Introduction
This tutorial continues on from the previous three, moving into the animation features
of Moho. You can either continue on with your project from the previous tutorial, or
you can use a file that has been created for you - it's named Tutorial4 and it's
located in the Tutorials subfolder within the main Moho folder.
There are three basic ways to animate objects in Moho: animating an entire layer,
using bones to animate parts of an object, and animating the individual points on
an object. These three types can be combined to make very complex animations.
This tutorial will walk you through all three types of animation.
Open your previous project (or the Tutorial4 file) in Moho. Make sure all the layers
are visible by clicking to turn on each layer in the Layers palette.
In the main Moho window, click the Animation tab near the lower right corner to
switch Moho into Animation mode.
Your window should look like this:
Layer Animation
Layer animation is the most simple way to make objects move around in a Moho
animation. It's limited in the way you can move the objects, but in some cases it's
all you need. Layer animation moves an entire layer around as if it were painted on
a pane of glass.
Click the Clouds layer in the Layer palette to activate it. Next, set the current time
to frame 72. This is done in the Animation palette. To set the time, scroll the
animation palette sideways (if necessary) until you see the number 72 in the ruler
at the top. Click on the number 72 and the time marker will jump to that frame, as
shown below:
Select the Translate Layer tool
from the toolbar. Click and drag to the right in the working area to move the cloud
layer to the right:
Notice that a marker appeared in the Animation palette at frame 72. This marker
represents a keyframe - a point in time at which the layer has been given a position.
There are several animation channels displayed in the Animation palette. This keyframe
appeared in the layer motion channel, because that's what type of action you just
performed - you moved a layer.
Try out the animation so far: press the play button in the Animation palette. The
animation loops when it reaches the end (in this case frame 72). When you've seen
enough, press the stop button.
Bone Animation
Bone animation uses skeleton structures to move an object around. You got a good
feel for how bones work in the previous tutorial when you used the Test Bones tool.
When animating bones you use very similar tools.
Activate the Frank Skeleton layer by clicking its entry in the Layer palette. Set
the time
to frame 12 by clicking the number 12 in the Animation palette. (You may have to
scroll the Animation palette before you can see the number 12.)
Now, pick the Manipulate Bones tool
in the toolbar. Click and drag the bones in Frank's legs until they are positioned
as shown below:
Next, pick the Translate Bone tool
. Click on Frank's spine bone and drag it downwards a bit:
Next, set the time to frame 24 and choose the Animation->Reset All Bones
menu command. Press the play button in the animation palette to watch your animation,
and press stop when you're done.
When you played back the animation, you probably noticed that after frame 24, Frank
doesn't move any more. You could add more keyframes by setting the time to some later
frame and moving Frank's bones some more, but let's try out the animation looping
feature.
Double-click the Frank Skeleton layer in the Layer palette. In the dialog that appears, check
the "Cycle animation" checkbox. Click OK and press the play button to see the difference.
A layer with the Cycle animation checkbox turned on will repeat its animation over and
over indefinitely. Typically this would be used for some kind of background element,
not a foreground character like Frank, but it's a great timesaver.
Point Animation
Using point animation, you drag around individual points (or groups of points) on
an object. In theory, you could animate the same types of motion as with bone
animation - it would just take a lot more work. Point animation is more typically
used when you want to change the shape of some object.
Click the Clouds layer in the Layer palette to activate it. Pick the Translate tool
from the toolbar. Press the enter key on your keyboard to make sure no points are
selected. Finally, click the fast forward button in the animation palette to jump
to the end of the animation.
Click and drag individual points on the clouds in small amounts, just to reshape
the clouds a bit. This will cause the clouds to change their shapes slightly from
the beginning of the animation to frame 72.
Use the play and stop buttons to see the result.
Importing Animation
Remember how the Frank layer was imported into the project in the previous tutorial?
Well, imported layers can also contain animation. Select File->Insert Layer....
When prompted, open the file "TutorialExtras" in the Tutorial subfolder within the
main Moho folder. In the dialog that pops up, select the Beach Ball Skeleton layer and
click OK.
A bouncing beach ball will appear in your project. Press the play button to watch it
go. It bounces all right, but it's not really in the right position. Switch back to
Bone mode to set the ball's initial position. Using the Translate
Layer tool
, drag the beach ball to a better location. You can also use the Scale Layer tool
to resize the ball. (Hold the shift key while using the Scale Layer tool to resize
the beach ball the same amount in width and height.) Go back to Animation mode to
play back the final animation.
That's it for the animation tutorial. For more information about Moho's animation
mode, and detailed descriptions of all the animation tools, the
Animation
chapters are a complete reference.
You now have a pretty good grasp of how to draw, fill, set up bones, and animate in
Moho. Feel free to jump right in and start working with Moho. Or, read on into
the Using Moho section to learn more about Moho's tools in detail.