Still struggles using binding :(

[mmmaarten]

Ah yes, that makes sense. So under water everything is probably either Flexi-Point binding or (direct) Point binding...

Yup! That's it.

Just tried it again, but I still don't get why this wing (flexi-bound with the wing image) is still deforming the mesh that deforms both body and tail (with flexi point binding) tho. I did 'Release layer' on the mesh that controls body and tail and would expect the influence to drop, but that probably did make them go back to the default flexi-point global binding instead of no binding? Now how can I get rid of the wing deforming the body the right way?

(this is what I mean by overly complicated; everything would be a lot easier when the default binding would be NONE (no binding) and those called 'RESET' and 'RELEASE' would actually release and reset to NONE!!)

[edit] Ah, I think I see it; I also released the points, so the body lost the flexi binding and went back to the GLOBAL flexi-binding again??? (which is also confusing to me; why have a GLOBAL binding?) Have to check --> [Edit] NOPE. that wasn't it. When I re-did the flexi-bind points on the body mesh nothing changed. While I would expect this to fix it, because then the body mesh is NOT layer bound (released) but IS point bound with the body bones only.

So why is this wing deforming the body mesh while it was never bound to it and the body mesh shouldn't be influenced by the 'default global' binding?

[Daxel]

The terminology used by Moho is pretty confusing, I agree. I recomend you to make your own notes to explain with your words what each option actually does instead of relying on Moho's terminology.

If you want the body to not be affected by the wing bone, but you still want the wing bone to affect the wing using flexibinding, then you can use the Use selected bones for flexibinding option. I explain why.

Use selected bones for flexibinding is in my opinion one of the most confusing names in Moho. One may think that this option is used to activate the flexibinding of the selected bones, but that's totally wrong. Every bone is created with flexibinding enabled by default. And this option is actually used to limit flexibinding, not to enable it.

More specifically, what it does is: Use only the selected bones flexibinding on the points of the selected layers. In other words, for the points of the selected layers, you are disabling the flexibinding with the non selected bones.

Now it sounds like what you wanted to do, right? Try selecting the body layers (including meshes) that may be affected by the wing bones, then select the body bones only and click on Use selected bones for flexibinding. The selected layers now should be only affected by the selected bones flexibinding.

I feel like Moho here tried to make it a short name to be suitable for a menu option but ended being too confusing. While making a short name for this option is truly a challenge, adding just the "only" could improve it and I can't help but keep recomending Moho to use popup tips.

Edit: By the way there are a few other ways to disable flexibinding on the points of specific layers like the body layers, but this is the one that allows you to keep using flexibinding not only on the wing but on the body too, just limiting which bones flexibinding will affect which layers.

[mmmaarten]

Thanks for taking the time again Daxel and it was very helpful;

The terminology used by Moho is pretty confusing, I agree. I recomend you to make your own notes to explain with your words what each option actually does instead of relying on Moho's terminology.

Yes, I agree. I do that anyway with every software I use daily because I sometimes don't use software or a feature for a while and it's easy to forget the weird stuff and to not having to figuring out everything all the time and rely on just some step by steps and own docs. So for Moho I made some documentation here already.

If you want the body to not be affected by the wing bone, but you still want the wing bone to affect the wing using flexibinding, then you can use the Use selected bones for flexibinding option. I explain why.
Use selected bones for flexibinding is in my opinion one of the most confusing names in Moho. One may think that this option is used to activate the flexibinding of the selected bones, but that's totally wrong. Every bone is created with flexibinding enabled by default. And this option is actually used to limit flexibinding, not to enable it.
More specifically, what it does is: Use only the selected bones flexibinding on the points of the selected layers. In other words, for the points of the selected layers, you are disabling the flexibinding with the non selected bones.

O... M... G... really?

So even though we flexi point binded all body bones to the Body Warp Layer/mesh we still need to flexi layer bind the same bones to the body mesh just to get rid of the default 'global' flexi-binding? Now honestly, that must be the craziest thing I've ever came across in software and should win a price for most confusing thing ever! (and I've seen some things)... Wow.

Just tried it and it actually did the trick in releasing the influence of the wing bones on the body mesh. OMG

Thanks so very much for this and the good explanation and taking your time to write this. This was really the last thing I would ever think of to solve this issue.

But although the effect of the wing bones on the body images' deformations is gone now I am not sure if what's happening is actually doing what it's supposed to;
- is now the body still controlled by the flexi point binding of the mesh to the body bones?
- or did this overwrite the flexi point binding of the mesh by the flexi layer binding on the mesh? (if that could even make a difference, as under water it seems to do the same thing, but than with a newly created mesh...)
Have to check that to be 100% sure, but I hope it still uses the custom mesh the same way (although I'm sure you already tried that long time ago and it's already tested, so it will probably just work now) and it seems so far like it fixed it.

Thanks a lot for this new insight as crazy as it is to me!!

[Greenlaw]

To add to Daxel's explanation: Moho makes it clear when a layer is using Selective Flexi-binding (my abbreviated term for the lengthy Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding command.) When you select a layer that uses Selective Flexi-binding, Moho will highlight which bones affect that layer.

As mentioned earlier, Selective Flexi-binding is a layer binding property, not a bones property, so applying it does not mean these same bones can't still affect other layers. To ensure all of the bones in a rig affect only explicitly assigned layers, you need to apply Selective Flexi-binding or another binding method to all of the other layers. Otherwise, these other layers are using regular Flexi-binding and are subject to being affected by all bones.

Fortunately, Moho makes it easy to use Selective Flexi-binding to assign a selection of bones to multiple layers all at once. Once you get the workflow down, rigging an entire character this way should only take a few minutes.

Same for Bind Layer; select multiple layers and assign a bone.

Bind Points works with only one layer at a time, but at this granular level of rigging, it's likely you only want to select a few points at a time anyway.

If Selective Flexi-binding still isn't working for you, it may be because some layers or points have been released. Select all the layers you want to bind this way and apply Reset All Bone Rigging to correct this. Once reset, using Selective Flexi-binding should be easy and intuitive: select the layers, select the bones, and apply (Shift+Ctrl+F.) The selected bones will become highlighted when these layers are selected.

Another possible reason, check that the bones have Strength. Bones with zero strength have no effect on layers that use Flexi-binding (regular or selective.)

Hope this helps.

[mmmaarten]

To ensure all of the bones in a rig affect only explicitly assigned layers, you need to apply Selective Flexi-binding or another binding method to all of the other layers. Otherwise, these other layers are using regular Flexi-binding and are subject to being affected by all bones.

I just found this to be not working here tho. The body mesh already had flexi point binding applied and it was still deformed by the wing bones. That's the whole confusing part.

But I'm leaving this now for a minute, because to me this all starts to dazzle and feel quite like:
"Hey, congratulations with your new car! It has 3 steering wheels, when you get in it immediately starts driving, when you want it to stop driving you hit the gas and when you have a passenger you should hit the break to make it stop...
Oh... and the radio's volume you can raise by moving the fader down. Have a good tip!"

I'll pick it up later if I'm ready again. And than I continue making my documentation on it, hopefully to finish it!

[Greenlaw]

I just found this to be not working here tho. The body mesh already had flexi point binding applied and it was still deformed by the wing bones. That's the whole confusing part

This sounds correct to me; if it has regular Flexi-binding applied, it should be affected by all of the bones. If you don't want the body to be affected by the wing bones, then you need to select the body mesh layer, select all the bones selected EXCEPT the wing bones, and apply Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding (Shift+Ctrl+F). This will exclude the wing bones from affecting this layer.

[mmmaarten]

I just found this to be not working here tho. The body mesh already had flexi point binding applied and it was still deformed by the wing bones. That's the whole confusing part

This sounds correct to me. If you don't want the body to be affected by the wing bones, then you need to select the body mesh layer and select all the bones selected EXCEPT the wing bones, and then apply Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding (Shift+Ctrl+F). This will exclude the wing bones from affecting this layer.

You're probably right (but I'm blank at this moment, so it doesn't enter my brain no longer. Need a rest), but doesn't this have the same effect in this case as only selecting the body bones? (I don't see any other image moving when moving the wing bones, except for the body mesh

[Greenlaw]

Hi mmmaarten,

I looked at the recent video, and it appears you haven't applied Use Selected Bone For Flexi-binding because the bones are not highlighting as you select each layer. For example, when you select the wings, the wing bones should look thicker and darker than the unassigned bones.

After you apply Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding for the body, the inverse should happen: when the body mesh layer is selected, all the body bones should become highlighted.

For example:



In this example, I selected the wing bones and the wing layer and applied Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding, and then I selected the body bones and the body layer and applied the command. Notice how the bones get highlighted darker and heavier when I select each layer, indicating which bones will be affecting the selected layer.

Also, note that this is different from the extra heavy thickness seen with Bind Layer.

Hope this helps.

[Greenlaw]

There's nothing special about the file, but if anyone needs to take a look, it's here:

dragon.zip

About the file: this .zip contains the Moho project and a layered PSD. It doesn't contain any custom meshes, but, as explained earlier, Moho autogenerates a mesh internally when you bind an image layer, and this is what receives the Flexi-binding (regular or 'selective'.) It wasn't necessary to create a custom mesh for this example because the result would be similar...but if you do use a custom mesh, be sure to bind the mesh layer and not the image layer.

[Daxel]

O... M... G... really?

So even though we flexi point binded all body bones to the Body Warp Layer/mesh we still need to flexi layer bind the same bones to the body mesh just to get rid of the default 'global' flexi-binding?

Not exactly. I'm not totally sure what do you mean by "flexi point binded all the bones", "flexi layer bind" or "global flexi-binding there, but I have a feeling that you are confusing some terms there because having the flexi-binding of a layer activated can mean two very different things:


1. The Bone - Flexi-bind Layer option is used to make the strength of every bone influence the position, rotation and scale of the selected layer, instead of its points, and it actually disables the flexibinding of the points of the layer so, even if the result may look similar, you can see how when you move the bones the points are not deforming but moving all together along with the layer, and you can see how the cross icon that represents the layer origin moves with the bones. To check if this option is enabled for a layer, select the layer and look at the option to see if there is a checkmark next to it.

2. The Use Selected Bones for Flexibinding option, doesn't actually flexi-bind the selected layers like the Flexi-bind Layer option does, that's why I especified that what it does is to "Use only the selected bones flexibinding on the points of the selected layers".

So one can easily end calling both things "flexi-binding of layers" but one thing is to activate flexibinding of the points of a layer (which is already activated by default on all points of all layers) and other thing is to actually flexi-bind a layer (its origin, let's say) to all the bones.

Note that there is a second kind of layer bind, that is just called Layer Bind and is performed with the Layer Bind Tool, and this one binds the layer (again, not the points, but the actual layer) to a specific bone directly (not using flexibinding, not using the strength but directly to the selected bone, similar to the point binding performed by the Bind Points Tool. I like to call this kind of binding direct binding (direct layer bind and direct point bind vs flexi-bind layer and flexi-bind points)

Just tried it and it actually did the trick in releasing the influence of the wing bones on the body mesh. OMG

Thanks so very much for this and the good explanation and taking your time to write this. This was really the last thing I would ever think of to solve this issue.

I'm glad it helped!

But although the effect of the wing bones on the body images' deformations is gone now I am not sure if what's happening is actually doing what it's supposed to;
- is now the body still controlled by the flexi point binding of the mesh to the body bones?

Exactly, now the points of the mesh will be flexi-binded only to the bones you had selected when you applied "Use selected bones for flexibinding", so in practice you told Moho to stop using the other (non-selected) bones flexibinding on the points of the selected layer (the body mesh).

- or did this overwrite the flexi point binding of the mesh by the flexi layer binding on the mesh? (if that could even make a difference, as under water it seems to do the same thing, but than with a newly created mesh...)

Aaah, I see my feeling was right, I think you didn't understand what "flexi-bind layer" means. I hope I explained myself and you understand now that you didn't want to flexi-bind the layer. Remember to check if it is activated to avoid headaches. Anyway, I wanted to answer to the question so I just tested it and no, "Use selected bones for flexibinding" doesn't disable the "Flexi-bind Layer" option, both can be activated at the same time, something that probably nobody ever did. So again, to avoid headaches, make sure that the Flex-bind Layer option is unchecked. Also, Greenlaw gave you nice tips to see if Use Selected Bones for Flexibiding is activated on a bone or not.

Thanks a lot for this new insight as crazy as it is to me!!

The terminology is confusing, the workflow is not ideal and the lack of popup tips makes everything more dificult, but once you understand what each thing does it is not as crazy as you thought, it's just hard to learn.

[mtbuck24]

There are already a lot of great answers and explanation.

I made a tutorial to explain a little of what is going on under the hood with binding - as best as I could understand at the time (6 years ago). Through much trial and error and very little documentation to understand what's happening - here it is.

[Daxel]

... Selective Flexi-binding (my abbreviated term for the lengthy Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding command.)

I like it!

Lol was it strictly necessary to make the dragon so cute?

[Greenlaw]

Update: Whoops! Earlier, I uploaded a version of the Moho file that doesn't have the angle constraints on the wings. If it matters to anyone, I just now updated the .zip file to include the version shown in the GIF.

[mmmaarten]

@Daxel and @Greenlaw, no, I do think I do understand what 'Flexi bind points' and 'Flexi bind layer' does and I don't confuse the two. Unless there's even more crazy stuff going on. I thought we were already past that station. The issue I (think I) WAS having here (at least that is my conclusion after all of this and by your help and I thought we concluded that by now) is that there was already a 'Flexi bind points' active on SELECTED Body bones on the body mesh (manually set). And it should just prevent to have influence by other bones on that layer because why would we even want that if we already bound it with another method? At least that's what I would say is the most (and only tbh) logical thing. But STILL I needed to also 'Flexi-bind Layer' THE SAME body bones to THE SAME body mesh, ONLY to avoid the unwanted default 'global' binding behaviour (we never want). Which is just completely illogical to me as now there are TWO (!!) binding methods set on the SAME bones and the SAME layers(' points) **if taking the features literally by description**, ONLY to prevent a third 'global' method, which also happens to be flexi point binding, but with some mesh generated automatically and controlled by ALL bones. That's just nuts to me and doesn't make any logical sense to me.

I looked at the recent video, and it appears you haven't applied Use Selected Bone For Flexi-binding because the bones are not highlighting as you select each layer.

Yes, and that would make complete sense to me in what I consider normal logic; because these bones are already Point Binded. By Daxels post I understood that it's even weirder than I thought it would be and that we even need to use 'flexi-layer binding' those bones only to prevent issues from happening, while these were already point binded.

Let me be clear; I'm learning how Moho currently works and spent already days on the binding alone basically. Which to me tbh is nuts for such a simple thing. And looking at many posts here about this I'm clearly not the only one. Hense, there's even a video explaining the pitt falls... (Thanks for that btw McCoy, just watched it). This all just shouldn't be necesary if just 1 thing would be different: No default global binding. Because it makes all logic in reverse and that's never a good thing. That's what I mean by making things overly complicated and confusing.

I am willing to understand how the current system works and try hard, but I'm really hoping somebody from Lost Marble reads along and will clean up some things in the next version and make it logical in the next version, because again; the stacked design choices made over the years make things overly complicated, confusing and time consuming now. Both to learn and to use. And I noticed I'm not the only one thinking that and haven't see nobody calling 1 benefit of the overly complicated implementation of the techniques.

Let's be honest, I think this would be way more logical and easy to understand for everybody, both beginners as well as advanced users:

1 - No binding by default. None. No binding. Fresh start. CLear logic; we don't bind, so nothing is bound. No more inversed logic. Makes complete sense to me and stops all other confusion, time consuming corrections, weeks of learning Moho binding, and overly complex stuff immediately. I think this alone is solving all issues for 80% if not way more already. This would, for one, make a word like 'RESET' also way more clear and trustworthy because it really resets something to NONE. It would also directly prevent all the weird influences by other bones etc. we didn't want in the first place. To me it just doesn't make any sense to keep struggling about what things to turn OFF first to stop the weird influences. We should only have to worry about our OWN bindings and just start from zero. Also for beginners than it's way easy to understand new software, because everybody understands that you have to do something to make it do something and all following steps are just logic actions with no influence on something we didn't want in the first place.
2 - Note by 1: This would also make sure that 'Use selected Bones for FLexi binding' does exactly what it says. Because there is no such thing as a confusing 'global'/ default binding no more.
3 - See 1
4 - See 1
5 - See 1
6 - See 1
7 - Clear and consistant, clearly distinctable, terminalogy used everywhere in UI and documentation that actually tells what it does (no terms like 'rigging' that are vague and nobody knows what it exactly means)
8 - Make things 'checkable': some clear UI stuff to actually see what is being bound to what and with what method so things are less of a black box and easier to learn (although this is way less important when: see 1)
9 - Not 100% sure about this one, because it can perhaps have advanced use cases, but at this point I think it would make sense and prevent issues; only allow either Point binding or Layer binding per layer.
10 - Indepth explanation in the manual about what the binding techniques are and what exactly they do, when to use which etc. ('this is automatically creating a mesh underwater' etc. things like that so we get to understand them). Because new users just don't have all the knowledge of how things were in the old version of Moho and than this whole thing is just one big black box. Which is sad, because I think it's not that hard to explain this, if at least done as: see 1.

I completely understand that when software gets more features software can get bloated and confusing and older users just adapt and don't complain, because they knew the (perhaps already confusing, but less functions) past. But sometimes you just need to step back, be honest and look with fresh eyes and this is clearly one of those things that just aren't intuitive and even very counter intuitive. And it shouldn't be that hard to fix this: just remove the initial binding that nobody uses anyways and is inversing all normal logic (which is even more confusing with the used terms that sometimes are just wrong). Everybody understands the logic that when you don't do nothing, nothing is bound. If you inverse that logic (and not consistantly), like now, you mess up with peoples brains and it makes everything way harder.

It's very complex and counterintuitive now to need to do everything inversed (but not consistantly) from the basic logic the world works with and to get rid of default behaviours first. Defaults that obviously no real user even uses so doesn't serve nobody and is only making things hard to use and understand.

This is no hating whatsoever, this is being honest and straight and not talking around it, like when with friends, to hopefully make somebody reading along to make Moho easier to use and get in the future. Because I like to use Moho for years to come and take it seriously, hope that new users don't have to go through all of this and really hope that Moho gains way more popularity and gets more users. Because these struggles to learn and use such a pretty basic thing in software just shouldn't be there IMO.

Thanks everybody for all the time to help me understand this. Really appreciated!! I'm going to see now if I can change my documentation on this to make it understandable for myself and if everything is completely clear the way it works now (I think I do) so I don't encounter these pitt falls next time.

[Daxel]

@Daxel and @Greenlaw, no, I do think I do understand what 'Flexi bind points' and 'Flexi bind layer' does and I don't confuse the two. Unless there's even more crazy stuff going on.

Each time you mention "Flexi-bind points" I don't know if you are talking about the actual Flexi-bind Points option that is also on the Bone menu.

I thought we were already past that station. The issue I (think I) WAS having here (at least that is my conclusion after all of this and by your help and I thought we concluded that by now) is that there was already a 'Flexi bind points' active on SELECTED Body bones on the body mesh (manually set). And it should just prevent to have influence by other bones on that layer because why would we even want that if we already bound it with another method?

Again, I'm not sure what you mean by "Flexi-bind points" here:

1. If you mean you activated Bone - Use Selected Bones for Flexibinding:
No, you didn't. That's why I told you to do just that. It wasn't active, that's why it wasn't working. As Greenlaw mentioned, you can even see it was not active looking at the aspect of the bones on your video.

2. If you mean you activated Bone - Flexi-bind Points:
That is possible and would explain everything, because that option doesn't do what you just described, you said "there was already a 'Flexi bind points' active on SELECTED Body bones on the body mesh (manually set)" but that is exactly what Use Selected Bones for Flexibinding does, and no other option is able to do it.
What Bone - Flexi-bind Points does is to activate the flexi-binding on the selected points, so those points can be affected by flexibinding in general, not by specific bones. Only the Use Selected Bones for Flexibinding can limit which bones affect the points of which layers, and unless you do it every point with flexibinding activated (and it is activated by default) can be affected by any bone with flexi-binding (and they have flexibinding activated by default). So yeah, if you activated Bone - Flexi-bind Points you changed nothing, it was already activated for those points by default.

At least that's what I would say is the most (and only tbh) logical thing. But STILL I needed to also 'Flexi-bind Layer' THE SAME body bones to THE SAME body mesh, ONLY to avoid the unwanted default 'global' binding behaviour (we never want).

Again I can't be sure if you are talking about the actual Bone - Flexi-bind Layer or you are talking about Bone - Use Selected Bones for Flexi-binding.

1. If you are talking about the real Flexi-bind Layer then you can read my latest post again because that means you don't understand what it does.

2. If you are talking about the Use Selected Bones for Flexibinding then yes, you still needed activate it because it wasn't activated. That's the only thing you had to do from the beggining to achieve what you wanted.

Which is just completely illogical to me as now there are TWO (!!) binding methods set on the SAME bones and the SAME layers(' points) **if taking the features literally by description**, ONLY to prevent a third 'global' method, which also happens to be flexi point binding, but with some mesh generated automatically and controlled by ALL bones. That's just nuts to me and doesn't make any logical sense to me.

I hope it makes more sense now. The terms can be improved for clarity, the system is not very intuitive and we have no tooltips so it is hard to learn but it's not hard to use once learnt.

Every bone affects every point by default because by default Bones are created with strength and points are created with flexi-binding activated. Now you can:

Change or disable the strength of a bone with the Bone Strength Tool.

Disable the flexi-binding (and the direct binding too) on selected points with Release Points.

Change the flexibinding behaviour of a layer from affecting its points to affecting the origin of the layer with Flexi-bind Layer.

Disable the flexi-binding (and the direct binding too) of a layer origin using Release Layer.

Disable both (the binding of points and the binding on layers) with Release layer and points.

Limit which bones flexibinding can affect the points of a layer with Use Selected Bones for Flexibinding.

Substitute the flexibinding of a point to direct point-binding with the Bind Points Tool.

Enable the flexibinding of points again using Flexi-bind Points.