pan/translate a zoomed preview

[p8guitar]

You can zoom in on a preview of the animation, but how do you translate the preview? I only want to take a closer look at the head of a figure, but when I zoom in the head disappears from the screen. there are no scroll bars and it's not possible to translate the picture with the right mouse.

[Franky1966]

You can set the originpoint of your caracter to the head of this figure. Press O to select the Originpoint tool. Then click in the middle of the head en after that you could enlarge the figure. The head now should stay in the center of the view.

[Greenlaw]

Do you mean the rendered Preview Animation video? That file should open in whichever player you have as the default video player application, and, assuming your video player allows you to zoom and pan, you would use it's native controls. (I just checked my default player, MPC-BE, and it doesn't appear to allow panning and zoom unless I change some settings for that.)

BTW, if you want to view the PA video in a different player you have installed, you can access the video file directly by doing a Ctrl-R render and then clicking on the Render Cache button. The video file should exist somewhere in this folder.

Note that Preview Animation always records what's currently visible in the Workspace, so if you zoom in and frame what you want before running the PA command, you should get that view of your project. If you want the render to be framed like the final render from the camera's POV, you need to reset the view first. (BTW, my MQC tool just does that automatically because that's normally what I want to see.)

Also, Preview Animation does not use the resolution you have set in your Project Settings. PA seems to use try to use the resolution of the workspace or smaller area. If you need the actual project resolution, you'll need to use Export Animation or Moho Exporter. You can set this up to use lower quality render settings if you're just doing a quick 'preview' check.

[p8guitar]

No, I mean just the preview you create with ctrl+R. I want to check how the halo effect looks that I use for the beard and hair, therefore I create the preview.

[Greenlaw]

Or do you just mean the view in the workspace. You should be able to pan with the Right mouse, but you can also pan with the Pan tool, or you can press and hold the Space Bar to temporarily to pan with the Left mouse button. (Releasing the Space Bar returns you to the current selected tool.)

[Greenlaw]

Oh, I see. In a Ctrl-R render, I'm able to zoom with the mouse wheel and pan with the right mouse button. Clicking Restore Defaults will reset the view.

If that's not working, you can access the image directly by clicking Render Cache and open the image with your preferred image viewer. (I use XnView.)

[p8guitar]

You can set the originpoint of your caracter to the head of this figure. Press O to select the Originpoint tool. Then click in the middle of the head en after that you could enlarge the figure. The head now should stay in the center of the view.

Unfortunately this doesn't make a difference, the head disappears from the screen.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsNedAPvuG2thUERfqq ... 2?e=TMo2G2

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsNedAPvuG2thULlvvS ... z?e=npcgI0

[Greenlaw]

BTW, be aware that Ctrl-R doesn't always render exactly the same result as the normal final quality renderer, so if it's really critical that you see exact results, you may want to do a single frame render with Moho Exporter or Export Animation. Most of the time, Ctrl-R is pretty close though.

[p8guitar]

Oh, I see. In a Ctrl-R render, I'm able to zoom with the mouse wheel and pan with the right mouse button. Clicking Restore Defaults will reset the view.

If that's not working, you can access the image directly by clicking Render Cache and open the image with your preferred image viewer. (I use XnView.)

Ah, now I know what the render cache does.
Ok, this is a good workaround. But it would be nice if the panning worked on my machine, too... Not sure if this is a bug in Moho or in Windows.

[Greenlaw]

I just saw your examples. Unlike Preview Animation, Ctrl-R does not render what's visible in the Workspace, it renders what the camera is seeing. If you're using Ctrl-R, you need to frame the image using the Track Camera tool so the character's head fills the blue box in the viewport. With the tool selected, move the mouse around to pan on x and y, and use Alt to move in (i.e., dolly move.)

It would be nice if Moho allowed for multiple cameras, this way you could reserve some cameras for test or alternative view renders.

I guess alternatively, you could drop everything inside a group and just scale or move that group closer to camera. Then, just mute the group's transform to disable this test view. This way, you can easily go back to this view if you need it again by unmuting the channels. (Note: If you use this technique, you'll want to disable Render Muted Channels in the render options.)

[p8guitar]

Using the camera to get a zoomed in render makes very much sense for my current workflow, that's a good idea. It will need some time (or a lot... ) until I'm finished with the head , and then I can just reset the camera.
For the alternative: how do I mute the transform?

[Greenlaw]

Click on the green dot in the channel you wish to mute. When the dot is red, the keyframes in that channel are ignored. To unmute the channel, click on the red dot and it will become green again.

If you don't see a dot, it's because you need to create a keyframe first.

[Greenlaw]

If you're in the development stage, you might consider just dropping your entire character in a Group. Then you can position and scale this group as needed without affecting the relative scale and position of the contents of that group. To reset, select the group and click the Reset buttons for Transform Layer. With this approach, you don't have to mess with the camera or muting.

You could even make keyframes in the timeline for different 'views' (for either the group or camera methods) so you can check your progress anytime. You can blow away these keys after your done with the rigging stage.

Hope this helps.

[p8guitar]

So many options!
I think I like your last idea best. With this method there is the least chance for me to mess something up...

[Greenlaw]

Yeah, so many ways to do the same thing. The trick is knowing when to use which one.