Moho Forum

Hi there!
I'm a newbie hence not familiar with related slang yet.

I've seen in few videos and demos creating of a ragdoll, animating and stuff. Neat. However turn realisation is made via mirroring as I understood. But what if my character has special features on one side of the face? How do I replace texture for it and replace headbones for appropriate on turn? Or if I want to show one side of the hand then the other then proper knuckle. How do I change it all?

I also have seen briefly window for lipsinc mouth shapes. Can I use it for different, um, hand position?

I basically mean having skeleton for a character and having for each bone picture assigned or an asset to choose from (like abovementioned hand). Sorta reciprocal process - skeleton first then images.

Second part: how can I create layered ragdoll? Like 2 smaller layers within bigger one, all 3 animated at once but overlaying one another.

maull wrote:Hi there!
I'm a newbie hence not familiar with related slang yet.

I've seen in few videos and demos creating of a ragdoll, animating and stuff. Neat. However turn realisation is made via mirroring as I understood. But what if my character has special features on one side of the face? How do I replace texture for it and replace headbones for appropriate on turn? Or if I want to show one side of the hand then the other then proper knuckle. How do I change it all?

I also have seen briefly window for lipsinc mouth shapes. Can I use it for different, um, hand position?

I basically mean having skeleton for a character and having for each bone picture assigned or an asset to choose from (like abovementioned hand). Sorta reciprocal process - skeleton first then images.

Second part: how can I create layered ragdoll? Like 2 smaller layers within bigger one, all 3 animated at once but overlaying one another.

I'll offer a few opinions here ... in all things Moho there are usually many ways to achieve something so these are "works for me".

turns - yeah - I don't like "flip" for an asymmetric object either. This is a "for example": if you use a smartbone you can shove the points around e.g. as in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNF1vydaGus. Designing for a turn such as "one side of the hand then the other then proper knuckle" means you need to design the vector with both sets of points in it and move them to make the transition. Take a simple example of a cube rotating. Start with it viewed face on: 4 points. Voila! Now you need a "3/4" pose. You need to add 2 points to make 2 rectangles - split the cube down the middle and shove the points around. To make it seem as though it's rotating start with the 2 "new points" lined up with one edge and move them in an arc to the other edge. A turning hand is the same principle - just way more points. Most times think about how many frames you want the transition to take. If the answer is "not many" (say 2 tweens) just draw those 2 intermediate poses -- that's usually quicker to do and more effective than sweating blood over "the perfect smart-bone controlled I can make it flip in 1 or 100 frames hand turn"

hand position switch - yes. Takes a bit of work, but not difficult. Lipsync can be done using a "switch data file" - this can be created by programs such as Papagayo or manually. It's just a text file with a header then many lines of {frame number, child name} . You can manually create one for any switch or, if you chose to use a mouth switch data file with a hand, you need hand poses that are named as though they were mouth shapes.

layered ragdoll: two basic approaches: everything in its own layer (e.g. separate layers for head, eyes, hair front, hair back ...) or everything in one layer using stacked shapes. You need to make sure the layers / shapes are stacked the way you want them: both layer order and shape order can be animated. And, of course, a panoply of options in between those extremes. You can bind layers to bones, points to bones, or use flexi-binding and any combination. IMO there's no "right" answer - there's just a "good answer" for a specific purpose. One thing I will say at this point is that you don't need to design a rig that will work for every possible case. I usually have many rigs for one character - for example a front view and a back view, but not a rig that will do a full body turn if I don't need to show the character turning right round - the principle is "design for the animation you plan" (not design a rig for every possible eventuality) (IMO this a critical difference between designing for 2d vs 3d animation).

hth

and welcome to the forum!

thank you @hayasidist
that helped a bit

I saw few examples of smartbones including yours, however it is not my cup of tea. Maybe in future I will change my mind.

Can you please explain a bit more how do I make hand switches? i.e switcher on - knuckle, swither off - relaxed palm, like with open closed mouth I guess.

sorry for slow reply.

try this:

- get hold of my "write dat" script from here: http://www.mediafire.com/?re2667x8e4yfqdc
- there's more about the script here http://www.kelleytown.com/forum/animato ... IC_ID=2178 (but you may need to create an account on AF to see that)
- load a character file from the library that has a hand switch in it (e.g. spacewoman)
- select a switch layer - e.g. Hand R (in the arm R group)
- run the script to create a data file - e.g. create "hand.dat"
- open the .dat in any text editor to look at (and modify - maybe change the fame number / add a few more lines to switch between hand / gun)
- open the layer control panel for the switch layer and navigate to the switch tab
- from the "select audio sync" drop-down choose "switch data file"
- that will open a file search panel - select the (modified) .dat
- click "apply"


That will show you the principles and file layout for a .dat.
Now you can build on that - e.g. create a new hand layer called "fist" and crate a new .dat to select the fist layer at some frame....

hth