Moho Animation Forum

Hard to describe. I have a potential solution but not a fan of it.
So here's the issue. I've set up a project that has one of the default standard video project settings 1280 x 720. I am creating shapes on a vector layer and adding effects like shading.
The problem is, even with absolute smallest size on settings, like 1 for shading offset etc, the result is still quite large. In some cases they need to be smaller but can't go below 1. Layers are not scaled this is shapes drawn in vector layers at the size needed.

The only solution I can see is to scale the artwork to be HUGE and either zoom the camera or scale the layer. I was curious if this is the way others do it? Shouldn't there be a more "standard" relationship to project size and shapes on layers at 100%?

I'm not seeing this here.
With a circle as small as a 10px stroke (at the mentioned project dimensions and default layer scaling), the shaded shape effect has plenty of fidelity, even at a 5px offset.

heyvern wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 10:10 pm Hard to describe. I have a potential solution but not a fan of it.
So here's the issue. I've set up a project that has one of the default standard video project settings 1280 x 720. I am creating shapes on a vector layer and adding effects like shading.
The problem is, even with absolute smallest size on settings, like 1 for shading offset etc, the result is still quite large. In some cases they need to be smaller but can't go below 1. Layers are not scaled this is shapes drawn in vector layers at the size needed.

just how small (px) are your shapes in the rendered image? (obviously, workspace zoom will change the on-screen pixel dimensions)

I've run a test with a shape that's about 10 px square in the render with shaded effect using a blur and offset both at 1, and that looks as expected - (also OK with the workspace zoomed in to make the shape nearly fill the screen; and as good as expected with the workspace zoomed out so the shape is barely 1 px square)

In such a case I'd just work in double size and go for it. No fretting over effects in objects of 2px size, nobody will notice (my default project size is HD 1920 x 1080).

Thanks for the input. I went with the crazy scaling to get what I wanted.

As I said, this isn't a huge deal, although it does make it more tricky to keep strokes consistent for projects if you have to scale some stuff WAY UP and then scale down the layer to get the effects you need.
I know, I know, I can turn off "scale compensate" in project settings for consistent strokes, but that introduces new issues, sometimes you want the strokes to scale with the camera or layer. This can be worked around.

I just thought that "by default", if a layer is 100% and the project is a standard video size, that should be the MIDDLE ground, starting point for effects properties, so you could scale up or down on attributes or make the attributes based on the size and scale of the layer?

This should be rewritten as a feature request.

In the image below, there is a combination of effects to create shading and reflected light around the edges. I tried to do this using the right drawing, but all the shading attributes set to 1 were too big. It was close but had no adjustability. There are 3 styles/effects on the body of the guitar. The first one does the two shading, light, and shadow. The second style has a halo with no blur, putting the guitar's color back around the edge. Simple trick to create an easy 3D effect. The other problem is the top peg head using the Spots effect to fake some wood grain. Simply couldn't get it small enough to look reasonable.
(Ignore the strings, they are fine. because of the 800% scaling for the left image the strokes in the styles are HUGE. I just didn't change the size for the right sample)

To get the PROPER effect on the left, I simply scaled ALL THE VECTORS up by 800%, and then I scaled down the GROUP LAYER of those vectors to 19%

Now I'm even more confused. With larger shapes, I have to use a 3-4px shading to see it.
Is this imported vectors from another app? I don't understand the results you're getting. Not seeing it here.

DANGER WILL ROBINSON! USER ERROR! USER ERROR USER ERROR!

I apologize profusely. This was pretty much a huge mistake on my part.

Going back and reexamining everything. A few things are going on that made this issue much worse in this specific file.

The guy playing the guitar doesn't have all these shape effects, and the parent bone layer of the figure and the guitar was scaled up 350%. This added some hard-to-figure-out scaling issues with shapes and layers that caused a bunch of problems.

I took the original guitar group layer by itself outside of the parent bone layer and rescaled everything so it's all 100%, and the issue is not nearly as bad as I thought<sigh>
It was FREAKING USER ERROR on my part. It is a wee teeny tiny itty bitty issue in that there isn't much lower I can go on the effects properties, there is some room, and not nearly as bad as it appears in my original file.

I should delete this topic, but I will leave it for now for educational purposes.

This is the same image rendered after RESCALING PROPERLY outside of the parent bone folder that was scaled 350%. Even though there isn't a TON of downsizing available at 100%, it still gives more flexibility than previous.

Ah, glad you got it sorted.

Thank you for putting the blame at the right place! *g*

I can't count the days I had completely fucked up a file to the point that I had to start all over again, but over the years at least I became very fast with that. I could wear a Tshirt saying "User Error" all week long.

I have written and almost submitted a couple of topics this week complaining and griping about something only to realize it was fixed ages ago and I just had to change a setting or slide something over in the interface.

One I did post for about 3 minutes with images and suggestions for fixing it and blah blah blah. Almost IMMEDIATELY after posting it, I went back to moho and discovered the new feature in the interface. I deleted it less than a minute or two after posting. Didn't want to look like an idiot... too much of an idiot. If only I had noticed the parent layer was 350% scaled in this example I would never gone down this rabbit hole. I spent a couple of hours fiddling with it before even thinking about posting here. I honestly thought something got broken in an update.

This happens to me all the time. As soon as I post here I find the answer.

Me too! And it's even worse on Discord, where I can make myself a fool instantly. (German term for this is "sich zum Obst machen")

slowtiger wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 8:46 am sich zum Obst machen

T-SHIRT TIME!!!!!!!