Moho Pro 13.5 FBF Test + Thoughts

[BigBoiiiJones]

I wanted to use Moho again since its been a while and I wanted to test out its FBF tools and I must say the drawing experience and use of the FBF function is kind of bad and I really hope it gets updated in future releases.

The main problem I was facing when drawing with the free hand tool was the end points generally had really weird curvature and I would've saved a lot of time just drawing in another software or using MR Curve Tool or Add Points Tool. I'm hoping the drawing tools could be better improved to match CSP's Vector tools or even Toon Booms at some point in the future. I would really like to use Moho as my main go to software but it's hard to work with in a more fbf environment which makes more complicated styles and or complex animation/movement hard to do within Moho.

I think the biggest thing I'd like to see is more traditional like coloring tools where it's more gapped based instead of closed shape based so for that reason this will probably never get colored. I think this is another area that could help improve Moho quite a bit and if you need reference for how tweening could work for colors look at TVPaint's auto coloring CTG Layers feature or CACANi's auto coloring feature. There is even a new AI software that could be examined called Cadmium AI that kind of takes approach like CACANi's auto color feature

For context this was a challenge posted in a Discord group I'm a part of so it's not completely original it was just to have fun and do some animation and I've decided to use Moho for it.

[Víctor Paredes]

That's very impressive! Thanks for sharing it and for the feedback.
We are aware of the limitations the current version of Moho has for freehand drawing and frame by frame animation (and that makes your example even more impressive!) and it's certainly in our planes to improve those tools as much as we can

[Greenlaw]

That looks great BigBoiiiJones! I too am very impressed!

I completely understand what you're saying regarding the Freehand Tool. The weird curl at the line end, the messy joins and the occasional random floating points really disrupt the drawing process. Whenever I use Freehand, I spend too much time manually correcting the errors so now I just draw everything using Add Point or the new MR Curve tool. Blob Brush also has its issues.

For the occasional FBF elements I need inside Moho, I switch to another program and import the FBF render from there to Moho as an image sequence. It's not an ideal solution but it's been a reliable one for me.

I've always felt that Freehand and Blob Brush are almost there. If the problems with these tools can be fixed, I would use Moho's FBF workflow routinely.

I'm not saying anything new though and I'm certain Mike and Victor are busy working on it. Hope we see improvements soon.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your animation...it really is cool!

[ernesttxx]

I guess “in our plans” is the best I could hope for at this point. it’s a bit disappointing to hear that after this long, because it doesn’t sound like those features would be included in any upcoming update. I love using Moho but I’d love even more to start my film with it if it had better(bitmap) drawing tools. Nothing negative here from me, just waiting. Thanks for some insight Victor.

[JoelMayer]

Great work!

I agree with the others, it's twice as impressive knowing the state of freehand tools in Moho.

I think the crown jewel of vector brush tools is Toon Boom, so it's always a good benchmark to have in this regard.

Looking forward to what new Mohos bring.

[BigBoiiiJones]

Here is another rough test of hair flowing. I probably wont clean this one up. This only consist of 4 frames. Also instead of spamming the forum with multiple topics of small animation test consisting of fbf I'll probably just reply new test on this topic instead.

[Greenlaw]

Very nice! Keep 'em coming!

[mmmaarten]

Wow! Great stuff! That must've been a lot of work!
Also great news by Victor's response that the FBF workflow will be improved!