red one shows only the keyframe which is on frame 18.
It's because the bone selected has only one keyframe, only in frame 18. It doesn't matter what the other bones do, this specific selected bone has only this keyframe, so the movement of that specific bone will start on frame zero and stop on frame 18, even if you see more keyframes on the gray line.

This happens with almost any parameter on AS: points (position, curvature, width), shapes (color, transparency, effects), bones (scale, rotation, translation), etc.

So, if you want to hold a position, you will have to be sure that all the bones, points or shapes have keyframes on the desired frame, even if they are doing nothing.
To easily add keyframes to all bones (points or shapes...), just go to the desired frame, right click on the gray channel and select "add keyframe". This will add a keyframe to every single bone.


I hope this let things a little clearer.

Perfectly. Thanks for the info.

A couple more things while we’re at it.
You've mentioned "Hold" a couple times. Is that a timeline thing or a layer thing? I haven’t run across that yet.

And second. You mentioned having less layers. I’m wondering if your referring to the guitar. If that is the case, the reason is, The character will be doing a Peter Townsend and breaking it apart later in the game. This will make it easy to do. If that’s Not what you were referring to, Please elaborate.

Understand my main goal is to write a commercial 2D jump & run platformer. It’s important to be as efficient and professional as possible. I'm open to any advice that will help.

Thanks