Arch animation in Moho - bezier controls on stage

[lucasfranca]

Recently I went to make an animation of hands on a stage, and to improve the animation I made arc animations: a total suffering in Moho! I can see the path with a bone target, ok. But to control the curvature, using a bezier transition is very difficult! To control a curve we have to thoroughly combine the x and y curves,
besides not having very good control over their speed.

Is there an easier way that I'm not aware of? A script perhaps?



It would be great if we could use the bezier for stage control, like we have in AE, and a speed control such as AE and harmony.

Wow, if Moho implemented this I would jump for joy! haha!

This is the animation:

[synthsin75]

Well, curvature of the path is controlled by keyframe interpolation, and speed by keyframe distance on the timeline.

With the transform layer tool, you can grab and move (add keyframes to) the path, by holding ctrl. Sounds like you want to see this added to the transform bone tool as well.

[Daxel]

Well, curvature of the path is controlled by keyframe interpolation, and speed by keyframe distance on the timeline.

With the transform layer tool, you can grab and move (add keyframes to) the path, by holding ctrl. Sounds like you want to see this added to the transform bone tool as well.

You can actually do that with the transform bone tool too. You just click on the path without holding Ctrl. I think that is what I would have done in this case, but it's true that if we want an ark with a linear keyframe interpolation, the path comes out very linear too so we have to add a lot of keyframes to the path to make it rounded, like each frame if you are animating on 1's.

I'm surprised this is the first time I see that influence of keyframe interpolation type on the path curvature and is a little bit confusing, as they are two completely different things. And I see it happens with vector points too even if you can't see the path, but you can see it with onion skin. Is that something that other programs do? At first I find it confusing and like we can't control it separately, but I guess it makes animating less tedious most of the time. Do other programs work like that?

[synthsin75]

Well, curvature of the path is controlled by keyframe interpolation, and speed by keyframe distance on the timeline.

With the transform layer tool, you can grab and move (add keyframes to) the path, by holding ctrl. Sounds like you want to see this added to the transform bone tool as well.

You can actually do that with the transform bone tool too. You just click on the path without holding Ctrl. I think that is what I would have done in this case, but it's true that if we want an ark with a linear keyframe interpolation, the path comes out very linear too so we have to add a lot of keyframes to the path to make it rounded, like each frame if you are animating on 1's.

I'm surprised this is the first time I see that influence of keyframe interpolation type on the path curvature and is a little bit confusing, as they are two completely different things. And I see it happens with vector points too even if you can't see the path, but you can see it with onion skin. Is that something that other programs do? At first I find it confusing and like we can't control it separately, but I guess it makes animating less tedious most of the time. Do other programs work like that?

I thought it should work with bones, but I tried a pin bone to verify. Oddly, it doesn't work for pin bones.

Interpolation and the curve of the path should work the same in other programs, at least under the hood. They make dress up the UI and interaction with the interpolation though. Interpolation is how things animate between keyframes, both in speed (whether constant or changing, like using ease-in) and in space (which is the path).

[Daxel]

I thought it should work with bones, but I tried a pin bone to verify. Oddly, it doesn't work for pin bones.

Yep that's strange. Pin bones are frecuently used for translation.

Interpolation and the curve of the path should work the same in other programs, at least under the hood. They make dress up the UI and interaction with the interpolation though. Interpolation is how things animate between keyframes, both in speed (whether constant or changing, like using ease-in) and in space (which is the path).

I will have to play more with it to wrap my head arround it. For example, with smooth interpolation of a translation, the animation created between the first keyframe and the second is altered by the third keyframe, and that is something I wasn't aware of. Imagine if you have those two first smooth keyframes of the translation of a ball and you start animating some connected detail of that ball like the lines of the ball rotating, with frame by frame, but then you make a third translation keyframe of the ball to continue it's movement and that changes the direction of the already animated path's curvature between the keyframes 1 and 2 so your frame by frame drawings are suddenly all slightly wrong positioned. I never thought about that. The more you know...

[synthsin75]

I thought it should work with bones, but I tried a pin bone to verify. Oddly, it doesn't work for pin bones.

Yep that's strange. Pin bones are frecuently used for translation.

Might be able to be modded to work like other bones, but yeah, seems like an oversight.

Interpolation and the curve of the path should work the same in other programs, at least under the hood. They make dress up the UI and interaction with the interpolation though. Interpolation is how things animate between keyframes, both in speed (whether constant or changing, like using ease-in) and in space (which is the path).

I will have to play more with it to wrap my head arround it. For example, with smooth interpolation of a translation, the animation created between the first keyframe and the second is altered by the third keyframe, and that is something I wasn't aware of. Imagine if you have those two first smooth keyframes of the translation of a ball and you start animating some connected detail of that ball like the lines of the ball rotating, with frame by frame, but then you make a third translation keyframe of the ball to continue it's movement and that changes the direction of the already animated path's curvature between the keyframes 1 and 2 so your frame by frame drawings are suddenly all slightly wrong positioned. I never thought about that. The more you know...

I imagine that situation is what bone binding or follow path is for...to keep elements attached to each other.

The thing about smooth interpolation is that it is smoothing the motions from before and after. Otherwise, when you add the next keyframe, the motion from the previous won't be smooth.

[chucky]

Yep, it's a good idea/
I've seen and used this type of animation adjustment elsewhere.
Not remembering exactly, might have been maya or hash animation master ( RIP).

Even though its not visible on the workspace, I find using beziers in the motion graph works well, but what would be great would be if that was reflected interactively in the workspace, just like you have shown Lucas.

[formxshape]

yes! we need this feature! I don't want my easing as the method to adjust that path of travel.
That's madness.

It should work like it does in After Effects.

[DigitalDesignDude]

Yes! I agree as well, having something like After Effects's method would be very helpful for creating arc or curved movement animations.

Using easing to accomplish this would be a lot more work and less straight forward than After Effects's method described earlier.

It's also worth noting the ability to adjust the animation path is common place in other animation programs like Adobe Animate by using Motion Guides or motion tweens, Toon Boom Harmony with its Animation Motion path control feature, and After Effects with its method that was discussed earlier.

So I certianly hope a similar feature comes to Moho someday too.