Moho Plans

[arglborps]

It’s not that simple. Often I want to use the same background in Apple Motion. Now Moho only lets me export its vector data in SVG and have you ever looked at that output? It’s a horrible mess. Moho’s SVG butchers one outline into a myriad of small vector snippets that are impossible to edit and unusable.

So I have to rely on an external app for creating backgrounds that can export its data into various formats that I can then import reliably into the different apps.

[MickSee]

Great news all around! I'm generally excited to see where these new talented and passionate owners take Moho. I was a bit disappointed with the release of 13, and felt the updates were rushed and not fully realized. Now that the dream team is hete, I'm confident it's going to be a new and industrious era for Moho.

For me one of the main features I'm hoping for is an upgrade to the masking features. I would love the ability a mask folder within another mask folder. Also revisiting the brush engine and how the freehand tool work would be splendid.

Cheers! Here we come Moho 14!

[arglborps]

I just tried it in Moho 12.5.1 and you can do that already.
I think if you switch on GPU acceleration it'll mess up the display, but if you switch it off it works.
here the contents of the folder "Layer 3" are masking the layers in the folder "Layer 2". Sorry for the unintuitive naming, just did this right now ad hoc.

[Greenlaw]

Yes, you can do nested masking. It doesn't always preview properly in the workspace but it will render correctly. Also, turning off GPU acceleration can usually improve the preview of the masking effect, but be aware that this is just the on-screen preview and the masking effect may render differently anyway. Always spot-check your work with Ctrl-R.

Most of the time I just ignore how the masking looks in the workspace preview when I know it will render correctly. On the occasion when I absolutely need to see a more accurate preview, I'll sometimes set up two versions of a group, one that's hidden but will render at full quality, and one that displays correctly but doesn't render. You can set this up using certain Layer settings and/or Layer Comps. Each version may even use different masking techniques...one for rendering and one for a more accurate preview. But it's very rare when I need to do this.

If you look at my old Puss rig I made for the Interactive episode of Puss-In-Boots on Netflix, you'll see how I didn't concern myself with how his face exits his head in a turn (scrub to 18 seconds.) In this case, I didn't bother with alternative versions because it didn't affect my ability to animate the character, and It looked perfectly fine in the final render.

[Greenlaw]

FYI, I usually leave GPU Acceleration disabled because it rarely displays complex masking correctly, and that's more important to me when I'm animating. Most of the time, Moho is interactive enough for me, and whenever it does slow down, I just hide the layers I don't need to see (i.e., background art, characters I'm not animating, etc.) and Moho speeds up again. This is easy to set up 'optimized views' using Layer Comps, and then I enable a 'master' layer comp before I submit my scene for final renders.

GPU Acceleration does improve interactivity in certain situations, but if you have a reasonably fast computer, it's usually not necessary.

Hopefully, a future release of Moho will make enabling GPU Acceleration more productive. For now, it's a feature I use only in rare circumstances.

[SimplSam]

... I was a bit disappointed with the release of 13, and felt the updates were rushed and not fully realized. ...

Not fully realized - Yes

Rushed - NO! - SM took 3 years to go from 12.5 to 13 !!

[chucky]

You can save as 12.5 compatibility in 13 Opening in 12 can fix many of the bugs that occur in 13.

[Nicohk92]

Just jumping in here to express how thankful I am that Moho will live on and in good hands. I'll definitely get back to using it.

[wmartinez]

Hi guys.
Coming back 15 years later to find Moho is back to Lost Marble. I was checking the trial for PRO 13 in windows 10 and IT is buggy: just a couple of days and I have the program closing twice, one freeze and one "could not load the program and had to restart". And that is just playing with the new stuff tutorials. What should I do? Buy the pro 13 and wait for 13.5? Not buying and wait for 13.5 to come out? Can I buy 12.5 somehow and get 13.5 later or would I have to pay for the upgrade?
Please let me know.

[DK]

Hey. Welcome back wmartinez! Long time no see

Cheers
D.K

[Greenlaw]

Hi wmartinez,

Moho 13 is indeed super buggy and unfinished. I don't represent Lost Marble but here's my opinion: If you don't need to use Moho right away, I would wait until 13.5 comes out. Bear in mind that an official release date for 13.5 hasn't been announced yet. At earliest, I wouldn't expect to see anything for a few months since the new Lost Marble dev team is just getting started.

IMO, if you really need to use Moho now, you should be using Moho 12.5. Many users here will agree that the most stable release right now is Moho 12.5. This is the version I use at home, and at the studio where I work, and it's been excellent for the type of animation I do.

But, should you buy Moho 12.5 with Moho 13.5 potentially arriving in a few months? That's tougher to answer. Under Smith Micro, Moho 12.x users had to pay to upgrade to Moho 13, and my feeling is that it will continue to be a paid upgrade. But I would check with Lost Marble because their terms may be different from Smith Micro's. Hopefully, Victor or somebody from Lost Marble will be ready to provide an answer soon.

Here's what we do know: if you purchased Moho 13 for a Mac running on Big Sur, you can request a free 'downgrade' to Moho 12.5. I'm not sure this offer is available to Moho 13 for Windows users but you could ask.

Otherwise, I would just wait for Moho 13.5. This release is expected to address the issues that made many users like me to switch back to Moho 12.5.

Hope this helps.

[synthsin75]

I think the downgrade from v13 to v12.5 is for everyone, as they know v13 has more bugs than just Big Sur incompatibility. But yeah, check that before buying.

[wmartinez]

Thanks guys!
I guess I will wait for an answer from Lost Marble about the downgrade option for windows 10, or the new 13.5, whatever comes first
BTW, I missed this community.

[MickSee]

I'm just throwing this out there, maybe it makes sense, maybe it doesn't. I think they should maybe just skip 13.5 and just not fix it, and just lay that to rest. Maybe just start fresh with a moho 14 (or back to moho) , and work on a version with awesome new features we'll appreciate. I feel as a new company they should perhaps distance themselves from that last release, and free up themselves to create the version we've been all waiting for. I don't mind waiting till next year for something innovative and efficient, I waited like 3 years for moho 13 after all. ( no disrespect to the moho 13 team, I'm sure they had their challenges and did the best they could).

[MickSee]

I just tried it in Moho 12.5.1 and you can do that already.
I think if you switch on GPU acceleration it'll mess up the display, but if you switch it off it works.
here the contents of the folder "Layer 3" are masking the layers in the folder "Layer 2". Sorry for the unintuitive naming, just did this right now ad hoc.

Thank you!!! It worked! I've been using Moho a while and I honestly thought that this could not be done. Cheers!