I think it comes down to how much power and convenience you need in creating your game content.
Debut gives you little more than the basics, but if basic animation is what you need, it might be suitable. IMO, you can actually do a lot with Debut but it lacks a lot of advanced animation Pro features like Smart Bones, Smart Warp and Physics, all of which can speed up the process and process more refined animations. That said, in many cases, you can approach similar results with Debut, it will just take a lot more work and time to get there.
As for whether Debut is capable of doing the type of game graphics you pointed to, sure why not? I use Moho everyday for broadcast TV production which is far more complex...granted, we're using the Pro version but the
basic tools are the same and the game animation you cited are much simpler in design and animation.
What it really comes down to is how you intend to add the animations to your game engine. Will you be using rendered sprites or do you need rigged animations? For example, if you just want rendered sprites then it should be no problem, but if it's the latter I'm not sure Debut exports FBX files like Pro does. Although it doesn't say on the chart referenced above, FBX export is a Pro-only feature, which I think is going to be a big obstacle unless you're going the sprite route.
That said, I'm not well versed in Unity, but I'm sure another user will show up any minute to offer more specific info. In the meantime, there are few threads about using Moho with Unity elsewhere in these forums, so you might want to search those.
I'll try to answer some of your questions as best I can. (Sorry, they're a bit generalized and maybe slightly opinionated):
3. Does the DEBUT 12 come with premade characters and backgrounds that I can edit, and if so how good are they?
Yes, but IMO if you're serious about
commercial game development, you should be designing your own characters and environments. Moho does have a character generator but the results can be pretty random and (IMO) not particularly cohesive for a single production.
If you don't do character design yourself, I think you'd be much better off hiring or teaming up with an artist to design something for the project.
Re: resolution, I'm not sure what the max frame res is for Debut. I think it's less than HD but it you're rendering game sprites, you won't need to go anywhere near that high.
Re: drawing tools, the native drawing tools are vector based and there are several affects that can give you nice gradient results. The grads can be linear, radial, or even follow the contour of your shapes. (See '
Scareplane' for an example: the directional highlight, shading and shadow effects in the characters are generated by program on-the-fly...and this is actually pretty basic stuff.)
The drawing process (in Debut or Pro) is mainly plotting points and curves, which can take some getting used to. There is a Freehand tool in the program but, IMO, it's still a work-in-progress--the tool works but I would avoid it for deforming objects. Feehand is better suited for non-deforming props, bg art, and FBF animation (Pro only,) and it can be fine for rigged animation but mainly if you aren't using the bones to bend the shapes. If you need nicely deforming shapes though, you definitely want to plot everything manually.
Re: Learning curve. IMO, if you follow the tutorials, it's pretty easy to learn the basics, and the best education comes in creating your first project and then every project after that. This forum is a great place to get information not covered in the manuals (or not covered very clearly.)
Personally, I found learning Moho super easy ('Scareplane' was my first animated cartoon using a much earlier version of ASP/Moho,) but I think having a background in 3D animation and compositing helped me. So just how easy or difficult Moho is to learn may also depend on what experience you already have with other programs. If you're new to rigged animation, I think Debut is a great place to start learning. In the end, the biggest learning curve a Debut user may face is when they out-grow the program and need to come up with clever ways get around not having the advanced rigging and animation tools in Pro. But at that point, it's time to consider upgrading.
Re: Commercial license. I don't think Debut has a restriction for that.
Re: Rate Moho Debut between 1 - 10. What does this scale means exactly? If 1 is drawing with a stick in the dirt and 10 is that the program reads my mind and draws what I think, I guess I guess maybe I give Moho Pro a 6 or 7 and maybe place Debut at 4 - 5? I hope that helps.
Seriously though, as an animation program, I think Moho is right up there with the best, at least for rigged animations. With Debut, it ranks a bit lower but you still get a great IK system which is more than what many other animation tools offer for rigged animation.
As a content generation tool for game development, it's a little harder to say if Debut will do what you need. I would first define
exactly what you need for your game kit for the type of game you wish to develop, and then find out if the animation program is capable of outputting data you need. Then, download the trial version of Debut and see if it can meet those requirements. If it doesn't download the Pro trial and see if that program does.
Hope this helps. Hopefully, somebody with more game development experience will pop in soon to fill in the big gaps I left in the above info.
