Moho Forum

bigtunacan wrote:Maybe you can get transferred at some point and help give Adobe Flash/Animate a kick in the right direction.

A shiver just ran down my spine...

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

Please keep me in the loop if you open these discussions elsewhere more private...

funksmaname wrote:

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

Please keep me in the loop if you open these discussions elsewhere more private...

+1

funksmaname wrote:

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

Please keep me in the loop if you open these discussions elsewhere more private...

Please don't make it too private...

Lost Marble wrote:

bigtunacan wrote:Maybe you can get transferred at some point and help give Adobe Flash/Animate a kick in the right direction.

A shiver just ran down my spine...

lol; is that good or bad?

An open source project by you Mike would be great!

It's a shame how things are going right now since the restructuring of the Graphics Division. I corresponded with Smith Micro via E-Mail in April i think where they assured me that an Update was only "a few Weeks" down the line.

Obviously, the Update never came. I'm a bit worried because i rely on Moho and it's very specific Features in my day job and am still producing Animation with it on a daily basis but without the regular update stream and bugfixing we became accustomed to, it will become more and more difficult to stay loyal to the software.

I really love Moho but already i'm missing the "old" days when there was still a great energy going on with people like Mike and Victor at the helm. Shame...

I'm not sure I share the universal enthusiasm for Open Source software development.

For one thing, successful, commercial software is in the bad habit of never being finished, never elegant, satisfactory or even entirely usable. It is a trend of the age. It is the nature of the system.

Take that same development tendency - throw in 100 more "cooks" - open the doors to the Hoi palloi - and see what horrors lurk inside. You may be surprised to discover the true meaning of the phrase "feature creep".

If you live long enough - you may get to attend an Open Source conference and meet the villainous instigator of the movement, himself.

I weep for you.

Greg Smith

I think an opensource project would be a super idea. The best approach would be to make it focused on drawing and the essence of animation. Basically, the program should be streamlined and simple, thus easy for all users.

If you did this, you could quickly build a community around the program. As more people get involved, you could raise money and slowly add more sophisticated features.

At first, I think the program should focus on this:
- raster drawing (add vectors later)
- Add in a symbol system for reusing assets (necessary for cutout animators)
- Have a very clean and modern UI
- Simple Masks

That's all I can think of at the moment. Basically, this would cut all the fat and leave the user with a streamlined animation program.

Essentially, the program would be like Flash MX except that it would use rasters instead of vectors. This way it would be easier to code and familiar to most animators.

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.

Too small as in market share? Adobe would kill Moho. They killed LiveMotion in favor of Flash. They killed FreeHand in favor of Illustrator. They killed GoLive in favor of Dreamweaver. They killed Fireworks... What would Adobe kill in favor of Moho? Serif would be a better fit. Otherwise an open source Moho managed by Lost Marble would be the final frontier.

I wonder if a kickstarter to allow Mike buy Moho back off Smith Micro could work.
I wonder how much they would want to take it off their hands?
Probably a stupid idea...

Maybe a 'controlled source' or something I'm just spit-balling, rather than fully open where with moderation the program could be developed again.

If Smith Micro did want to sell Moho or Poser, I think they should look to Corel or DAZ 3D (Daz Productions, Inc.). But I don't think they'll be doing that anytime soon.

Serif said now that Affinity Photo for the iPad is out, their next project is Affinity Designer for the iPad, then it's Affinity Publisher. With iOS 11 coming out soon, I wonder if this is a better direction? Moho seems more affiliated with Wacom at the moment.. but I like the idea of Moho on the iPad, especially for use on the iPad pro with the pencil. Improve the drawing tools and include raster layers and it would be really good. Around the £30/$40 mark, I think it would do well too. Maybe that's what their new team is working on seeing as they have an app background?

There is still a lot that Moho could do. There are now a lots of other programs that are pushing forward and it would be a shame if Moho stopped now. Crazytalk Animator, Toon Boom, Nima and Creature to name a few.

There are already some good open source alternatives to look at Synfig (lots of Moho like features), blender or Pencil2D.
As for free alterantives, there's opentoonz, animationpaper, Tupi 2D, ktoon etc.
But there are lots of areas they fall short on.

I used to use Poser a lot until Daz Studio came along, and that's not open source but is free. They just have a different business model.

Moho on iPad? Excuse me while I eviscerate myself.

Chucky, that's a bit extreme. It wouldn't be that bad!

I think a tablet version would fit in well with Moho debut and Pro. Not to replace, just complement. It wouldn't have to be a fully featured version, just enough to do the artwork and animation like debut does. I would still like to use Moho Pro version for the advanced stuff like rigging.
It could be a way of getting new users into Moho. Lots of schools now have iPads.
The iPad Pro and Microsoft surface Pro are becoming more and more popular (and powerful), both have large enough screens and are touch/pen compatible.

I guess what started it for me was using TVPaint on my Galaxy Note 10.1. Although small and basic it worked well. I've since got an iPad Pro and I'm already using it more than my laptop, especially for artwork, it's more convenient and portable.
I use Graphic - illustration and design ($8.99) and Procreate – Sketch, paint, create. ($5.99), both show the potential of the iPad.

What's missing though, is an animation app like Moho.

--------------------------
Some of the current iPad apps available (none of which come close to Moho)
Animation Desk Cloud - Animate Your World (free / In app purchases)
Plastic Animation Studio (free / In app purchases)
Animation & Drawing by Do Ink ($4.99)
FrameCast (Free)
Animation Creator HD (£3.99)
Stick Nodes - Stickman Animator (free)
Animator Free (free)
PhotoPuppet HD ($2.99)

jezjones29 wrote: What's missing though, is an animation app like Moho.

Have you checked out Animation Pro? I was thinking about getting an ipad pro and giving this app a whirl.