TOON BOOM getting sold to a PRIVATE EQUITY FIRM?!?!

[jayfaker]

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/to ... 30621.html

I know I'm probably supposed to post this in the Other Software channel, but this is kinda big news, so I figure it should be front and center. I don't know what effect this will have on Moho, if any, but it will definitely have an impact on the market that Moho is trying to capture more of...

Or is this more a symptom of a dwindling demand for 2D animation?

Thoughts?

[mgo]

I am not sure this is exactly good news for Toonboom. Especially creative software needs dedicated and understanding management. Instead they are now one of many other "assets" in a portfolio of a comany that describes it's operations as "technology driven trading".

[JoelMayer]

Neither of both.

Talked to some Toon Boom employees i know personally on a public Discord so it's nothing secret but Corus has been losing money for quite a while now (they own Nelvana amongst other things) but Toon Boom is doing fine. Since they are in the red, they wanted to sell some things off that weren't purely in the entertainment field.

Sure, private equity leaves kind of a bad taste BUT according to said employees it seems to at least that the new company has a genuine interest in entering the software market while Corus wasn't really all that into it. Kind of the same situation as with Moho and SM just on a much bigger scale.

So the TB people themselves are actually pretty optimistic about the change.

Now that TB doesn't has to cover its parents' company debt anymore, they can relax a little and might be a good thing for customers too who knows.

It's not the end of the world tho, Twitter (as usual) had a bit of a meltdown over it but companies get sold all the time, that doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with them.

As a long time TB user (started using it and Moho around the same time), i do remember that its pricing policy started to go through the roof once they were no longer an independent company. They used to have quite indie-friendly pricing models.

Still, it's a great software, i say that without any hestitation and without comparing it to Moho or anything, since they're both apps of different sizes, target groups and specialties, each with its stregths and weaknesses. TB won't go away anytime soon

[jayfaker]

Okay, thanks JoelMayer for adding that insight. Phew! Hopefully things go well for them, then.

[Greenlaw]

Maybe it's a better situation than where Toon Boom was with Corus. From what I'm reading, that relationship sounds similar to where Moho had been in its latter days with Smith-Micro. But I don't know...maybe it's not necessarily better, just different. I hope the best for the staff at TB.

(So glad Moho is now in better hands with Lost Marble. )

As a long time TB user (started using it and Moho around the same time), i do remember that its pricing policy started to go through the roof once they were no longer an independent company. They used to have quite indie-friendly pricing models.

Yeah, the big price hike was one of the reasons I stopped using TB products for personal use. Years ago, I used Storyboard Pro and a precursor to Harmony (I don't remember what it was called back then but it had nodes like Harmony,) but these days I use other programs for storyboards and FBF animation.

To be clear, I think Harmony is a good product and I use it at the studio where I work (along with Moho and other animation software,) but TB priced me out for using their tools in my own 'indie' productions.

[Designspaceman]

I used Storyboard Pro and a precursor to Harmony (I don't remember what it was called back then but it had nodes like Harmony,)

Yeah, this was Animate Pro and it was a very powerful tool. But priced relatively low (in comparison to Harmony). Today most of my animation tasks I do with Moho...
Back to the original post: People who invest in something want to get a return of investment (x times multiplied). So I think prices will rise on Harmony. Not today but in the near future. That's what investors expect from a so called industy standard. I own a copy of Harmony Pro and I'm curious what the Silver Support will cost in the future.

[dueyftw]

I once had toon boom three I think. It was complete garbage software. The only thing it had to offer was peg system. The Harmony was for studios with deep pockets. They did not offer it to the general public.

Dale

[JoelMayer]

Yea full disclosure: my company pays for my Harmony and SBP licenses

I dunno what will happen with pricing, i guess we'll see... I guess it's the usual thing that happens when the underdog becomes the industry standard. But the kid in the bedroom doing animation in his spare time today may be the showrunner of tomorrow and in my generation the tool to go to was Flash. I guess there's more accessible tools available now (Grease Pencil seems to be one of the front runners but i just can't get comfortable with the interface).

So when you're a company like TB you gotta be careful that you don't lose the next generation. They used to have a personal learning edition of Harmony back when it was called "Digital Pro" for free back in the day and you could basically upgrade your way through the versions all the way to Harmony via regular sales they offered.

I think what i'd favour is more business models like game engines do it: you pay according to your revenue so there's a price for studios, a price for indies and maybe a free, stripped down version for hobbyists or something with a watermark or whatever.

I'm old and lazy to learn new things and the speed of which TB allows me to do frame by frame has yet to be matched by any other app. Plus it's just lightyears ahead with its vector engine. I think this is really what Toon Boom understood better than anyone from the get go: animators want to draw so offer them the best brush tool on the market. Sometimes that's all it takes.

I'm glad if Moho gets some more traction but stays more or less a bit more of the rebellious underdog But Moho is not safe from free competition either (GP and other tools) so yea... tough business.

[Greenlaw]

As I mentioned I currently use other programs for FBF animation in my personal work, if anyone is wondering what they are here's a list...

Adobe Animate. Since the end of last year, I started using Adobe Animate (formerly Flash,) to create FBF image sequences to use in my Moho projects. Animate's FBF navigation, timeline, and editing tools are still clunky but its freehand vector drawing in the program still works well and IMO more predictably than Moho's Freehand. Animate's equivalent tool to Moho 13.5.5's Freehand is the Paint Brush tool which draws an open curve with bezier points. Paint Brush draws clean lines similar to what we get in Moho but without some of the odd end-point issues or unwanted redraws. This allows me to reliably create FBF items that match my other drawings created inside Moho. (By comparison, I found it harder to draw FBF in Toon Boom to exactly match my Moho drawings.)

One thing I dislike about editing vector drawings in Animate is that there is no equivalent to Moho's Magnet tool, which I use ALL the time in Moho.

In recent years, Animate has been getting puppet rigging improvements, but it's still pretty basic and I haven't seen anything there to make me want to switch from Moho for that. (IMO, Moho is still the tops for puppet animation!)

Toonsquid. I've been dabbling with a fairly new FBF app for iPad called Toonsquid. Like all iPad animation programs, it's not full-featured, but It's easy to use (UI is similar to Procreate,) has good drawing tools, and being on iPad it's as mobile as you can get. TBH, I don't use ToonSquid for drawing FBF for Moho, but I'm mentioning it because it's cheap and works well if you don't mind the hassle of working between multiple platforms.

Krita is an awesome drawing program with FBF tools, and it's still completely free. I like Krita for drawing but my biggest complaint about its FBF workflow is that it can't display an audio waveform, which I feel is necessary for accurate audio synching. If developers would add this one feature I might use Krita's FBF tools more.

TVPaint. If you want a natural media look in your FBF animations, it's hard to beat TVPaint. Sadly, I don't use this program enough. I still keep my TVP dongle attached to my home desktop but it's been a long time since I last launched it.

Here are some programs I want to spend more time with when I'm able to...

Blender. Actually, I've been using Blender regularly this past year in personal projects and at my workplace, but mainly for realistic 3D and VFX work, not 2D cartoons. I haven't touched Grease Pencil yet, but I'm looking forward to it. At my workplace we had an introductory class on Grease Pencil basics...and it was one of the few Blender classes I missed, darn it!

Having this capability in a 3D program invites intriguing possibilities, but I don't see Grease Pencil replacing dedicated FBF programs for 'traditional' 2D animation. But I do occasionally use FBF image sequences inside 3D projects, and I can totally see myself using Grease Pencil for that.

BTW, even though Blender is free to use, I've been donating to the Blender Foundation this year because I'm finding myself relying more and more on Blender in my personal and professional work lately. It's that good!

OpenToonz has always intrigued me but I haven't spent much time with it. There's also a variant called OpenToonz Morevna Edition that has a different UI. Both versions are free (but will accept donations.) I'd probably use OpenToonz if I didn't have Animate as an option for personal and work use, and we don't have OpenToonz at my workplace. I keep seeing stunning FBF work done with it though.

To sum up my list: Krita, OpenToonz, and Blender/Grease Pencil are all capable tools and free. Animate works great and the look of the strokes matches well with Moho's vector drawing. It isn't free but it's relatively 'cheap' if you use several tools in the Adobe CC suite every day (which I do.) I like TVPaint but it's not 'cheap' and TBH, I'm not doing much work with it these days. Toonsquid is a fun, cheap option if you have an iPad.

And of course, Victor had mentioned in another thread that Moho may see FBF improvements in the near future. I'm very excited about this because most of my FBF work created in other programs typically winds up in a Moho Image Sequence layer anyway.

The above is my personal opinion of course. If I left out a notable FBF program, it's because I'm not using it, am not personally interested in it, or am unaware of it.

I'm curious to hear what other Moho users are using for FBF animation.

P.S., I almost forgot: I use Clip Studio Paint too, but only for making comics. I don't use its FBF tools so can't comment on them.

Also, during Boss Baby: Back In Business, I used Photoshop's FBF tools to create FBF elements in my Moho projects. Photoshop's FBF worked well for what I needed at the time but it's pretty basic.

[JoelMayer]

Adobe Animate is dead in the water and i wouldn't be surprised if Adobe discontinues it completely in the next five years.

It's the only app that hasn't been ported to Apple Silicon of the COMPLETE Adobe Lineup (https://helpx.adobe.com/download-instal ... -chip.html) and i think the last update to it was like last year or something.

They'll probably produce (or rather buy out) an alternative for the few developers left who use it by now to produce HTML5 content (for which there are much better programmes by now) and that's it.

They certainly didn't show that they have much interest in Flash anymore so yea, it's probably an annoying write-off for them. Good going Flash but everything must come to an end eventually. I had an apprentice trying to make a little animated thing in it and i personally haven't used it extensively in like 10 years and was kinda shocked how bad it behaved stability wise.

The challenge for any 2D FBF app will always be this: the userbase (for the most part, not all of them) is often times inherently non-technical. They want to put one frame after the other and be done with it. So if you get too complex with it, you'll lose most of them. I tried a couple of times getting FBF animators to try out Moho too but as soon as they try rigging, they lose all interest pretty quickly, which i can understand. Sometimes i also just want to draw the darn thing and be done with it

I'm pretty happy currently since i know both TB and Moho rigging and FBF pretty well and have used them for quite a while now so i rather produce stuff. Oh and After Effects is always there as well sooner or later in the pipeline.

[Greenlaw]

...i think the last update to it was like last year or something.

The latest release was back in January or February, and I think I've seen the CC app update Animate a few times this year (probably just minor bug fixes.) But I agree, I haven't seen any major developments besides rigging and I'm not using Animate for that. For the most part, today's Animate doesn't seem hugely different from the version of Flash I was using back in the early 2000s (same clunky timeline editing, awkward output options, etc.,) That said, Animate proved unexpectedly handy for the production I used it on earlier this year and I was very glad to have it for that.

I do wish Moho's Freehand tool drew curves as cleanly and predictably as Animate's Paint Brush. If Freehand could create error-free lines, I would draw all my FBF elements directly inside Moho. (Someday!)

Oh and After Effects is always there as well sooner or later in the pipeline.

Yeah, After Effects...that's the glue for everything!

[lucasfranca]

About FBF, sorry for being nosy, but Cacani is a good option. While it's not free, it's just as cheap as Moho.
I would like to try Celaction2D but they don't release anything that mere mortals can test.

By the way, these training policies should be better, like autodesk. No one feels confident in software to the point of buying it using software for just one month. We are not talking about a car test drive, but a choice of tool for a pipeline that changes an entire work structure. But anyway, it's just my opinion.