TzaTza4love wrote:I find Toon Boom Software to be easy to use.
I understand some people find Anime Studio Pro to be easy to use.
I find Anime Studio hard which is why I am on this forum.
IMO, it depends on what you're wanting to do with your animations. At the studio where I work, we use both Toon Boom Harmony and Moho 12.
For FBF, Toon Boom Harmony has an advantage because it features (arguably) better drawing tools for bitmap and vectors. Also, its nodal scene editor allows you to set up some very sophisticated masking and layering tricks not possible in Moho. The downside to this is that changing things in the nodes editor can completely hose your animation library.
Moho's FBF tools are very new and still needs improvement. The drawing tools are all vector based but they're capable of very natural looks. I use the FBF occasionally for effects like fire, water/lava splashes and other fx animation, but I think it's still a little awkward to use for more complicated animations. The developers are working to improve the Freehand drawing tools and it has been improving with every release, so I'm optimistic that it will get where it needs to be eventually.
For rigged characters, Moho is far more capable than Toon Boom Harmony. Moho features a much easier to set up bones system with fully functional IK with goals. This makes it easier and more reliable to 'lock down' hands and feet. Harmony does not have an IK system for its deformers, and to simulate 'locking', you need to create a second reverse limb for every limb and point it towards its 'parent' manually. It's not horrible to animate with but it is clunky compared to how bones with a real IK system--like the one in Moho--works. (FYI, Harmony does have a primitive version of IK but no option for Goals and it doesn't work with Deformers, so it's not particularly useful.)
Both programs have a method for swapping drawings, Drawing Substitution in Harmony and Switch Layer in Moho. Moho's system is easier to manage because there are several ways to use it: directly right clicking on the layer to choose from a list of drawings, Ctrl-Alt Right-Click on the art in the workspace, cycling wth Alt-D and Alt-C, selecting from the settings bar for the Switch tool, using a Smart Bone Dial, using the new Switch Selection window, and a few more. With Harmony, you have the Drawing Subsitution panel, you can use brackets to cycle the drawings, or you can input values directly in a dopesheet.
The big advantage with Moho is that you can make selections non-linearly and not have to cycle through a long list of drawings. That said, I prefer Harmony's Drawing Subsition panel to Moho's Switch Selection Window because Hamony's version displays the images as they were drawn and Moho's panel applies current frame's animation/deformation to the drawing, which makes is less desirable to work with. When you really get down to it, however, Moho Switch Layer system still works better if you use Ctrl-Alt Right-Click because it's more direct and it lets you make drawing selections without cycling. Alternatively, being able to use a Smart Bone Dial to drive the switch is a powerful option not available in Harmony.
I'm not going to choose sides about which is better: I like and use both programs, and both program have certain aspects about them that sometimes makes me nuts. But if I
had to choose only one program
and because I rely heavily on rigged character animations in my work, I'd go with Moho in a heartbeat. Other users may have differing experiences but personally I find Moho is much easier to setup and animate rigged characters with, and it's far less likely to invalidate your animation library when you make small changes to the rigs. (If I worked
primarily as an FBF animator, I might feel differently, but that's not what I do.)
Hope this helps.
Edit: I also find Moho's 3D environment is easier to work with than Harmony's. It's not perfect but it's much easier to navigate in and manipulate layers/objects inside of. Also, I think Moho's 'Maintain Visual Size' option may be unique and it's super useful when setting up multi-plane scenes.