The return of MotionArtist!

[richinri]

To me the coolest thing about Motion Artist is html5 export.

[foundmarble]

Does anyone have a comprehensive list of the items that MotionArtist will import from Anime Studio?
Example: Bone animation, Layer Animation, etc.

MASKING?

I have looked everywhere I cannot find a list of items.

Thanks!

[Bossco]

Does anybody know of any project based tutorials for this software.

I know that there are a few videos by Smith Micro for MotionArtist but they're nowhere near as well planned as the tutorials for Anime Studio.

They tend to jump into showing what you can do, and how cool it is, but they are just little snippets which don't provide a thorough overview of a project based example and how to actually create a project from start to finish.

They could shift loads of copies of this software, but for that they really do need to get some decent videos out there.

[Ronbo]

I agree, it would be great if they made some more-detailed, project-based tutorials. Maybe Chad could produce some for MotionArtist?

Have you checked out any of their MA webinars? http://my.smithmicro.com/webinars/motionartist/

[exile]

Last post 4 years ago. Smith Micro offered MotionArtist as a Thanksgiving deal (2018) for a higher price than I paid for it back then.

Should we call it "The Return of the Walking Dead?" I started the program and checked the link on "community". Error 404, page does not seem to exist. Same with tutorials, same with the html scripts mentioned in a tutorial that used to be available from Smith Micro.

So why not de-install? Well, the html5 export seems to work well, some interactivity is possible, motion assist is a nice feature. No support for Moho files, but png sequences can be loaded and played with a few simple tricks. Combining stills and animated sequences would be useful for a lot of people, if the interactivity could be improved a bit and images could be resized more easily. Too bad nothing is happening except aggressive marketing.

[hayasidist]

Totally agree -- there is SO much that MA could do if it had a refresh! I have used it as an alternative to Powerpoint for business presentations but it falls short in a few areas - so it's not a natural go-to option for such uses. I have logged a few enhancement requests but the silence from SM on updating this software is deafening! I've not touched it for a good couple of years now.

[jahnocli]

Zombieware -- dead, but still walking...

[hayasidist]

Zombieware -- dead, but still walking...

yeah!!

[exile]

Totally agree -- there is SO much that MA could do if it had a refresh! I have used it as an alternative to Powerpoint for business presentations but it falls short in a few areas - so it's not a natural go-to option for such uses. I have logged a few enhancement requests but the silence from SM on updating this software is deafening! I've not touched it for a good couple of years now.

Glad to find out I'm not the only one who regrets this state of affairs. Html5 is a long way from being obsolete. I'll take back one criticism - the scripts for version 1.3 are at a different address, they can be found by loading the html file of an exported project into Editor (Windows) and copying the links. Too complex for the likes of me to tweak.

Some of the webinars and tutorials are abysmal, the poor reception by the Anime Studio community was less the fault of the program than the presentations. The manual is ok, however. I'm taking a second look at Motion Artist in spite of the zombie status.

[exile]

It looks like the time spent with Motion Artist was wasted. I contacted customer support about creating responsive html5 projects that are playable on all devices and screens. Motion Artist html5 export is set to a fixed size in pixels. My request was this: If it is possible to create flexible pages with MA, could they supply the code?

I got an answer: Responsive pages are created by the code on the html page. Yeah, thanks. It would be nice if someone could provide an example,

Last time I created an interactive presentation with short animated sequences, I used the game software Construct2, free edition. The pages it created could be resized to fit any device as a default feature of html5 export. Now I've discovered a new option called GDevelop 5, which is open source and free. It's quite similar to Construct 2 (Windows only), but GDevelop 5 runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Like Construct2, it can be used for interactive presentations that are not really games. The first test export proved that it adjusts to any size browser window. It's harder to use than Motion Artist, but is about the user friendliest Game software out there.

Just to show what I mean by an interactive presentation, here is a link to a quiz I made with Construct2 a couple of years ago. The free version allows you 100 events, this quiz took about 30. http://paths2english.eu/constructexport2/index.html

[herbert123]

Last time I created an interactive presentation with short animated sequences, I used the game software Construct2, free edition. The pages it created could be resized to fit any device as a default feature of html5 export. Now I've discovered a new option called GDevelop 5, which is open source and free. It's quite similar to Construct 2 (Windows only), but GDevelop 5 runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Like Construct2, it can be used for interactive presentations that are not really games. The first test export proved that it adjusts to any size browser window. It's harder to use than Motion Artist, but is about the user friendliest Game software out there.

Just to show what I mean by an interactive presentation, here is a link to a quiz I made with Construct2 a couple of years ago. The free version allows you 100 events, this quiz took about 30. http://paths2english.eu/constructexport2/index.html

I prefer Godot myself, because Godot has a built-in animation editor, and the newest alpha even sports a proper animation curve editor! I made a quick example for you (took around 30 minutes, please don't mind the simple animations). No scripting was involved. Just simple timelines with keys to control everything. The window automatically adjusts to the browser window width up to a max of 1920px width. The assets are pretty heavy and meant for high resolution, but it demonstrates how smooth things run in the browser. Well, you do need a reasonable video card.

http://www.wizzydev.com/pepper/
(will work in Chrome, Firefox, and Opera Safari ought to work too. Edge doesn't work.)



The beautiful thing about Godot's timelines is that each object can have its own timeline(s) or you could just put one main timeline in the main scene, and control everything from there. And animations can be played automatically in the editor itself WHILE YOU ARE EDITING! All in real-time! Timelines can also fire up other functions and timelines, so the possibilities are endless, and far FAR more controllable and flexible than Construct (which I used in the past, but grew out of it) - it even outperforms a lot of dedicated animation software in this sense.

Animations react to the hierarchy in a scene, which means that wheels parented to a car object will animate properly when the parent object is moving (in the example scene the dragonduck, and its timeline, pestering Saffron the red haired witch is parented to Saffron, which has her own timeline. So wherever Saffron moves, the duck will follow). Godot is scene based, and scenes may consist of any other number of sub-scenes, which may consist of other sub-scenes as well. Create a character in an isolated scene, animate, and place in the main scene. It's a very powerful way of working, and simplifies the workflow when doing a larger more complex project.

Best of all, Godot is completely free. Exporting your work to the various platforms (web, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS) is a doddle: install the exporter, and export. That's it. No fiddling around with html to app converting. And all native exporters as well.

And it gets better: IK bone animation is also directly supported in the editor. Place a 2d cutout character, add bones, and start animating.

Godot works with both visual and regular scripting. For simple stuff the visual script editor allows the user to quickly add simple button actions in the scene (such as move to the next scene, or hide a scene part, start an animation, etc.

The 3.1 Alpha 2 version includes the nice animation curves and other new animation options (such as mesh deformation!).

Get it here:
https://godotengine.org/article/dev-sna ... -1-alpha-2
Direct link to executable and exporter templates:
https://downloads.tuxfamily.org/godotengine/3.1/alpha2/

If I find some time next week I will prepare a short video tutorial how I created that example.

Try it out, it blows Construct and GDevelop out of the water (at the expense of more complicated (visual) scripting.

PS 3d is fully supported, and 2d and 3d may be combined in the same scene too. Export an animation from Blender, import, done. Or animate the 3d objects in Godot.

[exile]

Herbert,
You are the greatest, but you're making my life difficult! You've grown out of Construct and GDevelop, I have yet to grow into them. Still, if you want to play guitar, start on a guitar and not a ukulele (bad example, since a uke can be an exquisite instrument in its own right).

Your scene was a lot like what Motion Artist is supposed to do. I resized the screen and it readjusted perfectly, as hoped. I take it there is more to come on wizzydev.com, that it's your upcoming website? Too bad Edge has broken compatibility with html5, Microsoft lives up to all our prejudices again.

Would love to see a tutorial, hopefully not for an audience of one. Following the online docs, I've got as far as putting a "label" node onto the page and changing the text.

The only question I have about animation is this: in GDevelop and Construct, you import frames, set the conditions for the animation to start, adjust the speed and that's it. So both of those programs work well with a png sequence exported from Anime Studio/Moho. Is that possible in Godot, or does it require you to use its own internal animation editor?

Anyway, it looks good for those who can master it.

[herbert123]

Yes, aside from regular animation timelines Godot has an object/node called "AnimatedSprite", which works exactly like that. And the beauty is that these can be freely combined with other timelines.

For example, a timeline with a graph editor could control the overall movement of a character, while three AnimatedSprite nodes could be parented to the same character which animate the eyes and mouth. Then add a particle system and parent to the character's feet, and control that particle system with a new timeline to add dust being thrown into the air when the character walks.

The node-based hierarchical approach in Godot is quite something to behold, but it takes a little time to wrap one's head around the possibilities. Animation paths are supported as well, and multiple animation timelines can be controlled with motion blending too!

Anyway, while Godot's interface and workflow seems somewhat daunting the first time you encounter it, as it turns out it's actually very, very easy to do high-level animation in it and set up your scenes. And the scripting, once you get used to the signals (events) system is simple to use as well.

What takes a little more time is finding your way around the GUI and understanding the basic workflow. It's not hard, but it is different compared to other game engines. The scene system is very similar to Flash, though: if you've ever worked in Flash you know that movieclips can contain other sub-movieclips, each with its own timeline, all running independently and parented to each-other.

Scenes in Godot are quite similar, but offer even more freedom: each scene may contain as many timelines as you like, and each timeline as many tracks that you require. Then when you realize Godot not only does 2d, but also full 3d and the output quality is on par with other modern 3d engines, and 2d and 3d can be combined any way you want...

Well, it can be overwhelming, because it seems to have limitless animation possibilities. But with that power comes more complexity, of course. What is amazing is that Godot is completely free and open source.

I hope I'll be able to do a tutorial on Godot for animators before the end of the year, and otherwise in January.

[exile]

Well, it can be overwhelming, because it seems to have limitless animation possibilities. But with that power comes more complexity, of course. What is amazing is that Godot is completely free and open source.

I hope I'll be able to do a tutorial on Godot for animators before the end of the year, and otherwise in January.

Thanks again, Herbert,
You will have to decide what level audience you are aiming at. My level is a basic working knowledge of Moho but not of game authoring software, and let's say I flunked out of night school when it comes to Blender. You might want to refer people like me to the existing online documentation. In any case, I'm looking forward to viewing whatever you come up with.
In the meantime, enjoy the holiday season and all the best to you (and whoever else reads this).

Steve

[herbert123]

My idea is to aim it at animators who've never touched Godot before. There are already loads of good developer video tutorials for Godot online, so I think it would be interesting to show Godot as a tool to create animated content with simple interactivity, such animated comics or simple interactive children's books.