Is it possible to make animations look like Disney 2d style with Moho? take a look at this effort.

[mehdi]

Hi dear artists,
Yesterday, in an animation test, I tried to get a little closer to Disney 2D. What do you think are the solutions for this purpose? How can we compare the work done in Moho to the quality of classic animation or new Disney cutouts. And my question is, if we succeed in doing that, will it be established by big companies?
I look forward to reading your comments.
thanks

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU8h1U ... LIqwfmHQdg
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mehdi-zargari-04246a219

[jahnocli]

I'm no pro animator, but I can tell at a glance that there is too much 'bounce' in these actions. No Disney animation I've ever seen looks like that! But hey, good luck with your project.

[Víctor Paredes]

I think it's an interesting test! Creating rigged characters that could share screen with hand-drawn is something we are always trying to push here.
In my opinion, there are two things to consider. First is to have a flexible rig that can be as expressive as possible. In my experience, specially if I'm working for a movie, I tend to prefer having simpler rigs with not many layers or bones and do a lot of the work 'by hand'. At Cartoon Saloon, many times we use meshes and bones to define the general movement and arcs. Once that is done, we adjust the details by animating the vector layers. I think this approach gives enough control and automation, but also allows us to be very specific with what we want on every frame.
The second thing is about animation. Good animation is very hard to do and I have always admired the people who can give life to the characters with elegance, humor and subtlety. And animators at Disney are of course experts on that (I also have the luck to work with many incredible animators and I'm always impressed about how good they are).
I think your test is good and goes in the right direction. If you want to continue exploring the concept, I recommend you put attention to the movement, amount of bounciness and the character's structure. Several up and downs are happening by squashing and stretching only the torso, with no relation to the legs and rest of the body. That makes the body feel disjointed. Check also the animation principles again, there are many details there that could help the animation look better and closer hand-drawn. For instance, it's incredible how much better the animation can look if you take the time to animate the clothes (considering the overall movement, its material, weight, etc).
Thank you for sharing it. I hope to see more!

[alanthebox]

This individual seems to have gotten pretty darn close!

[JoelMayer]

I think in theory it‘s definitely possible. It just takes a bit of a different mindset i found.

I‘m gonna use a dirty word here, but one of the things i think differentiates Toon Boom rigging from Moho is that it‘s not about trying to built much of a skeleton and onto a character and having complex IK rigs and more about deforming drawings to simulate a hand drawn look. Toon Boom animators very often don‘t even use interpolation for their stuff except when wanting to pick out specific keys from an automatically generated inbetween to use them as breakdowns. The mindset is completely different. While it is more complex to rig and probably even to handle those puppets in TB, the animations i see come out of there lately are really successful.

Watch this video with Mercury Filmworks animator Renee Violet to see what i mean and see her workflow:

https://youtu.be/0-pIWucmlMc

Since Toon Boom also has much superior drawing features compared to Moho there is also much more a reliance on drawing substitutions vs. just smartbones or something like this which adda to the hand drawn look.

I attempted to apply a similiar workflow in Moho and drew my keys and breakdowns traditionally in a other software, imported that to Moho and tried to match the vector points to the animatic.

I found it pretty cumbersome to do though tbh compared to Toon Boom‘s deformers.

I think though the technology is available in Moho, it‘s just in the usabilty side that needs a bit of fine-tuning.

I‘m honestly not interested in making the most amazing 360 degree rigs or anything like this at all. What i‘m interested in is having Moho as a tool that can basically function as an elaborate clean-up and inbetweening software so to speak by using some simple bone mechanics and a lot of deformation.

What i think is missing is:

Just better workflow for drawing. The current tools are quite archaic and i‘d love to see some Updates maybe along the lines of how Blender Grease Pencil handles it‘s curve tool.

A solid set of tools to do vector roughs directly in the software. I know it‘s technically already possible but it‘s clunky and i‘d like to see stuff like being able to mark my keys and breakdowns on the timeline.

Have all the vector layers of a puppet available on the timeline simultaneously without having to shuffle through endless folders to find the right one.

Automatic generation of envelope deformers without the need of quadmeshes or anything, basically just copy Toon Boom.

A curve deformer as an alternative to Bones, where you basically have a spline curve with bezier handles to deform a vector layer.

That‘s really it, if that‘s included i‘d use Moho exclusively in no time

[BigBoiiiJones]

I think in theory it‘s definitely possible. It just takes a bit of a different mindset i found.

I‘m gonna use a dirty word here, but one of the things i think differentiates Toon Boom rigging from Moho is that it‘s not about trying to built much of a skeleton and onto a character and having complex IK rigs and more about deforming drawings to simulate a hand drawn look. Toon Boom animators very often don‘t even use interpolation for their stuff except when wanting to pick out specific keys from an automatically generated inbetween to use them as breakdowns. The mindset is completely different. While it is more complex to rig and probably even to handle those puppets in TB, the animations i see come out of there lately are really successful.

Watch this video with Mercury Filmworks animator Renee Violet to see what i mean and see her workflow:

https://youtu.be/0-pIWucmlMc

Since Toon Boom also has much superior drawing features compared to Moho there is also much more a reliance on drawing substitutions vs. just smartbones or something like this which adda to the hand drawn look.

I attempted to apply a similiar workflow in Moho and drew my keys and breakdowns traditionally in a other software, imported that to Moho and tried to match the vector points to the animatic.

I found it pretty cumbersome to do though tbh compared to Toon Boom‘s deformers.

I think though the technology is available in Moho, it‘s just in the usabilty side that needs a bit of fine-tuning.

I‘m honestly not interested in making the most amazing 360 degree rigs or anything like this at all. What i‘m interested in is having Moho as a tool that can basically function as an elaborate clean-up and inbetweening software so to speak by using some simple bone mechanics and a lot of deformation.

What i think is missing is:

Just better workflow for drawing. The current tools are quite archaic and i‘d love to see some Updates maybe along the lines of how Blender Grease Pencil handles it‘s curve tool.

A solid set of tools to do vector roughs directly in the software. I know it‘s technically already possible but it‘s clunky and i‘d like to see stuff like being able to mark my keys and breakdowns on the timeline.

Have all the vector layers of a puppet available on the timeline simultaneously without having to shuffle through endless folders to find the right one.

Automatic generation of envelope deformers without the need of quadmeshes or anything, basically just copy Toon Boom.

A curve deformer as an alternative to Bones, where you basically have a spline curve with bezier handles to deform a vector layer.

That‘s really it, if that‘s included i‘d use Moho exclusively in no time

100% this I would like to add having a feature thats similar to CACANi or Grease Pencil where stroke order inbetweening is a thing. Like it doesn't matter how much vectors your drawing but its more about the path its drawn/traced in. I know this can be done with switch layer interpolation but it doesn't allow for much control and if you have one extra vector point it messes everything up and wont even interpolate. Having something like CACANi would allow for more of a traditional work flow instead of rigging. Just have bones or curve deformers like you said for basic use to prevent deformation/shrinking of the vectors/objects.

A traditional way of coloring would be awesome to and the inbetweening system for it could work like CACANi as well. Allow to add vector painted objects to separate layers and line art on another layer and use a auto inbetween function to paint from point A to B it would be no different then the stroke order method but with painted objects.

I would also like perspective and traditional skewing methods for vector layers. I know we can set up a perspective mesh warp for bitmaps right now but when you have a group or bone layer with several layers and you just want skew the whole thing or certain folders like the arm for example you would need to create a meshwarp for almost every layer within a new group just to have proper skewing or perspective warps. It would be nice to have something where we could do it with bone and group layers to. I think having perspective guides would help greatly long term.

[Daxel]

one of the things i think differentiates Toon Boom rigging from Moho is that it‘s not about trying to built much of a skeleton and onto a character and having complex IK rigs and more about deforming drawings to simulate a hand drawn look. Toon Boom animators very often don‘t even use interpolation for their stuff except when wanting to pick out specific keys from an automatically generated inbetween to use them as breakdowns. The mindset is completely different. While it is more complex to rig and probably even to handle those puppets in TB, the animations i see come out of there lately are really successful.

I come from ToomBoom and I never looked back. I think many would do the same if they knew how powerful Moho is, but they don't know. And maybe they never will.

Moho point interpolation and rig capabilities are incredible. I think those, used well, actually facilitate the task of achieving Disney quality animation in a fraction of the time you could spend on FBF or using ToonBoom, so I agree with you, it's the mindset.

But a lot of people judge the software by the things people make with it, and yes Moho is way cheaper and marketed as an easy way to animate, so its user base is way more amateurish than ToonBoom's. ToonBoom on the other hand is expensive and marketed as an industry standard, and those are filters: you only buy it if you are super serious about animation, you usually learn it at college, trying to make a career of it. ToonBoom users are more serious, more experienced, have higher quality standards, work on bigger studios with the help of more teammates, etc. Of course the end result is better. But it is correlation, not causation. It's not the tool but the userbase.

And it is not about using interpolation or not either. The more things you computer can make for you, the better. Interpolation is an incredible feature to save time that you can spend making the animation better.

ToonBoom users love interpolation, they make heavy use of it, in every single rig, and they often achieve Disney quality with it, even if their interpolation method is way more limited than Moho's interpolation: In ToonBoom you can't actually interpolate the points of a drawing. You need to create a deformer, that is another vector shape that you have to draw arround the drawing you want to deform, and moving the vectors of that deformer the drawing inside gets deformed, but obviously not very precisely, and actually if you try to deform it too much it will break the drawing apart.
Imagine my face when I discovered Moho.

That's why I'm always surprised to see that a lot of Moho users don't actually use point interpolation. Moho has the easiest and most powerful point interpolation method, users can literally make a few adjustments to one single frame with the magnet tool in seconds to give life to their animations, life that is carried in every interpolated frame for free and some of them still only rely on bone animation.

Have you guys noticed how Cacani animations always look pretty good? Even if Cacani makes heavy use of interpolation, the animations look like FBF. Because interpolation has never been the problem. Their animations look like FBF because even if inbetweens are automatic, Cacani's workflow involves having to draw each keyframe, and every time you draw you inevitably introduce differences that make animation more dynamic and alive. That effect is super easy to achieve with Moho's point interpolation, just pick the magnet tool and make each keyframe drawing a little bit unique. It's way faster than drawing it all again!

So my opinion is that Moho is very underrated, most profesionals don't know how powerful it is, and part of its own userbase doesn't use its power. That's why there are only a few "Disney quality" animations made in Moho. But if I want to make a short with Disney quality, I think that Moho is the best option. And if I am doing it by myself with a limited amount of time, then I think it could be even the only option.

[JoelMayer]

I mean, to be fair, i use both extensively for different purposes. Moho if i have to do something more "Explainer-y" style that has a fast turn-around and Toon Boom if i do more elaborate Frame by Frame animation. Toon Boom has a neat Warp tool that makes it pretty easy to do some "cheap" inbetweening, if you so desire. I actually prefer the Envelope Deformers over moving every single vector point around since it's just much less confusing to me but that might be personal preference. Also, in Toon Boom it's literally one click now to generate an Envelope automatically so it's no big deal. I guess each has its use cases but i agree, technically, what you could do with both is more or less the same.

The art tools in Toon Boom especially considered it's vector are unparalleled though and i guess that's also a big plus and why many animators prefer it. We actually want to draw and not do Illustrator style point by point laying

But if Moho brushes up in this area and has a more straight forward workflow for drawing and coloring in the future i'm sure even more people will consider it. I always draw out Keys and Breakdowns tho even when doing Cut-Out because it's just super easy to then follow the blueprint you have laid out with the rig. Toon Boom rigs are meant to be broken and skewed and deformed to get the desired look and i feel with Moho, people spend too much time trying to get the perfect rig that does everything even though that won't happen. Also computer generated interpolation just won't give you the frame by frame feel so i resort to constant's as well and only use the tweening when i really need it or want to put something on ones.

So yeah, again, i think it's always pretty good to have experience in animating traditionally and bringing that knowledge to something like Moho and have it assist you.

[Daxel]

I actually prefer the Envelope Deformers over moving every single vector point around since it's just much less confusing to me but that might be personal preference.

Well that general deformation is fairly easy to do with the magnet tool that allows you to change the general shape of something without having to deal with every point, and you can use a mesh too to make it like in ToonBoom, but the thing is that after those general deformations Moho allows you to make all sort of detailed changes directly to the drawings and that allows you to interpolate the deformation of detailed shapes that would be imposible to do in ToonBoom.

The art tools in Toon Boom especially considered it's vector are unparalleled though and i guess that's also a big plus and why many animators prefer it. We actually want to draw and not do Illustrator style point by point laying

Absolutely that's also what I think Moho needs the most. To improve the drawing experience: the freehand tool, the magnet tool (a multilayer mode) the graphic tablet usability, the control over how the strokes look (inner, outer...), over their thickness without creating bumps like I mention here: https://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewto ... ps#p194068
Those things scare away a lot of good animators in my opinion.

[JoelMayer]

Absolutely. Because i think no matter how good your rig is, especially when you get into broad cartoony stuff or even super dynamic Anime scenes, SOME frame by frame will always be either completely necessary or just much faster to do than to rig and build a puppet for hours. If Moho can cover both decently, then by all means, i won't be needing Toon Boom anymore!

[slowtiger]

I've said it much too often, but here again:

There's no law that forces you to do a hole film, or even just one scene, in one and only one software.

[JoelMayer]

I've said it much too often, but here again:

There's no law that forces you to do a hole film, or even just one scene, in one and only one software.

In Switzerland we had this law since 2008 sucks...

Seriously though, of course there isn't but it makes things a whole lot easier But sure, you can always mix and match. Doesn't take away that Moho drawings tool could use some love tho.

[Daxel]

I've said it much too often, but here again:

There's no law that forces you to do a hole film, or even just one scene, in one and only one software.

True, but ToonBoom is pretty expensive and not everyone is working in a studio with multiple paid software availible. But not only that: when you combine multiple features in the same software you can obtain emergent properties that are not possible with those features separated into different programs. For example:

If you improve Moho's freehand tool, you can use it to make drawings for Moho rigs (that's why I ask for a non-beziers freehand mode to be able to hand-draw shapes with non-bezier points that are easier to animate with point interpolation).

If you improve FBF you can... well, start using it in Moho, and enrich your FBF sequences with inbetweens made with Moho-unique features like point interpolation, because yes, you can interpolate the points of a FBF frame. FX with Moho? Combine a good BFB workflow, nice drawing tools and point interpolation and you could make amazing FX in much less time than just with traditional FBF.

And improving stroke quality and control you improve almost every aspect of Moho with one shot.

[synthsin75]

Of course the end result is better. But it is correlation, not causation. It's not the tool but the userbase.

Great point.

[chucky]

message removed

This is an animation forum, not a nationalistic supremacy forum.
People here are from everywhere and generally show respect each other's variety of culture, location and genetic heritage.
I think you'll find yourself in a minority with this point of view.

On second thoughts, yeah %@& Canada!
Just kidding I meant ToonBoom.

Back to the topic, I think... we all wonder what V14 will have in store, maybe dev could tease some goals?