how to make hands and arm move over and back of the body

[sparten]

Hey and hello,

I need to make the hand and arm move over and back of the character body
how can I do this ?

[Maestral]

Hi!
You should check this >thread<

[Greenlaw]

As described in that other thread, use Animated Layer Order. This is easier when you've grouped your parts logically (ArmL, ArmR, Torso, etc.) Color coding the groups also helps (i.e., red for right side limbs, green for left side limbs, etc.)

Sometimes I'll set up a Smart Bone Action (SBA) to manage the stacking order, but I do that less these days because it's easy enough to manually move a group up and down in the Layer Window.

Also, using Animated Layer Order in a Smart Bone Action does present potential layer problems if you later need to add/remove layers (this may lead to conflicts in the SBA,) or when you need manually animate the stacking order (the SBA will always takes precedence.)

Alternatively, you can use a Smart Bone Action to simulate moving the limb in depths by animating the visibility of duplicate limb layers that exist at different layer depths. Another option is to use the SBA to animate a slide mask along the limbs to reveal different parts of the limb at different depths. (Stroke Exposure works well for this latter approach.) Either of these approaches offfer the same user interaction and visual result, and avoids the conflict that can occur from an SBA driven Animated Layer Order.

There's more detailed info about this in the thread Maestral referenced. I'll add this topic to my 'videos to make' list.

[sparten]

Hi!
You should check this >thread<

thanks . this link very helpful for me and the issue now solved

[sparten]

As described in that other thread, use Animated Layer Order. This is easier when you've grouped your parts logically (ArmL, ArmR, Torso, etc.) Color coding the groups also helps (i.e., red for right side limbs, green for left side limbs, etc.)

Sometimes I'll set up a Smart Bone Action (SBA) to manage the stacking order, but I do that less these days because it's easy enough to manually move a group up and down in the Layer Window.

Also, using Animated Layer Order in a Smart Bone Action does present potential layer problems if you later need to add/remove layers (this may lead to conflicts in the SBA,) or when you need manually animate the stacking order (the SBA will always takes precedence.)

Alternatively, you can use a Smart Bone Action to simulate moving the limb in depths by animating the visibility of duplicate limb layers that exist at different layer depths. Another option is to use the SBA to animate a slide mask along the limbs to reveal different parts of the limb at different depths. (Stroke Exposure works well for this latter approach.) Either of these approaches offfer the same user interaction and visual result, and avoids the conflict that can occur from an SBA driven Animated Layer Order.

There's more detailed info about this in the thread Maestral referenced. I'll add this topic to my 'videos to make' list.

thanks greenlaw for this options and I know you are very helpful for people in a forum so Im beginner in animation and I want to get perfect in animating cartoon characters . can you advice me which tutorial to buy to be professional in animating the characters ?

[Greenlaw]

Update: A correction was made to the shortcut described below. Thanks to Synthsin75 for catching that.

Here's another tip:

If you're going to manually animate the layer order, there are a few tricks for quickly selecting the body parts in the Layers Window.

1. Alt+Shift and Right Click on a limb in the workspace. This selects the group containing the artwork and reveals it in the Layers Window, even when the rig's folders are fully collapsed in the Layers windows. (By the way, Ctrl Click will select the artwork layer, which is useful if you intend to edit the artwork for animation, like say, with the Magnet tool.)

2. Use a layer selection script to make buttons. There are two excellent third party Moho scripts that let you use buttons to select layers.

First, there is Synthsin75's Layer Shortcuts. This script lets you use a custom hotkey, or create an on-screen button to select a layer or group. The latter is nice if you want to add the selection buttons as part of a rig. The download link and more info about it is here: Layer Shortcuts Tool. I made a video about it here: Intro To Layer Shortcuts.

The second script, Stan's Layer Selection Buttons, is a similar concept applied differently. Instead of buttons in the workspace, this tool has buttons to click on in the Tool Options bar. It's super easy to use: just select the tool, ALT Click on the layer, and then click a button to assign the layer to that button. Additionally, you get two option buttons to control Visibility and Timeline Visibility for the layer. You can get the download link and more info for this script here: Layer Selection Buttons

In a nutshell, Layer Shortcuts is more direct with it's shortcut option, and more pretty and intuitive with the visual button option for the workspace; and Layer Selection Buttons is very easy to set up and use right away, plus you get the two useful options when you need them. Both tools are excellent and worth installing!

Hope this helps.

[synthsin75]

Here's another tip:

If you're going to manually animate the layer order, there are a few tricks for quickly selecting the body parts in the Layers Window.

1. Ctrl+Shift and Click on a limb in the workspace. This selects the group containing the artwork and reveals it in the Layers Window, even when the rig's folders are fully collapsed in the Layers windows. (By the way, Ctrl Click will select the artwork layer, which is useful if you intend to edit the artwork for animation, like say, with the Magnet tool.)

I think it's a modded Layer Selector tool that has the ctrl+shift-click feature.

That does work with Alt+Shift+right-click without using the Layer Selector tool.

[Daxel]

thanks greenlaw for this options and I know you are very helpful for people in a forum so Im beginner in animation and I want to get perfect in animating cartoon characters . can you advice me which tutorial to buy to be professional in animating the characters ?

There are a few nice and cheap courses on Udemy that have good reviews. This one is looking good too: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=33586&p=192941#p192941

Also very good free tutorials on youtube, these two are a must follow, but there are more:

1. Victor's channel: one of the new owners of the program, very talented creating new ways to use the program: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHxppC ... SIw/videos
2. Mult Rush channel: very good content and scripts (it has subtittles): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp-wpP ... cIQ/videos

And last but not least, you can learn the very best practices from talented and experienced professional users just using the search by author feature of this forum. For example, put "Greenlaw" there to learn kung fu faster than Neo. He has some cool videos on Vimeo too, and he plans to do more ( trying to make social pressure here )

[Greenlaw]

@Synthsin75, you're right! I misremembered the keys and was too tired (or lazy) to launch Moho to check...my bad. I meant the keys with Moho's default behavior.

I'll correct my original post.

[sparten]

thanks greenlaw for this options and I know you are very helpful for people in a forum so Im beginner in animation and I want to get perfect in animating cartoon characters . can you advice me which tutorial to buy to be professional in animating the characters ?

There are a few nice and cheap courses on Udemy that have good reviews. This one is looking good too: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=33586&p=192941#p192941

Also very good free tutorials on youtube, these two are a must follow, but there are more:

1. Victor's channel: one of the new owners of the program, very talented creating new ways to use the program: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHxppC ... SIw/videos
2. Mult Rush channel: very good content and scripts (it has subtittles): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp-wpP ... cIQ/videos

And last but not least, you can learn the very best practices from talented and experienced professional users just using the search by author feature of this forum. For example, put "Greenlaw" there to learn kung fu faster than Neo. He has some cool videos on Vimeo too, and he plans to do more ( trying to make social pressure here )

yes . this is what Im looking for thanks a lot Daxel

[arglborps]

Alternatively, you can use a Smart Bone Action to simulate moving the limb in depths by animating the visibility of duplicate limb layers that exist at different layer depths.

Never thought of that, sounds like a good alternative. I've run into issues not being able to manually change layer order for other layers, because of a smart bone controlling the order for a one layer in a group.

But when you say duplicate limb layers, wouldn't it make more sense to create reference layers for the limbs, than just duplicates?

[Greenlaw]

But when you say duplicate limb layers, wouldn't it make more sense to create reference layers for the limbs, than just duplicates?

I've done both...it depends on the situation, and on how disciplined you are. Sometimes it's easier to make a clean break and treat the other layers as new 'duplicate' drawings. Fortunately, Moho lets you easily covert a Reference to a Duplicate.

BTW, if you decide to use Reference layers, I suggesting color coding the original and maybe even appending the names of the reference layers with (REF). This will help you remember which layer you need to edit when you want to make a global change. If you accidentally edit the wrong layer, you can resync the layers and make the changes to the correct one.

If, however, you want to keep the changes made in the reference, then it's probably easier to break that reference, and then copy those changes to the original. Then, you can make a new reference from there. (TBH, at this point, I usually just say 'the heck with it,' and stick with regular layers. Then I just copy/paste the contents and be done with it.)

[chucky]

It would be good to have a like button here at lost marble.
Greenlaw's last post was spot on, I concur .

[MrMiracle77]

I recently made the move to duplicate limb layers and never looked back. The trick is to make sure that you are absolutely satisfied with all the smart bone movements before making the duplicate layer. Any smart movements should carry over to the duplicate layers.

I noticed shortly after upgrading to Pro, though, that if you use a smartbone layer to manipulate the 'animated layer order' feature, it can lock the user and even other smartbones out of manipulating layers. I tried this with one smartbone for legs (as the lower body twists) and one for arms (as the upper body twists) and moving one smartbone prevented any changes with the other.