Sharp Corners?

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TheMinahBird
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Sharp Corners?

Post by TheMinahBird »

So I've noticed that even if you check off "round caps" Moho will still have smooth corners on it's polygons. Now I know there's a way to sort of trick Moho by adding an extra point to the corner but unless you're going for just a square or rectangle that way isn't going to be of much use.

I'm pretty sure there's no true way and I'm gonna just have to live with it but if there is....does anyone know a way to make harsh/sharp corners on Moho's polygons?



This is a video with visuals and a better explanation I guess, sorry about my mic.
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hayasidist
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by hayasidist »

one approach (but it's a bit of a hassle):

masking group
> original vector - mask this layer
> copy by reference BUT set the shape to no stroke - add invisibly to mask

IOW this will remove the stroke that is outside the path - so you get nice sharp outside corners but at "half stroke width".

A quick test shows it works in principle, but there do seem to be polygons that have rounded internal corners …
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synthsin75
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by synthsin75 »

Afraid not.

Most drawing apps that use what are called "mitered corners" are either raster (bitmap) or they create strokes as vector fills (in Moho terms, like a square in a square...like you would create a shape with a hole).


EDIT: Nice idea, Paul.
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hayasidist
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by hayasidist »

thanks Wes.

a second thought was bubbling under and has now surfaced... two stacked shapes - neither with stroke - the shape that is to be "fill" is above the shape whose fill is to be the stroke of the "combined" shape. The fill colour of the bottom shape is the stroke colour required. The "stroke" shape needs to be expanded to be larger than the "fill" shape. Even though there is the "expand about center" option, you'll probably need to manually shift points on the "stroke" shape to get the desired result. But the whole process could be scriptable.
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synthsin75
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by synthsin75 »

That sounds about like my "like a square in a square...like you would create a shape with a hole."

Yeah, definitely scriptable, at least in a shape tool...not so easy in a freehand tool.
Very irregular shapes would require some curvature adjustments.
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Greenlaw
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by Greenlaw »

Just thinking out loud but, yeah, I'd like to see Moho's vector properties/options expanded to include more features like what's available in Adobe Illustrator. Full support for corners would be good but I'm mostly interested in seeing Centerline/Inside/Outside support for strokes. For example, this would be super useful for making properly fitting 'circle' joint setups.

Image
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synthsin75
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by synthsin75 »

This is a half decent workaround for inside/outside strokes: https://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewto ... 12&t=32043
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Greenlaw
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by Greenlaw »

Thanks for the reminder. I actually forgot about the 'half brush' trick...and I set up the test cases at that link. D'oh!

Of course, this only works if all the artists on a production are using the same custom brushes. Not a huge deal to arrange but it's just one more thing to worry about when building characters for other animators to work with.

There are also stacking and masking tricks I could employ to simulate the look but that gets messy pretty quickly for complex characters.

Still hoping for more appearance options for Strokes though. It would be easier and you can count on everybody using Moho seeing the same results.
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synthsin75
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by synthsin75 »

It sounded like you had forgot your own idea. :wink:

Gather Media is meant to handle extra files, like custom brushes, but yeah, a real solution from the devs would beat any workaround.
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Greenlaw
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by Greenlaw »

synthsin75 wrote:Gather Media is meant to handle extra files, like custom brushes, but yeah, a real solution from the devs would beat any workaround.
Oh, I didn't know it also collected brushes. Thanks for the tip.
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TheMinahBird
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by TheMinahBird »

Thanks so much for the replies! I guess if I want that specific style I'll try it the square within a square way. Or I'll import raster images or an SVG from Illustrator that does the same blob brush/ square within square effect.
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TheMinahBird
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by TheMinahBird »

hayasidist wrote:one approach (but it's a bit of a hassle):

masking group
> original vector - mask this layer
> copy by reference BUT set the shape to no stroke - add invisibly to mask

IOW this will remove the stroke that is outside the path - so you get nice sharp outside corners but at "half stroke width".

A quick test shows it works in principle, but there do seem to be polygons that have rounded internal corners …
Okay I just came up with an idea? It's sort of like... reference shapes?



What if there was a script that could mimic this behavior?
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synthsin75
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by synthsin75 »

You can weld those points together, so you don't have to worry about grabbing both stacked points when you move them.

Nice solution, except it only works for internal corners. For stuff like hair, I usually just extend a point and sharpen its line width.
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hayasidist
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by hayasidist »

TheMinahBird wrote:
Okay I just came up with an idea? It's sort of like... reference shapes?
What if there was a script that could mimic this behavior?
Once upon a time it was possible to have two shapes using the exact same points. But some thought that was too confusing (especially for newcomers) and the feature was removed. Ever since then there's been an infrequent attempt to get that feature back (issue 28553) A scripting solution has been considered http://lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=24422 but I don't think it got anywhere. I think that if we had that feature you could have exactly as you want - and as a BTW that could also address some of the fill / stroke order questions - e.g. fill shape on top of stroke shape for "outside only"
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synthsin75
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Re: Sharp Corners?

Post by synthsin75 »

hayasidist wrote:Once upon a time it was possible to have two shapes using the exact same points. But some thought that was too confusing (especially for newcomers) and the feature was removed. Ever since then there's been an infrequent attempt to get that feature back (issue 28553) A scripting solution has been considered http://lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=24422 but I don't think it got anywhere. I think that if we had that feature you could have exactly as you want - and as a BTW that could also address some of the fill / stroke order questions - e.g. fill shape on top of stroke shape for "outside only"
You can still stack shapes, but you have to use a workaround. What you do is create one shape, select at least two extra points (so Moho thinks it's a different collection of points), and create the second shape. You can then delete the extra points, rinse, and repeat as necessary. You can either find a different set of extra points for each added shape, or make, use, and delete the two extra points each time. This could definitely be scripted...we probably didn't know the workaround 5 years ago. I'll see if I have time to squeeze that in.

This would not work with the above solution, as shown, though, since the point widths would not be separate. And I was wrong about being able to weld, as shown, because that removes the different point width.

But stacking a fill-only shape on a stroked shape would work with the above workaround to give a consistent outside-only stroke...this solves one of Dennis' requests.
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