Creating transparency background in Moho 12

[paulcopeland]

Hello from Australia.

I hope you will forgive me asking a simple question.

I have not used Moho for a couple of years now, and need to output a sequence with a transparent background.

I have Moho 12 64 Bit Windows.

I have seen some answers, but can't for the life of me work out how to do this.

Could some kind soul please assist in very simply explanations for an oldie

The sequence is 479 frames at 29.97 FPS

Thank you for your assistance, and best wishes of course.

Paul.

[jahnocli]

On the face of it, this is a simple answer - transparent backgrounds are the default in Moho. All you have to do is ensure that you choose an output format which has an alpha component (like GIF or a 32-bit PNG sequence, for example). It's better to output a picture sequence and then composite it in a video editor afterwards. Now you have some choices to make. The GIF format is Indexed colour. You can choose any palette up to a maximum of 256 colours, one of which can be transparent. Unfortunately, this means no anti-aliased outlines with a transparent background. In GIF files, transparency is an on/off function -- there are no in-between states. You can still have anti-aliased areas inside your characters/backgrounds/props, just not in the outlines. Otherwise, to use a technical term, they will suck.
A PNG file sequence gives you anti-aliased outlines on transparent backgrounds, but personally, I have found that you have to be careful in your choices of colours for outlines and backgrounds. Fr instance, I have had problems in the past with red anti-aliased outlines on green backgrounds...
Try some things out - there are also video output options which include transparency, if that's what floats your boat. Good luck.
HTH
J

[DK]

jahnocli is correct.
a .png sequence is what we supply most production houses here in Australia when we are delivering animated elements. It is a flexible format that allows them to combine the sequence the way they wish with whatever footage the want. Also a .png sequence gives them the ability to stretch start/end frames in their editing software etc

Cheers
D.K

[Greenlaw]

Mainly posting to support the above info. Here's some additional info that might help:

When we need to output with transparency from Moho, we always use PNG Image Sequence. There are technical and practical reasons it's better to output an image sequence over a movie file from pretty much any animation programs, 2D or 3D...I've described these in past posts so I won't list them here. When we do use Moho to output a movie file, it's usually just for a quick test or preview, not the final animation.

When we need a high-quality movie file with or without transparency, we don't use Moho because Moho's movie output capability is pretty limited. IMO, it's better to take the image sequence from Moho and compile it using a program that provides more user control over the movie format and codec settings. In my case, I like to use compositing programs like After Effects, Fusion, or Nuke, or the video editing program Vegas Pro, but almost any compositing or video editing program should be able to do this. Some video conversion utilities may work well too.

If you really must use Moho to output a movie file with transparency, it's probably best to use PNG image sequence inside a .mov or .avi container.

Because of the high number of frames involved in your project, I still recommend rendering an image sequence first. This way, if Moho crashes, you can pick up the render from where it crashed, or when you need to change only a small section of the animation, you can overwrite only that section and not have to re-render the entire thing. Then, when you have all your frames ready, load the image sequence into a new Moho project and export a movie file from this project. (Ok, I guess I just listed a couple of reasons anyway.)

Good luck with your animation!

[paulcopeland]

Thank you everyone for your great advice.

I have learnt a lot