Rendering weird colors

[Geoi88i]

Hi guys, when I move the hair beads they oddly change color to weird pink shades. I pressed control+R to render it out as a png/jpg to see if would still be like that in the render and it is unfortunately.... will it render like this in a video animation? Can anyone tell me whats going on ??

[synthsin75]

Since it doesn't look like you're using masking, I would have guessed that you're using a gradient fill effect on the beads.
But it looks like you're moving them with a bone, so that should also move the gradient.

Might need to see a file with just the problem part to further diagnose.

[Hoptoad]

It will render, because it rendered in the preview.

This may not be the problem, but you might have a keyframe that animated the color change on frame other than 0. That happened to me once or twice. It happened because I had allowed "animated layer effects" for a layer, and I was not on frame 0 when adding effects to the shapes on that layer. So the shapes looked normal on frame 0, but not when the animation was playing.

Also, it could simply be an "effect" that you added to the shape, and the effect doesn't display in the workspace, only during previews and renders.

If you can't fix it, maybe draw a new hair bead and see if the problem repeats itself. If it doesn't, replace the old beads with new ones. Sometimes it's faster to re-make artwork than figure-out what's causing the problem.

Good luck.

[Greenlaw]

I notice you're using a custom style which would override your current style. I would check there for the different color. If you see green in the custom style's settings, change it to the desired color and all the shapes using it should update.

If that doesn't work, try deleting the custom style and, if a custom style is really necessary for the character's hair, create a new one and apply it to the shapes. Note: you should do this on the setup frame (frame 0), because style properties are keyframeable on the timeline. This can be especially tricky for custom styles because those keyframes are not visible. (The workaround is to copy and paste the keys from the custom style using the copy/paste buttons in the Style Window to the Mainline where you can see the keyframes, edit and then to paste them back. But personally, it's probably easier to start over with a clean custom style.)

[Geoi88i]

@synthsin 75 You are correct, it is a gradient fill effect. There are no keyframes at all on this project and I doublechecked.... The beads are on one layer but each bead consists of 3 shapes with a gradient effect appilied... The gradients are not moving with the beads even though the beads are point bound to a bone.. It is point bound. This is all so frustrating. Moho is always acting glitchy. When I right click to move around the canvas these weird color changes appear. when I use the bones to move the beads and they extend beyond the outer shape of the hair thats when the color changes.... How do I send you my file? I am new to this forum. Thank you very much for your help

[Geoi88i]

Also I think I might have figured it out. I saw an old post by Victor Paredes saying they have bugs with the gradients smh.... When I took the layer off point binding and flexi bound the beads the gradients moved with the bone. So I will have to create another layer, on layer for each bead now because they (all 4 bead bones bound to the 2 beads on 1 layer) are affecting each other..... I have such a love/hate relationship with "glitch-ho pro" lol

[Greenlaw]

Also I think I might have figured it out. I saw an old post by Victor Paredes saying they have bugs with the gradients smh....

Can you post a link the post? I'm just curious to see under what circumstances this occurs because I haven't seen any issues when using the Gradients Effect, and I use this effect quite a lot sometimes.

[Greenlaw]

How do I send you my file? I am new to this forum. Thank you very much for your help

You should use a file hosting or cloud storage service.

I like to use Dropbox to host my images and files for this forum. If you don't need a lot of space, you can get a free account from here:

Dropbox Basic

[Greenlaw]

Oh, btw, if the Gradient Effect isn't working in your project for some reason, you can alternatively use Point Color to create a similar effect. Another option is the use Image Texture to fill the shape with a gradient or otherwise painted image (another favorite technique...my Puss rig, for example, is almost entirely shaded this way.)

[Geoi88i]

And actually @Hoptoad , now what im seeing is even though the glitch is rendering like that in the preview animation, it is rendering properly in the actual animation export. Who woulda figured. This program driving me crazy

[Greenlaw]

...This program driving me crazy

That sounds like me nine years ago when I started working on Scareplane (my very first Moho animation.) At the time, some users in this forum (many who are still active here) helped me figure out some 'weird' behavior and I learned that most of it was user error and misunderstanding at my end, not with Moho. After finishing Scareplane, I became a super fan of Moho and even shifted my career in a new direction because of it.

So take a deep breath and know that it will all make sense eventually. Good luck!

[synthsin75]

Also I think I might have figured it out. I saw an old post by Victor Paredes saying they have bugs with the gradients smh.... When I took the layer off point binding and flexi bound the beads the gradients moved with the bone. So I will have to create another layer, on layer for each bead now because they (all 4 bead bones bound to the 2 beads on 1 layer) are affecting each other..... I have such a love/hate relationship with "glitch-ho pro" lol

It's not a glitch, you just haven't learned how to use it yet.
Gradients only move by bone influence.

[Geoi88i]

I hear you guys. I really do love Moho and trying to learn all the nuances and intricacies as I go along. But it definitely seems like the gradients were not moving by the bone influence when I had it point bound but it worked when I had it flexibound

[Greenlaw]

AFAIK, the only reason the bones won't deform a gradient when you use Point Binding is that they might have their Strength dialed down to 0, or the strength was otherwise nullified by improper binding. In this case, any points that were bound using Point Binding will still deform the shapes with the bones but the Gradient Effect will not deform.

Binding the shapes correctly should work for deforming a Gradient Effect. I just tested it now to make sure this is working correctly in Moho 13.5.5 and, yup...the Gradient will deform with Point Binding but only if the bones have sufficient strength. I'm sure if I had the time and inclination, I can find other reasons for the Gradient to be ignored by bones, but if this was me, I would just reset the bones and rebind them. When you're still just learning Moho, it's really easy to mess up binding methods and, FWIW, I learned long ago that it's quicker to reset the binding than to waste a lot of time figuring out what went wrong.

To reset bone binding, select the layers that are causing problems, and choose Reset All Bone Rigging. This 'scary' sounding command will simply reset the binding method of the selected layers to use the default standard Flexibind method. You may then rebind the layers or points to use the preferred binding method. Oh, also make sure there's strength value higher than zero in the selected bones if you're going to use the Gradient Effect.

Note: when using Reset All Bone Rigging, be sure to select some layers first. If you don't select any layers, Moho assumes you want to reset all the layers.

So, it's very important to understand the strength and limitations for each binding method. There are many different ways to bind things in Moho with specific reasons for choosing one method over another. Back when I didn't understand exactly what each method did and how it worked, I found that combining them haphazardly could actually cancel the effect I going for.

I suspect that's what happened here, but don't be hard on yourself; this is a common 'rite of passage' for many new Moho users.

[Greenlaw]

Here's an example...



Both rigs above use Point Binding and thus they each deform their shape. However the one on the right has the Bone Strength dialed down to zero so the gradient does not get deformed.

(BTW, please ignore that they deform differently from each other. I hacked this quickly to illustrate only what I described in my previous post.)