Moho Animation Forum

This happened out of the blue.

I'm using the freehand tool. All was well. Now I draw a simple line and there are LOTS of point along the line. They get a bit farther apart when I draw fast.
I have the point reduction set to 25% like I aways do. The smoothing is on the second notch, like always.

I've tried setting it to 0 and 100. No change.
This happened once before and and don't remember how I fixed it. I might have just left it and moved on to another place. Not sure.

Also, after I draw the line it shifts down a few pixels. Same shape, just moved down a bit.

This doesn't happen when I'm drawing a larger shape. It just happens after the main shape is drawn and I want to add some line to the shape. Those lines have the problem.

I try not to draw too quickly with Freehand. Freehand works by first drawing a bitmap line and then autotracing it as a vector line. This process can get less stable/precise when drawing too quickly.

Freehand can also bog down when there are too many points in a shape. When this happens, I might break the shape into smaller shapes, run Simplify, or do both.

Hi Greenlaw.

Let me clarify.

I just did an experiment and made an inclosed shape with the Freehand tool and Multistroke fill. This time it was a combination of things. Parts of it had tons of points. Then there's be a section with only a couple of points and a space between them.

And I'm not drawing fast. I only mentioned speed because I saw that when I speed up, the points get further apart but still way too many.

This happened to me once before and I don't know what I did to fix it or if it fixed itself.

And also, no matter what I draw when I lift the mouse, the whole thing I just drew shifts down a few pixels.

I realize this might be one of those things that's impossible to resolve in the forum. But I thought just in case...

BTW, I just notice the point reduction tool. But it had no effect in reducing the point.

None of this happened for the entire scene before. Weird.

One other thing.

It seems to only be happening on the layers that are in the same folder. But I took the layers out and it still happened. All the other layers work fine.

Oh, okay...that is weird.

Is this on frame 0 or on an animation frame? If it's on an animation frame, I wonder if the drawing is being influenced by bones, mesh warp, or an action. What happens when it's pulled completely out of the Bones layer?

Interesting.

The problem layers were in a folder inside a bone layer. I tried taking them out of the bone layer and they worked fine!

Never would have thought of that. I did try moving the folder before, but it was still inside a bone layer higher up.

I don't know if that's a bug or just me not understanding something. But it worked, so I'm happy again.

Thanks, Greenlaw.

Oh, cool! I'm glad you were able to track down the problem.

Tip: If you're using Link Bones, make sure all layers are also using Link Bones or another discrete binding method, such as Bind Layer or Bind Points. This will ensure you won't see unintended deformation from bones. I'm not sure that's what's going on, just more info that might help.

NealF2 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2026 7:02 am The problem layers were in a folder inside a bone layer. I tried taking them out of the bone layer and they worked fine!

Just curious - is the bone layer scaled down?

The bone layer wasn't scaled. But I did have everything zoomed in a bit.

Yeah, that shouldn't affect things.

I do have another tip: If you do want to scale down or otherwise transform the rig, don't do it to the Bones layer. Instead, place the rig in a Group and transform the group. Keeping layer transforms separate from the bones layer prevents potential offset issues and offers more flexibility because you can give the Group layer its own origin to transform from.

Often, I'll nest the rig inside multiple Group layers, giving each its own origin, so I can use different transform points depending on how the character needs to move. (This is where I wish Moho had null or locator objects, like most other 2D/3D animation and compositing programs.)

Hope this helps.