Moho Forum

Hello all,

I’m considering purchasing Moho for a new project and was hoping to get some advice from other users on which software they use in conjunction with Moho.

I haven't realised the full idea of my end results as of yet (it’s a work in progress), but I want to create short educational animations for YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc and put some of these animations in to a real life back drop. So firstly, I wanted to ask if this can be done? Secondly, if it can, would I need to import my Moho creation in to a programme such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere?

In general, I also wanted to ask what other software people are using in conjunction with Moho. For example, do people use Adobe After Effects to add some finishing touches?

I appreciate I have a lot to learn, which is the challenging part, and I am watching the Moho YouTube tutorials, but any other additional information on my questions above would be much appreciated

Allibanos wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 11:56 am Hello all,

I’m considering purchasing Moho for a new project and was hoping to get some advice from other users on which software they use in conjunction with Moho.

I haven't realised the full idea of my end results as of yet (it’s a work in progress), but I want to create short educational animations for YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc and put some of these animations in to a real life back drop. So firstly, I wanted to ask if this can be done?

Welcome to the forum.

Yes, what you want to do can be done in Moho. In fact, Moho almost seems designed for such a purpose, as the assets and characters can be easily re-used.

Allibanos wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 11:56 am Secondly, if it can, would I need to import my Moho creation in to a programme such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere?

Unless your cartoons are less than a minute, then it's probably a good idea to use another program to edit the various scenes together. But if you want to do it all in Moho, including transitions, you could. Anything over 2 minutes would become difficult to manage, in my opinion. It's a lot easier to render a scene, start a new project file, render that scene, start a new project file, etc., and import all the scenes into a video editor.

Allibanos wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 11:56 am In general, I also wanted to ask what other software people are using in conjunction with Moho. For example, do people use Adobe After Effects to add some finishing touches?

I appreciate I have a lot to learn, which is the challenging part, and I am watching the Moho YouTube tutorials, but any other additional information on my questions above would be much appreciated

I use Davinci Resolve. The free version is powerful. But there are many other options, and all are a little different.

I don't use Adobe After Effects or any other program like it. A Moho user can create special effects in Moho, including special effects that AE can't do. But some special effects would be easier to do in AE. It depends on what you're trying to do.

I use Reaper for audio editing.

Good luck. If I could offer any further advice, it would be that 99% of the time when an animator thinks the found a bug in the software, it's a user error. So maybe post your problem here before taking it to the "Bug" section of the forum.

Hoptoad wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 1:30 pm
Welcome to the forum.

Yes, what you want to do can be done in Moho. In fact, Moho almost seems designed for such a purpose, as the assets and characters can be easily re-used.

Thank you. I’ve tried searching on YouTube, but haven’t been able to find any examples where people have done this. Please let me know if you’re aware of any I can watch.

Hoptoad wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 1:30 pm Unless your cartoons are less than a minute, then it's probably a good idea to use another program to edit the various scenes together. But if you want to do it all in Moho, including transitions, you could. Anything over 2 minutes would become difficult to manage, in my opinion. It's a lot easier to render a scene, start a new project file, render that scene, start a new project file, etc., and import all the scenes into a video editor.

Thank you for this. I’ll do some research on to DaVinci Resolve

Hoptoad wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 1:30 pm I use Davinci Resolve. The free version is powerful. But there are many other options, and all are a little different.

I don't use Adobe After Effects or any other program like it. A Moho user can create special effects in Moho, including special effects that AE can't do. But some special effects would be easier to do in AE. It depends on what you're trying to do.

I use Reaper for audio editing.

Good luck. If I could offer any further advice, it would be that 99% of the time when an animator thinks the found a bug in the software, it's a user error. So maybe post your problem here before taking it to the "Bug" section of the forum.

Brilliant! Thanks for the additional information. I imagine there will be a lot of user error situations to start with as it will all be new to me

this is live action / animation mixed
https://youtu.be/JwzmQMD5Q2I
the animation (including the "3d" simulation) was all done in Moho (or Anime Studio as it was called back in 2012!!!). Most of the graphic assets were done in PS.
The live action was filmed against a greenscreen and composited with the animation in Premiere (but there are other video editors that could be used ofc)
The raw live action footage was used as a reference video in Moho to position and scale the animated action (but, as said, the actual compositing was done in an external program.) I can't remember how many separate moho files but lots...
The challenge was in directing the live action where there is significant interaction between live and animated action (notably the actress and the hat).

A challenge to consider is if you want animation to be behind some elements of live footage but in front of others. That can be done by keying or mattes - but the "hard part" is where you have "small holes" (e.g. space between tree branches / chain link fence) - so plan to avoid such if you can.

Like you, I use After Effects for compositing my Moho layers. My first Moho short film Scareplane, however, was comped in Blackmagic Design Fusion (similar to Nuke, which I use with Ae at my workplace.) For 2D cartoon stuff, I tend to prefer Ae. Either compositing program works well, but they each have their strengths and weaknesses, so it depends on the scene's requirements. Moho's Layer Comps window and Moho Exporter work very well together when you need to render for compositing.

For painted elements for Moho, I typically use Adobe Photoshop, but I sometimes use Krita and Clip Studio. Moho is optimized for Photoshop's layered PSD, but it works well with the others, too. Regardless, you will want a paint program for Moho, so get one that supports layered PSD. If you don't have one yet, Krita and Photopea are free options.

I also use Procreate on iPad for creating bitmaps. I love using Procreate but it's a small hassle to send files between two platforms.

For vector art, I work 95% in Moho, but I may use Adobe Illustrator for technical stuff. A lot of the motion graphics I animated for Fast and Furious: Spy Racers were drawn in AI and animated in Moho or After Effects (sometimes both in the same scenes.)

Sometimes, I integrate 3D elements with Moho too, but the renders are merged in compositing or in the 3D program. For 3D, I mainly use LightWave and Blender, and sometimes Maya. (LightWave is inexpensive and Blender is free. I use all three at my workplace.)

For frame-by-frame elements, I had been using Adobe Animate, and I would import the renders to Moho or a compositing program, but after Moho 14.1 came out, I'm mainly using Moho's FBF tools. The recent improvements in Moho 14.1 to the Freehand tool and FBF workflow made a difference for me. I'll still use Animate or TV Paint for complicated FBF, but Moho's new FBF tools have worked perfectly for what I've needed lately.

For photo elements, you can't beat the convenience of an iPhone, but you'll want to get any kind of digital camera.

For productions involving multiple scenes, you'll want to get a video editing program. I like Vegas Pro, but for basic short film editing, any video editor will do.

I also like these support tools. They're cheap and handy with any animation program:

• Epic Pen (screen marker program)
• PureRef (reference viewer)
• DJV (player for reviewing image sequences. Especially useful for EXR output, but works well with PNG too.)

I record audio in Audacity, which supports a range of microphones and offers good noise reduction and compressor effects.

For video editing, I use Davinci Resolve, as many others have suggested. You should check your video card compatibility before choosing DaVi-R, though, since version 18 requires a card that supports the most recent release of OpenCL. My old Nvidia 1050 Ti wasn't compatible, which kept me from adopting Davinci for a good while.

I occasionally do background/foreground work in Blender, which recently released ver 4.0. Blender's user interface is somewhat opaque, but some of the workflows you develop in Moho do cross over into Blender if you put in the time with it.

hayasidist wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 2:31 pm this is live action / animation mixed
https://youtu.be/JwzmQMD5Q2I
the animation (including the "3d" simulation) was all done in Moho (or Anime Studio as it was called back in 2012!!!). Most of the graphic assets were done in PS.
The live action was filmed against a greenscreen and composited with the animation in Premiere (but there are other video editors that could be used ofc)
The raw live action footage was used as a reference video in Moho to position and scale the animated action (but, as said, the actual compositing was done in an external program.) I can't remember how many separate moho files but lots...
The challenge was in directing the live action where there is significant interaction between live and animated action (notably the actress and the hat).

A challenge to consider is if you want animation to be behind some elements of live footage but in front of others. That can be done by keying or mattes - but the "hard part" is where you have "small holes" (e.g. space between tree branches / chain link fence) - so plan to avoid such if you can.

Thank you for responding. It’s an interesting video. The woman putting the hat on and moving around looks like it might be quite tricky.

I’m my mind I have an idea of potentially putting animated characters in front of real life backgrounds, so not behind elements of real life footage. Depending on the scenes and storyline I might also use real life still images as the back drop. I have a lot to learn, but don’t want to make things too overcomplicated and difficult given it’s all new to me.

Greenlaw wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 3:31 pm Like you, I use After Effects for compositing my Moho layers. My first Moho short film Scareplane, however, was comped in Blackmagic Design Fusion (similar to Nuke, which I also use at my workplace.) For 2D cartoon stuff, I tend to prefer Ae. Either compositing program works well, but they each have their strengths and weaknesses, so it depends on the scene's requirements. Moho's Layer Comps window and Moho Exporter work together very well for compositing.

For painted elements for Moho, I typically use Adobe Photoshop, but I sometimes use Krita and Clip Studio. Moho is optimized for Photoshop's layered PSD, but it works well with the others, too. Regardless, you will want a paint program for Moho, so get one that supports layered PSD. If you don't have one yet, Krita and Photopea are free options.

I also use Procreate on iPad for creating bitmaps. I love using Procreate but it's a small hassle to send files between two platforms.

For vector art, I work 95% in Moho, but I may use Adobe Illustrator for technical stuff. A lot of the motion graphics I animated for Fast and Furious Spy Racers were drawn in AI and animated in Moho or After Effects (sometimes both in the same scenes.)

Sometimes, I integrate 3D elements with Moho too, but the renders are merged in compositing or in the 3D program. For 3D, I mainly use LightWave and Blender, and sometimes Maya. (LightWave is inexpensive and Blender is free.)

For frame-by-frame elements, I had been using Adobe Animate, and I would import the renders to Moho or a compositing program, but after Moho 14.1 came out, I'm mainly using Moho's FBF tools. The recent improvements in Moho 14.1 to the Freehand tool and FBF workflow made a difference for me. I'll still use Animate or TV Paint for complicated FBF, but Moho's new FBF tools have worked perfectly for what I've needed lately.

For photo elements, you can't beat the convenience of an iPhone, but you'll want to get any kind of digital camera.

For productions involving multiple scenes, you'll want to get a video editing program. I personally like Sony Vegas Pro, but for basic short film editing, any video editor will do.

I also like these support tools. They're cheap and handy with any animation program:

• Epic Pen (screen marker program)
• PureRef (reference viewer)
• DJV (player for reviewing image sequences. Especially useful for EXR output, but works well with PNG too.)

Hi Greenlaw,

Thank you for putting so much detail in to your response and for providing a range of different programmes, some of which I have already noted from watching various YouTube videos.

Regarding the FBF animation, I don’t think I’ll be doing any of this as, initially, this will be far too time consuming for someone at my beginner level. What is really appealing to me is the ability to draw a character in, say, Photoshop and then import this in to Moho, adding bones and being able to animate the movements that way.

Lots for me to learn and I think I need to form up my ideas in a way that I know what software I’ll need to get started with. It sounds like Moho is quite versatile in that it can be integrated with lots of other software, which is great. Shame I missed out on the recent Black Friday sale

Allibanos wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 5:45 pmDepending on the scenes and storyline I might also use real life still images as the back drop.

It's easy to import a photo for use as a background (FILE > IMPORT > IMAGE).

You can also employ multiple photos into one scene. For example, take a photo of a brick wall, import it into Moho. Then take a photo of a desk, import it into Moho. Then, in Moho, mask away the space around the desk that you want gone, so only the desk is visible. Now the background in Moho would be a brick wall with a desk in front. Then you could animate a character behind the desk but in front of the wall.

MrMiracle77 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 3:51 pm I record audio in Audacity, which supports a range of microphones and offers good noise reduction and compressor effects.

For video editing, I use Davinci Resolve, as many others have suggested. You should check your video card compatibility before choosing DaVi-R, though, since version 18 requires a card that supports the most recent release of OpenCL. My old Nvidia 1050 Ti wasn't compatible, which kept me from adopting Davinci for a good while.

I occasionally do background/foreground work in Blender, which recently released ver 4.0. Blender's user interface is somewhat opaque, but some of the workflows you develop in Moho do cross over into Blender if you put in the time with it.

Dave, thanks for responding. DaVinci Resolve sounds good. I’ll look in to this. I’m also looking to purchase one of the new 2023 MacBook Pro with the M3 Max chips and 40-core GPUs so should be ok.

I’ve watched a few videos demonstrating Blender and it looks like a powerful piece of software.

It’s a bit of a minefield, researching all of this

Hoptoad wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 6:15 pm

Allibanos wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 5:45 pmDepending on the scenes and storyline I might also use real life still images as the back drop.

It's easy to import a photo for use as a background (FILE > IMPORT > IMAGE).

You can also employ multiple photos into one scene. For example, take a photo of a brick wall, import it into Moho. Then take a photo of a desk, import it into Moho. Then, in Moho, mask away the space around the desk that you want gone, so only the desk is visible. Now the background in Moho would be a brick wall with a desk in front. Then you could animate a character behind the desk but in front of the wall.

Ah! Thanks for the tip. It makes total sense how you’ve explained it

Well, you could do masking in Moho, but for most objects it's more effective and much faster to do that in a bitmap software and save the image with transparency (as PNG).

slowtiger wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 6:38 pm Well, you could do masking in Moho, but for most objects it's more effective and much faster to do that in a bitmap software and save the image with transparency (as PNG).

Thanks. I just asked ChatGPT about this point and it said:

“For static or simple animations, creating masks within bitmap software and saving the image with transparency (as PNG) can be effective and faster, especially for basic shapes or designs. However, for more complex or dynamic animations, using vector-based masking within animation software offers greater flexibility as it allows for adjustments and animations without loss of quality. It often depends on the complexity and specific needs of the project.”

Does that sound about right?

Personally, I would do it like slowtiger said, however I'm familiar with erasing pixels in a program like Photoshop.

If you don't have much experience working with transparent PNGs, I think masking a photo in Moho is a good place to start. Plus the process will help you learn masking, which is important.

Here is a Youtube tutorial by Poptoogi that explains the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjCfMUps7B0

FYI, there are always multiple ways to create and animate things in Moho. Finding the process you actually like best is truly part of process of learning Moho - and part of the fun.

Allibanos wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 6:56 pm ...I just asked ChatGPT about this point and it said:

“For static or simple animations, creating masks within bitmap software and saving the image with transparency (as PNG) can be effective and faster, especially for basic shapes or designs. However, for more complex or dynamic animations, using vector-based masking within animation software offers greater flexibility as it allows for adjustments and animations without loss of quality. It often depends on the complexity and specific needs of the project.”

Does that sound about right?

TBH, it's not a 'one-size-fits-all' thing. In my experience, it depends on the production requirements. At the studio where I work, I may use only bitmaps, only vectors, or a hybrid combination of both...whichever gets me the result I need in a given situation.

I would try the methods you're interested in and see what works best for your specific animation. The best way to learn is to dive in and try a bunch of 'simple' things to understand how they work. Afterward, combine what you've learned from the simple projects to create a more advanced project. (That's basically how Scareplane came about when I was learning Moho. Each scene in the short was conciously designed to test specific features..)

BTW, I wouldn't rely too much on ChatGPT's advice. All it's doing scraping the net for info to predict how a human might reply to a request. It doesn't know or care if the response is accurate or not. It's better to ask a human who actually does the work.