Referencing in Characters

[KungFuDork Wagner]

Hey everyone!
It's been a while, but I'm back in MOHO!
I'm currently working on a series pilot and wanted to reference in our characters so we can start to animate while our designer is still updating details to each character.
I wonder if I'm missing something, because it's not working as I thought it would....my experience is with Maya and Blender. I rigged the character, referenced it into a scene, and animated it. We then updated all the strokes in the main rig file and when I refreshed the rig in the animation file none of the stroke art changed. I then tested to see if I changed the parenting inside the main rig. When I refreshed the rig in the animation file, there were no parenting changes.
Is there a way to get this working? I tried changing some of the refresh settings, but still nothing.
As I write this, I am now wondering if is has something to do with "Unlink shared styles" when initially importing the MOHO object by reference.
I'm using MOHO 14.3 on Windows.

Thanks for any help!

[GCharb]

Have you tried this video from the Lostmarble Moho full course?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32z5lwO ... T&index=37

[Greenlaw]

Hi,

I recently posted information about using Rig References for production work here...

viewtopic.php?t=37555

I describe how we used it for Boss Baby. I based our system on the one described by Jeremy at Cartoon Saloon.

In a nutshell, Rig Referencing works, but the feature only links and updates keyframeable properties, so properties like Bone Strength will not carry over. The animators will need to update that manually, so take notes and share them with your crew.

Note that you can update a rig in two places: In the Layers window, and for specific channels in the Timeline.

Currently, there is an issue with referenced channels getting unintentionally keyframed. This error can be fixed if you catch it immediately. It's a bug that's actually been around for some time, and it caused me to give up on using Rig Referencing unless I REALLY need it. I wrote more about this in the post. LM is aware of this issue so hopefully, a fix will come soon.

The Unlink Shared Styles option is to prevent ID conflicts when using custom Styles. For example, let's say you imported several instances of a cat rig that uses custom styles. Enabling Unlink Shared Styles lets you to customize the custom Styles for each each cat, allowing you to create a variety using the same Style properties. If you don't Unlink the Styles, you'll see conflicts and get weird results when you try to make unique colors for the cats. (I did this the hard way for the Boss Baby cats, seen on my demo reel, by editing the Style IDs in the Moho project files using a text editor. I learned about Unlink Shared Styles only after I mentioned this here in the forums and it was pointed out to me. Derp.)

Hope this helps.

[KungFuDork Wagner]

Thank you both for responding! @GCharb @Greenlaw

It sounds like it's better to stay away from referencing for now. We are on a super tight deadline and don't need any hiccups, like unintentional keyframes. If the series is greenlit then we'll have time to take a deeper dive into using referencing.

Also, thanks for explaining the Unlink Shared Styles. It makes total sense, and I see why it's checked by default now.