Question about animation whithout drawing

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Kuanima
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Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by Kuanima »

Hello,

i have a question about animation on Moho. Is it possible to animate whithout drawing? Because i have designers and animator but some animators are not designers. It is why i ask that, can we import a drawing and after animate ?

Thank in advance and sorry for my english i'm french.
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hayasidist
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by hayasidist »

Kuanima wrote:Hello,
i have a question about animation on Moho. Is it possible to animate whithout drawing? Because i have designers and animator but some animators are not designers. It is why i ask that, can we import a drawing and after animate ?
Thank in advance and sorry for my english i'm french.
oui - c'est très possible. Exactement "comment" dépend alors de la façon dont vous souhaitez créer le dessin - peut-être en utilisant photoshop ou similaire, ou avec un logiciel de graphisme vectoriel tel que Moho ou en utilisant SVG.

yes - no real problems. The detail of "how to" then depends on how you want to create the drawing. This might be in a bit-map program such as Photoshop or as vectors - e.g. SVG or in moho itself.

(bienvenue sur le forum -- et désolé pour mon mauvais français - je ne suis qu'un rosbif :D )
Kuanima
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by Kuanima »

thanks for the translation and the reply !

Well, perfect, so i imagine that the designers draw on photoshop in several positions and next we export and import in Moho. :)

Thank again.
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hayasidist
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by hayasidist »

Moho will import PS files either as a composite image or as individual layers. Once moho has the link to the PS file, updates to the PS file will automatically arrive in Moho. So you don't need to "export" from PS as such.

A simple example: the side view of a truck with a driver. Have separate layers for: each wheel, the truck body and the driver. Import those layers as "individual" layers into moho. You can rotate the wheels and have the driver and truck body "bounce" up and down as the truck moves.

Now imagine a door on the truck - have that as a separate layer (and, of course, you'll need the "inside" of the truck on a background layer) - and that can be rotated on its hinge to open it.

All those movements can be achieved by transforming / translating (=moving) the layers themselves. Or you can add bones to the top level folder and use the bones to make the movements. This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2g1o3a3tCw is mostly done with PS assets bone-rigged and animated in moho.

Also, you can mix native moho layers with PS files.

You also have "smart mesh" which allows you to overlay an image with a mesh of triangles and move the control points on the mesh (either manually or using bones) to warp the image.

This: https://youtu.be/sh49MdMZlWw is a PS image warped using smart mesh with different (moho) overlay layers to give the colour transitions plus a couple of key wheat ears in native moho...


The "design" job is to know what needs to move - often that means putting it on a separate layer - and how it needs to interact with other layers. For example: the side view of a forearm and (palm down) hand - the hand needs to wave up and down (pivot at the wrist) and then has to change between palm down and palm up (rotate at the wrist). Exactly how you need to design the layers in the PS file will depend on exactly how you want the animation to look.
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Greenlaw
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by Greenlaw »

Lately, most of the artwork we've been using in Moho is drawn inside Moho because we need the flexibility to edit and animate the artwork directly. Recent examples can be seen in the Boss Baby TV series on Netflix.

But in our earlier Moho work, as seen in later episodes of The Croods, King Julien, and Puss In Boots, almost all of the artwork was painted in Photoshop. This was convenient because the art directors had very specific 'handcrafted' looks in mind, and it was easier to get these looks by adapting the actual design artwork or painting new elements in Photoshop using the same brushes the designers were using.

Gradually, we started using more vector elements in Moho because our animation requirements grew more sophisticated, and working with only imported bitmaps became too restrictive.

The nice thing with Moho is that you're not limited to using only one or the other approach. You can mix vectors and bitmaps where it makes sense. For example, through texture fills in a vector layer, or masking between vectors and image layers, or using bitmaps for stroke textures. I often use these mixed techniques because I found it faster to animate and render this way than if I worked purely with bitmapped images, and the result can still looks like 'handcrafted' bitmap art.
Kuanima
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by Kuanima »

Thank your for your reply !

So i think it is better to my designers to learn Moho, it is more fast.
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hayasidist
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by hayasidist »

yeah - this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFcyaKehHxc uses moho for the shapes and PS bitmaps for textures. What I do is make the object's shape mid grey (x808080); have it as the masking layer then use blend mode overlay on the masked image texture which is created in PS. Adding shadow / highlight is then done by adding shapes (or layers) on the base - le.g. x909090 for highlight; xA0A0A0 for shadow; xA08080 for a pink-ish tint...)
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Greenlaw
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by Greenlaw »

Kuanima wrote:Thank your for your reply !

So i think it is better to my designers to learn Moho, it is more fast.
It could get faster, but that may depend on the designs and expectations. Regardless of where you are in the process, knowing how to draw directly inside Moho certainly offers more rigging and animation choices, and that hopefully leads to better animations. Knowing how to draw in Moho as well as Photoshop (or any paint program) is probably more important for the artist doing the actual rigging, but it's certainly helpful if the character designer understands what's 'easy' and what might be 'difficult' for the rigger to work with. (If the designer is also the rigger, then all the better.)

Without going into specifics, my own situation may offer some insight: where I work, I currently do most of the Moho rigging for our team, and I try to anticipate how the animators will work with my rigs. I try to set up the controls and artwork in a rig so the animators can modify or troubleshoot it themselves with as little difficulty as possible. I also document every rig I build and take the time to educate the animator on anything new or unusual I've done in the setup (there's always something.) My goal is to get everybody on the team up to speed in rigging so I can have more time to animate too.

Obviously, communication is important. I may do a lot of drawing but I'm rarely responsible for designs...that's what the art department does. If I get something from them that will be too difficult to rig and animate in Moho, I explain it to my supervisor, then he talks to the art department, and hopefully, we come up with a compromise that everybody is happy with it.
Last edited by Greenlaw on Sun May 13, 2018 7:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kuanima
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by Kuanima »

Okay thank for your complete answer, i appreciate. I understand how we can work now and how the communication can be important mostly.
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Greenlaw
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by Greenlaw »

I posted a new demo reel this past weekend that features an example of a Moho 'hybrid' character, that is a character created using Moho vector shapes combined with image textures from other programs. You can see the reel on my website here:

My 'Puss In Boots Interactive' Demo Reel

This footage was created for the interactive episode of Puss In Boots that appeared on Netflix a year ago.

Normally, the 2D segments in Puss In Boots were completely painted in Photoshop with limited animation added using After Effects, but for the Puss In Book episode, we wanted Puss to be fully animated during the 'choice point' scenes. Enter Moho.

To create the 18 'choice point' animations, I drew Puss mostly inside Moho's vector layers for maximum flexibility, and filled the shapes with hand painted textures using the Image Texture effect. The vector artwork was stroked using a Brush pattern option, which was then textured using the same Image Texture effect. For some parts of Puss, I used hand-painted image layers as masks for the textures. You can see this in his arms, and the reason for this approach was so I could use Smooth Joint binding in the elbows, which works surprisingly well with texture fills. (You can see how this works whenever Puss bends or spins his arms throughout the footage...he does that a lot.)

Alternatively, you can fill Moho vector shapes using images layers and masking, or by using mesh warp layers to mask and deform image layers. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these methods, which I'll cover in an upcoming tutorial series.

BTW, the book paintings were also animated using Moho but I just made simple rigs to animate Photoshop art provided by the art department. These were set up a little more like 'traditional' Puss 2D segments, only using Moho instead of AE to animate them.

(Note: If you're interested in experiencing the interactive version of 'Puss In Book', it's available only on certain digital devices. For example, the UI works on iPhone and iPad, but not on AppleTV...AppleTV has the shorter non-interactive version. If you get a chance, watch the interactive version...it's much better.)

I may have mentioned this but that old HLF trailer I made a few years ago is almost entirely vectors with texture fills. I wanted a literal 'paper cut out' look for that project but I didn't want to spend a long time painting lots of bitmap elements. Making simple 'brush' stroked vector shapes with a single texture fill made it easy to create many variations very quickly...plus, being vectors, everything was easily deformable and morphable inside Moho. You can watch the HLF trailer on my website too.

Hope these examples give you a few ideas for your crew to think about.
Last edited by Greenlaw on Thu May 17, 2018 3:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
chucky
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by chucky »

So great Dennis,( I feel Like calling you Doctor) pity we didn't get more of his face.
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Greenlaw
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by Greenlaw »

That's okay, I've been called worse. :)

I occasionally get called 'Doctor' as a nickname, but D.R. is really just my first and second initials and I always use it in screen credits.

Thanks for the comments about Puss. Re: his face, it was decided early on to avoid lipsync because there were a lot of these scenes and I was the only one animating them. But along the way, I stuck in a few turnarounds to keep it fun and interesting for me. When it happens, I think it's a little funnier because it's unexpected.
chucky
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by chucky »

Well he looks very nice, those textures are beaut … I did realise that they were initials Doc btw, :mrgreen: Don't make me think about it too hard though I'll start wondering what the R stands for. Reinhold… re Renfield, um Reginald, Rasmus, Rory, Roland. I think the first one. :mrgreen:
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Greenlaw
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Re: Question about animation whithout drawing

Post by Greenlaw »

Thanks, Chucky!

At the time, Puss was the most complicated rig I attempted with Moho, and I believe the result helped open a new door or two for our team. I should mention that the Puss rig was inspired by Victor's Woolbuddies rigging demo video. As a matter of fact, Victor was personally helpful by answering a few questions and sharing his experiences with his project.

I'm sure I thanked Victor back then, but I'll thank him again right now. :)
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