RigTheory wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 6:39 pm
I thought it was so funny that in the rules it says "do not ask how to do a 360 turn LOL!
You know that's what I'm working on next...
Any tips on how to proceed?
First the bad news: there are many ways to approach 360 degree turning rigs in Moho.
Now the good news: there are many ways to approach 360 degree turning rigs in Moho!
The 'basic' way is to create multiple rigs, that is one rig per view, and then use the Switch layer to switch between the rigs. I put 'basic' in quotes because I actually used this method for a project only a few years ago, but for various reasons this not my preferred method. The only time I might use this approach when I need to create many characters in a very short time and there are people waiting to animate the rigs. However, these kind of rigs are not the easiest or most fun to animate with with.
Another way is to use Smart Bone Actions and Dials to slide elements of the character and reshape the profiles during the turn. For 'simpler' characters, you can use the method for the entire turn, and it can look very smooth, almost 3D like. My
Puss In Boots rig is a good example of this approach and you can see it in action here:
My 'Puss In Boots Interactive' Demo Reel (2018)
I put 'simpler' in quotes because it's really not a simple rig but the concepts behind it are.
To make Puss appear to turn, I mainly using Smart Bone Actions to slide bones with layers attached or sliding instances of the Image Texture effect, and using vector shapes as masks. The Actions are also used to reshape the vector art (head, body, hat, etc.) during the turn. There are separate turn controls for all the major body parts: head, torso, arms, legs, and tail.
One thing that made creating the Puss rig easier was not having outlines in the art. When I built the rigs for
Boss Baby: Back In Business, things got more complicated because all of the characters had outlines in that show. Fortunately, my experience with using Moho for Puss and
The Croods helped get me prepared for the challenges of Boss.
Oh, and don't go too crazy with adding Smart Bone Actions. Smart Bone Actions are great for repeatable animations but if you create a Smart Bone Action for every possible thing the character does, that can actually constrain your animation choices. It's better to use Smart Bones for truly tedious tasks and leave other character features flexible and open to interpretation. Your Moho animations will look more lively this way.
Here's an example: it's fine to use Smart Bones to open and close eyelids, you might even have separate controls for each eye, and a third control to turn the first two controls together. That's a timesaver. But adding multiple Smart Bones to move the eyes left and right and up and down is getting pretty silly because all you really need is to do is parent the iris to a bone and move the bone wherever you like to animate it.
So...I would start off creating simple characters at first and sticking with 3qtr or 180 turns, at least until you have a strong understanding of how the tools work. Then try applying advanced techniques with simple character designs (i.e., with limited details, no outlines.) Once you've mastered that, you can move up to working with more detailed designs.
Hope this helps.
BTW, I don't really know a whole lot about Animate these days, at least not in its recent versions, so I'll be checking out your YouTube channel.
Her stuff is unreal! I think MoeU33 is her name.
You know that's what I'm working on next, but I promise I'll do my part to learn what it takes before bothering anyone here.
