Where Moho goes from here...

[Nichod]

Thought it might be interesting to have a discussion thread on Moho. Not a feature request necessarily. But what we'd like to see in our dream version of Moho. I'm not looking for work around's just looking for a friendly discussion on wants and needs. Do I expect all of these wishes to be fullfilled? Nope. But its nice to talk about them

What I'd like to see:

a. A raster to vector converter intergrated into Moho. So we wouldn't have to worry about importing an .ai file or an .eps file we could just convert our scanned drawings directly into vectors for manipulation in Moho.

b. Multiply audio tracks so we can limit post work as much as possible. As well as allow us to sync the animation and audio more easily. Try syncing a voice over, sound effects, and having everything work with the beat of the music and you'll see the advantages multiply audio tracks could have.

c. Direct to .psd export with layers and alphas intact. Exports as a sequence. GIF export also could be useful

d. A simple 2D physics system. Collision detection within particle system.

e. More powerful gradient system. A TOON shader.

f. A sketch mode where we can draw in the work area in a natural media way, and then click a button to convert it to vector

g. Brushes as fills. We can have outlines as brushes, let us have the same ability with fills.

h. I posted a thread about slider control via scripting in the scripting forum. But I'll post this here as well. I think a sort of morph target control slider would be a very powerful and useful feature. Think about if you want to dilate a pupil repeatedly in an animation. Yes you could scale it at the necessary keyframes, but what if you also have to have the character walking, animate a ball bouncing with the character, etc etc. It would be nice to just have a slider control bar which could simplify repetitive tasks for quick keyframing.


Brian

[CrAzY Dan]

Nichod,

I'd like your idea about the sketch mode and the TOON shader. These would be great in moho.

Great idea for a post topic by the way!

CrAzY Dan

[F.M.]

I. Color picker.

J. Gradient fill multiple color selection.

K. Blue/Green screen removal button. NOT!

[myles]

h. I posted a thread about slider control via scripting in the scripting forum. But I'll post this here as well. I think a sort of morph target control slider would be a very powerful and useful feature. Think about if you want to dilate a pupil repeatedly in an animation. Yes you could scale it at the necessary keyframes, but what if you also have to have the character walking, animate a ball bouncing with the character, etc etc. It would be nice to just have a slider control bar which could simplify repetitive tasks for quick keyframing.

I was thinking about this on the weekend, and I wonder if this could be combined with the current actions set-up?

How I was visualising it:
Move through the action - the timeline current time marker would act as Brian's slider. When you come to the frame you want to insert, a new "insert frame" button would insert a copy of the action frame values into the current layer's main timeline (whether or not it is a keyframe in the action), rather than a copy of the entire set of action keyframes.

Perhaps a small or split preview window of the action rather than jumping between the action and the main timeline?

That way you could have an action going from pupil closed extremely small, going to extremely open (to take Brian's example), then insert a keyframe of any stage in between.

Single actions could thus be used for libraries of single-frame poses as well as their current use for single-frame poses and multi-frame animation sequences.

Of course, I am not familiar with the internal workings of Moho, so I don't know if this would be a feasible implementation or not, but I thought I'd throw it into the growing quagmire of feature requests.

Regards, Myles.

[Nichod]

Very well explained Myles. Exactly how I would think it should work.

Brian

[cribble]

i don't exactly like the idea of this "sketch mode." I thought the whole idea of MoHo was to be able to everything in 1 environment. Also MoHo is very good at being able to create something and get animating in seconds. And having sketch mode will kind of take away alot of important animation time "sketching" out stuff, when really, you could just do it within the original environment.

Also something else to think about, you've just created something lovely and very natural looking within this "Sketch mode," then all you are going to do after is convert it over to vector... what's the point?

Better Gradient controls would be nice and frame export (possibly more import options) to whatever (like photoshop, illustrator etc).

[Nichod]

Cribble you aren't understanding the concept of sketch mode. It would be an automatic vectorizing of sketches. Sometimes its easier to sketch out an character or a tree with something less refined then the freehand tool. This wouldn't be a whole other environment but a tool that while it is clicked functions similar to a pencil and is raster based.

Essentially you would sketch your character, exit from the tool and voila Moho would automatically create the vector image from the sketch that was done IN Moho. You could then rig a bone layer to the vector image to animate it. I suppose for those that don't scan in images they've created and then trace them wouldn't see the benefit. A good substitute I suppose would be an intergrate raster-vector converter. Though I think the sketch function would be very useful.

Brian

[cribble]

hmmm, i do see where you are coming from now. I thought it was a totally different working environment. I guess it would be useful, but i don't like the whole "raster-vector" idea. Those programs already take their time converting rasters into vectors, i'm still thinking its going to, somewhat, slow down the work flow.

It might even be a good idea to keep the raster graphics... and use it in a cut out style. Maybe an option to choose whether to convert to vector or not.