Moho Animation Forum

Hello,

Is there a way to weight points individually to different bones such as 30 percent to this bone and 70% to that point.

Or is there a script to do that?

Thanks!

FlexiBind does exactly this, only that you adjust bone strength. The first factor is distance, the second bone strength.

Thank you for your reply. If you mean the oval bone regions, that is helpful. I was wondering, however, if there was a way to weight points individually?

Only by the means I mentioned: placement and bone strength.

There is no way to assign weights to points like you would in a 3D animation program.

But as mentioned above by Slowtiger, you can use the bone strength of selected bones to control regions of a shape. This usually works well when used with the Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding method.

For the rigs we use at my workplace, I typically rely on a combination of Flexi-binding and Point Binding, and Smart Bones for tweaking the deformations.

If I need more control, sometimes I'll add 'holder' bones to the rig to help control how the weighting is distributed in a shape.

At the joints, it may also help to add an 'in-between' (i.e., elbow or knee) bone that follows the 'bending' (i.e., forearm or shin) bone at half its rotation (use the rotation constraint for this). This will move the points in a proper arc and help retain the shape's volume at the joint. For these points, I use Point Binding to lock the points to the 'in-between' bone. (I picked this handy trick up from Victor Paredes. I'm not sure what I wrote is very clear but if you do a search, he as a video illustrating the technique.)

Hope this helps.

Greenlaw wrote:Hope this helps.

First of all, AWESOME work on your reel! Really great stuff. That Puss and Boots rig is amazing. Good animation. Are you using Moho at DreamWorks?

I need to look into Flexi-binding more I suppose, If there are any good tutorials that show how to limit it to certain bones (like on elbows)?

I like the "blend bone" idea. I remember I used to do a similar technique a long time ago in a 3D program I used to use (don't use it anymore) called Animation Master. I wasn't aware that the rotation constraint would restrict the rotation of a bone to half the rotation of another. Very cool. The more I learn about Moho the better I like it.

If you don't mind me asking, how did you get the textured look on the animation. Was that done all in Moho?

Cheers,

Joe.

Thanks!

Yes, we use Moho Pro along with Harmony, Animate, After Effects, and other programs. Whichever works best for a given situation. As a matter of fact, the Puss 'choice point' animation you liked was created for an interactive episode on Netflix. If you watch it on a mobile device like iPhone, iPad or Android, it works like a choose your own adventure thing. (Unfortunately, this doesn't work on AppleTV...there you get a regular linear episode.)

Here's a quick run-down of the binding features:

Flexi-binding is the default mode. Basically, every bone as some influence over every layer/point in this mode and you control how much influence each bone has by adjusting its strength. You can limit this further by binding selected layer to selected bones using the Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding command.

Point Binding binds selected points to selected bones. You can use this in combination with the above.

Layer Binding rigidly binds a layer to a bone. It's essentially parenting for layers. Note that this mode prevents other bones from influencing any child layers. It's most useful when you have a group of layers that you don't want affected by other bones. For example, you might use it to bind a mouth switch layer containing all your mouth layers and groups to the head bone. Oh, one exception to the 'excludes all other bones' rule: you can have a separate bone layer inside the group and those bones will be able to affect child layers.

Then there's Smooth Joint, which can automatically give you nicely deforming joints. I find it works best with image layers with fairly straight shapes. It doesn't work for everything, but when it does, it looks great. For example, in All Hail King Julien, I used Smooth Joint in Thighsander Plunderhorse's slender arms, but it didn't work well for Norge Grindlefist's triangular shaped arms.

Smart Bones give you something like the Set Driven Key feature found in many 3D animation programs; you can use it to move points based on bones rotation. This feature can be combined with the above binding modes to get exactly the deformations you need when posing the character.

This doesn't nearly cover everything but it should get you started.

I need to look into Flexi-binding more I suppose, If there are any good tutorials that show how to limit it to certain bones (like on elbows)?

Point Binding the elbow points and using an 'elbow' bone to constrain the motion is usually a good way to go. Sorry, I can't seem to find the tutorial Victor made so I threw together a quick example in a still image:



This is the setup described earlier. Flexi-binding is used for the arm except for the two points at the elbow which use Point Binding to bind them to the elbow bone. The elbow's rotation is constrained to rotate half the distance of the armLo bone in either direction. This holds the volume and moves the point in an arc when the arm is bent. What's not shown is that I have two Smart Bone Actions applied the armLo bone that control the curvature of the elbow, making the inside point 'peak' during the bend on either side.

If you don't mind me asking, how did you get the textured look on the animation. Was that done all in Moho?

You can fill shapes and strokes with images using the Image Texture effect in Styles. That's what's mostly going on with Puss and Thighsander. If you don't want to use Image Texture, you can use an image layer and mask it with a shape. You can, of course, deform image layers directly too but using them as fills inside vector shapes gives you animation control over the contour of the shapes. Any of these methods are valid and useful in their own way. You'll have to experiment on your own to see which works best for your situation.

BTW, the elbow bone is useful for many characters but for some character designs, it could actually work against you. In that case, it might be better to animate the points directly. You can still use the Smart Bone Actions to drive the points animation. This is also a good way to add muscular effects to the character like flexing biceps.

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and research! I am actually on a rather complex character animation job for someone.

I think the "fan bone" technique can be a great and useful thing and am about to implement it into a character. Thank you for the example.

Also, I thought Flexi-Bone was sort of the "old" way of doing things and that binding points directly to bones was the "new and improved" way of doing things. I see now that it still has its place. My question is, can some points be controlled with flexi-binding (regions of influence) while others be directly bound to a the same bone? Also, can some points be completely excluded by a bones region of influence. What I usually do now when rigging is remove a bones "oval" region of influence before rigging.

By the way, I've seen your work before. I once did a video review of iPiSoft's motion capture system (maybe you saw it) which led to me doing a promo video for them. One of the examples in the video was your piece.

I am really interested in doing the texture filling for the piece I am working on. I am not ready to investigate that right now, since I am still working on the animation and rigging, however I may have questions about that later! I'll have to go back and check out your reel again. When you say "Thighsander", do you mean the piece that kind of looks like "The Croods"?

Cheers,

Joe.

animas3D wrote:Also, I thought Flexi-Bone was sort of the "old" way of doing things and that binding points directly to bones was the "new and improved" way of doing things.

Flexi-binding is actually newer than point binding, but they're different methods entirely.

Flexi-binding uses bone strength and allows multiple bones to affect points. The result can look soft and organic.

Point Binding doesn't use bone strength at all. It's a rigid binding technique and good if you want only a single bone to affect selected points. The result can look stiff and mechanical.

But sometimes you want something to be partially 'squishy' and partially 'fixed', as in the arm example above. Fortunately, we can combine these methods.

Actually, all of the available bone binding methods have their special uses. The better choice depends on what you need to do.

"Thighsander", do you mean the piece that kind of looks like "The Croods"?

Thighsander Plunderhorse is the lemur character with the sword. She's featured in a 'fantasy' segment in All Hail King Julien, a spin-off series from the Madagascar movies. Sorry, I don't recall which episode this was from but it's easy to look up. The Croods stuff on the reel is from 'Dawn Of The Croods', another DreamWorks/Netflix TV series.

The most recent 'Moho' animations I worked on can be seen in the new Boss Baby show. All of the 2D segments were drawn, rigged and animated using Moho.

Hi Greenlaw,

Sorry for the delayed response!

Thank you for the information on Flexi-binding. I need to try it out. So far I have been using point binding with fan bones. It is okay, but it has its limitations. Are there any good tutorials out there that you know of regarding Flexi-binding?

I am really a big fan of your work. Is there a link where I can see the new Boss Baby Show, particularly the Moho Segments? Is there somewhere I can see that?

Also, is the Thighsander Plunderhouse character on your reel, or somewhere on your website.

Can't get enough of seeing your stuff.

Joe.

animas3D wrote:Thank you for the information on Flexi-binding. I need to try it out. So far I have been using point binding with fan bones. It is okay, but it has its limitations. Are there any good tutorials out there that you know of regarding Flexi-binding?

There was a free training series by Chad Troftgruben on the SM site, and I'm sure the topic is covered there. I believe McCoy Buck covers binding in some of his videos too. Victor Paredes explains some more advanced techniques in his videos. I would do a search on YouTube.

I haven't posted any Moho tutorial videos but I'm working on a 'whole-production' series that's aimed at young children and absolute beginners. Binding methods is only touched on in the first lessons but I'll go into more detail in later lessons. The first lesson should be coming out pretty soon.

I'm also randomly releasing 'Pro-tips' videos in a separate series for advanced users. This series focuses on special cases and techniques, and binding methods will be discussed at times. Look for announcements in this forum and on our website.

Generally speaking, Flex-binding isn't complicated at all. When you start rigging in Moho, Flexi-binding is the default method used, so you're probably already using it. With Flexi-binding, each bone has a strength value and you adjust the values using the Bone Strength tool. A bone's Strength value defines how much influence it has over any artwork that's bound to it. By default, any artwork placed under a bones layer is bound to all bones that have a strength value higher than 0, but you can also Flexi-bind layers to specific to bones. For example, select one or more artwork layers, select the bones you want to bind them to, and then choose Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding. Now that artwork will be affected by ONLY those specified bones and it's still using Flexi-binding.

Basically, every layer is using Flex-binding unless:

1. You apply Layer Binding. This explicitly binds a layer to a specific bone. This also means any layers under a group that has Layer Binding can no longer be affected by other bones. If you need some of these layers to be affected by other bones, then you don't want to use Layer Binding on the parent group. (Exception: You have a bone group inside the layer, then those bones can affect the nested layers. But, normally, I don't recommend this approach because it can complicate the rig unnecessarily.)

2. You used point Binding. This affects only the points you used Point Binding on. Other points in the artwork can continue to use Flex-binding. Naturally, if you used Point Binding on all the points in a layer, then Flexi-binding is no longer in effect for that layer.

3. You've excluded the layer from bones. For Images, disable Warp Using Bones in Layer Settings; for vectors, choose Release Layer and Points from the Bones menu.

I use Point Binding too, but as mentioned earlier, it's a rigid binding system. The reason to use it is if you want selected points to be only affected by a specific bone. You can't weight points between two or more bones with Point Binding...this technique is not meant for that.

If you somehow mess things up, select the layers that are misbehaving, then choose Reset All Bone Rigging. Don't worry...I know this sounds like it will reset everything but if you have layers selected, then it ONLY resets the selected layers. There are other ways to reset binding but this is the fastest and easiest method most of the time.

That's pretty much it. I'll see if I can make a tutorial video that shows this in action but it might be a while. Right now I"m focused on the 'kids' class.

I am really a big fan of your work. Is there a link where I can see the new Boss Baby Show, particularly the Moho Segments? Is there somewhere I can see that?

Also, is the Thighsander Plunderhouse character on your reel, or somewhere on your website.

Thanks!

Boss Baby: Back In Business is currently running on Netflix. The 2D 'fantasy' segments appear throughout the series. (I don't think all the episodes have 2D segments but a lot of them do.) The characters were entirely drawn and animated in Moho Pro and composited in After Effects. This one was challenging because the characters changed costumes in nearly every episode. To address this, I made generic Boss and Timmy rigs that we could bind new costume art to as needed. Sometimes this worked great, but some costumes were a lot more difficult. (You'll know which ones were difficult when you see them.) I think I worked on all the Boss episodes with 2D segments, and everybody on our team worked on this series at one time or another. Victor Paredes worked on some episodes too!

Thighsander is the Lemur with the sword on my reel. This was a recurring 2D segment based on 'fan-fiction' by Clover, one of the characters from All Hail King Julien. To see the entire segment created by me, Chris Gottron, and Ernest Chan, look for The Never Ending Clover, Season 4, Episode 2. From what I recall, we did about 18 scenes for this 2D segment, and part of it appears at the beginning of the episode, and the rest appears near the end.

Hope this helps.

Greenlaw wrote:But you can also Flexi-bind layers to specific to bones.

Thank you for your excellent notes on Flexi-binding. You deserve a special place in heaven. The notion of being able to apply it to specific bones and the fact point binding excludes those points makes all the difference. I feel like I know understand it enough to implement it.

Right now I"m focused on the 'kids' class.

That is great! Maybe you can do some advanced stuff down the line.

Boss Baby: Back In Business is currently running on Netflix. The 2D 'fantasy' segments appear throughout the series and everybody on our team worked on this series at one time or another. Victor Paredes worked on some episodes too! .

Sounds great, I will watch it. I am also a big fan of Victor's work. By the way, did you see that animated Disney-esque Robin hood character on YouTube? That I thought was brilliant rigging and animation.

By the way, I just posted another question in another topic. Thanks again for your help.

Thighsander is the Lemur with the sword on my reel. This was a recurring 2D segment based on 'fan-fiction' by Clover, one of the characters from All Hail King Julien. To see the entire segment created by me, Chris Gottron, and Ernest Chan, look for The Never Ending Clover, Season 4, Episode 2. From what I recall, we did about 18 scenes for this 2D segment, and part of it appears at the beginning of the episode, and the rest appears near the end.

I will. Thanks.

I am working on a Character project right now which the deadline is for Monday. I'll probably be a couple of days late, but so be it. I would like to show you some of it since you have been so helpful here. However, I am not at liberty to post the work publicly (yet). Perhaps I shall send you an email at some point with the link. Is your email available on your website?

Cheers.