update

[moshelakin]

update

[JoelMayer]

I think this is really nothing to get agitated over. Truth is, if you want to work in the industry you have to learn industry-standard tools and Toon Boom, for better or worse, is by now one of them and there are reasons for that. I.e. better scalability for bigger projects, endless flexibility when building character rigs (yes, it's more complicated to set up than Moho but when it comes to actual features side by side, Toon Boom has the upper hand I'm afraid, even on the rigging side), tight integration with Storyboard Pro which, by now, is the Number 1 Storyboard Software in TV, etc. etc.

AND most importantly, more and more people know how to use it and there's a much bigger pool of talent using Toon Boom software than Moho.

But that doesn't take ANYTHING away from Moho since "big studios" isn't the only market there is. You have freelancers who might appreciate the more focused feature-set and therefore faster workflow or boutique studios where it doesn't really matter that much to be integrated in a bigger ecosystem already built upon Toon Boom etc. etc.

I use both extensively for different things but lately i'm doing more projects in TB than Moho just because it's more feature-complete (especially on the drawing side and i prefer the timeline) and also TB cut-out animators are highly sought-after.

It's like the endless Blender discussion about "wuaah why do they use Maya when Blender is freee". Believe me, after a certain size of a studio, software licenses are the least of their concern and having to train people on the job for a new software that they got a few hundred bucks cheaper costs much much MUCH more than just getting the thing that most people know how to use.

But again, it doesn't take anything away from Moho and Moho has its place and is great for getting results fast with not that people and there's great work coming out of it.

(BTW, Moho is no longer owned/developed by Smith Micro, has been like that for a year now. Which is why its future looks brighter than ever )

[Greenlaw]

I just heard Cartoon Saloon are setting up a new studio in Ireland that will be using Toon Boom Harmony. I do hope they will still keep using Moho.

AFAIK, they use both programs. There's no rule saying you're allowed to use only one animation program. For example, where I work (a fairly big studio,) we use several animation packages including Moho, Harmony, Adobe Animate and After Effects for television and feature films. In my personal work, I also use TVPaint. And that's just the list of 2D animation programs we/I use.

Hey Smith Micro...

Smith Micro no longer owns Moho. Moho is developed and sold by Lost Marble.

I agree with Joel, Moho's future has become much brighter in the past year.

But unlike Joel, I do most of my 2D rigged puppet animation using Moho, and only occasionally use Harmony for FBF. For rigged puppet animation, I find Moho is much more capable and easier to use. Moho's weakness is FBF animation, which is where Harmony has the edge. When I need FBF in a Moho project, I typically draw that in Harmony and then import the frames to Moho, or merge the exports from both programs in After Effects.

[JoelMayer]

Yeah agreed.

What i learned is that there's just a different philosophy to rigging in TB than in Moho. Lot of TB rigs don't really bother with IK i.e. since it's really more about shifting and distorting pieces of paper around to fit a rough animation you did frame by frame, whereas in Moho you can build more sophisticated systems much easier. Still, from what i've learned it's all possible in Toon Boom as well, just a bit more complicated. I DO enjoy however how quick i can create drawing substitutions i.e. for the mouth or hands in TB since i can draw properly instead of doing the point-by-point, style, etc. thing. So it's quite nice to just add a drawing that you need on the fly when animating. PERSONALLY i prefer drawing substitutions over endless deformers since it's quicker to add and much easier to animate and, ironically, often times looks better. I think i could apply a lot of concepts that i've learned in Toon Boom to Moho though so that's why it's always worth learning more than one program. It's just a very different philosophy working in Toon Boom than in Moho as i said.

I also prefer the Timeline over Moho's just because it's much easier to add and manipulate keyframes over the whole character vs. in Moho where you have to shift through endless layers to set some point animation keyframe and then keep track of where you animated which layer etc. etc. etc.

In TB i also noticed that people mostly work in "Stop Motion" mode meaning, that they don't use automated inbetweening from the get go. Basically they do the keys and breakdowns and then generate some inbetweens of which they pick which frames to use in the finished thing. Also a lot of the time they do that on 2's. Hence a lot of Toon Boom cut-out animation looks a bit more "professional" imo since it's not as flowy as just generating smooth interpolation on ones. Again, technically nothing you couldn't do in Moho but it's just a bit more convenient in TB.

But as Greenlaw said, with a bit of work on the drawing tools and maybe a couple of tweaks to the timeline, this workflow would be just as easily doable in Moho. And please let me scale the appearance of pin-bones lol

Having said all that, i really trust Lost Marble though that they are working on some great stuff behind the scenes and the drawing tools have been mentioned so often by now that i doubt they are not aware of that and have something up their sleeve . I would imagine, that it's probably a project in development for version 14 since it possibly needs quite a bit of refactoring. Also the viewport definitely needs to be overhauled. TB had an up to 50% speed increase with the last update and boy, is it nice to work in such a responsive environment.

Once all this stuff is fixed though, in my eyes, Moho is THE go to app for great animation done by smaller teams with fewer resources and will attract quite a few new users! Also let me just say, my wife is from Iran, and it's crazy how many iranian animation studios there are that use Moho. I feel Moho is already kind of the industry standard in middle eastern countries it's really interesting.

[sang820]

Obviously this is not good news-Cartoon Salon is back on the old road of BFB.

I have simplified the Moho project files for PR. They follow rigorous logic but the structure is too complicated, no animator would like them. But the cartoon salon is very stubborn, they did not pass my simplified plan. This is very regrettable.

[The structure of the Moho model is too complicated] It is common among current users.This makes the animator painful.The [function] of Moho software is very good, but the [Usage Method] of Moho is not optimized, which is very bad. This pains many animators. I regret that PR chose TBH, but I understand their choice. This will be the norm until Moho optimizes the modeling logic and usage methods.

[JoelMayer]

Yeah i was worrying that it might come to that... that's the thing, TBH is on the surface more "complicated" to set up but it's easier to animate and handle the rigs.

But i mean didn't they just start to adapt TBH to basically replace TVPaint and use on other stuff but Puffin Rock is still pretty much done with Moho? They're working on a whole feature film in it, right? I don't think they are able to drop it THAT fast but what comes after they finish the current Moho projects obviously i cannot tell.

Edit: Just saw Cartoon Saloon is looking for both Harmony and Moho animators on their website currently so maybe it‘s not as bad as you guys think

[chucky]

This whole 'story' is a misread.

Cartoon Saloon have always used a whole raft of techniques and applications, just because they used blender for something, doesn't mean they are switching to blender.

Don't jump to extreme conclusions on a whisper of a rumour, we've had enough of that this year. it's sensationalism and stress hype. Boooo.


Edited to fix typo

[Greenlaw]

Exactly! It's like I said, just because they started using a new program does not mean they stopped using their other programs. Most studios use multiple programs in production. Certainly, that's the case at every studio where I've worked. Even in my personal work, I rarely work in only one animation package.

IMO, the studio that completely relies on one single program to do all their work is limiting their capabilities, and they may even risk obsolescence in the future.

[sang820]

Help users complete the project in a concise way possible. All applications are doing this. Moho is 20 years old, but its help manual is still for a 20-year-old baby. Almost all of the Moho orders I received from Fiverr came with [very complicated and error-prone] Moho models. They were not optimized. They came from the demonstration in the official Moho help manual. Why do animators choose BFB? Why are animators reluctant to choose Moho?

[Víctor Paredes]

Hi, I have been living in Kilkenny and working at Cartoon Saloon for more than four years.
Currently, I work as Moho Animation Supervisor for 'My father's dragon' (Netflix 2022). Cartoon Saloon has been using Moho, among other tools, for a long time. Every movie since Secret of Kells have elements rigged and animated in Moho and I'm very happy we are using it in this movie for more diverse tasks than ever, including environmental animation, crowds, main characters, tonals and many other elements. By its flexibility, Moho has became a crucial tool for this movie and I can't wait for the release date (also, you will see some familiar names in the credits)
Besides what is currently in production, including the Puffin Rock movie directed by Jeremy, there are more exciting secret projects coming.
We -Lost Marble- also have a partnership with Cartoon Saloon, so there's nothing to worry about (actually, some features like 'Copy deep frames' were originally created to help the production here).

[Daxel]

Hi, I have been living in Kilkenny and working at Cartoon Saloon for more than four years.
Currently, I work as Moho Animation Supervisor for 'My father's dragon' (Netflix 2022). Cartoon Saloon has been using Moho, among other tools, for a long time. Every movie since Secret of Kells have elements rigged and animated in Moho and I'm very happy we are using it in this movie for more diverse tasks than ever, including environmental animation, crowds, main characters, tonals and many other elements. By its flexibility, Moho has became a crucial tool for this movie and I can't wait for the release date (also, you will see some familiar names in the credits)
Besides what is currently in production, including the Puffin Rock movie directed by Jeremy, there are more exciting secret projects coming.
We -Lost Marble- also have a partnership with Cartoon Saloon, so there's nothing to worry about (actually, some features like 'Copy deep frames' were originally created to help the production here).

Glad to hear that! Sometimes the developers of a program are too distant from its use but I think it's amazing having you as founder and product manager being an innovative and experienced user aswell.

[Greenlaw]

Help users complete the project in a concise way possible. All applications are doing this. Moho is 20 years old, but its help manual is still for a 20-year-old baby.

Except for the most recent features, I think the User Manual document is reasonably comprehensive. I've been using Moho for many years in a large animation studio and I still find the User Manual helpful and I refer it regularly.

That said, I do wish the current version had clickable links in the TOC and Index. Because of page offsets at the beginning, entering a listed page number in the current page box doesn't take you to the correct page listed in the TOC and Index.

The Tutorials document, on the other hand, has dated sections that may confuse new users. For example the tutorial that focuses on using the Offset Bone tool is well written, but it's usefulness became limited after Flexi-binding and Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding was added to Moho. Unfortunately the tutorial's prominence in the document may mislead some new users to think this is a current and common rigging workflow. While I don't think this tutorial should to be removed, it might be helpful if this and some of the other 'legacy' tutorials got new introductions to give them current context.

Just a few thoughts. I'm sure this isn't the priority for the devs right now but fully updating the User Manual & Tutorials documents probably should be addressed for the next major release. Maybe going online with the docs will make it easier to keep them current.

[chucky]

Maybe going online with the docs will make it easier to keep them current.

10 years ago I would have not agreed, but for the next release, that may be the best option.
That way dev can really concentrate on the software and trickle feed the manual after the release until it is more polished ( maybe it be downloaded from the web with an update prompt built in)

[Greenlaw]

10 years ago I would have not agreed, but for the next release, that may be the best option.

15 years ago I might have complained about not getting a hardcopy of the manual in the box. Nowadays, the thought of lugging big heavy software manuals around with me everywhere in my backpack seems absurd. (My back hurts just thinking about it.)

Funny how times change.

I'd be totally fine if future Moho documentation was a moderated Wiki-thing so long as the info is well organized and easily searchable. The main benefit to users is that the doc is always up-to-date.

An optional downloadable PDF version would be a big plus but it's not a deal breaker for me. For the software programs I use that have taken this route, I rarely bother with the PDF version when it's available.

[SimplSam]

Some of the greatest benefits of document onlinification are:
- Accessibility with printability as eBooks, PDFs and Html docs
- Interactivity for audiovisual media presentation, corrections, collaboration and promotions (marketing)
- Hot-linking, cross-linking & cross-referencing - with exposure to search engines, wikis, websites, reference libraries and online translation tools
- Versioning with historic/restricted/privileged access to part/whole versions - making it easier to remove irrelevant content from the latest & greatest doc