Cropping penalty?

[Jkoseattle]

For this project I am using hand-drawn images pulled from a storyboard. The original artist is not available, so I'm using Paint.net to pull things off the page to animate as best I can. One technique that is saving me some time is that when I snip something off the page and save it as a .png, I will leave all the blank transparent space in the image. This way everything I pull off a given frame is exactly the same size and positioned in exactly the right place in Moho. However, of course this means all the layers are on top of each other and therefore hard to select, not to mention awkward to transform, like for instance a small bird that is mostly blank space has the selection box way out on the edge of the frame. So, what I'm doing is cropping these layers so that they are easier to select and manipulate.

My question is I'm wondering if I'm paying any price for doing things this way. I don't think so, but I want to make sure something isn't going to bite me later. In most cases each shot is under 5 seconds, and usually only involves no more than 20 separate layers, including occasional groups and masks and mesh layers and such. How would you do this?

Here it is so far, so you get the idea of the project. (Details and finesse not yet done!!)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FQ-lnm ... sp=sharing

[Greenlaw]

Nah, you should be fine.

So long as it doesn't affect the final render quality, I crop and reduce the res of background art provided by our art department all the time. I wind up with more shot specific variations of the artwork but the smoother UI performance and faster render times make it worth the effort.

The only time this has been a problem for me is when the prod decides to completely change the artwork and it affects all of my shots. This means I need to break out new versions for all shot specific variations of the previous background art. This actually happens very rarely, and with a little planning ahead of time, it shouldn't be a big deal.

Be aware that if you're using the Crop tool in Moho, it's doing this non-destructively. This means cropping in Moho doesn't actually reduce the memory used for the image so it may not improve the UI speed...but maybe using it helps reduce render time? TBD. Anyway, this is one reason to do the crop to a copy of the artwork in a external paint program and then import it to Moho. But if the UI performance has been acceptable using the Moho cropping, I'd keep using that. Chances are, if the layered artwork isn't super high res to start with (i.e., 4-8k,) it will be fine.

Hope this helps.

[hayasidist]

just a thought, and acknowledging that it's still WIP

Details and finesse not yet done!!

I noticed a few artefacts from cut / paste (faint outlines of shapes that have been cut remaining in the source.) I use a green (00FF00) layer under the working layers to help me spot such. A "select all transparent" on the working layer helps to show where such remnants hide!

Also, I've never used Paint.net so can't comment on its functionality, but you might like to consider Krita (free) to do your editing.

[Jkoseattle]

Yeah, you spotted the biggest thing I still need to fix. I am better about that now I hope. I’ll check out Krita. Paint.net is also free and been around forever and open source and I know it well, but it ain’t no Procreate.