The forum post linked to by Daxel is a good resource.
IMO, the key to completing a film is to do all your planning upfront. If you do that, execution is much easier and the project is more likely to get finished. Yesterday, I posted some info with an example here:
Need of inspiration. This thread is specifically about creating a project to
learn Moho, but the information applies even when you already know Moho.
Here's the whole film production process in brief...
1. Block out an idea. If you're new to this, keep it simple. A single visual gag or joke is a good place to start. For a longer production, it's good to write a full script but I highly recommend keeping your first project simple. Most of my short projects are very simply written in a couple of pages, with a bare minimum of visual description. (Save the visuals for the storyboard and design steps.)
2. Create a storyboard of the idea. If you don't have characters yet, you'll also want to design them now. It's okay if they're rough but they should at least resemble the final characters.
3. Cut an animatic in a video editor. An animatic is the movie you envision, where each image from your storyboard is cut to an audio track (dialog, SFX and/or music.) When completed, it should play like a real-time slide show of the final movie.
If you look at animatics created by other artists or studios, you'll probably see some limited animation but this is completely
optional. The important thing to figure out in the animatic is scene and action timing, and how long each scene will be. In other words, it's all about timing. When you're done, you should have an accurate frame count for each scene, and you'll use this info when you start animating the scenes in Moho.
(Tip: I like to export each scene as a low-quality jpg sequence with a separate audio track in .aiff or .wav format, and import these to Moho for visual and audio reference. I prefer to use jpg with a separate audio instead of an mp4 file, because the image sequence is frame accurate and streams will over a network. I prefer an uncompressed audio vs an mp3, also for frame accuracy. This is critical if you're planning to animate lip sync.)
The animatic is literally the blue print for your production. If you create it properly, you should have a pretty clear idea for how to proceed with your movie. At this point, it's a matter of creating animated versions of each scene, and then overcutting each 'storyboard' version of the scene in the animatic with the final version. Once you've overcut every scene in your animatic, you have a finished movie.
(Note: if you haven't already looked at the link about, check it out. I posted a link there to my animatic for my short film
Scareplane as an example.)
Obviously, there's more involved with creating a film that I'm glossing over: You still need to know how you will animate the scenes, but that will vary from project to project and your personal workflow. So...
4. If you haven't designed your project yet, now is definitely the time to do it. At this stage, make your character sheets, which are drawings that show the character from multiple views. At minimum, you'll probably want to create 3/4 view, which is the most commonly used angle in animation. You'll also want to design your environment. An efficient way to work is to make a single large (high-res) painting that you can reframe and re-purpose for different camera angles. And, of course, you need designs for any props the characters may interact with. How to approach your designs is up to you...there is no 'standard', but choose a look you like and are comfortable working with.
Since this is your first project, keep the designs simple and something you can create quickly. You can try something more ambitious after you've completed a few 'simple' productions and gained experience from them.
5. Once you have the designs, it's time to create the artwork and start rigging puppets. You might even kill two birds with one stone if you designed for rigging in step 4.
6. With all the environment and prop art completed, and rigs ready to go, you're now ready to assemble your scenes and start animating them. The common workflow is to keep all your environment, props and character setups as separate 'asset' projects, and then either import or reference them into new 'scene' projects. If you reference an asset, you will be able to update all projects that use the asset by updating the original project. There are advantages and disadvantages to this workflow, so you should experiment to see what works best for you and your project.
As mentioned in step 3, you want to create each scene separately and import the renders to your video editor, overcutting each scene in the animatic. You don't need to do this sequentially; I personally find it faster to group similar shots together (shots with the same backgrounds, for example,) and animate them in batches. If the shots are similar, it's usually just a matter of duplicating your scenes to create new ones.
7. After you've replaced all your scenes in the video editor, render your final movie file from the editor.
All done!
Final words: It's not absolutely necessary to follow the above steps in order but, IMO, sticking to a plan is the best way to get a project done quickly so you can move onto bigger and better projects. It's okay to take time experiment and try different approaches or designs during a production but there's a risk that you will get sidetracked into development hell and never complete your project. For example, I have at least two projects that are perpetually unfinished because I didn't follow my own rules. But every project I did complete happened because I completed an animatic and designs up front, and didn't allow myself to get distracted by new design or story ideas after I started animating the project. If I do get a cool new idea during this stage, I'll save that for a future project.
Good luck and I hope this info helps!
