Moho Plans

[Kingrunner]

Thank You Victor for your help. All squared away with 12.5. Exciting times.

-Royce

[synthsin75]

Thank You Victor for your help. All squared away with 12.5. Exciting times.

-Royce

Glad to hear Victor got you sorted out. I assumed LM would take care of you.

[Víctor Paredes]

Thank You Victor for your help. All squared away with 12.5. Exciting times.

That's great to know, Royce. I'm happy I could help.

[Tradley]

It's been a long time, but I'm back again.
And what a perfect time to do so! I read the announcement thread and original post here, and I'm super excited for Moho's future!
I guess I was fortunate enough to not take the dive into v13. I'm still working with v12.5, though I am still a bit annoyed that video files don't work.
Hope to see a better version soon.

[cgrotke]

Hi cgrotke,

1. it would be simple to draw on a frame*, then add a blank frame with onionskin and draw on that, and so on.

Moho 12.5 already does that:

Thanks! I've tried that but got bogged down doing those corrections you mention. Perhaps my frustration is with the drawing tools more than the FBF, though. I'll play around some more and see if I can nail down what specifically felt overly complex. : )

[Greenlaw]

Perhaps my frustration is with the drawing tools more than the FBF, though. I'll play around some more and see if I can nail down what specifically felt overly complex. : )

It's been a while since I used Moho's FBF, but, yeah, the workflow is not a perfect system. For example, it's expected that artists will do all their line work and fills in the same layer, but that's not how most FBF animators want to work. It would be helpful if a separate 'fill' layer could automatically reference another layer for boundaries.

Speaking of which, Chucky came up with a great workflow using Moho's Reference layers to separate line and fill layers. It's not a perfect workaround but it works surprisingly well. There's a video on his YouTube channel in which he demonstrates the entire process with an animation. If you want to play with the FBF tools, I recommend watching this video.

Other FBF programs (like TVPaint and Harmony) have a neat feature where it will automatically add a new frame for you when you start drawing in the window. I would like to see Moho's FBF system get that too. It's a 'little' thing but it's one less series of actions the animator needs to keep track of and it really improves the experience.

Anyway, if Moho just had better freehand tools, I would use its FBF often for creating short bits of FBF animation. In addition to creating the 'pose-bridging' animations I mentioned earlier, I've also used the FBF system for quickly drawing fx animations like splashing water, fire flames and smoke.

Another way I've used Moho FBF is to plot out complicated motions before I animate it with a rigged puppet. For example, I once animated a rigged mermaid that needed to swim into the shot dramatically, but I wasn't sure what that should look like. Moho had just gotten its FBF tools at the time, and using it allowed me to quickly sketch out a couple of different rough animations with proper timing. When I finished one I was happy with, I just 'roto-posed' my rigged puppet over the rough FBF animation. This was a case where I didn't care about the errors the Freehand tool generated, since I was just sketching thumbnails with it.

I don't think FBF needs to become a main focus for Moho; Moho's 2D puppet animation tools are its greatest strength and the reason most users want to use it; besides, the dedicated FBF programs are way more advanced in this area, and Moho has a lot of catching up to do to compete head-to-head on that front.

But, if Moho got those better freehand tools, and its FBF workflow got just a little more streamlining, I would happily call it complete and ready for production.

[cgrotke]

Chucky came up with a great workflow

That's it! I want that. : )

[rocky53204]

Upgraded from pro 12+ to 13.5. I think I started with version 7 or 8 and signed up for each upgrade since. Saw no reason to go to 13 until now.
Wishing the MOHO team and all of the users (pro and amateur) the very best.