Moho (Anime Studio) Tutorials : Moving A Pump With Physics

1. Create the images

*Before you start this tutorial, I highly recommend you download the supporting content and play the animation.

I used Adobe Fireworks, to create the images required for this tutorial, and saved them as .png files to maintain the transparency.

These images can be found in the Supporting Content

2. Import and arrange images

1. Go to 'File' > 'Import' > 'Image...' then select all the images required. Importing the images into Anime Studio will result in each image having its own layer.

2. Create a new group layer in the layers window, name it 'Pump' then move all the images into it.
Grouping all the layers into one group layer will help us later to move and scale the image with ease, and it's also required for the physics to work (Physics can only be turned on at group level)

3. Create two new bone layers in the group and name one 'Container' and one 'Images'. For this setup, all the images should be moved into the 'images' bone layer apart from the chamber image, which should remain outside.


4. Arrange the images so they look like Figure 2-2:

3. Layer settings for physics

Open the layer settings for the main Pump group and enable the physics from the physics tab, then click OK. (FIGURE 3-1)
Open the layer settings for the 'Images' bone layer, then go to the physics tab.
Make sure that 'Enable physics' is ticked, then tick 'Pivot on origin' and 'Enable motor', set the 'Motor torque' to 20 then click OK (FIGURE 3-2)
Open the layer settings for the 'Container' bone layer and again go to the Physics tab, then tick the 'Non-moving object. (FIGURE 3-3)

4. Adding Bones

The main bone on the wheel will rotate as a motor (Bone 1: FIGURE 4-1), moving the other bones. The rocker bone (Bone 3: FIGURE 4-1) has its tip locked so that stays in place and rocks. This setup also uses two bone layers, one for the pump, and another as a guide for the pump's up/down shaft - without the guides the up/down bone would instead swing side to side.


Adding the bones to the 'Image' bone layer

1. Select the 'Images' bone layer, and then use the Add Bone tool and add the first bone for the wheel, moving from the centre of the wheel to the end of the arm (arm.png) (Bone 1: FIGURE 4-1),

2. Next we create the first shaft bone, moving from the end of the arm to the right of the rocker (Bone 2: FIGURE 4-1),

3. Add the rocker bone, starting at the right of the rocker and ending in the centre (Bone 3: FIGURE 4-1).

4. Once the rocker bone has been added, use the Bones Physics tool (Step 1: FIGURE 4-2) and enable the 'Lock tip' setting for this bone (Step 2: FIGURE 4-2)


5. The second shaft has a bone from the left of the rocker to the top of the pump. The bones strength has also been set to 0.3717 with the Bone Strength tool (Bone 4: FIGURE 4-1),

6. The pump has a small bone to its left. This is used to keep the pump in place (Bone 5: FIGURE 4-1),

It's important to add the bones in the right order to ensure they are parented correctly. The first bone will become the motor and its 'children' will be moved by it. (FIGURE 4-3)
(The Reparent Bone tool would need to be used if not)

5. Bind Layer

We now need to assign each bone to the correct image layer:

1. Select an image layer
2. Select the bind layer tool
3. Click on the relevant bone to bind

6. Container bones

This is probably the only tricky bit that takes some trial and error.

1. Two bones are added either side of the chamber
2. The bone strengths have been set with the Bone Strength tool so that the pump's up/down shaft moves smoothly. You will need to adjust the position and strength to ensure this is working correctly.

Supporting Content