Moho Forum

I just filed a bug report, but it looks like one of the more recent updates has pretty much screwed up how reference layers work. Let me explain.

When creating smart actions for body turns, I usually don't use animated layer order, because that would lock the layer order, but instead I create reference layers of the arms and hands and all the layers that need to go above and below the torso. Then I'd put all the original layers behind the torso, and all the reference layers above. Now I can create the illusion of layers moving behind or in front other layers by switching the visibility of the reference layers on and off via smart actions. So far so good.

Until recently, I could simply import such a rig into my scene as a reference. This would allow me to update the rig in one place, and simply re-sync the reference and re-render the animation if needed. This is not possible anymore, because when I import a rig that itself contains references layers as a reference, then ALL reference layers somehow now point to the original layers in the external file. Let me illustrate this.

Here's the original rig:
Now if I create a reference of the top layer of the original rig (either inside a project, or by importing it as a reference from an external file), this is what I get:
Whereas what I got in the past was this (which was correct):
Since the visibility of the reference layers in the original rig is different from their source layers (so to enable the illusion of layers moving above and below), synching those layers in the referenced object to the original instead of the reference layers breaks the body turn animation. Can anybody confirm this? If this is really a bug, then I'm seriously screwed, because all my rigs will be useless until this is fixed…

Hmm. There seems to be yet another bug. When I reorder layers in a rig manually in the timeline, then create a reference of that rig, the layer reordering in the reference is all screwed up…

I'm trying to replicate those problems. Moho 13.5.5, W10.

I can replicate the first one:

I imported one rig as reference with File - Import - Moho Object, Checking "import as reference". Inside this referenced rig, I animated one of the layers that had a reference, but the reference didn't update. As you say, it seems to be tracking the original layer of the original rig, and not the original layer inside the reference rig.

I also tested the reference inside the same project, and the same problem appears. This is in my opinion the most serious inconvenience, as you can work with a copy instead of importing by reference but this second workflow is used very frecuently for character interaction and I don't see a workarround right now. Maybe deleting those reference layers inside the reference rig and creating them again from the referenced rig to see if they track the correct one. Just tested that, and surprisingly the newly created reference from the reference rig will again reference the original layer of the original rig. Yep we need a hotfix for this.


I cannot replicate the second one:

I created a simple test file with 4 vector layers inside a folder with layer order activated. I animated the order of the 4 layers. I created a different project and imported this test file as a reference. The layer ordering was the same as the original. Maybe you did something different but with those steps layer order gets referenced correctly here.

Thanks for checking it out. I'm finding ever new bugs relating to reference layers, so it appears that one of the latest versions must have screwed up the handling of reference layers horribly. The problem is always if you reference a rig that already has reference layers inside it. Here are all the problems I found

• Creating references of rigs that have reference layers in them, always creates references to the first original layers instead of the reference layer in the original rig

• This can mess up even shape hierarchy/ordering inside a reference layer that is supposedly created from a reference layer

• The layer ordering of reference layers that are supposed to be connected to other reference layers in the original (but aren't really) tends to be messed up. Synching all to the original doesn't help there either

So it seems that creating reference layers of original layers works fine, but creating a reference to a complex rig that itself has reference layers in it will mess things up and the references to references are always screwed up and refer back only to the one original layer. Furthermore such layers will also partially mostly or whatever ignore things like layer hierarchy and at times even screw up shape ordering inside the layer. What a hot mess. I can't really use Moho until that is fixed. And I can't download an older version that wasn't screwed up (must've been before 13.5.4 or so - stupid me didn't keep the installer for the old versions).

I also uninstalled previous versions because the latest ones seemed to be mostly bugfixing and they were doing a great job with the crashes and all. This looks like an unfortunate regression, maybe trying to fix some bug. Hopefully now that it's reported they may fix it soon.

Yeah, I really felt that the latest version in regards to stability was rock solid. Not one single crash over the last three days.
Before, I always cringed when using the undo function, because Moho would randomly crash on undo, all of the time.
That's why I'm shocked that a severe bug in such an often used function somehow went through QA. I really think Lost Marble should have a section on their website to download older versions of the software for such cases.

arglborps wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 2:29 pm I really think Lost Marble should have a section on their website to download older versions of the software for such cases.

https://www.lostmarble.net/MohoInstaller/

This is the same behaviors as v12.5, and v13.5 development was a direct offshoot of that build.

synthsin75 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 4:42 pm This is the same behaviors as v12.5, and v13.5 development was a direct offshoot of that build.

oh really? then it probably was already reported. Maybe it's a hard one to solve or they had other priorities but I hope they manage to fix it.

synthsin75 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 4:42 pm This is the same behaviors as v12.5, and v13.5 development was a direct offshoot of that build.

No it isn't. I created Phungus & Mowld episode 1 in 12.5 and all my rigs originated in that version. Episode 2 was done in Lost Marble's update to version 13 which was based on 12.5, I forgot whether it was 13.2 or something. That was when I updated all my rigs to stop using layer reordering and use visibility of reference layers instead. All of that worked just fine. So problems just cropped up now that I started animating episode 3 in the latest version 13.5.5.

Script writing, work, life, kids, and creating BG art usually takes some time, so I often won't touch Moho for 4 months or longer until I start animating again, so I'll be skipping some incremental updates and find bugs fairly late.

arglborps wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 6:46 pm
I forgot whether it was 13.2 or something. That was when I updated all my rigs to stop using layer reordering and use visibility of reference layers instead. All of that worked just fine. So problems just cropped up now that I started animating episode 3 in the latest version 13.5.5.

If I understood correctly, this doesn't necessarily contradict what Wes said. 12.5 could have had this problem, then the old team could have fixed it for the 13 version. Because 13.5 didn't continue with that development brach (v13) but the v12 brach, those fixes could have been lost as the bitmap drawing tools.

I don't know what to tell you. Version 12.5, which I still have installed, behaves exactly the same when importing a file with internal references by reference.

Version 13.2 was not Lost Marble, as there was no 13.2. There was either a 13.0.2, based on SM's v13, or 13.5.2, which was LM, based on 12.5. So there's going to be a significant difference between, 13.0.2 and 13.5.2.

arglborps wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 6:46 pm Episode 2 was done in Lost Marble's update to version 13 which was based on 12.5, I forgot whether it was 13.2 or something.

FYI, Lost Marble's 12.5-based version of Moho started with 13.5, not 13.2.

Moho 13.2 was part of the original 13.x cycle from Smith-Micro's last dev team, and this version's code diverges from Lost Marble's reboot of Moho. Is it possible that something broke when you brought your 12.5 projects into 13.2?

Just a thought: For my own Moho 13.x (Smith Micro) projects migrated to Moho 13.5 (Lost Marble,) I first exported the projects from Moho 13.x (SM) to Moho 12.5 (SM but with Mike's team,) and I checked the validity of the rigs there before importing the 'new' 12.5 versions to 13.5 (LM). Otherwise, I had no confidence that the files would work properly in Moho 13.5.x (LM). This was because Moho 13.x (SM) broke the Smart Actions system and may have introduced other problems. I'm wondering if maybe 13.2 (SM) broke Moho's referencing system too?

Well, then it must have been 13.5 or 13.5.2 that I used. I never used the Smith Micro version 13.x for production, because it was unstable and generally problematic. I first used 12.5 and switched then directly to Lost Marble's 13.5 version. So, no, it's not Smith Micro's v13 that caused any of this, because I never used it. The last version I used for episode 2 then must've been 13.5.1 or 13.5.2 and there I had no problems with reference layers.

And I'm having the same problems with freshly created scenes with rigs created from scratch all in 13.5.5.

SimplSam wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 3:02 pm

arglborps wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 2:29 pm I really think Lost Marble should have a section on their website to download older versions of the software for such cases.

https://www.lostmarble.net/MohoInstaller/

Thanks, but a quick question regarding this domain:

While the top domain lostmarble.net forwards to moho.lostmarble.com, when doing a quick whois lookup on lostmarble.net, it appears that the domain is registered via Namecheap, while lostmarble.com is registered via Networksolutions. Is the lostmarble.net domain legit and operated by Lostmarble LLC?