Poll: More 3D in Moho?

[WillBellJr]

I agree, I depend on the fact that Moho is a 2D animation program...

With all the excellent inexpensive modelers (Silo3D, Hexagon, Wings3D) and animation programs (Softimage XSI, Lightwave, etc) it's not that expensive anymore to get a full 3d animation system going.

I like Moho the way it is - the 3d object import IMO is sorta unnecessary.

I'd rather see further advancement of existing features - actions, texturing and effects and perhaps a toolset that really assists in compositing Moho animations into 3d.

Things like shadow catchers, and maybe camera matching so you can mix in your Moho with other programs.

Vue 5 Infinite (watch the awesome preview video) for example has camera matching features so you can take your existing animations and composite them into Vue.


So for me, more action and pose (libraries) and compositing features.

I had also feature requested "soft body dynamics" now that we have springs; objects would be able to bounce off each other (collision detection) and use the spring motions for their reactions etc...

Any assisting features for the ever infamous problem of rotating a head (and other parts) in 2d would be nice too...

There's too many excellent and inexpensive 3D wares available now - let Moho focus on 2D as it does so wonderfully now.

-Will

[Pseud O'Nym]

No for me too.

I already have Vue 5 Infinite and Poser 6 for 3D video, and Axel for 3D web stuff. I got Moho because of its 2D 'look and feel'.

[slx100]

i would like 2d+3d!!!

[jackmeaph]

The reason most of us use Moho is to allow us to focus more on animation and less on drawing. The problem that I have always had with Moho is that unless you only want to animate in one 2d plane, you still need to do a lot of drawing. The purpose of 3d in Moho to make animating more intuitive and reduce the need for drawing.

Actual 3d applications do make animation easier in a way, but by the time you get to the actual animation, you've already spent a WHOLE lot of time modeling, rigging, texturing etc. The workflow of a true 3d package is time consuming (but quite often worth it ).

If Moho had a bit more 3d functionality, it could give us the best of both worlds. 3d in Moho would be very different from a dedicated 3d app because:

• Moho allows us to use very simple models, but still have them look good.
  
  We don't have to make everything in 3d. We can save a lot of work by just drawing a lot of the stuff we need, and it will fit right in with everything else. You can do that with a 3d apps and a compositiing app, but Moho has excellent tools already built-in.
  
  There is no need to bother with complex non-photorealistic renderers to get the toon look--Moho has it already.
  
  With Z-Bones, character rigging would be simple. No weight mapping, no morph targets, no worring about smooth deformations of geometry. Just bring in a segmented character and assign each body part to a different bone. The seams between the segments won't be noticable, since there is no lighting and the characters will be fairly simple.
  
  Certain parts of characters can be 2d, and they can be animated right in Moho. Although most 3d apps allow you to have animated textures, you can not animate the 2d textures right in the program. This means you would need to animate say...a mouth in Moho, render it, bring it into the 3d app, texture it onto the model, sync it up. If you're not happy with the animation, you have to repeat the process. Moho has a clear advantage here.

I don't know about everyone else, but stuff like Tutorial 6.8 with the 3d head makes me pretty excited. The current 3d functionality works fairly well for props and backgrounds, but Moho still needs more tools for animating characters in 3d.

Features I'd like to see:

Z Bones: With some work, the system Moho has for 2D bone manipulation would work fairly well in 3d--especially if we could use scripts to create set-driven relationships.

Texture map vector layers onto 3d Objects: Positiong vector layer "sprites" like we do now is fairly tedious. Being able to texture 3d objects with 2d layers would make things like animating faces much easier.

3d Manipulators: These thingy majiggers are a must for positioning and rotating objects in 3d. They allow us to use the 3d view almost exclusively instead of the top, left, and side views. If you don't know what I mean by manipulators, go here: http://www.blender3d.org/cms/3D_Transfo ... 574.0.html

[GregSmith]

I noticed that nobody bothered to ask Mr. Marble if he had any reason or desire to add a whole lot of stuff like this to Moho. Do you guys know what is involved in adding this kind of functionality to the already existing and incredibly huge blocks of code that represent Moho? Just because some people are able to compose extensive lists of features they would like to see in the future releases of the program, does not necessarily mean that the author has any justifiable reason for developing them.

Look at the bottom of the main forum index. You will see that the total number of forum members is under 1000. It is reasonable to assume that not all 1000 members are even owners of the software. Even if they were all owners, not all will pay extra for an upgrade, which, I'm sure would be necessary if this kind of massive overhaul were offered to the public. Since Moho is already inexpensive, at $100, how much would Mr. Marble have to charge for such an upgrade to make his new investment pay off?

Greg Smith

[Rasheed]

I totally agree with you Greg. Some people want Moho to be a jack of all trade, a Swiss armyknife for animation. I do not. If Moho 6 is going to be a 3D monstrosity with a pricetag of three figures, I probably will not upgrade.

[WillBellJr]

I don't see a problem with a Moho Pro version. I would pay extra for it and I'm sure many die-hard users here would also.

I don't think anyone here is not willing to pay extra for extra power.

I believe Moho as it is now is a WONDERFUL cartoon animation tool, great for kids and adults alike.

I can appreciate the value of 3D in Moho, especially being able to map a 2d vector layer onto a 3D object but do we really need all this in one application. I believe a Pro version branch-off would solve some issues, at least keeping a simpler version for the masses.

If I had my druthers, Moho would be mixed with Animation Master. In my mind they're cousins anyway with the spline based editing.

I think if Moho would just have a unique toolset to eliminate the challenges of head turns, smart skin where CPs can be animated based on bone rotation / scaling, bouncy collisions (so I bounce my two cherry heads off each other) and other suggestions here, I think we'd have everything we need.

I just don't feel Moho has to have 3D features if it provides the stated solutions above and thanks to Microsoft, Living Cells was sorta squashed so it's only advantage (wonderful painterly effects) can eventually be incorporated into Moho too to make it THE perfect cartoon animation program.

-Will

[Rai López]

If Moho 6 is going to be a 3D monstrosity with a pricetag of three figures, I probably will not upgrade.

...a 3D monstrosity?? Hmmm... You can be quiet, because in my opinion nobody here want to see how Moho becomes in that you call "a 3D monstruosity" ...We are only talking about some specific 3D features that could help to easy animation and save time (two Moho premises), if you are not interested in this, is not necessary to be SO demagogue... (I think).

PS: CIAO!

[jackmeaph]

I noticed that nobody bothered to ask Mr. Marble if he had any reason or desire to add a whole lot of stuff like this to Moho. Do you guys know what is involved in adding this kind of functionality to the already existing and incredibly huge blocks of code that represent Moho? Just because some people are able to compose extensive lists of features they would like to see in the future releases of the program, does not necessarily mean that the author has any justifiable reason for developing them.

Look at the bottom of the main forum index. You will see that the total number of forum members is under 1000. It is reasonable to assume that not all 1000 members are even owners of the software. Even if they were all owners, not all will pay extra for an upgrade, which, I'm sure would be necessary if this kind of massive overhaul were offered to the public. Since Moho is already inexpensive, at $100, how much would Mr. Marble have to charge for such an upgrade to make his new investment pay off?

Greg Smith

The problem with 3D bones is more of a philosophical problem, rather than a technical problem. The big question is whether Moho should evolve into a full 3D animation program, and I would argue "no".

This says it all, I guess.

[Postality]

I have to say YES to more 3D capabilities.

Swift3D has 3D vector, but definately not the animation power of moho. Moho would definately take the cake if it could create 3D vector objects.

This is one of the features I've requested some time ago, and I believe it can only help the program.

And of course as I said before, nobody would be forced to use the 3D vector power if they didn't want to, at least if it where there you would have more options at your disposal

Importing 3D objects is definately NOT what I had in mind, quite frankly the way bones manipulate the 3D objects is a nightmare, LM would have been better off allowing 3D vector to be created.

and since this is suppose to be the EASY program to use and love, I think that a 3D vector capability make things MUCH easier esspecially when rotating characters and such because I for one still have trouble 360 rotating a character. infact it's a pain in the grass I don't bother making anything that requires it...

[rylleman]

My vote would go for a strong no.

Moho is developed by one guy, as I understand it, and if he is going to develop 3D features in it the other parts are going to suffer from it. The 2D part isn't perfect yet and there are still a lot of things to improve on, I think LM should concentrate on making Moho brilliant on 2D cut-out type animation instead of half decent at a lot of stuff.

If you want 3D there are millions of software for that and if you really have to have 3D in Moho then you can import 3D-objects.
If you want cut-out there are less than a handful softwares to choose from where Moho is the best (in my opinion), let it stay that way.

[nobudget]

"I for one still have trouble 360 rotating a character"

I think we all do, then again this is a 2(1/2)D program after all...I'd suppose Disney and Don Bluth animators had the exact same problem, and they really had to draw every single frame (I still remember a cool rotation shot in "Fievel Goes West" with the dog sheriff, very cool). I feel the general opinion seems to be 2D features in 3D space. So rotation of flat bones layers, accurate z-depth positioning, depth of field. Correct me if I'm wrong. Realtime rotation of characters is for 3D and claymation, 2D isn't that suitable for it. Well it is if you have the drawing skills like animators had to have all these decades. It's still an artform and skills are still required.

My point? No point really, just an opinion...

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com

[Rasheed]

"I for one still have trouble 360 rotating a character"

I think we all do, then again this is a 2(1/2)D program after all...I'd suppose Disney and Don Bluth animators had the exact same problem, and they really had to draw every single frame (I still remember a cool rotation shot in "Fievel Goes West" with the dog sheriff, very cool). I feel the general opinion seems to be 2D features in 3D space.

Disney and Bluth animators are using computers for a considerable time now. So what you claim isn't entirely true.

Check Disney's Deep Background technique. Characters in a film like Disney's Tarzan are drawn in 2D and the background in 3D.

In Don Bluth's book about storyboarding, he writes on page 43:

The animation camera stand (ACS, or Rostrum Camera) is now an antique. It has been replaced by a very mobile "camera" inside the computer. The ACS could accommodate six levels of cels, pressed together over a flat background under 70 pounds of pressure from a glass plate. But methods have changed; the backgrounds have become three-dimensional.

The computer gives the impression that it can move freely in and around the art with a constantly changing perspective. To accomplish this ... the set would first have to be constructed and mapped with paintings in the computer, then the camera moves plotted out and rendered. From those rendered computer moves, a wire frame of the character is constructed and positioned in the set. The move is then duplicated to give character animators a guide showing how the move changes the perspective on the characters. In other words, the animator's drawings will have a built-in camera move to match the movement of the moving 3D background. The animator will draw over print-outs of the wire-frame character level. If the characters are 3D, you can skip the printout and animate the models in the computer with the same change in perspective.

IMO Moho uniquely simplifies 2D computer aided character animation, because it allows the artist to draw both the background in 3D and the characters in 2D. And to those who want to draw both background and characters in 3D, I would say: "Use a 3D animation program."

[Regul8R]

I think if Moho would just have a unique toolset to eliminate the challenges of head turns, smart skin where CPs can be animated based on bone rotation / scaling, bouncy collisions (so I bounce my two cherry heads off each other) and other suggestions here, I think we'd have everything we need.



-Will

you want the the animation done for you? sorry but its seems that some people want moho to do the work for them. .....fill in a set of parameters and click render......

making head-turns easier, if possible, i say yes. but we need to be ableto do them ourselves, without Auto head-turn script no5

this is animation, its meant to be difficult and time consuming.

[nobudget]

"this is animation, its meant to be difficult and time consuming"

It sounds (reads?) strange but it is true. Although it's understandable to want the program to assist in collision detection etc. it can make the artists' input smaller. It takes much more time drawing someone throwing a ball than just filming a guy throwing a ball. But animation makes it possible for a five legged alien with tentacles to throw a rolled up Jammachajoe against a space ship from the planet Wiggabakka...in zero gravity conditions...

When a process is convoluted and difficult you think much harder to make the effort worthwhile. That's not an excuse to make a program ankward to handle, tools should be as user-friendly as possible, but animation takes effort and skill, no matter the medium you use.

I'm still looking for a conclusive point in my posts but this is it for now...

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com