How can we best show our support?

[Johnny]

Hey Team - what's the best way to start this new chapter for Moho?

Is there any sort of patreon or founders edition that we can contribute monetarily?

Do we just spread the word to our friends that Moho is back?

What are some things we can do to help things start and stay successful?

[toddwaddington]

I agree, @Johnny. Most posts I've seen are from those of us who are so happy to have good, reputable people in charge. Especially those who have been at the center of the software since the beginning! I would be happy to support such an effort.

That said, I'm sure the transfer to ownership might add some red tape to money flow, taxes, etc. So, we'll need some sort of participation from the owners to make sure we set it up in a way that doesn't penalize them in taxes or other. I don't know about these things, I just want it to work for them.

[cgrotke]

I think one of the ways people in this forum could be most useful would be to help come up with the definitive guide to learning and using MOHO. I've certainly learned a lot here and via videos people have mentioned here, but the information can be a bit scattered.

The expertise is certainly here to pull it off, and beginners could help by proposing issues they struggle with. It would also be a project that wouldn't interfere with software development much at all.

We could help to come up with an organized library of the essential and best tips, tricks, tutorials, and FAQs for the new lost marble site. Maybe add a bit more to the library about principles of animation, too, and not just the mechanics of the software.

Maybe a small group of interested Mohoian Mentors should get together to lead and delegate.

[Daxel]

I like the documentation idea. I just commented about that in another post.

"I think that Moho, being in my opinion the best software for puppet animation right now, is very atractive and suitable for begginers and it will benefit tremendously from being more begginer friendly and having a better documentation. I won't benefit from that directly, as I already made the effort to understand the software, but now that it has new owners I really hope the program sells well."

That said, I think that an open source documentation could work very well. As an example, take a look at Godot, an open source game engine that has a very good online documentation that was made by contributions using Github: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/

And also having an official script section on the official Moho website could be very good, as right now I see many different webs alocating Moho scripts but not an official one where you can have all of them and submit them.

[SimplSam]

I think the docs / tutorials that ship with Moho are quite good (have good info in them), but 1) I think most people don't read them - they "Google It" instead, and 2) the PDF docs can feel very large and linear - and easy to get lost in.

With modern online docs like those referenced (Godot) - they are very user-friendly -- with search nearby, index nearby and lots of cross referencing with the ability to embed multi-media and videos etc. - and of course - they are very easy to keep up to date and add corrections, and allow user contributions.

I think there still is a place for the PDFs, but more as reference manuals - when you want to read linearly. But I would also say - some of the images in the Moho PDF docs need a refresh. They either feel outdated and small, or the characters used look like they were designed to scare small children.

I also feel like the idea of adding more focus on the art of Animation would help to build a bigger & better Moho Animation community.

So definitely - more online user supported docs & content are a great idea.

I would however have to say a definite no to "Mohoian Mentors" -- It would definitely have to be " Mohovian Mentors"

[toddwaddington]

People looking for more training. Animator Mark Bremmer did two full courses for Smith Micro. https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/le ... 771375405/ has it in there library now. I don't know how much. I believe it's also available for purchase on Udemy.

Also, another great resource is https://www.animestudiotutor.com

If you are willing to pay a couple of bucks, Udemy is a great learning site with frequent sales. Chad Troftgruben: https://www.udemy.com/course/assembling ... roduction/. If I'm not mistaken, I believe he created many tutorials for SmithMicro

There are several other good teachers (check Udemy first if you want comprehensive paid courses) on youtube. You can learn everything you want to learn from Poptoogi: https://www.youtube.com/user/ShoNuff93.

[strider2000]

Along the idea of documentation, it might just be me, but I think one of the most helpful thing might just be to have a central index. Years ago I created an index that I used for trying to remember helpful resources.
https://strider2000.wixsite.com/familyf ... rial-index
I'm sure it has some stale links, and includes older outdated tutorials, but perhaps it at least illustrates the idea I'm thinking of.

[Daxel]

Along the idea of documentation, it might just be me, but I think one of the most helpful thing might just be to have a central index. Years ago I created an index that I used for trying to remember helpful resources.
https://strider2000.wixsite.com/familyf ... rial-index
I'm sure it has some stale links, and includes older outdated tutorials, but perhaps it at least illustrates the idea I'm thinking of.

Yeah what I've seen in other nice documentations is that each section have a list of related tutorials atached. And also a QA section where you can write questions, answer them and vote them as "useful". All this is open source so it is maintained by the community. But I dont know if that would be viable with Moho's community.

[cgrotke]

So, if Lost Marble would like us to help, it seems like there are a number of us who would be willing to help work on supporting materials. All it would take would be to set up a wiki on the new, improved site.

We would then:

- put the existing documentation online for easy searching/reference
- create a library of existing links to tips, tricks, scripts, and tutorials in some organized fashion, perhaps annotated with some details
- have a place to add new information as we go forward (Q&A)
- fill in gaps with new tutorials, etc. as needed.

I think this would be both a good way this community could contribute without interfering, and would be very useful to pull it all together in one place for new and old users alike.

(One idea I considered, but rejected, is that we could contribute content to a new expansion pack... build lots of props and such. After thinking about it a while, I figured the stylistic differences might lead to issues. Working on expanded and centralized help and FAQ seems like something better for a group project.)

[strider2000]

A

I figured the stylistic differences might lead to issues

Perhaps a way to deal with anything that is either stylistic or even quality based, is is to just allow it to be organized something like the library in Moho. There's the officially sanctioned assets and then there are Partner assets. I's guess in this context it could be community assets. I think the scripting site http://mohoscripts.com/script/lm_transf ... r_modified is really nice and allows you to search for things in numerous ways. There could also be a rating system, allowing users to rate things they like. It looks like the scripting sight just rates them by the number of downloads which may be all that's needed. That way, assets that are popular are easily found, but people can still get access to assets may not be as popular, but might be appropriate for some people.

Along the lines of github, I can imagine a way that the community can contribute to code, assets or documentation in a very controlled way. The officially sanctioned stuff has close reviews, but then there could also be community assets, scripts or documentation/tutorials, that are under not officially part of Moho itself, but might be helpful to people, especially beginners.

For example, I'm not an expert or a great artist and my approaches may be mediocre, but I love playing with Moho and I'm interested in willing to help. And would like at least to help beginners, because I've found the contributions of others in the forum so helpful to me ... for free

[Víctor Paredes]

Thank you very much for all your comments and ideas. We have received a lot of support and love everywhere. This is really a great way to start this new phase of development of our beloved software.
For now, i can only ask you to spread the word and show the world why Moho is a tool that fits your needs and (hopefully) you have fun using it!
Please, if you can, follow us in our social networks and tag your work with #mohoanimation

https://www.facebook.com/MohoAnimation
https://www.instagram.com/mohoanimation/
https://www.twitter.com/moho_animation
https://www.youtube.com/mohoanimation

We are still in a transition period, so there are no many news there, but we hope to be able to make them roll soon!

Thank you very much again.
Please, keep posting on the forum your comments, ideas, scripts, animation or anything interesting.
Also, please feel free contact me if you have any feedback. I don't have too much time right now, but I will do my best to read and reply.

All the best,
Víctor