I would also upgrade - just for returning to the name Moho - which helped to describe the quirkiness of its inventor - and his unconventional approach to the making of animation.
Took a look at it today at the SIGGRAPH booth — solid looking update. Freehand tool seems to be much faster but more importantly, a lot cleaner and more efficient with its use of points. Having experienced some slowdown in 11s Freehand tool this looks like my killer feature.
Another big one looked to be Smart Warp — I'm coming to ASP, err MOHO, having rigged a lot of After Effects characters and struggling with the Puppet Tool. SW looks like a much more robust Puppet Pin 2.0 — with the ability to key frame all points of the mesh.
Another tiny thing that will help a lot is the ability to separate dimensions of Transforms in the Motion Graph. Doing a ball bounce becomes a lot easier when you can set 2 keys for X and however many you need for the Y.
I barely dove into it, but that's what struck me on the first look. oh, and the interface looks a lot cleaner and more professional, and you can go even darker on the UI with a brightness slider.
I am... thrilled? Surprised? At the name change. I think it's smart based on the "baggage" that comes with the term "Anime". It does make people confused... those who have never used it. I mentioned "Manga Studio" to someone who is very very familiar with Anime studio... their first question? "Manga studio is only for creating mangas then?". No confusion about Anime Studio because she used it and knows it.
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Been away from the forum way way WAY too long. I am using 10 or 11 I think? But it's a beta. Still doing fun stuff but haven't been living in the Anime Studio world like a Star Wars cosplayer fan like I use to.
Got to see just a little bit more of Smart Warps which broke my brain a bit. You can essential model as much or as little of the mesh as you want, and then let Moho tessellate the rest for you. So if you've done any 3D modeling, you can essentially create a face mesh for a painted character that mimics musculature and animate it — almost like working in reverse of 3D.
AND, you can animate points, clusters of points, or bind the control mesh verts to bones for animation.
Very exciting. Also, sounds like a price increase to $399?
Thanks Oddernod....SOLD!!!! hehe I've been waiting for someone to implement this type of warp and thank goodness Mike or whoever has done this. I have big plans for this tool. Can't wait.