Issues with Body/Head Turn

[sp_filmviewers]

Hello! I am wondering if anyone can help me.

In my progression with Moho, I am trying to learn how to create a head and body turn for characters I already have created from previous projects (they are mostly in 3/4 views).

I've tried to follow tutorials on YouTube on how to go about this process to some success, but now I have run into a problem where I have a character's head rigged/animated with the actions to turn, but when I put that head onto a body and try set that up for a body turn, it doesn't apply it to the body turn smart bone.

At present the head is a bone layer with the actions applied to it within the character body rig with the actions applied for it to turn - I feel like this really shouldn't have to be this way, considering I've seen plenty of tutorials where the character has all sorts of dials on the main timeline.

I don't know if this is partly due to the character models originally drawn in an older version of Moho that its not working, or I'm missing something completely obvious - and of course I hope this makes sense to someone to assist in my predicament!

I can attach pictures for further clarification if needs be, I'm signing off for the day today so won't respond til the morning now. Thanks in advance!

[synthsin75]

What version of Moho? v13 has a bug with actions that can keep new actions from working. If so, you probably want to check with Smith Micro about getting a copy/serial for v12.

If that's not the issue, we might need to see the file. If you can't share it publicly, you can PM me a link to it. Everything I get privately is kept private.

[Greenlaw]

Hi,

I’m not sure which rigging approach you’ve taken, but I typically place the entire head in its own group, the body in its own group, and each whole limb in their separate groups. All of these groups are then placed under a single Bone group with the skeleton bones and Smart Bone Dials. This way, I can do complete head turns and body turns independently of each other, and I can do almost all of my animation from a single Bone layer.

The most basic way to do head turns is to simply have sub-groups inside a switch layer. So, for example, a Head switch layer may contain the sub-groups for Front, Front3QtrL, SideL, Back3QtrL, Back...and so forth, for eight separate views. These sub-groups can each have separate switch layers for the mouth, eyes, anything that has discreet drawings you plan to flip through. When you set up your turn control, it will switch between the different head views. And you even can have a control to flip through mouth shapes or eye shapes, and keep them in sync for each head view. All of these controls can reside in the same layer with the skeleton.

The limb groups are usually left out of the turn controls because, in my experience, when their position is fully controlled by a turning SBD, I wind up counter-animating against the predefined positions from the Action, which becomes a real nuisance. For me, it’s easier, and it even looks better, when I manually slide the shoulder or hip bones to exactly where I need them to be for a given pose.

I hope the above description isn’t confusing. It will be easier to show how this works in a video, and I’ll be posting some free Moho Basics videos pretty soon (and advanced ones a little later.) I’ll make an announcement about the series elsewhere in this forum.

Additional note: When I’m making a turning rig for one of the TV shows I work on, I set up the actions a bit differently to achieve smoother looking turns, but that’s way too much to explain in a forum post. However, the 'basic' method described above is a straightforward approach, and it’s a good way to learn before you delve into more advanced turning techniques. (I’ll cover some of these advanced techniques later in the upcoming video series.)

[synthsin75]

The limb groups are usually left out of the turn controls because, in my experience, when their position is fully controlled by a turning SBD, I wind up counter-animating against the predefined positions from the Action, which becomes a real nuisance. For me, it’s easier, and it even looks better, when I manually slide the shoulder or hip bones to exactly where I need them for a given pose.

I tend to do a parented set of root bones for every limb. One to animate in a smart bone turn, and the other to animate manually. That way my joints always return to the same neutral position at any angle when I reset the manual bone.

[Greenlaw]

That's actually a good idea for turns using Switch layers!

I used to do something similar to off-set the eye bones when the head switches to the side view and there's a big jump in location for the eye art. But nowadays, for eye bones anyway, I just use 'external' eye bones with constraints...this way, the offset isn't required, since the second set of eye bones will already be in position. (Handy trick I learned from Victor. You can see this setup in some of his past Moho content.)

But I'll have to try your suggestion for limbs the next time I do a body setup like that.

[synthsin75]

I used to do something similar to off-set the eye bones when the head switches to the side view and there's a big jump in location for the eye art. But nowadays, for eye bones anyway, I just use 'external' eye bones with constraints...this way, the offset isn't required, since the second set of eye bones will already be in position. (Handy trick I learned from Victor. You can see this setup in some of his past Moho content.)

Yeah, that's a good technique for switching between views, rather than smooth turns to profile.