Moho Plans

[Víctor Paredes]

Hi All,

We’d like to provide our Moho community information on our current state of affairs, transition and plans for the future. Also, we’d like to thank you again for your continued support and hope our announcement below will provide you insight on what we’re trying to accomplish over the next few months. We hope to provide you all consistent and up to date information during this journey.

Moho 13 was developed with great potential and introduced bitmap tools as well as new 3D compatible features. To support bitmap features, Moho 13’s architecture was redesigned and in particular support for Moho’s display system was updated. Unfortunately, some of these architectural changes produced undesirable issues to display features, actions, layers, 3D features and ultimately support for macOS 11 Big Sur. Fortunately, most other issues remain stable in Moho 13.

Moho 13 macOS Big Sur owners/users - we are extremely sorry about all of the issues you are going through. As Moho 13 is not operational on Big Sur, our recommendation for now is to revert back to version Moho 12.5.1. Please click here to get it. Version 12.5.1 runs in Big Sur, but please consider it still has some limitations, since Moho 12 wasn't originally built to support that system. For instance, version 12 uses QTKit framework for video importing and that is not supported by the OS anymore, so you will have to use image sequences instead of video.
If you own Moho 13, but don’t have a Moho 12 license, please contact our support team following the instructions here for a free Moho 12 license.

As our current engineering team at Lost Marble was not involved in the development of Moho 13, and due to vast architectural changes, we’ve decided that the best course of action in addressing as many of the issues in Moho 13 would be to rebuild Moho from a previously stable version of the code base. This type of development framework will provide a stable and recognizable environment where we can address existing issues in an efficient and timely manner. As the future updates to Moho’s architecture will be vast, not all new Moho 13 features that were previously developed will transfer over directly.

Our plan is to address the most pressing of Moho 13’s issues and release Moho 13.5 to support common/popular macOS’ and Windows OS’ very soon. We also plan on including new and improved features, in the way you were previously accustomed to with every major release of Moho. As usual, these features will improve your animation workflow, create efficiencies and bring some of the magic back to Moho!

As we develop Moho 13.5, we will maintain a web presence at mohoanimation.com but our new home will eventually be lostmarble.com. Mohoanimation.com will be redirected to lostmarble.com.

Following the release of Moho 13.5, our mission will be to support our users with consistent Moho development updates.

As usual, we would love to hear from you.

Thank you,
Víctor & the Lost Marble team


Update March 12th, 2021:

Hello, everyone
Thank you very much for the support and the nice messages we have received during all these months.
We are working hard on version 13.5 and so far it's working very well.
The beta version is already running in Big Sur, there are lots of internal improvements to the code and even a few exciting new features I'm sure you will like.
Sadly, we won't be able to release this version in mid-March, as we originally planned.
We are a new company and want Moho to start fresh, but some details -mostly unrelated to the software itself- are taking a bit longer than expected.
We are in a good position right now and this delay will be only a few weeks.
We apologize for this and hope you understand.
There will be more news soon. We are eager to show you what we have been working on!

Thanks again,
The Lost Marble team

[toddwaddington]

This is great! Thank God I saved all of my registration numbers over the years! Phenomenal. I’m going to probably take some heat for saying this, but I’m sure you guys came on board and are basically working for free right now. It’s not like copies of Moho are flying off the shelf. I wouldn’t be happy with a huge upgrade charge (SmithMicro style), but am totally willing to support a $75-150 13.5 (mac) upgrade fee. Apple f*cks 3rd party people over left and right. “Oooo....oooo, the M1 Chip!”. Yeah, I’ll see an M1 chip in about 5 years. So...

Very excited about the future of Moho and lostmarble.

Thanks Victor and Team! Appreciate the news. Happy Mac guy.

[onurdemirsoy]

Wow great news. I wasnt expected a new release in this year. You are nice guys and I believe you so

[Greenlaw]

As Moho 13 is not operational on Big Sur, our recommendation for now is to revert back to version Moho 12.5.1. Please click here to get it. If you own Moho 13, but don’t have a Moho 12 license, please contact our support team here for a free Moho 12 license.

Hey Mac Moho 13 users, I highly recommend you jump on this offer. Even though Moho 12.5 does not have Moho 13's bitmap drawing tools, Moho 12.5.x is actually a far more stable and usable release of Moho, on Mac or Windows. FYI, most professional users and studios animating with Moho are currently sticking with 12.5. (Myself and the studio where I work included.)

Following the release of Moho 13.5, our mission will be to support our users with consistent Moho development updates.

Oo! So there will be another 13.x release. Thanks for sharing this info Victor...this is good news!

Good luck guys!

[synthsin75]

Wow, that sounds way more generous than I think anyone had the right to expect from just having acquired Moho. Good to hear that v13 owners can get a free copy of v12, as they should. But supporting v13 with a point release within the year, much less with new features, is extremely impressive.

I suspected that you'd go back to the stable v12 code, and I expected to lose some, if not all, v13 features. Considering most serious users have stuck with v12 and have still been doing things like raster elsewhere, that's not a huge loss, IMO. No doubt you guys will try to bring the most desired features back eventually.

Thanks for the update, Victor.

[opeth]

Hi Victor,

We use Moho 13 on windows 10 . We draw everything in moho 13 but It can close from time to time. İt also zoom out and playback issue .(almost every project) . Sometimes we have issue with rig on characters. Transform bone button becomes untouchable and moho freezes. A

My wish Moho 13 users who use windows should be given permission to use moho 12.5 until the new version is released. Ok moho 13 maybe work on windows but there are too many bugs. We cannot work stably.


Thank you

[DK]

Thanks Victor. This is fantastic news!!!
3 X Cheers
D.K

[SimplSam]

Goody Good News.

I hope you will be able to take the opportunity to get the community heavily involved in the discussions and beta's of the upcoming releases.

With regards to mohoanimation.com vs lostmarble.com - I think there might be some mileage in keeping mohoanimation.com separate as a product brand / showcase / promo site. This can also work to improve web search results. Naturally the child brand site would be fully linked back to mamma.

[iwatchcartoons]

Hi All,

We’d like to provide our Moho community information on our current state of affairs, transition and plans for the future. Also, we’d like to thank you again for your continued support and hope our announcement below will provide you insight on what we’re trying to accomplish over the next few months. We hope to provide you all consistent and up to date information during this journey.

Moho 13 was developed with great potential and introduced bitmap tools as well as new 3D compatible features. To support bitmap features, Moho 13’s architecture was redesigned and in particular support for Moho’s display system was updated. Unfortunately, some of these architectural changes produced undesirable issues to display features, actions, layers, 3D features and ultimately support for macOS 11 Big Sur. Fortunately, most other issues remain stable in Moho 13.

Moho 13 macOS Big Sur owners/users - we are extremely sorry about all of the issues you are going through. As Moho 13 is not operational on Big Sur, our recommendation for now is to revert back to version Moho 12.5.1. Please click here to get it. If you own Moho 13, but don’t have a Moho 12 license, please contact our support team here for a free Moho 12 license.

As our current engineering team at Lost Marble was not involved in the development of Moho 13, and due to vast architectural changes, we’ve decided that the best course of action in addressing as many of the issues in Moho 13 would be to rebuild Moho from a previously stable version of the code base. This type of development framework will provide a stable and recognizable environment where we can address existing issues in an efficient and timely manner. As the future updates to Moho’s architecture will be vast, not all new Moho 13 features that were previously developed will transfer over directly.

Our plan is to address the most pressing of Moho 13’s issues and release Moho 13.5 to support common/popular macOS’ and Windows OS’ in mid-March 2021. We also plan on including new and improved features, in the way you were previously accustomed to with every major release of Moho. As usual, these features will improve your animation workflow, create efficiencies and bring some of the magic back to Moho!

As we develop Moho 13.5, we will maintain a web presence at mohoanimation.com but our new home will eventually be lostmarble.com. Mohoanimation.com will be redirected to lostmarble.com.

Following the release of Moho 13.5, our mission will be to support our users with consistent Moho development updates.

As usual, we would love to hear from you.

Thank you,
Víctor & the Lost Marble team

Hi! I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to post my message, but I sent a pm to the admin and I'm not sure if it was successfully sent. Can you confirm if you received it? Thanks!

[-RR-]

I'm also a 12.5 user. On 32-bit no less, because my favorite drawing tablet pc is an old one.

The only feature in 13 that would be important to me is the bitmap drawing layer so I can rough out poses.

[Designspaceman]

Hi, I'm very happy to see that the new owners really take care of Moho. I don't know how solid the financial basis of Lost Marble is. So I would even pay money for 13.5 just to get the company healthy and not to go down next year because development was too expensive. I think a lot of Moho animators would agree. Yes, we paid for 13 to Smith Micro and got an unfinished piece of software. But this new situation is the best chance to keep Moho not only alive but to see it grow. We all know what Moho is capable now, so use your imagination what it could be...

[mgo]

Godspeed, Team Moho.
Looking forward to 13.5 and beyond.

[ulrik]

Victor, Mike and the team, I wish you all the best to continue developing this pearl I think Moho is in good hands now

[p8guitar]

I would agree with a paid update, quite glad to get rid of smith micro.

I'm not using Big Sur but Windows 10 - is it nevertheless recommended to go back to Moho 12.5? I'm not sure if I experience a lot of bugs in Moho 13, most problems seem to be user related in my case...
And is it possible to Open Moho 13 projects with Moho 12.5?

[opeth]

I would agree with a paid update, quite glad to get rid of smith micro.

I'm not using Big Sur but Windows 10 - is it nevertheless recommended to go back to Moho 12.5? I'm not sure if I experience a lot of bugs in Moho 13, most problems seem to be user related in my case...
And is it possible to Open Moho 13 projects with Moho 12.5?

Yes its possible. Also if the moho 13 project shut down (unopened) . You can open it with 12.5 then save it .Now you can re-open with 13 without any problem .

So why Moho 13 users can't use Moho 12.5. ? Shouldn't we use it at least until the new version arrives?