Moho Forum

Greenlaw wrote: ↑Thu Jan 26, 2023 8:10 pm BTW, there's a script by MultRush that prevents a lot of problems that can arise when repurposing rigs and rig parts called MR Transform Rig Tool.

Greenlaw wrote: ↑Thu Jan 26, 2023 8:10 pm I sometimes work from a few template files for certain character types and modify them as needed. This saves me from doing common tasks like building a standard skeleton with controls, and naming layers, bones, actions, etc. This allows me to focus more on creating the artwork and figuring out any unique features for this specific character.

Most of the time, though, I just work from scratch. After you've done this for awhile, it's not that big a deal.

That said, in some productions where the character designs are similar between characters, I have repurposed rigs and mainly just replaced the artwork in the rigs. If the character artwork is mostly Moho vectors, it's probably going to require re-doing the Actions that move points. If it's bitmap art, the mesh layers will probably need to be remade. Either way the existing Smart Bones should be fine and I only need to change the keyframes for the artwork animation. Other Smart Bones in the rig mainly just push bones around for turns and such, and may need repositioning if the design calls for it.

Unless the character design is radically different from the rig's original character art, I haven't seen any problems with doing this, but here are a couple of things to be aware of:

1. Avoid unparenting Smart Bones as this can break the Actions. What usually happens it that unparenting the bones will change to rotation of bones and create an offset that can lock up or otherwise break your controls. If you need to move the bones, instead of unparenting you should reparent to bone that has the same rotation and hierarchy...will will preserve the original rotations and keep the actions from breaking. If you happen to break the Actions like this, it's usually easier to clear the keys and reset them rather than trying to fix the errors.

2. If you use the same custom Styles but want to change their appearance, you will want to import the rig and enable the Unlink Shared Styles option. Otherwise, you're going to run into a custom Styles conflict when the two characters are used in the same project file.

These things are especially important when you're moving parts from one rig to another.

BTW, there's a script by MultRush that prevents a lot of problems that can arise when repurposing rigs and rig parts called MR Transform Rig Tool. I haven't used it in production yet but it's very promising in the tests I've done. Based on what I'm seeing so far, I really wish I had this script when I worked on the original Boss Baby series. We had to make complete costume changes for the rigs for nearly every episode!

scottmayhew wrote: ↑Fri Aug 30, 2024 6:54 pm In other posts youve mentioned ID tags...

Greenlaw wrote: ↑Fri Aug 30, 2024 7:40 pm

scottmayhew wrote: ↑Fri Aug 30, 2024 6:54 pm In other posts youve mentioned ID tags...

Hi, scottmayhew,

I think my post in your other thread answers some of your question, but regarding Layer IDs...

In Moho 12.5 and ealier, layer IDs could be problematic when using layered PSD files. This is because whenever I created new layers, or merged or deleted layers in the paint program, the layer IDs would change and break the layer connections in Moho.

But ever since Moho 13.5, Moho has been giving preference to layer names to identity layers, and using layer IDs as a secondary identifier. So, if you're diligent about clearly naming layers in your paint program, everything should be fine. Moho 14.2, continued to improve on layered PSD support, and I use layered PSD most of the time now for bitmap art in Moho.

Tip: Use short, clear identifiers when naming paint program layers, and keep the naming convention consistent throughout your production. It's still possible to break the layered PSD system, but this happens mainly through carelessness.

Hope this helps.