How much better is the freehand tool in moho 12?

[NealF]

Hi,

I've got ASP 11. Much of what I do is with the freehand tool. It's okay, but not great. Still do a lot of drawing in other programs.
Do any of you have any experience with the freehand tool in Moho 12? They only say it's been improved. Not much else.
I was wondering how much and what was improved.

Thanks.

[NealF]

Anyone?

[Greenlaw]

Generally speaking, it's much better than Freehand ASP 11 and earlier because it can draw more optimized paths. Also, since you have the option to use Bezier handles, it's easier to edit.

However, the tool is also prone to generating unexpected errors at the ends and welds. Sometimes the errors are too much trouble to fix and you feel you may as well have drawn the shape point-by-point.

Also, I find it behaves differently between devices with different displays...for example, I can get very different results with Freehand between my personal Wacom Cintiq Companion 2 tablet computer and the Cintiq 22HD on the workstation I use at work.

So it's a mixed bag, and it probably depends on how you intend to use it. If your intention is to draw everything with it, I wouldn't count on it.

Personally, I find Freehand is useful for drawing simpler items that I don't intend to deform. I also find Freehand is okay for FBF if the drawings are simple, but I use another program for more complicated stuff.

IMO Freehand has come a long way in a couple of versions but still needs some work to be truly production ready. It's frustrating because it's almost there, just not quite. The developers are aware of the issues and I know they're very serious about making it work more accurately. Hopefully, they're making progress for the next release.

I tend to think of Blob Brush as the other half of Freehand. It works well except for an annoying tendency to change the zoom level when art touches the edge of the workspace. I think they're working on that too.

There's so much new and significantly useful stuff in Moho 12, you shouldn't let Freehand keep you from upgrading. But I'm really hoping the next version does pay more attention to these drawing features of Moho.

[NealF]

Thanks, Greenlaw,

I see many good things for the upgrade. Was hoping to do more with the freehand tool. Right now I'm using it for FBF for just simple things. I like the FBF look so that's why that's important.

I just might upgrade anyway. That mesh distortion of images looks really useful.

Thanks for the info.

[Greenlaw]

Sure. Yeah, there's a ton of good stuff in Moho Pro 12. Smart Warp, Pin Bones, and being able to create custom meshes for warping is fantastic. The default mesh that ASP 11 generated for bitmap layers was often too low for the animations we do at work, so I really appreciate this. Smart Warp and Pin Bones basically work like using Puppet in AE, but more advanced because it also works with regular bones, IK, Target Bones and Smart Bone Actions.

Other things I love: Displaying and editing multiple Layers in the Timeline, layer filters, mute buttons, and significantly improved Batch Exporter (now called Moho Exporter,) and being able to import/export Actions are some of my other favorites. A lot of the new stuff improves the workflow and really speeds up the production process.

Getting back to Freehand, I also find it useful for roughing out elements quickly, that I might then trace over in another layer using the click-and-drag method. I'm optimistic that Freehand will become more useful for creating detailed finished art in the near future. (Fingers crossed.)

[NealF]

Looks really good.

Thanks for all the help.