Moho Forum

I bitched a lot about the higher price for Version 12, but went for it when there was a sale. And now this sad news.

Thank you for the blood, sweat and tears put into developing this software. I'm happy that Victor Paredes is still part of the community. Most of my projects fell by the wayside, but this forum was always a place to get support. I don't think that will change, because most of us haven't got anywhere else to go. Moho is still light years ahead of the competition I know anything about, we'll have to see what the future brings.

All the best and may your memories of this community be kind ones.

Mike,

I have bought almost all of your Moho and Studio pro products. I use the products almost on a regular basis for making sprites and in training videos. I don't post very often, but I troll here weekly to find tips and tricks and the occasional gossip.

I remember the first time that I used the software almost 15 years ago and couldn't believe the amazing things that it could accomplish. Someone had given me the software because they used it once or twice and knew I enjoyed playing with graphics programs. I was hooked after the first hour. I was using Flash at the time, but after using Moho I fell in love with the program. Flash is uninstalled and sits on my shelf full of dust, but Moho (AS) is still cranking on my puter.

Truly an end to an era. Thanks for all of your hard work It's made my job a lot easier.

Peace,
FoundMarble

P.S.
I am so glad the name found it's way back home to Moho. So many people looked at me funny when I told them I use a program call Anime Studio that I started calling it AS.

Keep this software alive and kicking!!! I love Moho!!!!

Víctor Paredes wrote:I also want to thank Mike for all these years of wonderful work. I'm using Moho since version 4, if I remember well, and immediately fell in love with the software.
Having the opportunity to work directly with Mike during this time has been great. He is a genius and also a humble, generous and interesting person. When you know him, it really makes sense that is the guy who created Moho.

I also want to thank some other people you probably haven't hear about them too often, but they were crucial for the Moho development and community support:
Fahim and Michi (which, along with Mike, I consider my family in the US), Uli, Jason, Eric, Erik, Mitch, James, Gerard, Denise, John, Matt and Vuk.
They worked very hard behind the curtains to make Moho the not perfect, but fantastic software it is.

Sincerely, I'm optimistic about the future. I know Moho will continue its road (and I will put all my energy on that). The software is strong, powerful and has a big community which cares about it. Also, and more important, there is a lot of room to improve on it and too many fantastic features to add yet! I'm not sure when it will be released, but I'm certain that Moho 13 will be awesome.

Yes this software is excellent. I love your enthusiasm and optimism. Also, I'm already hoping for Mike's full return and involvement in Moho's future.

What the actual F@#$k......... I haven't been on the forum for months. Not because I don't love the program or the community but I've finally decided at 42 years old to go back to school and finish getting my graphic design degree. Animation is my passion but I've been so swampped with school I haven't really had time to animate or make tutorials. I've been using Anime Studio/MOHO since version 6 and I'm just God smacked at this news! I know I'm late to the party but I just went on summer break and had a complete computer failure and had to talk to Victor to see if he could help me out when I found out this news! It is sooooo unbelievable!

This makes me incredibly sad. Especially when MOHO is in my opinion, SmithMicro's only top tier piece of software (save Poser). Not that their other products aren't good but comparatively speaking, Adobe has the graphics market locked up pretty tight. MOHO was and is their only product that smashes the competition. All of there other products have way to many other competitive counterparts that out do them. I still strongly believe it crushes FLASH and ToonBoom.

It's clear to see that SmithMicro is an acquisition company that doesn't fully understand where to focus their attention. Not to be mean but have you seen SM's website? THAT does not look like the place for creative, outstanding software. It looks like a thrift store for random pieces of software. There is no cohesion, hierarchy or focus on what they are as a brand.

I'm still hopeful for the future of the program but I just can't believe that you and Victor aren't part of the team. You guys along with the people of this forum ARE MOHO! Crazy man.....The best piece of software they have and they decide this...That's like if apple was going through difficult times and they let go of Steve Jobs.....oh wait that happened....remind me again how they recovered? Oh! That's right, he came back and brought the f#$king ipod, iphone and itunes with him! I wonder how they're doing now.

Funny you should mention Adobe, Guyver.
Guess where Mike has gone.....?

chucky wrote:Funny you should mention Adobe, Guyver.
Guess where Mike has gone.....?

Holy s**t, really?! Did they hire Mike to work on Adobe Animate (Flash)?

I have to admit, SM's decision to drop Mike confuses the hell out of me. Moho is one of SM's few products that is actually turning a profit, so it makes no sense to cut it apart like this especially when the team were making so much progress. I don't know where the future of SM is going, but if everything goes sideways it might be best if SM sold Moho to a company like Serif. Since Serif owns Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo, I think Moho would fit their product lineup perfectly.

Jeez. Moho should be held aloft like Excalibur, instead of being passed around like some embarrassing hot potato.

dkwroot wrote:Holy s**t, really?! Did they hire Mike to work on Adobe Animate (Flash)?

Nope, I'm on the Photoshop team.

I think Moho is too small to interest a company like Adobe, but that would have been interesting if Adobe decided to take it off Smith Micro's hands.

Lost Marble wrote:Nope, I'm on the Photoshop team.

I really love all the drawing tools in Photoshop, but working with the timeline is always such a drag so I don't feel comfortable animating in it. Are you on the animation-side of PS?

Lukas wrote:I really love all the drawing tools in Photoshop, but working with the timeline is always such a drag so I don't feel comfortable animating in it. Are you on the animation-side of PS?

Nope, not working on animation features. Actually, this is my second time on the Photoshop team. I previously worked on an early version of the timeline, and yes it was quite limited. The goal was for it to work similarly to After Effects, but with a very limited set of animated properties. It's come quite a ways since then, but that's not what I'm working on now.

I think Moho is too small to interest a company like Adobe, but that would have been interesting if Adobe decided to take it off Smith Micro's hands.

Like it was "interesting" what Adobe did to Flash?

For some reason I only today read about your departure. I am sad. I can't keep losing software that I invest so much of myself in. I became extremely fluent in Macromedia Flash, then Adobe bought and absolutely ruined it. I still have an old Mac running OS 10.6 so I can use Macromedia Flash 8. But to "modernize" I began the long, tedious process of learning new software that would run on more modern hardware - in this case, Anime Studio Pro/Moho. Now I read this. When my current Moho project is finished, I may give up animation altogether, except perhaps paper flipbooks. At least that technology can't be as easily ruined by the whims of "Silicon Valley".

What would be genuinely interesting is if old Flash and maybe Moho in the future could be purchased by a community as an Open Source project, like Blender. That would give me hope. But Adobe would rather keep old Flash dead than ever let that happen.

nina_paley wrote:Like it was "interesting" what Adobe did to Flash?

Well, there's a reason I used the word "interesting" instead of "great". A company like Adobe would have been able to keep things going at least, and maybe it could have been great. I know Flash is still used by a lot of animation studios. I think Adobe was focused on transforming Flash into an application platform and wasn't as interested in straight-up animation. Maybe there could be room in their portfolio for an animation product, not one that could also create database visualizations and interactive tax forms.

nina_paley wrote:What would be genuinely interesting is if old Flash and maybe Moho in the future could be purchased by a community as an Open Source project, like Blender. That would give me hope. But Adobe would rather keep old Flash dead than ever let that happen.

Absolutely. Victor and I have talked about this too. So far, Smith Micro has not been interested in any discussion of selling off technology. But it's clear from their public filings that business has not been going well for a while. Maybe a day will come when they want to get out of the animation business.

Please don't quit animation altogether - that would make me sad (not that you should make any decisions based on that, but I would feel terrible). Maybe you and Victor and I, and some other folks here should talk about what an open source animation program would look like.

Maybe you and Victor and I, and some other folks here should talk about what an open source animation program would look like.

I would love to discuss that. I would promote the hell out of such a project, should one occur.

Lost Marble wrote:

dkwroot wrote:Holy s**t, really?! Did they hire Mike to work on Adobe Animate (Flash)?

Nope, I'm on the Photoshop team.

I think Moho is too small to interest a company like Adobe, but that would have been interesting if Adobe decided to take it off Smith Micro's hands.

That's really too bad. Maybe you can get transferred at some point and help give Adobe Flash/Animate a kick in the right direction. Once upon a time, it was pretty cutting edge. Now it's a total behind the time's turd for animation. Looking at what a superior product Moho is Adobe would do well to have you working on the next generation of Animate. PhotoShop is already a pretty amazing piece of software.