Smith Microand Moho

General Moho topics.

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DK
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Smith Microand Moho

Post by DK »

I just paid a visit to the Smith Micro website and was quite shocked to see how the main page has completely changed focus. It's as if the graphics software sections are an after thought and a strong thrust being made into mobile software tech. The "Animates" app section is completely gone, not sure how many of you were involved in that but I was quite heavily engaged in submitting characters for it. Royalties of which have dried up quite some time ago with no notice at all as to what has happened to all my work files that were used in it. I'm not concerned over that more than worried about what's next for Moho?

D.K
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synthsin75
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by synthsin75 »

Yeah, concern is growing. I keep getting emails from SM that sound like regular fire sales.
chucky
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by chucky »

Motion Artist @ 10 bux.
That program was so perplexing, it looked just like Moho , and supported moho files, but then worked completely UNLIKE it .

What was management thinking letting the Motion Artist team go off on that tangent?
It should have been almost exactly the same as Moho where ever it could be, it should have shared some render power with poser too.
Done right, it could have not only been popular but increased Moho and Poser sales by unifying them as an environment and increasing compositing options.
THat's why Adobe is such a popular platform, PS , AE they are like hand and glove.
Vegas and Acid had the same interface and controls, if you had one then might as well use the other.
THis is a clear example of terrible management and planning.
Probably one of the reasons SM is leaving Moho on a limb, even though it's so brilliant.

Losing Mike Clifton, well, there's another big mistake, even if they outsourced the rest of dev for Moho, it's a classic golden goose scenario.

Moho is though a constant through all the changes at SM and with the other software,
It should outlast any parent company.
Viva Moho
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DK
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by DK »

Yeah. When Jason first spoke about MA I thought it was going to be a vector scene compiler companion to Moho not unlike a video editor that we use for png compilation etc. Turned out it just went off in this weird direction that Moho was more than already covering?

D.K
chucky
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by chucky »

DK wrote:Yeah. When Jason first spoke about MA I thought it was going to be a vector scene compiler companion to Moho not unlike a video editor that we use for png compilation etc. Turned out it just went off in this weird direction that Moho was more than already covering?

D.K
Yep , I'm pretty sure that's what Jason thought and was fighting for too, not to put words in his mouth.
Just putting in a good word for him, I don't think this was down to Jas .

Obviously it's historical now and I can't say anything really specific at all, for NDA reasons and more that actually I don't know much about it, mainly the end result , which I found close to unusably confusing.
It was like an experiment in confounding interfaces, some programmers idea of outsmarting the user.

I wonder how many sales it get's and moreover how many people actually use it.

I'm pretty sure I would have if it wasn't such a mess. If the graphics dev was properly supported, then they could have reboot MA and made it what it could have been rather than pushing the whole graphics range to one side.

It would have been cleverer to hold off release and get it right at the right price, than launching it prematurely only to offer it out in fire sales.
Crazy stuff.
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InfoCentral
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by InfoCentral »

I wonder what happened to the Poser development team?
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synthsin75
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by synthsin75 »

I had hoped that MA would at least become a pipeline for exporting to html5, but that never happened. Just stayed in a pretty niche market.
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DK
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by DK »

Ahhh...I remember the talk about html5. Did that ever get anywhere close to happening in either Moho or MA or was it just dropped off the scope completely? I actually use a brilliant little piece of software called Hippani for doing my interactive html5 stuff but it's now suffering the same direction Moho is heading in. The developer has dropped it completely and the forum has become abandoned leaving all the purchasers high and dry. In the early days it reminded me so much of this forum where people would suggest improvements and they were being initiated almost overnight. Sigh :roll:

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Telemacus
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by Telemacus »

DK, there's a new kid on the block for html5 animations: Saola.https://atomisystems.com/saola-animate
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DK
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by DK »

Whoa. Looks nice and so does the price!!!! :shock:
Thanks for the heads up though.

D.K
chucky
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by chucky »

Well I can vouch for active presenter, I've used it for years it's brill.

Soala-animate though, hmmm, tried it , not covinced.
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JoelMayer
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by JoelMayer »

We never heard anything about a 12.5 right? Quiet concerning. Firing the dev team and especially Mike was the biggest mistake they could've done what a shame. Moho was on such a great roll! Being picked up by some well known studios, getting faster and better updates and so on. But i agree with the above poster that i hope, that Moho will prevail any parent company and especially, that Mike will be back one day down the line!
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by drumlug13 »

I don't know how much weight this carries but just yesterday I had an email exchange with Customer/Tech Support. I was reporting a bug about the crash during particle layer duplication. I also asked, just generally speaking, if the LM forum is still a good place where we can exchange info with the developer team. Is this the place to keep updated on news about Moho? If not here then where? (Twitter or Facebook?)

Anyway the response was pretty quick. There was no comment on where the best place to have interaction with the Moho team. But he did say about the bug, "This is a known issue. I also know they were testing the fix today, so look for it in the upcoming update."

That doesn't reveal too much about the time-frame for an update, but it's nice to hear that somebody somewhere is working on something. I guess it's wrong for me to assume that they haven't been working hard on Moho any less than full time since the change over, but man, there just seems like there's a dark cloud hanging over Moho every time I open it up.

Okay, maybe not a dark cloud... maybe a light gray cloud... one that is shaped like the Grim Reaper ... But is that his a big scythe he's swinging or is that a silver lining?! At this point who knows?
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DK
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by DK »

Maybe Mike is secretly working on Mojo? :lol:
Thank s to him we all still have this great forum!

D.K
chucky
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Re: Smith Microand Moho

Post by chucky »

Dev are out there somewhere, I know just a little about it but are allowed to say ( I don't think) but what I can say is that the product manager posted on a closed but not secret facebook group to say that they have exciting plans in place for V13.
Even if I knew those plans I would be not be permitted to share, but I would be able sound enthusiastic at least.
Although most cats have plans for world domination, this IS a sign that there are PLANS.
It would be nice to keep the users up to date with some kind of public social media announcements every blue moon or the betas in the loop just so they can make calming reassurances.
It is so easy to feel neglected.... nobody loves me :cry:
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