Moho Forum

To make my character 'strum' a guitar I duplicated the main character's bone layer then sandwiched a guitar group layer between the two bone layers. For the 'strumming arm' I made only the right arm and hand visible in the duplicated layer. The left forearm and fingers are a vector layer inside the guitar group.
Is there a simpler way to animate the strumming arm?

(The second issue will be synching the character to the music which I think I can solve.)

Ah, an age old problem with AS.

Well, you could put everything, including the guitar, in one bone layer. And if the arms are chopped up into forearm and shoulder pieces, you can arrange the layer order within the bone group layer. And then put the guitar in a group layer or uncheck something in the layer like 'warp with bones' (double-click the guitar layer and check out the 'bones' tab) so that the guitar doesn't go all weird and get warped when you move the bone layer around. That's how I'd probably do it. You'd probably have something like this:

- BONE GROUP
- forearm
- guitar
- shoulder
- head
- body
- other arm shoulder
- other arm forearm

So really only the forearm is in front of the guitar.

Hope this helps.

For going in time to the music, add either the music you're synching it to as an audio clip, or a clicktrack with the right tempo. In this case, probably the original source music. Then scrub away with the left and right arrow keyboard keys and listen for the strumming. Generally it may help to put the animation 2 frames or so before the actual sound. Sometimes it can look late or weird if the action is dead on the sound, can also look just fine, so you may need to experiment here.

Good luck.

Thanks Mikdog. I reworked my character using a single bone layer and placed the 'strumming arm' on top. The seven vector guitar is in a nested bone layer. It works and I'm happy with the result. I don't know what a click track is but if it is something I have to purchase I'll get one soon. I'll post a rough video soon because feedback is very helpful.

3deeguy wrote:... I don't know what a click track is ....

think of it as a track that just has a set of short clean sound bursts in it - like the "clack" from a clapperboard used to sync sound and vision when filming movies (the film and sound are recorded on separate devices).

I use Sibelius to compose music and I usually add an extra "instrument" or two that just has a set of clicks to help me sync action and music... one track is usually enough - but sometimes two depending on the action. I render these into separate files from the main music; and then use them in tying sound and action together - but they never get rendered into the final output -- they're like the visual guide layers ("Don't Render ...") in AS.

How about you have a separate character with a guitar instead of two on top of each other, that sounds messy.

Just load the guitar playing version whenever you need it!

Poopee

I just posted a video that shows the reworked character which now is in a single bone layer. It needs a lot of work but I now understand the concept. I will spend the next week tweaking it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryd6cbsYeQk

Hey, pretty good man, always loved monkey music!

Poopee

When I was confronted with this problem, I made a "stunt" arm switch layer with an arm in the up position and one in the down position, as seen here. It was the easiest way to do lots of strumming for me, but might not be as sophisticated a solution as you're looking for.

ha ha ha looks really cool. Though the camera movement right in the beginning threw me off a bit. I like how the monkey moves.

Mikdog, I wanted the character to appear to bounce and rock back and forth so I scaled the chest bone as well as move it right and left. I wanted to see how it looked. There are two main characters and I think I may have the other one play the piano. I will have to do some research to help me decide how to approach what I think I want to do. You're instruction has solved a major problem for me. Do you have a YouTube channel? I didn't notice that camera movement until after I posted it to YouTube. I was so happy about the guitar thing. I'll get better.

b15fliptop, Your character's fingers slide along the fretboard. That is cool. You have an audience and multiple animated spotlights. It creates a sense of excitement. I saw a lot in that video.

Probably too late now but what I did with the animation below was to position mouse and guitar in the same bone layer, animate with the 'neck arm' behind the neck.

Then, once I had it moving with the music, I duplicated the neck arm, delete all but the hand, then move that amended layer above the guitar.

There's a bit of a join at the wrist but there's probably a way of improving that.

The timing was easy as I created the sound to one beat a minute so…

You'l have to suffer a few bars of concertina before the strumming begins, and some attention-seeking jigging mice throughout but…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfK1736lU78

Those dancing mice are awesome! Although their jumping could be a tad bit more dynamic: think of a bouncing ball, the contact position is only 1 frame.

Thanks for the advice Slowtiger. I'll up the contact a frame or two.

Greysnarthur, I did something similar to what you did with your 'neck arm' when I wanted to create a flapping wing with two colors. I thought a black wing with a grey leading edge would be more appealing than a single color. I used point motion for the wings and tweaked it until I was satisfied with the motion. I duplicated it, then modified the shape and color to make a 'leading edge'.
You could see it here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_1_SjnoKZE

(This is my second character for the video that I'm trying to make. It also shows several lessons I picked up from Slowtiger)