- [Instructor] This is a lesson from our Moho animation course. To get the full course, go to bloopanimation.com/mohoanimation. So far in the course, we've
been using vector layers for all of our rigging, but you can use image layers as well. Here's a character that
was drawn in Photoshop. We'll look at the workflow for importing Photoshop files later, but what you end up with
is all of the layers from your Photoshop file as separate image layers here in Moho. Now, for the most part, you can rig a character
made up of image layers with bones just like we've
done with vector layers. You can either use layer binding
to bind artwork to a bone like I did with the head here. Or you can flex the bind
like I did with the arms. Now in its natural state,
you can't point bind because an image layer
doesn't have points. It's made up of pixels. That also means if something looks wonky with your flexi-binding, you can't really use smart
bone actions to fix it. Unless you set up a smart warp mesh. That's a way to give your image layers more of the functionality
of vector layers. Let's look at how to set that up now. So let's say we want to fix the bending of this foot here with a smart bone. To do that, we'll set up
our own transformation mesh so we can control exactly how the image gets
distorted by the bone. Let's find this layer
in the layers palette. And I put it in a group
for just this reason, because we need to add a vector layer. And we're going to use this layer as the basis for the distortion mesh. Now on this vector layer, we can use the add points tool to draw a shape around our image. Make sure it's set to sharp corners, and I'm gonna need to
turn off autofill too. Let's just hide everything else. We want to put a point in every place that we want to control. That means any spot
you might want to move, but also any spots that you
want to make sure don't move when something else is distorted. For the outline, it's
good to leave some space around the image itself. I'm being pretty generous with
the amount of control points. So that's the outline, but we can also add other interior points for anything within the
shape we might want to move or keep in place. So I'm going to outline these spots and the shadow line here. Then with the mesh layer selected, go up to draw, triangulate 2D mesh. Then this is the result. But we can clean this up a little bit. If there are triangular sections with no artwork underneath them, then they won't affect anything. So you can delete points
or use the delete edge tool to get rid of them. Then that looks good. So now the next thing
to do is test it out. To make the mesh actually
affect our image layer, we need to go to the layer
settings for the image layer and on the image tab at the bottom, we can set the smart warp layer to the mesh layer we just made. And now if you're past frame zero and you're out on the timeline, whenever you move the
points in the mesh layer, it will distort the image. So you can test it out and see if you can get the
kind of distortion you need. If you find you need more control points, you can go back to frame zero and use the add points
tool to add them in. You might need more points around parts that need to bend or stretch out. Then whenever you add points, make sure to go back to
draw, triangulate 2D mesh. Then your new points will
actually get incorporated into the new mesh and you can use them. It might take some trial
and error to get a mesh with points in the right places. So test as you go to make sure you have
the control you need. It's best to get this right before you start setting
up your smart bone actions. I'm gonna add some additional
points along these toe lines so I can control the length of
those as the foot stretches. So once you have a mesh
you think will work, you can use that either
for point binding to bones or in this case, we're
gonna set up smart bones. So let's turn this bottom part of the foot into a smart bone by
going to the actions panel and adding an action. Then I'll set the end position to down and then switch to the mesh layer and reshape the way it flexes
around the ankle and the heel. I'm mostly concerned about
keeping the size and shape of the foot consistent as the ankle bends. This technique, obviously, doesn't give you all the
control you get with vector art, and you can only push this so far, but it's pretty impressive
how good a result you can get. Then I'd better add another action for the foot bone going the other way too. This one doesn't need as much work. We just wanna make sure the
leg doesn't get narrower when the foot pushes up on it. And we wanna make sure the
foot doesn't flatten out. Now you'll notice that
even if you turn off the control points checkbox on the stage, you can still see the mesh layer. Since we're done working
with that, we can hide it. If we open the layer
settings for the mesh, you can see it's already set to not be visible when rendered, but we can also check hide
in the editing view too. But if you have vector lines enabled, you can still adjust
control points of the mesh. Now I'm gonna set up an
action for the shin too and adjust how the thigh flexes. This is where it's nice
to have control points around distinctive
elements like the spots. I really wanna get it to look like there's a
thigh muscle in there that's flexing to pull the leg straight. So I want that whole region where the dots are to get shifted up. Okay, then I'm gonna do
one for the thigh itself to fix this bad cramping up issue and how the leg stretches
along the bottom. I'm basically just gonna
rotate this whole top of the thigh by hand, and then reshape this outer edge up top and make sure that the
leg sort of flattens out along the bottom. Cool, now we can come out on the timeline and check how the leg flexes now. So in this case, we have multiple smart bones affecting a lot of the
same control points. The effects of the actions
are gonna get combined which can sometimes be unpredictable. But in this case, it looks
like it worked out fine. This leg looks a lot better
in its extended position now. If you download the finished
version of this rig, you'll find that in addition to fixing the bends on the other limbs, I've done some other fun
stuff with smart warps. Like make his cheek
smush when his head leans and make it so he can
open and close his mouth. If you select a bone, it will highlight the
actions associated with it in the actions panel. And you can go inside each action to just see what that
particular action does. And you can look through the layers panel and find the relevant mesh layers to see exactly how the points
are set up and what's warping. Check that out for some fun ideas.
