Messing Around With Moho

Here is a short animation I put together recently. I've been working on the character and the background during quiet moments; finally put them together and made them move and wiggle with Moho Pro 12 (formerly Anime Studio.)

I can't describe the joy I felt when – after days of frustration and study – I got the rigging and switch layers to work. Not an exciting animation I guess, but hey! Progress!

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This is not a commercial, but:

Years ago I bought Anime Studio, eager to try animating on a computer. The learning curve was steep. I had no digital animation experience and no friends with a shared interest. That left me sitting alone, reading the pdf instruction booklets and trying to mimic written tutorials. YouTube had very few instructional videos at the time, and those I found weren't much help.

I managed to fight my way through the fog and put together a modest project or two – each one running about ten seconds – but there was a lot of trial and error. It was fun in the way that learning new things is always fun, but I burned way too much time trying to do more advanced things without being able to do the basic things consistently.

Recently I ran across the Udemy site, and they had a sale on Moho courses: "The complete rigging course – Moho & Anime Studio" by McCoy Buck, and "Anime Studio Pro 11 – A practical training course," credited to Simply edukator.*

They really did the trick for me.

I know, I know... there are dozens of tutorials on YouTube now, and most of the information is out there, but the structured courses nail the tips in place. When I (frequently) forgot how to flexi-bind or bind a switch-layer folder to a bone, it was easy to find my way back to the video that shows you how, and the videos are about 5 minutes a piece so it's not difficult to scrub through and find the relevant info. That's just one example; I was frequently baffled and forgetful, and I never had to thrash about blindly hoping to find the solution to what was vexing me.

And the courses cover a lot of topics you won't even know about if you're like me and your attention wanders while you read through the SmithMicro Moho 12 Tutorial manual. That is one tough manual for a newb.

McCoy Buck has put some chapters from his course on his YouTube channel so you can check out his teaching style there; the Udemy site also has some samples. Again, highly recommended!


*At the time I'm publishing this post, I don't know the name of the person teaching the "Anime Studio 11 Practical Training Course," but when I find out, I'll edit his name in here and provide links if he has something to link to.

There's a whopping ten hours of video on that course, and I haven't gotten through half of it yet, but it was a huge help. Skimming over it again, I see a lot of things that I will be referencing in the future.

The End For Now

Another Silly Animation

Short post:
Made a silly little animation using MOHO 12 for a story that ran on the Mercury News website by longtime colleague Jessica Yadegaran. It was fun to cartoon it and lots of fun to make it move around a bit.

Drawn in Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop.

Animation Experiment

Another short animation experiment, using Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint and MOHO (Anime Studio.)  Ten seconds, looped a couple of times. Nothing special, just working things out.

The End.

Another Experiment

I took a version of an illustration I recently created for work and used AnimeStudio to make it wiggle a little bit. Not a big deal, but I had started experimenting with some animation a year or two ago and unfortunately I wandered off and forgot what I had learned. Life is crummy like that sometimes.

So, I was able to bear down a couple of nights ago and attempted to relearn a few things. God, it was hard. It's not really "an animation," more of a looping gif type of thing but, since I'm not bright enough to figure out how to make a gif out of it, I made a dull looping movie. Progress!

Again, this is a minor attempt. I put it here mostly to shame myself into making more and better things. It's bound to be a letdown if you bother to click. Striving for improvement through embarrassment! Tally ho!

Later...

Ugh! Flash-based video above. Here is a YouTube version, which might be easier for phone and tablet people (like me!) to look at.

More later. Hopefully not a year later. Soon! I hope. Soon.

Small Animation Experiment

After a lot of frustration, I decided to go back and read the Anime Studio manual, which -- although extremely helpful -- is a total drag. Why can't I just figure it out? This is the 4-seconds-long result of a few hours of tedious reading. I'm making some progress, but I've already forgotten how I got parts of this to work. I have to repeat things several times before it sticks.

I'm having a good time creating characters to animate, but I should spend less effort on that and more effort on learning how to make them move. I'm aiming for a short cartoon with annoying tunes I've made in GarageBand; that's another horrid little hobby I've taken to recently. I hope the effort comes out along the lines of Yellow Submarine in style, but with way shittier music.

Here are a couple of characters I've made for this; I've got a few more I'll post later, or maybe I should just wait until I get them working.

Baby Steps

Ugh! It's so hard to find time to learn new things. Had to get up at 6 today to in hopes of getting in some Anime Studio practice before the kid woke up. And she woke up at 6:30. Distracted her with cereal and the iPad.

Drew a caricature of my good pal Quincy the other day, and sketched up a quick background last night. Just wanted to have him walk onstage, see a bird and -- so in tune with his jungle instincts -- sit down.

Didn't get to the bird this morn, and his sitting motion isn't what I'd like it to be but DING! The timer went off and I have to take the kid to the park. I'll get it figured out.

Short (Very Short) Animation

I bought Anime Studio 10 a couple of months ago. It looked like it might be a good intro to animation, and it was on sale. Well, I spent a couple of days with it and had no luck whatsoever. Sometimes you can read the instructions, follow them to the letter (at least you think that's what you're doing) and nothing works.

I stopped fiddling with it and spent time watching tutorial videos while doing other things. Weeks passed and I thought I understood things better. Well, wrong again. Frustration still loomed large. Every few days I would review things and try again. Then I'd cuss and quit.

Yesterday, I finally had a small breakthrough. Things are moving like I tell them to move. It's simple, but the first step has been taken. I got up this  morning and made something before my enthusiasm cooled.

This isn't the 3 minute video with musical accompaniment that I envisioned, but after so much fist pounding and teeth grinding, I'll accept it as it is and claim progress.