Moho Forum

I know this has been discussed before and I've seen it in action before a long time ago but I can't seem to find the proper information on it. What I'd like to know is, is there a way to activate switch layers or bones by moving (translating) a bone to a specific position? This video is exactly what I'm trying to do using Rudiger's moph dial script but this video is old and the script I've found doesn't seem to work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oJcqAxbjoE

Funksmaname also did some test with this a while back and they were amazing but now I can't find any info on how this works or if there is a new way to achieve this in the newer versions of AS. I really want to use this technique as it will increase and speed up productivity with lip syncing and head movement by about half of what I'm doing now.If anyone has any info on this or can point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it! Here's one of Funk's videos using this technique as well. Super awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MknsoFe ... 603F7138BB

Yes, the new version of ASP v10, has a new bone feature called "Target bones". A target bone is assigned to another bone. When the target is dragged the other bone will rotate to point at it. This allows you to use bone translation to activate smart bone rotations.

For example, a smart bone is set up for an eye blink. When that bone is rotated a specified amount, the eye blinks. The smart bone is then assigned a target bone. When the target bone is translated the eye blink bone rotates to aim at it.

There has been some very interesting experiments with this type of setup for lip sync and face rigs with multiple bones aimed at a single target bone. As the target bone is translated closer to the bones each one rotates activating the smart bone.

DAMN IT!!!!! Every freaking time a new version comes out I think to myself, I'll wait awhile until the price comes down. I don't really need any of the new features. But then I see ONE feature that sells me on it and I feel like I have to have it!!!! Stupid target bones!!!!!! I always I feel like I'm being punished for being a long term user of AS because after years of updates I pay way more for the end product than a new user buying a new copy. BUT the truth is, AS is still the most affordable high end animation software out and still is better than Flash and toonboom in my opinion. I really only have high praise for the AS team and the community! I'm really just a penny pincher that hates to spend money but AS is totally worth it. Thanks Vern, now I have to go and get that update after seeing this and watching Victor's webinar on target bones. Well played my friend, well played….. I need to figure out how to make money from animating so i can subsidize my Anime Studio habit!!!!!

guyver93 wrote:DAMN IT!!!!! Every freaking time a new version comes out I think to myself, I'll wait awhile until the price comes down. I don't really need any of the new features. But then I see ONE feature that sells me on it and I feel like I have to have it!!!! Stupid target bones!!!!!! I always I feel like I'm being punished for being a long term user of AS because after years of updates I pay way more for the end product than a new user buying a new copy. BUT the truth is, AS is still the most affordable high end animation software out and still is better than Flash and toonboom in my opinion. I really only have high praise for the AS team and the community! I'm really just a penny pincher that hates to spend money but AS is totally worth it. Thanks Vern, now I have to go and get that update after seeing this and watching Victor's webinar on target bones. Well played my friend, well played….. I need to figure out how to make money from animating so i can subsidize my Anime Studio habit!!!!!

The morph dials script may not work properly for you right now but could probably be fixed. You may want to contact the person who created it. Then you would at least have a solution until you want to update to v10. The issue is, how motivated is someone to update a script that was made redundant by features in the new version?

There is waaaaaaay more than target bones in v10 that would be an incentive to update.

One thing that sort of had my jaw hanging open are the new key frame interpolations. So many times there are people who are doing the "bouncing ball" tutorial in Anime Studio... now... there is a built in "bounce" interpolation that can do that with just a few clicks. There are others as well, like an elastic interpolation and a "stagger" interpolation. All of these could be done before BUT with a bunch of extra keys and a lot of extra effort... now... BANG just a few clicks.

Along with the target bone feature there IK stretching and squash and stretch scaling. You drag a target bone, the aiming bone stretches to reach it, add in squash and stretch scaling and it will squash as it stretches. Really freaking cool beans.

None of this stuff was impossible to do previously... it was just a bazillion times harder and probably required a layer script. New features in v10 made a bunch of my own personal scripts redundant. Specifically a target/aim bone script I had been working on and also a script I've used for a long time that converts translation to rotation and vice versa. With target bones both scripts are no longer needed to get similar results. Whenever a new feature eliminates a script I use, that's always a good thing. I write scripts to fill gaps. When it gets into the app that is freaking awesome.

I would say... v10 is a pretty freaking awesome upgrade and worth every dang penny. Of course... it's easy for me to spend someone else's money.

Yeah, I already upgraded. I was going to no matter what after seeing Victor's webinar. It is totally worth it and I know I'll end up using way more of the features later on! Basically, as long as they don't go to the Adobe system of renting software subscriptions (no matter what anyone says thats what CC is, renting and never owning your software which the company can disable at anytime) then I'm cool with always updating AS. I'm hoping to make more tutorials after I finish this project I'm working and this version is top notch. I'm also hopping to get one of the departments at the college I work at to fund and start offering lessons or just seminars on animation using anime studio. I'm no expert but I think AS in the classroom would be the best way to introduce kids interested in animation as it's the best and most intuative software I've come across. I wish I had this when I was in school. It's solo much better than animating in flash. I'm just pretty jazzed to learn some new stuff!!!!!

Hey Guyver
Unfortunately there's no way to do this sort of set up with smart bones as far as I know - the cool thing about morph dials was that you could reverse the way they worked so that they functioned on proximity of a control bone... I do think this 'mode' would be useful, I should suggest it (it could probably be introduced as a naming convension on a control bone so that proximity works to trigger the bone it gets near to up to 100% instead of rotating the bone.

In fact, Vern, is this a possible script? I've no idea, but using the underlying smart bones could give the speed boosts that MD's lacked.
i.e. create a 'control' bone that has the name of the bones you'd like to control in its name 'i.e. 'control:B1,B2,B3' - and then, based on each bone radius as a circle of influcence, cause each action to mix up to 100% when the control bone is in the same position as a smart bone?? doesn't sound unreasonable

Thanks for bringing this back up!

funksmaname wrote:Hey Guyver
Unfortunately there's no way to do this sort of set up with smart bones as far as I know - the cool thing about morph dials was that you could reverse the way they worked so that they functioned on proximity of a control bone... I do think this 'mode' would be useful, I should suggest it (it could probably be introduced as a naming convension on a control bone so that proximity works to trigger the bone it gets near to up to 100% instead of rotating the bone.

In fact, Vern, is this a possible script? I've no idea, but using the underlying smart bones could give the speed boosts that MD's lacked.
i.e. create a 'control' bone that has the name of the bones you'd like to control in its name 'i.e. 'control:B1,B2,B3' - and then, based on each bone radius as a circle of influcence, cause each action to mix up to 100% when the control bone is in the same position as a smart bone?? doesn't sound unreasonable

Thanks for bringing this back up!

Hmm... yes this can definately be scripted. Proximity is simple math based on two bones. However, I am going to have to disagree that this can't be done with just "regular" smart bones. If you use angle limits it creates a sort of "proximity" activation because the bones can't rotate until the target is in a certain range.

I also started playing around with target bones and position constraints. If you use multiple targets that have varying degrees of position constraints to another bone this also can be used to create a "proximity" for a smart bone.

Target bones are so awesome... I hate to clutter it up with scripts. This new feature got rid of one script for me already.

I still think it's a more complicated solution than using proximity proper... if the smart bone controls could be locked off and their 0-100% influence be controlled by proximity it's a completely different area of influence (anywhere within its radius regardless of positioning) to what you can do by making them work in only one direction (in a very small area controlled by the constrained actual up/down movement of a bone).

Unless I'm missing something!?