Moho's future

[Designspaceman]

I think there are still alot of things that could get Moho better. Think of a reliable vector drawing engine. Constructing characters in Moho is okay, importing bitmap characters is okay. But native drawing in Moho would be great (and I don't mean this weird drawing stuff in M13). This would be groundbreaking. But there are also a lot of little things that could be done.
Now what we see is that Moho is no longer developed by people who are bound tho animation. If SM won't find a company that is willing to further develop this wonderful tool it will vanish sooner or later. At least when there is no more support by OS.

[BigBoiiiJones]

My wish for Moho is either they SM sell it to a company like Affinity or just make it open source. Moho has a lot of potential and does a lot of things better that these other software don't. However Moho needs to be severely optimized for bitmap drawing. Vector drawing tools need to be reworked completely because the only and best way to construct a character is by sketching in other software and importing into Moho to clean up and finalize with the add points tool.

I'd say looking into better mathematic formula to generate frames and interpolation would also be a good idea considering some results are wonky. I'd also like to see a system like CACANi where it emulates FBF inbetweening by stroke order and the way it was drawn through paths to align up. Also instead of bones an improvement to point animation could be made. Like adding pivot points to objects so when you rotate using the transform tool it doesn't do the weird deforming and shrinking thing.

Also Moho really lacks basic guides for perspective and its such a simple feature its mind boggling this also improves the drawing experience making it easier to draw in certain perspectives. Also I think Moho could really do well with implementing a compositing like feature like Toon Boom with Nodes or layers to add that extra oomph to things. I mean the current effects do okay but they're very meh looking and hard to control to get good results. I'd like to see existing features like particles to have better simulation added and even smart warps to effect more then one layer at a time.

Also one last thing its 2020 Moho really needs to use more then 4 cores and 8 thread.. Its kind of insulting and really its the biggest con of all. Considering CPU's have up to 64 cores and 128 threads as of writing..

[Daxel]

I think that Moho is extremely powerful, for me it is the master of puppets (rigs) without any doubt.
If SM sells it, that could be good. Probably better than the current situation. The open source alternative would be awesome, but I guess that is too optimistic, isn't it?
If I were rich I would buy Moho, I would hire some devs to port it to vulkan, and just listening to some of you I would make a very succesful Moho 14. Dreaming is free.

[Designspaceman]

I have a brilliant idea: SM sells Moho to the Blender organisation. They develop it to the next level and integrate it as 2D-Mastertool in Blender. We get all the features we need for seamless integration into 3D space, such as lighting ans so on. And the best of all: it's open source... okay maybe I'm a dreamer.

[rucodemente]

My wish for Moho is either they SM sell it to a company like Affinity or just make it open source. Moho has a lot of potential and does a lot of things better that these other software don't...

Now that you mention it, I think Serif (the company behind the Affinity suite) would be a nice fit for MOHO. It is aligned to the company's long-time philosophy of making software even when there are industry standard packages already. I remember buying Serif's Design Suite a million years ago and they did managed to craft a fairly decent piece of software. Back in the day, that suite included a very basic 3D animation program.

I think they've been tremendously successful with their Affinity line of products and I can only guess they would be able to make justice to MOHO. Even though that would probably mean it'd be rebranded to something like Affinity Animator or something.

Maybe we should drop them a line and suggest (beg) them to rescue MOHO.

[alanthebox]

Do you guys think it will still exist for some time? How close is it to become an industry standard

I'm sure the software (as it currently exists) will be usable for quite some time. Case in point - I still use Autodesk/Softimage XSI 2012, which I believe was released back during Windows 7, but it still works great via Windows 10.

[synthsin75]

I agree. Moho 12.5 will still be usable for the foreseeable future. And with scripting, it's feature set can still be improved upon.

[barrysampson]

I haven't been here for a while, other than the occasional check in to see if there is any news about the future of Moho. Most of what I've read here suggests it doesn't have one, which is a shame.

I completely agree with those of you who have used As/Moho for some time. You've got value out of it already and if you're happy with it as it is there's no reason to think you won't continue to get value from it even if the product disappears (unlike subscriptions products...).

But if you're completely new to Moho or you've been away a while and are just coming back to it, I do think it's valid to question whether it's worth investing time in it now. This isn't about an obsession with new features, it's about basic support and how long it will continue to run on all OSes. If you're a Mac user (which I'm not any more) what are the chances that Moho will make it onto ARM based Macs when they arrive (fairly soon if you believe the rumours).

For those that are freelancers and need to work in someone else's pipeline, ToonBoom and TV Paint have got that market sewn up.

Others have mentioned Blender and I think it's well on the way to becoming a go-to tool for everyone, especially with DUIK for Blender on the horizon. Blender may not be the industry standard, but it is growing in popularity and the 2D in a true 3D workspace approach is amazing.

I see Affinity mentioned in every forum where there is some form of media tool that people wish was better developed! Serif abandoned their own legacy products to focus on building the Affinity tools as the most performant and stable out there. I can't see them taking on someone else's legacy product.

Anyway, whatever your own software choices are, stay safe and be kind.

[here2animate]

I am new to MOHO and have been using the Demo for about a month. I find it relatively easy to pick up and the bone tools are great. In reading this board and a few others it seems there is concern about MOHO's future. It appears there are several bugs (last release 13.xx) and performance issues. This coupled with what seems to be a lack of interest from Smith Micro have me wondering if I should commit to this software. Even with the $239 sale price does it make sense to commit the time and effort to a platform if the handwriting on the wall says this product may not be around for too much longer.

Anyone have any thoughts that might make me fell better about committing to this platform?
Thanks

[synthsin75]

Don't bother with v13. If you can find a good deal on a v12 on Ebay, Amazon, etc., just use that license number and download the latest version of v12 here: https://my.smithmicro.com/
If you can find a good deal, v12 is a solid animation tool, currently used by several studios to produce TV and feature length animations.

[Greenlaw]

Do you guys think it will still exist for some time? How close is it to become an industry standard?

Re: 'industry standard', it's being used at two major animation studios that I'm aware of.

Where I work, we use Moho Pro 12.5 for sequences in our TV shows on Netflix and other streaming channels. You can check out my last two demo reels for many examples. These days, I occasionally use it on Fast & Furious Spy Racers, and animators I work with are using it on other shows. We'll keep using Moho 12.5 until it breaks I guess.

Cartoon Saloon also uses Moho Pro in their TV and features pipeline. I know they recently used Moho 13 Pro for a short film, but I think they fell back to version 12.5 too. There's more info about their work elsewhere in these forums.

In my opinion, Moho Pro 13 isn't quite ready for production use. There are problems with the new Smart Bone Actions that become apparent when re-purposing rigs and parts of rigs for multiple characters. These critical issues didn't get resolved before the developers were apparently let go. I say 'apparently' because this is just speculation, as I don't have any official knowledge about what's going on behind the scenes. But if Smith Micro truly has ended Moho development, I hope the program finds a new home soon. There's nothing else quite like Moho Pro and it's just too good to abandon.

To be clear, Moho Pro 13 is certainly usable...but it's not as solid and reliable to use as Moho Pro 12.5 is. If it was up to me, Smith Micro should bundle a Moho Pro 12.5 license along with Moho Pro 13. Just a suggestion to their marketing folks.

[Greenlaw]

I think there are still alot of things that could get Moho better. Think of a reliable vector drawing engine. Constructing characters in Moho is okay, importing bitmap characters is okay. But native drawing in Moho would be great (and I don't mean this weird drawing stuff in M13). This would be groundbreaking. But there are also a lot of little things that could be done.

I agree absolutely. The new bitmap painting tools are somewhat useful even in their current 'unfinished' form, but what I was really hoping to see in Moho 13 were fixes and improvements for the existing Freehand and Blob Brush tools. These tools have never worked as well as they should, and getting better versions of Freehand and Blob Brush would make using Moho's FBF workflow more appealing too.

Regarding the new Bitmap tools, these have potential but they currently seem unfinished to me. TBH, it wouldn't take a lot to make these tools production-ready, but of course we need somebody working on this.

Also, Moho Exporter and Layer Comps are still missing a few basic features that are essential for use by professional artists and animation studios. For example, we should be able to define the default project-specific output path in the Project Settings window, and being able to export/import Layer Comp settings between projects. To me, these two requests seem like 'low-hanging fruit' features but I've been asking for them for years.

To recap:

1. Regress or fix the Actions ID issue that's breaking production workflows. (Mentioned in earlier post.)
2. Fix the freehand vector drawing tools.
3. Complete the bitmap drawing tools.
4. Add the missing features in Project Settings, Moho Exporter, and Layer Comps.
5. Finishing the new Actions window. This was the one new feature I was excited about until I ran into the Actions ID problem.
6. Forget about the new 3D engine, at least for now. Seriously, nobody was asking for this feature. If you really want to improve Moho's 3D capabilities, start by improving the camera controls. Better 3D control for bones could be useful too.

If the developers had focused only on requested fixes, Moho Pro 13 would have been a more welcome upgrade. I hope someday we will see Moho Pro 14 with the above list addressed...now that would be awesome!

[Greenlaw]

I'd also like to see a native equivalent of MQC, the on-screen button panel I made for Moho. Other paint/animation programs have user-customizable panels where you can add clickable buttons for almost any available command, script, or tools. (Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Toon Boom, and Painter come to mind.) Sure, a lot of this stuff can be scripted for Moho (using Lua or AHK,) but there should be an easier option for artists who just want to set up a custom panel and go.

For me, MQC makes using Moho much quicker to work with, especially when using a drawing tablet. And if I was able make this, it's definitely another 'low-hanging fruit' for a future Moho dev team.