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No upgrade path

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 2:12 am
by Kingrunner
Well that sucks to see that there is not upgrade path from vs11 pro. I just could not afford 12 because of life problems. I was looking forward to v13 but at $400, I will never be able to afford it. :evil:

Not sure what else to say other than I am severely disappointed at SM decision.

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 2:38 am
by synthsin75
If you had upgrades from 11 Pro to 12 Pro, you'd have paid $199. Since the upgrade from 12 Pro to 13 Pro is $160, you only have to come up with an extra $41 more than you would have paid if you had kept up to date.

Companies just aren't in the business of incentivizing people to skip buying their products. You could have saved $41 and been using the latest version of Moho all along. And if $400 is too much, you might shop the competitors...or seek out freeware.

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 7:20 am
by slowtiger
I skipped 12 because from reading here it seemed to be not as reliable as 11. I don't jump to 13 right now, first I need to know wether those issues were fixed.

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 7:31 am
by Designspaceman
slowtiger wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 7:20 am I skipped 12 because from reading here it seemed to be not as reliable as 11. I don't jump to 13 right now, first I need to know wether those issues were fixed.
Yes, I decieded to wait too. I'ts not the money but I'm not sure that 13 is truely productionready.

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 9:28 am
by flop3545
They did previously offer upgrade pricing from earlier versions and I am a bit surprised to see they aren't offering it this time around.

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:08 am
by Diana Kennedy
slowtiger wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 7:20 am I skipped 12 because from reading here it seemed to be not as reliable as 11.
Moho 12.02 is pretty stable and reliable, if you overlook some minor bugs.
I am currently testing 13 the trial and I am really struggeling with myself. I really love to work with the newest version, but so far I am not convinced that there are truly notable improvements.

But yes, first of all, there should be an uprgrade path. I'm not gonna pay 300 bucks like a total newbie.

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:10 am
by Diana Kennedy
Found it ! Pretty hidden, but here it is:

https://my.smithmicro.com/moho-pro-upgrades.html

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:41 am
by flop3545
Diana Kennedy wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:10 am Found it ! Pretty hidden, but here it is:

https://my.smithmicro.com/moho-pro-upgrades.html
I think the main issue is that there is only an upgrade path from v12, whereas in previous years there were varying upgrade discounts going back all the way to Anime Studio 6. This is what the upgrade page looked like previously: https://imgur.com/NMXZt4i

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:37 pm
by Diana Kennedy
flop3545 wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:41 am
Diana Kennedy wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:10 am Found it ! Pretty hidden, but here it is:

https://my.smithmicro.com/moho-pro-upgrades.html
I think the main issue is that there is only an upgrade path from v12, whereas in previous years there were varying upgrade discounts going back all the way to Anime Studio 6.

Yeah, I see. :(

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 1:24 pm
by Kingrunner
Like others have said... Until yesterday you could upgrade from previous versions all the way back to version 6 pro with the last version of release with the best discount. I thought that it was very generous of SM to go back as far as version 6 and still get a discount. Most companies don't go back that far. SM should have said something that this was going to change with the release of 13. I would also have expect more of a marketing push from them, like buy version 12 now and get a free upgrade to 13. but nothing.

I don't make a living using Moho so buying the software even an upgrade can be difficult to justify. I was hoping this time I could but at $400 that will never happen there just is not any room for that kind of expenditure. But in any case SM should have said something......

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 6:59 am
by rafael
You could always try sending an email to see if they'll make you a deal on the upgrade. Never know.

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 10:45 pm
by synthsin75
Is $41 really a deal breaker? That's, what, taking the family out to eat a few times?

That's how much more you have to pay, compared to upgrading to 12 and then to 13.

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2019 3:20 am
by Kingrunner
SM made a huge shift in upgrade policy that should have been announced in advance (like 3-6 months ago). SM doubled the price of upgrading with v12 which I could not afford at the time. I was prepared for that this time but now it is $400 since there is no path to upgrade pre v12. Just disappointed. I can still use v11 for all my needs so no more worries.

-off to listen to music and animated some before bed.

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2019 10:54 am
by djwaterman
That's pretty poor show for Moho, they just sprung it on us. In any case the bit map brush quality isn't up to snuff ATM and not worth $400. It's the only feature that would've had me upgrading but they need to work on it.'
Version 11 is still perfectly fine for vector and rigged animation.

Re: No upgrade path

Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2019 5:49 pm
by Greenlaw
To upgrade or not?

Personally, I'm finding Moho 13's new bitmap painting tools are certainly usable. ATM, they may not replace a full paint program like Photoshop or Krita to create bitmap art for Moho, but the native paint tools are a convenient option when I can work within the current feature set. And developers have informed me that other standard paint features (like a selection tool) are coming. As for bugs in this current release, the developers are aware of them and working on a patch to address them. Hopefully, that won't take long.

As for the upgrade requirements, yeah, I agree...Smith-Micro's marketing should have extended the option to ASP users, even if it only for limited time. Maybe ASP 11 users could try petitioning their marketing department?

That said, Moho Pro 12 has been out for a few years and it's been proven in production to be a gigantic improvement over ASP 11. A lot of the 2D animation we created Moho Pro 12 for 'Boss Baby: Back In Business' could not have been done as easily in ASP 11. IMO, just the UI improvements alone made a big difference, let alone new additions like custom meshes and Smart Warp, sub-layer interpolations, clipboard image pasting, etc.

Moho Pro 13 gives you all of these Moho Pro 12's features plus Bitmap painting and the new Smart Actions window. For me, this latter feature may be even more significant because the rigs I've built can have hundreds of actions to manage.

Further thoughts about Moho Pro 13:

I haven't really played with the new 3D shading features yet. I might find 3D shading in Moho useful at some point in the future but it's not something I really need right now.

TBH, I would much rather see further work done with improving the existing freehand/blob brush vector tools and the new bitmap drawing tools. I also feel they need to address some long standing file management issues, like allowing users to assign an output path in the project. Seriously, there should be a field for this in Project settings...selecting a path from a 'most recently used' list is unreliable and unacceptable. I hope they take care of these essential things first before adding on too many new features.

Overall, though, I think the fact that we now even have a Moho 13 is a hopeful sign for the future of this software. The new developers seem to have the program figured out and they have some interesting ideas about where to take it.

Upgrade? I think it's worth it. The new features may not be perfect in this first release but they're welcome additions and they will get better. :)

Ok...back to work now.