Moho Forum

Sorry for the rather insipid thread title. I have zero experience in animation and just started using Moho this week - I'm REALLY enjoying it but just have so many questions to ask! I'll try to be good and just ask the most pressing...

1. Okay, when I play my animation back in Moho its FAR slower than the 'real' (exported) speed. I wasn't sure if it was meant to be that way or whatever but when i played sound clips they were really slow too (which is much more annoying). Anyone have any idea whats up?

2. Is there a colour picker (eyedrop thingy) or similar anywhere? How do I match up colours?

3. I'm trying to animate hair (a ponytail to be exact) - does anyone know what are the best values (bone dynamics) to get nice flowing hair? What about clothes? Ive experimented loads but it doesnt look very nice really. I know it can look lovely...

4. Is there any way to hide the 'seams' of a character? What if my character has outlines or some sort of shading - how would I stop the outlines breaking up when my character bent his/her limbs etc.?

Thank you! I'll post my character/test thing up in this thread tomorrow...once I find somewhere to upload to.

1) If you press F5 MoHo will do a quick render of the animation (or as quick as it can go) so you can preview it at full speed. But previewing in the workspace you might want to goto: "Animation" -> "Allow Frame Skipping." Your animation wont be as smooth, but it'll skip frames in order to keep up.

2) There isn't a colour picker but what you can do is input the values into the actual colour block. Just click the square (where you usually preview your colour) and copy and paste the "#" value (eg FFFFFF for white).

3)can't answer as i don't use bones... aybe i should?!

4)Use the "Translate Points" tool (shortcut T) to move the points in that layer to make it a full line again. Abit annoying, but it needs to be done in order for your character to stay together.


Hope this helps abit.

In regard to colours, you can use an external colour picker utility, such as Color Cop, that will copy the RGB hex value to the clipboard, then paste it into the Moho colour hex field.

Note: if you have a colour you will be applying to several objects or fills, you might be best served making it into a style (a re-usable fill/outline setting).

With regard to "seams", the solution may vary according to how your character is built: Have you used image files or vector shapes? Have you used separate vector "forms" for e.g. bicep and forearm, or one form bent by bones? If you have used one form, have you used to separate "shapes" (fills and outlines) for each piece of the form?

With regard to the ponytail, you may need more than one setup - one for small gentle movements with a "floppier" spring setting, and another one for large quick actions. Values may vary for other reasons too: Is it the kind of ponytail that goes straight down from the base of the skull, or the kind that sticks out from the back of the head? How long is it, does it curl up at the end - does the motion require one bone, two, three? Is it plaited for "heavier" movement, or lighter and fluffier?

Regards, Myles.

I've posted a very simple ponytail rig and animation. This one requires fairly large and fast head movements.

As I understand it (see Tutorial 3.3 for a better explanation):
To make the hair more affected by gentle movement while walking or talking, you might want to increase the torque force. Hair, being fairly light and not that springy, will come to rest quickly so will require more damping force than the default. The spring force determines how a bone is attached to its parent - by a stiff spring or a weaker spring - for its recovery from movement.

Regards, Myles.