Animation Palette

The animation palette is used when working in Moho's Animation edit mode to control the current time, and to control what objects move at what time.

Overview

The animation palette is a sub-window that automatically opens when you switch into Animation mode in Moho. In other editing modes, the animation palette will automatically be hidden.

The animation palette only displays information about the currently active layer in the project. When you switch to a new layer, the animation palette will update its display to show the new layer's animation.

Controlling Time

The top of the animation palette has controls for setting the current time. Whenever you modify an object in the main Moho window, the modification is recorded at the current time. The process of modifying an object, changing the time, and modifying it again is how an animation is created in Moho. Time in Moho is expressed in terms of "frames", where there are x number of frames in a second. By default, a new Moho project has 24 frames per second, although this value can be adjusted in the project settings dialog.

The first set of controls over time is a set of VCR-like playback buttons. From left to right these buttons are: rewind, step back, stop, play, step forward, and jump to end.

Rewind sets the current frame to 1, while jump to end sets the current frame to the last one in the animation (the length of the animation is defined by the latest keyframe in the entire project). The step forward and back buttons advance and back up by one frame. The play button plays back the animation in the main window, repeating playback in a loop. Finally, the stop button stops playback.

To the right of the playback buttons is a text label that indicates the current frame number.

Directly below the playback buttons is a sort of ruler that measures time. This time ruler has small tick marks, one per frame, and has labeled frame numbers at intervals along its length. The time ruler also displays the current frame with a red triangular marker above the current frame's tick mark. The time ruler is used both as an indicator of the current time, as well as a control to adjust it. By clicking (or clicking and dragging) anywhere on the time ruler, you can change the current frame.

Animation Channels

Most of the animation palette is taken up with animation channels, drawn as horizontal bars below the time ruler. Each animation channel displays a certain type of motion or effect that can take place in a Moho animation. Different types of layers have different animation channels available. For example, vector layers are the only ones with a point animation channel, and bone layers are the only ones with bone animation channels. At the left end of each animation channel is a small icon that indicates what type of channel it is. Shown below are the icons for the various types of animation channels.

Along the length of an animation channel are displayed keyframes. A keyframe represents a point in time at which you, the animator, made a modification to an object. For example, if you set the current time to frame 24, then rotate the layer, a keyframe will appear in the layer rotation channel at frame 24. Keyframes appear as small markers on the channels. At points in time that lie in between keyframes, Moho automatically calculates how to move an object from one keyframe position to the next.

Working with Keyframes

Keyframes are not just static elements displayed in the animation channels. They can be moved, deleted, and copied. To modify a keyframe, first it must be selected. This is accomplished simply by clicking a keyframe in the animation palette. A selected keyframe shows up in a highlighted color. Multiple keyframes may be selected by holding the shift key while clicking on keyframes. Alternatively, you can click and drag a rectangular selection box around the group of keyframes you want selected.

To delete selected keyframe(s), just press the backspace or delete keys. Deleting a keyframe removes motion from an object. Keyframes can also be moved by dragging them forward and back in time. If you want some motion to take less time, drag its keyframe to the left. To take more time, drag it to the right.

As mentioned before, Moho automatically calculates what happens in between keyframes. However, you do have some control over this. By default, Moho will compute a smooth transition from one keyframe to the next - most of the time, this is probably what you want. However, you can change the transition type by right-clicking a keyframe and choosing a new method from the popup menu that appears. The transition methods are: smooth (the default), ease in/out (also a smooth motion, but the object starts off moving kind of slowly and slows down again as it approaches the next keyframe), linear (motion is straight from one keyframe to the next, leading to a somewhat mechanical look to the motion), step (there is no transition at all - the object just jumps from one keyframe to the next), and noisy (the object moves in a slightly wobbly motion).

Another way of creating keyframes is to copy an object's position from another point in time. To do this, first select the keyframes you want to copy. Next, choose Copy from the Edit menu. Now, set the current frame to when you want the copied keyframe to appear (using the time ruler or the step forward/back buttons). Finally, choose Paste from the Edit menu to place a copy of the keyframes at the current time.