Moho Forum

Hey Everyone.

I used to post and interact here around 5 or 6 years ago when I learned Moho doing a few freelance projects. I went and work in a different industry since and now I'm now 37 and back at freelancing, wondering again what to do with my life. I'm tempted to further a career in illustration/animation, and while I play around with Photoshop, AI, or Affinity Designer on my ipad, I keep remembering that I have at my disposal quite a complex program where I already passed the learning curve, Anime Studio, now called Moho.

But what's the future of Moho? Do you guys think it will still exist for some time? How close is it to become an industry standard? Is it actually used by any respectable studio? Seldom have I ever seen it used for more than barely professional things but maybe I'm mistaken.

I really like Moho, the team behind it, what I can do with it etc... But I would hate to dive into it once more and see it discontinued or outdated at some point.

Any reassurance would help. Sorry for being such a downer.

So what? The old versions will still work fine. Why are people so obsessed with "do respectable studios use it"? If it fits for your project, use it. If not, don't.

slowtiger wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2020 6:48 pm So what? The old versions will still work fine. Why are people so obsessed with "do respectable studios use it"? If it fits for your project, use it. If not, don't.

I'm assuming their concern might involve investing more time into learning Moho, only to find that there aren't many freelance opportunities available (if a lot of studios don't integrate Moho into their pipeline). Seems like a valid concern to me.

^ I guess you did not have in mind a few members of the forum, while you wrote that comment?

Blender is also not considered as an industry standard but does it really impacts its usage?

Far as I'm concerned - industry standard in animation is quite similar to political correctness. A phrase and nothing else, and I'll dare to say equally shallow one. What would be an industry standard for a Klaus (2020)? Is Klaus less respectable work only due to lack of prize(s) and lack of industry standardized tools?

Back in the Flash animation days, I've set a few tasks for a member of the team. He was not exactly good at animation per se although the task was about the simple shapes but some other memebers told that I should not be worried about that - Just tell him exactly what do you need and, God knows how, but he'll make it. Once I checked upon him, I saw a mess but I also followed the advice and I was not worried. Even before I had to go to him for another check, he came with the whole thing done.

I told him that I'd like to hear/learn how is this possible - just a blink earlier I saw a terrible mess and now this. His words:
"Oh, well. At first, I went for your route through drawing shapes and stuff but at some point, I made a mess since I'm not comfortable with that approach and then I made the whole thing through scripting."

I see all you guy's points but they didn't really answer my questions (unless they did..).

I guess I'll keep at it anyway cause it's simply a great program

I don't know if we're respectable enough for you but we use Moho Pro 12 to animate 2D segments in some of our TV shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

You can see examples of Moho character animation on my last two DWATV demo reels. The most recent examples are from Boss Baby and Kung Fu Panda, and I've used it a little in Fast & Furious Spy Racers too.

We're not using Moho 13 at work yet but I've been using it in some personal work. IMO, Moho 13 has some interesting features but Moho 12.5 is more solid for production work.

As for Moho's future, that info will have to come from Smith Micro or the developers.

Dope! Thanks for sharing Greenlaw!

Glad to see it used in big productions.

Btw Greenlaw, your Animaker thingy is just what I was missing to work with my ipad and Sidecar. Thanks a lot for making it available!

Aarrgh! It looks like it's only for Windows. Too bad.

Yeah, sorry about that. At the time, I checked to see if there was a Mac version of AHK or at least a player for the script. I saw some rumors about this in a forum but I don't think anything came of it. FWIW, an uncompiled version of the script comes with the download and maybe it can be ported to a Mac macro program? It's a pretty simple script actually...mostly it's just adding existing Moho commands to a button panel interface, with only one or two buttons combining commands.

If you have a Wacom tablet, it's possible to create a similar button panel using On Screen Controls. That's how I started out but I had to use multiple OSC windows because it's limited to 8 buttons per window. I believe this feature is available for Mac too.

It would be great if Moho offered a native customizable button panel like some other programs do.

Just curious but is anybody aware of a macro scripting tool that works for both Win and Mac computers? Preferably open-source?

From my knowledge and what I heard Davit and Joao (Developers of Moho 13) are having a hard time to get Smith Micro to fund Moho anymore. I heard a rumor they might sell it off like they did with Poser. So essentially they're trying to find a buyer. Smith Micro absolutely does not care about their graphics department anymore and are jumping on that mobile market. However I overheard this info about a month ago and things could have changed since then but I doubt it. I will not disclose who told me this because I don't want to get anyone in trouble however the future seems bleak for a version 14 that's why I moved more so to Toon Boom and TVPaint.

BigBoiiiJones wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2020 9:34 am From my knowledge and what I heard Davit and Joao (Developers of Moho 13) are having a hard time to get Smith Micro to fund Moho anymore. I heard a rumor they might sell it off like they did with Poser. So essentially they're trying to find a buyer. Smith Micro absolutely does not care about their graphics department anymore and are jumping on that mobile market. However I overheard this info about a month ago and things could have changed since then but I doubt it. I will not disclose who told me this because I don't want to get anyone in trouble however the future seems bleak for a version 14 that's why I moved more so to Toon Boom and TVPaint.

I believe it. But it's a dumb move to let software you're looking to sell languish for a long time, not bringing in new users.

In any case, I'm still happy with 12.5, and will be for the foreseeable future. 13 is simply not production ready. Too many deal breaker bugs and no update in sight.

Hello Moho-Friends,
well, I still am happy with Moho 12.5. But... (there is always a "but") ... I think most of us animators would feel better, if Moho would have a clear opportunity to grow. When you look around tools like Cartoon Animator get updates nearly every 6 month. And not just bugfixing. The capabilities of Moho are still strong compared to other solutions. So counting on Moho in the future feels a bit like betting on a dead (or nearly dead) horse. Of course we can use 12.5 until the end of mankind but there are so many things that would make Moho even better and better - if developed... I stay with Moho because of the bone system. If Toon Boom would have such a bone system I would change over.
I still hope that there is a company somewhere that could see the potential of Moho an buys it of those SM-birdbrains...

I don't need upgrades that often. Bugfixes, OK, because I paid for something that works. Upgrades make me nervous because in an "adult" software like Moho this often means "Verschlimmbesserung": change features or add new ones to the level of unusability. And Moho has failed to address some complaints which are now 10 yrs old, like basic user interface stuff.

What I really like to see is a commitment to the software which includes an up-to-date manual ... But I know that this is something hard to sell: marketing wants features, because features can easily be boasted in a "what's new"-list.