Moho Menus

Moho's menu bar contains commands for managing projects (Open, Save, etc.), as well as commands that apply to certain editing modes (the Draw and Animation menus). This section will describe all the menu commands available in Moho.


The Moho Menu

About Moho...
Displays which version of Moho you're running.

Help...
Launches this document, the Moho Users's Manual.

Preferences...
Brings up a dialog that lets you customize some aspects of Moho, such as the display colors used in the working area of the Moho window.

Quit
Quits Moho. Prompts you to save any unsaved projects.


The File Menu

New
Creates a new, empty Moho project.

Open...
Asks you to open a Moho project file that was previously saved to disk.

Close
Closes the current project.

Save
Saves the current project to disk.

Save As...
Asks you for a name and location, then saves the project to disk.

Insert Layer...
This command will ask you to choose a Moho project file. Once you've chosen a file, a list of layers in the project will show up in the dialog below.

Select one of the layers to add it to your own project (a preview of the selected layer appears on the right side of the dialog). The entire layer will be copied into your open project, including any animation in the layer. This is an easy way to share objects between project files and reuse bits of animation here and there.

Project Settings...
Brings up the project settings dialog. As seen below, the project settings dialog lets you control the pixel width and height of the project, as well as the number of frames per second. You're free to change these values at any time, although it's easiest if you set up the values you want before you start creating your animation.

In this dialog you can also set a background color for the project - just click on the color swatch.

Finally, you can set up some noise grain for the project. Noise grain is a subtle film grain-type effect that adds slight variations to the pixels in your project and leads to a more natural look to the final image. It can also increase the visual quality in some kinds of movie compression when you generate an animation. If you want to try our noise grain, a value of 16 is a good start for a subtle noise effect.

Preview
Generates a preview image of what your project will look like. If you're working in the animation edit mode, the image will be of the current frame in your animation. A preview image does not contain all the fill styles, and is of slightly lower quality, but is quicker to generate than a fully rendered image.

Render
Generates a rendered image of your project. If you're working in the animation edit mode, the image will be of the current frame in your animation. The rendered image is final quality, with all the details that you'll see in your final animation.

Render Animation...
Pops up a dialog that lets you generate an animation and save it to disk. The dialog asks for a starting and ending frame (these default to the entire animation), and an output format. You can output a sequence of frames or a movie file. Moho will then ask you where to save the result. Once the animation begins rendering, you are free to keep working while the animation is being drawn. A progress bar in the upper-right of the Moho window will inform you of the rendering progress.

Import Adobe Illustrator File...
Asks you to select an Adobe Illustrator (.ai) file. Moho will import the bezier curve shapes in this file into a new Moho vector layer. These objects can then be further edited and animated in Moho.


The Edit Menu

Undo
Choose this command to undo the last operation. You may undo up to 8 of your most recent editing operations in Moho.

Redo
This command will redo the last operation that you "un-did" with the Undo command.

Cut, Copy, Paste
These are the traditional clipboard commands. They can be used in the Draw editing mode for vector layers, and operate on the currently selected group of points. You can also copy and paste selected keyframes in Animation mode.

Clear
This command is the same as pressing the backspace or delete key: the currently selected object in the working area will be deleted from the project.

Select All
Selects all the points in the active layer.

Select None
De-selects all the points in the active layer.

Select Inverse
Selects the opposite points in the active layer. Selected points will become de-selected, and de-selected points will become selected.

Select Connected
Selects all points that are connected to any other previously selected points. For example, if you have a complex shape like a character's head, just select a few points on it, then choose this command: if all the points on the head are somehow connected together, the whole head will now be selected.


The Draw Menu

The commands in the Draw menu are only available when working in Moho's Draw editing mode.

Weld
This command can only be used if a single point is selected. If this is the case, then the weld command will attempt to weld the selected point to the nearest neighbor point, joining them into one. Generally, an easier way to do this is to use the Translate tool to drag one point on top of another, then press the spacebar.

Insert Text...
A dialog will pop up with two controls: one to choose a font, and one to type in some text. When you click OK, the text will appear as a set of curves in Moho. These curves are just like any drawing in Moho - you can manipulate them with any of the Moho tools, like any other object. There is no font size control when you create the text: the Moho scale tool should be used to control the size of the text after you create it.

Snap To Grid
If the grid is turned on in the working area, then this command can be used to snap all selected points to the nearest grid intersection.

Reset Line Thickness
In Fill mode for vector layers, you can adjust the thickness of a line at any point. Choosing this menu command will reset your custom line widths at any selected points.

Reset Layer Translation
Moves the current layer back to its original point (centered in the view area). This command is used to modify the starting position of a layer, not its animated position.

Reset Layer Scale
Resizes the current layer back to its original size. This command is used to modify the starting size of a layer, not its animated size.

Reset Layer Rotation
Rotates the current layer back to its original orientation. This command is used to modify the starting orientation of a layer, not its animated orientation.

Reset Layer Origin
Moves the current layer's origin back to its original point (centered in the layer). The origin is the point that a layer rotates and resizes around, and is marked in Moho by a cross in the working area.


The Bone Menu

Release Points
This command detaches the selected points from any bones they may be attached to.

Auto-Bind Points
This command automatically attaches the selected points to the nearest bones.

Flexi-Bind Points
This command binds the selected points to bones in such a way that they will influenced by all the bones in the parent bone layer. This results in more of a "squishy" type of motion when the skeleton is animated.

Release Layer
This command detaches the current layer from any bone it may be attached to.

Flexi-Bind Layer
This command binds the current layer to the bones in the parent layer in such a way that the child layer will influenced by all the bones in the parent bone layer. This results in more of a "squishy" type of motion when the skeleton is animated.


The Animation Menu

The commands in the Animation menu are only available when working in Moho's Animation editing mode.

Reset Points
Moves the selected points back to their original positions, adding a new keyframe for them at the current time.

Reset All Points
Same as above, but moves all points in the layer, not just the selected ones.

Reset Bone
Moves the selected bone back to its original position, adding a new keyframe for it at the current time.

Reset All Bones
Same as above, but moves all bones in the layer, not just the selected one.

Reset Layer Translation
Moves the layer back to its original position, adding a new keyframe for it at the current time.

Reset Layer Scale
Resizes the layer back to its original size, adding a new keyframe for it at the current time.

Reset Layer Rotation
Rotates the layer back to its original orientation, adding a new keyframe for it at the current time.


The View Menu

Reset
Resets the view of the working area to the starting pan and zoom values. Use this command when you want to jump back to the original view of the project.

Wireframe Only
When this menu item is checked, only the outlines of objects are displayed in the working area, not their filled-in colors. This can improve Moho's performance when working on a complex project.

Faster
Displays fill shapes in addition to outlines, but the colors may not exactly match the final output.

Better
The colors of fill shapes will now match the final output, but Moho may start to respond more slowly.

Best
This is the best display quality for Moho's working area. Colors are displayed accurately, and edges are draw smoothly, like in the final output (antialiasing). You won't generally work in this mode because it's too slow, but you can use it occasionally to get a feeling for how the final result will look.

Tracing Image
To use a background image for tracing out a drawing, just drag the image into the working area of the Moho window. Then, you can use this command to hide or show that tracing image. To use a different tracing image, just drag a new one in.