Moho (Anime Studio) Tutorials : Backgrounds With Brushes

1. Copy images into brush folder

Close the Anime Studio program if you have it running

Locate the 'brushes' folder for Anime Studio and copy the brush images to this folder.

Note: You may have two installations of the program if you have a 64bit machine – so you will probably want to copy the images to the other installation as well.

If you're using Microsoft Windows, the location path will probably look like this:

C: > Program Files (x86) > Smith Micro > Anime Studio Pro 9 > Resources > Support > brushes

Or / and this:

C: > Program Files > Smith Micro > Anime Studio Pro 9 > Resources > Support >brushes

2. Draw horizontal line

Open Anime Studio

Hit 'A' key to select the 'Add Point Tool'.

Draw the line half way down, making it a little bigger than the scene.

3. Create the shape

We now need to turn our line into a shape that we can apply a style to.

1. Hit the 'U' key to select the 'Create Shape' tool
2. Click on the line
3. Click on the 'Create Shape' button

4. Apply brush settings

1. Hit the 'Q' key to select the 'Select Shape' tool
2. Click on the line

3. Click the 'No Brush' image in the style panel
4. Select the mountain scene
5. Set the brush jitter angle to 0 - we don't want the image to be rotated randomly
6. Set the brush spacing to 124 - this size works best for this image - you would need to test other numbers with other images
7. Select the 'Minimize frame-to-frame randomness' to keep the brush from jittering during the animation.
8. Hit ok to set the brush
9. Enter 250 into the line width then hit your Return/Enter key to set - again, this size works for this image

5. Add more layers

scroll.anme (found in the supporting files) is an example use of this technique.

Although this scene was made using only two lines, the buildings needed to be much larger than the allowed maximum line height. So it was placed in a new 'group layer' which was then resized larger.

The two layers were then moved at a different rate in the animation. This gives the perception of depth (called parallax scrolling).

To add to the effect of depth, you can increase the blur radius of the far objects. This is done in the layer's settings [FIGURE 5-2].

This technique can be applied to trees, fences, clouds, grass, water and much more. As the images are pre-drawn, Anime Studio will work quickly with these images too.


Click here to view FREE Anime Studio Brushes

Supporting Content