Moho Forum

In the styles window, I can set the default colors for fill/line colors for new shapes, but I can't uncheck the "enable"-boxes. So every new shape has to be selected to clear the outlines.
When applying a style without a line to a shape that has originally an outline, the line remains!
It seems to be quite labourous to get rid of them.

Another question: Is there an option to turn an existing shape into a style? In most cases I decide to establish styles AFTER shapes have been created.

As for the first part, and I admittedly may have misunderstood, can't you just turn off "Auto outline" in the various drawing tools?

As for styles, I just now tried them for the first time... and I'm not getting anywhere... fast. Guess I should read the manual.

* Short pause for manual reading, insert edit*

Okay, when you make a style and turn off the line checkboxes, you're actually telling Moho (I think) *not* to affect the lines of the shape you're applying the style to... the only way to make a style that would turn off the outline would be A) to enable the checkboxes for outline in the style and B) Have an option to either set line width to zero or turn it off... which it doesn't have.

You *can* create a style from an existing shape, but it's a little wierd. Basically, select the shape with select shape tool and copy it's attributes in the style window. Then create a new style, and hit paste.

This is the weird part... when you paste into the style, the checkboxes for outline and fill will all be unchecked... just check the ones you want and baddaboom you got a new style.

Hope that helps... it helped me at least since I've never touched styles before... pretty handy (if a little clumsy in some regards).

It seems that styles in Moho are primarily "additive"... meaning you can add something but you can't set it to take away something (like turning off outlines).

I only posted a second time because I just realised that paste works the same way... if the default shape has outline, and you paste a style that didn't have an outline, you still have outline...

So I can see now what you were referring to.

I don't think the outline option can be preset when using the Create Shape tool (good feature request!).

However, when you are originally defining a new shape (I'm not talking Styles here, just the normal Create Shape tool), after you have selected the shape (it turns red and checkered), you hit the spacebar to confirm the fill/outline (it turns the colour and outline you have chosen, but still checkered) and at that point you can decide not to have an outline by simply unchecking the outline option.

So you don't have to go back and re-select the shape to turn off the outline. However, if you miss that opportunity when you are defining the shape, then you do have to re-select the shape (which makes sense, I guess).

You can then also apply a Style, if you wish. As T says, Styles will not remove or apply an outline, only the colour/effect - outlines are apparently set at the object level (which is very useful behaviour if you have hidden some segments of your outlines - you really don't want to go back again and re-hide all the line segments just because you have changed Styles).

As for converting existing shapes into Styles, you could possibly render a still image and use it as a swatch when defining the Styles, which should ake the process go a little faster.

Regards, Myles.

Thanks a lot for your advice, myles & T.
Yes, I overlooked that creating rectangles and circles includes "auto-outline", which I can uncheck. But with the add-tool there is no such option. You can just uncheck auto-fill, but then you have to assign the filling yourself.
I looked through the prefs and .string, but could not find any settings regarding standard line settings.

Basically, I want to create stuff with the least possible amount of clicking around. And, yet still admiring moho for its abundance of interesting features, you have to click a LOT in moho.
What I really miss is a kind of "common" behaviour that has been introduced years ago. (E.g. that you can copy stuff with cmd-C. You do not have to think when you do that. )
Such a basic behavior would be that you can copy shapes with alt-drag. That you can select multiple shapes with shift-click or by dragging a rectangle. That you can draw by setting points. And so on.
Moho is so different in some aspects that it appears to me LM created this from scratch without ever looking at other applications, especially regarding the drawing/filling section.
Of course you can get used to it, but since we all presumably work with lots of applications, the more they have in common, the better.

box wrote:But with the add-tool there is no such option.

A good feature request, but when you drag the points around to close the shape and auto-fill happens, you again get a chance to simply untick the outline option.

box wrote:Basically, I want to create stuff with the least possible amount of clicking around.

Don't forget to check out the Moho shortcuts section in the appendix of the manual.

With Moho you often set up your character once, then spend the rest of your time animating, so I suspect many of the feature requests and much of the development time so far have gone into features that improve the animation workflow than the original drawing part (wonderful features such as Switch layers, bone dynamics/locking/constraints - yay!).

Other creation features, such as shape lowering and raising using the arrow keys, are so useful that I'd rather see that in some illustration programs than moving shapes using the arrow keys.

I'm sure Lost Marble also listens to feature requests for improving the drawing process, so head across the Feature Request section.

box wrote:What I really miss is a kind of "common" behaviour that has been introduced years ago. (E.g. that you can copy stuff with cmd-C. You do not have to think when you do that. )

If you are in selection mode, the standard Ctrl-C/V/X/A tools work (in Windows at least) for copying and pasting shapes and points.
Since the editing workspace remains active even when you are selecting frame markers in the timeline or editing styles, the same keystrokes cannot be used in those areas (so you have to use e.g. Alt-C/V in the timeline).

Selection mode is very like the standard pointer mode in many illustration programs.

box wrote:Such a basic behavior would be that you can copy shapes with alt-drag.

Hmm, I haven't noticed that as general behaviour on Windows. With Xara X, for example, you left-drag and right-click as you are dragging to drop copies wherever you want them, which is far more convenient than Alt-drag for multiple copies.

box wrote:That you can select multiple shapes with shift-click or by dragging a rectangle.

Both of these should work fine in selection mode, as far as points and objects are concerned (Shift-click on the outline between points to add another whole object, Shift-click on individual points to just add a point to the selection). Shift-dragging a box works too.

box wrote:That you can draw by setting points.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean just click-click-click instead of click-drag-click-drag?

You could probably create your own version of the Add Point tool to do this, if you wanted.

Coming originally from an Animation:Master (spline-based 3D animation software) background, I was more familiar with the click-drag-click-drag style than the click-click-click style of illustration software.

box wrote:Moho is so different in some aspects that it appears to me LM created this from scratch without ever looking at other applications, especially regarding the drawing/filling section.

Actually, I suspect that a lot of the concepts and implementation are inspired more by the 3D animation world rather than the illustration world. Coming to Moho from Animation:Master, it felt very familiar and comfortable.

Regards, Myles.

Hey Myles-

(and sorry, T, I can make PC's sing but my knowledge of Macs would shame a 3 year old) the idea of putting a couple of checkboxes for fill and line in the Create Shape tool is great. Great, I tell ya! I'll do that momentarily. Maybe a pulldown menu to shoose a style there too? Maybe redundant, but whatthehell.

7feet wrote:my knowledge of Macs would shame a 3 year old

LOL, me too... frankly every time I use my cousin's Mac I find myself mildly cursing and shaking my head in frustration... it's the little differences that make it so odd.

And now I know I'm tired, T, as I was responding to Box's comment and I done got myself all turned around. Sheesh. Well, tammara's anutha day.

I am very interested in resetting the Default Style to no line, as opposed to 4 pt. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks everyone. A lively discussion. Has anyone tried AS10 yet? The Paint Bucket tool works much better now for sharing formatting. I'm not sure I'll get much use out of styles, unless I take on something really detailed.