Transitioning from Cartoon Animator to Moho

[Greenlaw]

Hi Walt,

Don't buy Debut yet...I don't think it's going to do what you want.

I'll write tonight about why, and answer some of your questions.

[Greenlaw]

BTW, you can install the trial version and try both versions of Moho for free for 30 days. When you install Moho Pro, in the Preferences there is an option to launch as Debut. When you quit and relaunch, you can test Debut. I used this mode to develop tutorial videos to teach kids how to use Debut. (Note: I shelved this project because I wanted to ask the devs to include a couple of 'minor but essential' features to make Debut easier for kids to work with. That was many years ago and before Lost Marble came back on the scene as Moho's caretaker, so I should ask again.)

Debut is a significantly limited version of Pro, but if you decide to go with it, there are a few undocumented tricks you can do to get some Pro features in there. I'll explain tonight.

[wsterdan]

Thanks, I'll hold off for now.

[lazerslab]

I will second Greenlaw's suggestion for Character Animator.

I use it regularly for fast-turnaround dialogue stuff (often in conjunction with MOHO)

The auto-lipsync is absolutely incredible compared to other software. It has a lot of features that I suspect would be useful to you, and it's relatively easy to use. That said, it's actually a total pain to rig puppets - not intuitive at all. So there is a lot of front-end frustration getting things to work the way you want - but it saves a lot of back end time. Honestly I find myself using it more and more for things. The results are not the most remarkable, but they are pretty damn good and you can spit two minutes of animation with dialogue in no time.

For versatile puppets, you really can't beat MOHO - but for talking head stuff give Character Animator a try. The starter mode is free and there are a bunch of free puppets available.

[wsterdan]

I will second Greenlaw's suggestion for Character Animator.

I use it regularly for fast-turnaround dialogue stuff (often in conjunction with MOHO)

The auto-lipsync is absolutely incredible compared to other software. It has a lot of features that I suspect would be useful to you, and it's relatively easy to use. That said, it's actually a total pain to rig puppets - not intuitive at all. So there is a lot of front-end frustration getting things to work the way you want - but it saves a lot of back end time. Honestly I find myself using it more and more for things. The results are not the most remarkable, but they are pretty damn good and you can spit two minutes of animation with dialogue in no time.

For versatile puppets, you really can't beat MOHO - but for talking head stuff give Character Animator a try. The starter mode is free and there are a bunch of free puppets available.

Thanks for the suggestion; as I mentioned above, I did use it as a live avatar for my Microsoft Teams meetings during lockdown (a link to a sample of my puppet is above).

I had considered it but it's a little more awkward than Cartoon Animator to have three or four people interacting in a single scene. The rigging I found is very, very similar to Cartoon Animator, which I don't mind too much. I'd also considered trying to mix it in with Adobe Animate.

I haven't used the latest version, but one reason it looks extra interesting is the motion capture from your computer's web camera. The lip sync capture is excellent, as you mentioned, but the thought of using the same web camera to do full-body motion capture without any extra gear is nothing less than amazing. I doubt it's anywhere near as accurate as real gear, but for the lack of cost I wonder if it might not be "good enough" for a lot of stuff.

I'm still planning on Moho, though. I think it's a better long-term investment for what I want to do. The more tutorials I watch, the more I'm convinced.

[Greenlaw]

Thanks for the suggestion; as I mentioned above, I did use (Adobe Character Animator) as a live avatar for my Microsoft Teams meetings during lockdown (a link to a sample of my puppet is above).

Somehow I missed that post. The live avatar looks great! I need to look into trying that myself.

Sorry for the delayed response...the weekend was busier than expected. I'll try to respond to your questions tonight.

[wsterdan]

Absolutely no problem, no worries!
With family, work and everything else happening in our daily lives, this thread should be down around number 10 or 15 on your priority list at best.