Character Rig using Images?

[DanielG1939]

Ok so I used to use an old 2d rigging software that wasn't really good at making Cartoons and stuff so I decided to move to MOHO Studio since it supported rig based animation. Though when I used the other software to make a character I made a bunch of png images and such to create the character (Torsos, heads, arms, legs, hands, etc.) and I was wondering if I could use these images to make a full character rig using the smart bones feature in moho and such. I was also wondering if I could use images for things like head turn bones and mouth bones (You know the bones that when moved can change the way a certain thing looks) I would like to know if I can cause I kinda don't wanna put all the images I made to waste.

[synthsin75]

Yes, you should be able to use those same images to rig with bones in Moho. If you want to use smart bones, you'll have to use smart meshes to warp the images, but that is also the only way to use such images to do limited head turns, etc..

But be ready for a significant learning curve, especially if completely new to Moho. Moho is unique, and smart bones and meshes are pretty advanced stuff.

[chucky]

Yes, make sure their are plenty of layers and use a Mesh layer ( controlled by a smart bone) that in turn controls the image for a smart image.



Watch this speed rig to the end.

[DanielG1939]

Ok, Thanks! Im fine with using limited head turning and such but thanks for letting me know it's possible as I had never found any info on image based rigs anywhere!

[Greenlaw]

Sure you can.

When you bind a PNG image layer, Moho automatically generates a mesh so you can deform it. If you need more control or higher resolution, Moho lets you create your own mesh using SmartWarp. I recommend using Use Selected Bones For Flex-binding. This feature allows you to isolate the Flexi-binding effect to specific body parts. Depending on the design, Smooth Joint binding can work well with images too, even with textures and without separating the artwork at the joint--the limb just needs to be drawn straight and with reasonably constant thickness. (I used Smooth Joint in the Puss In Boots rig seen in the interactive episode on Netflix.)

If you designed your PNG art with separate upper and lower limb parts, you can just use Layer binding since deformation won't be needed.

I tend to use a combination of techniques for image based puppets. The main body parts can be bitmap but I'll usually use vector for the eyes, mouth, and hands, so I can animate a little more 'life' into those parts. The All Hail King Julien segments on my 2017 demo reel are good examples to look at for this.

If you use masks and slide the bitmap textures inside the mask, you can get some nice pseudo 3D looks. The Big Guy test animation at near the end of my 2019 reel is a good example of that technique.

Hope this gives you some ideas for how you can use Moho. Good luck!

(Note: Sorry, I had to edit the above a few times; I was a little sloppy the first time I posted this.)

[Greenlaw]

Oh, speaking of Chucky's work, check out his Morphibian rig from the Moho 13 content. I was admiring that one the other day and trying to understand how he painted the skin texture. The brush work and colors are quite beautiful. The project has pretty awesome animation too!

[DanielG1939]

This is all good information, Thanks! I'll look into layer binding since my character's arm is made up of an upper arm, a forearm, and a hand. The hand is fine but the lower arm was kind of of showing behind the upper arm near the elbow joint when the arm was bent into a V shape. I have since fixed it to where its barely noticeable, but still there. and another problem I'm having is the shoulder where when the arm is raised the arm seems to disconnect and move above the torso, though I don't really know if its the bone or the images themselves causing the problem.

[Greenlaw]

The way to work with separate upper and lower limbs is to make sure the bone's joint is centered in the drawing's joint region, and it helps if the joint region is perfectly circular. The way I deal with this is to make a circle layer in Photoshop to help me 'round out' the joint using the circle's edge. Then, to find the center of the circle, I simply scale a copy of the circle down to a point. When I import the artwork, I include the circle and point to use as a joint reference for the rotating bone's pivot position. If the bones are not used to deform the artwork, the joint should swivel perfectly.

You might also try Smooth Joint, which creates a similar effect using a different technique. This depends on your character design, but Smooth Joint will create a 'virtual' circle at the joint, and it works on a single piece of art. It's a little easier to work with because it's not as fussy about finding the exact joint placement.

To see if this method works better for you, you will need to merge the upper and lower limb bitmap artwork, save that to a new file, and then apply Smooth Joint with the two limb bones. I would test this with a single limb first and play around with it till you understand how it works.

One limitation with Smooth Joint is that it only works between bone pairs, not a chain. However, a while back, Victor Paredes came up with a clever masking trick that makes it appear you are using multiple Smooth Joints in a chain on a single but duplicated piece of art. I think a search in these forums will turn up his demonstration. But try this only after you understand the basics of how Smooth Joint works.

Hope this helps.

[DanielG1939]

Thanks For the Response! I'm glad I got help on this rig as some things have been really tricky getting fixed! Though I have no more questions for right now, I'll be sure to come back with a new post in case I have more. Thanks for the help!