Moho Forum

I have worked in different 2D and 3D programs. I was wondering when Moho is going to change the type of bones it has. Moho is one of the best 2D applications ever made, but honestly I hate those bones. I love the deformation system used in Toon Boom Harmony and other software. I do believe that when Moho changes its bone system, it will be the best 2D software. Of course, there other minor things like the spline drawing system too.
Well, I know some of you will ask, what's wrong with Moho's bones? It's fine if you feel comfortable working with those bones system, but Moho is the only 2D animation app to use bones that are used in 3D apps.
I would really appreciate your input about this.
Thanks
Brian

Can you be specific about what you don't like about Moho's bones? FWIW, I work in 2D and 3D animation, and at my workplace I use Moho, Harmony, Animate, After Effects (with DuIK,) Maya and LightWave for animation, and TBH I don't have any problems with Moho's bones system.

In my experience, the deformations with Moho's bones are completely predictable and look nice. I like that there a multiple ways to bind artwork to bones because the type of binding I need varies from one style to the next. I work on several TV shows, and have to work in a lot of different design and animation styles. For example, for our interactive episode of Puss-in-Boots, I used Smooth Joint for the limbs, which worked surprisingly well with the painted textures, and I used Selective Flexi-bind or Layer bind for almost everything else. In Boss Baby, I used Selective Flexi-bind for most of the characters, and point bind for the arms and legs, and layer bind for the hand. More recently, in Fast & Furious: Spy Racers I used Moho's new mesh warping system with bones to animate 3D renders of Ms. Nowhere and Gary in one of the 2D fantasy sequences, and it looked pretty convincing as '3D' shots. (Sorry, I don't have a reel put together for this one yet.) These shows each have very different looks, and the thing I really like about Moho's bones and mesh warping system is that I can work very quickly in pretty much any 2D cartoon style the art department throws at me.

Moho's FK/IK system works really well too. Personally, I'd like to see more keyframeable options in Constraints (especially for Independent Angle) and I've been asking forever to be able to keyframe bone visibility, but I've managed just fine in the last 8 years using Moho for TV animation.

Re: Moho's vector drawing...I think it's a mixed bag.

The Freehand and Blob Brush both have problems, and I think these features should get priority for an update, especially for artists who need/want to draw FBF in Moho.

However, Moho's point-by-point drawing system, is excellent! Between Add Points, Transform Points, Curvature, and Magnet, I can quickly drawn shapes that deform EXACTLY the way I need them to no matter what crazy poses I'm asked to put the characters in.

And of course, Moho's Smart Bones system (Moho's version of Set Drive Key) is top-notch. The only other programs I know of that have anything like this are 3D animation programs.

Anyway, these are my thoughts about Moho's bones, rigging, and drawing systems. I'm not very critical about 'em I guess.

Yeah, 3D-style bones in a 2D animation software are the big innovation that truly sets Moho apart from other 2D apps. Making Moho more like its competitors would be competing on ground they've fully developed...while abandoning the ground that Moho holds all on its own.

Well, if you don't like them, don't use them?

I'm very happy with the bones because I do a lot of mixed bitmap/FBF/puppet work.

BrianLucas wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 11:01 pm I have worked in different 2D and 3D programs. I was wondering when Moho is going to change the type of bones it has. Moho is one of the best 2D applications ever made, but honestly I hate those bones. I love the deformation system used in Toon Boom Harmony and other software. I do believe that when Moho changes its bone system, it will be the best 2D software. Of course, there other minor things like the spline drawing system too.
Well, I know some of you will ask, what's wrong with Moho's bones? It's fine if you feel comfortable working with those bones system, but Moho is the only 2D animation app to use bones that are used in 3D apps.
I would really appreciate your input about this.
Thanks
Brian

Hi Brian,

I'm new to Moho, but many years ago I did briefly use a 3d modelling package so was used to the idea of bones, IK, etc. So when I started Moho it all seem to fit nicely with what I knew, and am happy with them. But I have never used 'deformation systems'. How do they differ to bones, and what in your opinion is their advantage? May I ask, having already used Harmony, what attracted you to Moho? Where specifically do you see as its strengths? Thank you.

I don't really understand why people seem to imply here that Moho bones are somehow special. Maybe I am not getting the point.
I started using Flash, that had bones and inverse kinematics just like Moho. Then I used Toon Boom for a few years and the bone system was pretty much the same. Moho's bones are not different, and they don't need to be. I have tried Godot's 2D bones and yeah, the same aswell. It's a pretty basic and old concept.

A different topic would be the extra and unique rigging features of each program.

ToonBoom had some other rigging features whose names I may not remember well, one of them was some kind of line bone that was actually a line composed by two points that had bezier handles to create any kind of curve. That deformation system was handy sometimes but nothing you can't achieve easily in moho.

But the most used ToonBoom's rigging feature aside from normal bones was probably the envelope deformer, that is a vector shape you could manually draw arround any drawing to then animate the points of this deformer shape and affect the drawing inside being able to create interpolation. You had to be careful tho, if the drawing was complex the deformation could create artifacts. I thought that was super cool until I discovered Moho, where you can actually interpolate the deformation of any vector drawing directly, in all detail, each single point and bezier of the actual drawing without any deformer, with predictable interpolation and you could even automate it with smartbones. Coming from ToonBoom, Moho's rigging features left me speechless. They are way, way more capable.

At the same time, Toon Boom's drawing experience is way better than Moho's and the strokes also look better and have more options. The UI is better in general and the layer order system or composition system is much more advanced, with a node tree compositor system, where having layers in a group doesn't prevent you from ordering them any way you want over or under layers that are outside of that group because the composition is independent from the parenting or grouping system. And not only you can sort the layers any way you want, but you can also sort the strokes and the fills of those layers independently, which is super useful in many cases.

For me, Moho is a little bit better overall because the rigging features are more important to me. And I'm not saying it is better cosidering the lower price, but just better. If ToonBoom were free, I would use Moho most of the time. And if they improve the drawing experience, the strokes, and keep fixing those bugs and adding quality of life improvents it could be way better.

Thank you Daxel for that illuminating comparison.

I think its very healthy to compare features, both strengths and weaknesses.. often solutions come from seeing how others have done it. Also by seeing the weaknesses in other solutions we can avoid pit holes ourselves. I often watch motion graphic tutorials in After Effects, and that gives me ideas of how to achieve similar results in moho even though it does not have the same features.