Any chance of a UI overhaul?

[AxeWizard]

I'll probably get a lot of resistance from veterans posting this, but I think the Moho UI is extremely unintuitive to work with.
The way selections work, tools, and just generally navigating around frustrates me to no end. It's a shame because I love everything else about this software. It's powerful and the concepts are easy to understand. I just find myself struggling - wrestling - the app itself to get anything done. It saps my motivation to use it. Setting up character rigs isn't difficult, it's just a long, arduous process. I can't stress enough how painful it is for me.

I first started with Adobe Flash, way back in the early 2000's, and it was a breeze to work in by comparison (The symbol hierarchy in particular is very clear. I often get lost where I'm working in Moho). I briefly dipped in to Aftereffects not long ago, and while it was a hassle to do character animation in, at least I didn't have to beat the UI in to submission. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll ever be going back to Adobe. I can't afford the subscription.
Can we not take a page out of the Adobe UI design handbook though?
I spent last week messing around in Spine 2D as well, and the UI in that is very easy to work with.
The reason Affinity Designer took over from Adobe Illustrator for me is because they got the UI right. A few minor differences here and there, but it is easy to grasp and easy to work with. Took maybe a week for me to get fluent in it. You don't have to fight it to get anything done. No matter how much I try, I can't get fluent or comfortable in Moho.

I'm sure it's just wishful thinking on my part to get this looked at. I understand it would be an immense (and expensive) undertaking, and probably a small team of UI experts would need to be involved. I honestly don't expect things to change. I'll keep persevering and hopefully get there. I just wanted to put my voice out there, because I don't see anyone else raising this concern. I hope I'm not the only one though.

[SimplSam]

I think you might need to be a bit more specific, with possible examples of the 'broken' UI workflow, and what you would expect / desire.

[gilcartunista]

I personally love version 2.0 where everything was very organized. You drew, then put the bones and finally went to the animation part, in other words, there was NO CONFUSED TABLE "0".
See the link below.
http://web.archive.org/web/200012111411 ... reens.html

[AxeWizard]

I think you might need to be a bit more specific, with possible examples of the 'broken' UI workflow, and what you would expect / desire.

I have difficulty putting it in to words. I don't know if anyone here plays videogames, but an analogy would be playing a game with bad controls. You can tell intuitively when a game has good and bad "gamefeel". If the controls are clunky, or nonsensical, or the movement in-game is awkward. I've used plenty of creative software in my day, and I can instinctually tell when one is easy or difficult to use. I had the same problem going from Maya to Blender. And again, Blender is amazing, I can't believe it's free. But I just can't wrap my brain around the interface.

The next time I use Moho, I'll attempt to write down a list of everything that I think causes the interface to get in the way of itself, as I encounter those problems.

[Greenlaw]

I'll probably get a lot of resistance from veterans posting this, but I think the Moho UI is extremely unintuitive to work with.

Good topic! While I'd hardly call Moho's UI "unintuitive", I agree that it can use improvements. (But then, what program can't be improved?)

For the type of animation I'm asked to create at my workplace, I personally like Moho's UI. Between home and work, I use pretty much all of the major animation programs (Harmony, After Effects, Animate, TVPaint, etc,). I think they each have their unique strength, and for Moho that strength is puppet-style animation...nothing else comes close to Moho's Bones, IK, Smart Bone Actions, and Smart Warp custom mesh system.

Having used Moho to create puppet-style animations for many DWA TV shows (Puss In Boots, The Croods, Boss Baby, etc.,) I don't have a lot of complaints about its UI. For me, the trick has been more about figuring out an efficient workflow, and learning techniques for dealing with any situation a production can throw at me. A lot of this isn't covered in the official manual and tutorials, so maybe Moho's documentation can be updated to be more 'production oriented', not just 'feature focused'.

As for how the UI can be improved, I'd like to see Moho's UI behave more like 'modern' animation applications. The current UI feels rigid and its not open to much customization by the average user. Specifically, I'd like to be able to dock and undock items more flexibly, and be able to set up my own custom windows from within the program. (My Moho Quick Click (MQC) panel is an example of a custom window I'd like to be able to set up natively in Moho.)

Visually, I find some parts of Moho's UI aren't legible enough for my eyes, and it doesn't scale properly on some computers with high-density pixel displays. To deal with this, I've had to replace a few button icons and cursors, so I can see them on-screen without struggling. The Add Points cursor is a good example...the default cursor it so thin, sometimes it 'disappears' while I'm working.

I also feel some of the tools and their options aren't laid out as efficiently as I like, but fortunately there some useful UI mods created by other users here that work better. I'll post a video showcasing some of my favorites UI mods.

In the meantime, you might want to check out the video I made about native UI tweaks I like to use (no third party scripts required.) These settings may not be for everybody, but they might give you ideas for your own Moho optimizations.


My Moho Pro 12 Settings

In general, I don't really want to see Moho's nature changed, just the UI streamlined a bit to make it easier to use. If I want to use something radically different from Moho, I'd use that program instead.

To be fair to the developers (both Mike's team and Davit's team,) Moho has seen a lot of UI improvements even in the six or seven years I've been most actively using Moho. As a long-time Moho user, I'm confident that under Mike's new team, the UI will continue to improve in upcoming releases.

Hope this info helps.

[hayasidist]

agreeing with Greenlaw - the very first time I used Moho (back in AS6 -- so I'm still only a "junior" compared to some long-time users here) I really struggled with the UI. Drawing wasn't "intuitive"; tool icons were no more than hieroglyphs from a lost language; ... But now I can fly round the screen and the workspace (in 3d!) -- sure there are times when I wish I could do something with fewer clicks, but...

when Moho looked as though it was being left to rot by SM, I ventured into Blender. OMG!!! Alien territory. Download a demo file and the whole screen looks nothing like the one that comes with "that cube". Reliance on keyshortcuts - why oh why GX?? -- and now, a few screen hours later, I'm still often tripping over my own feet, but I'm adding, grabbing, scaling, spinning, sculpting ... I still haven't got to rigging yet but ...

Why am I saying this? A lot of "I hate this UI" fades with time.

(and for sure, about Moho's "frame 0" - and the negative keyframe area just in case anyone has ventured into that "hidden territory", I would LOVE to see moho have a "design" mode that is separate from an "animate" mode but for now, I can live with it)

[slowtiger]

I have several UI improvement ideas, but without access to the recent version it's no use to post them here. Instead, I'll try to formulate some principles I'd like the UI (any UI) to follow:

1. Improve orientation.
In a complex program as Moho the user easily gets lost, and with the increasing amount of data (like number of keys x number of channels x number of layers) it's hard to tell which is which and where it belongs. Tool tips (like in TVPaint) are one solution, but I'd like them to be activated individually, not as on/off in the prefs for all elements.

Something like "if you press this key, additional information is given for any element the cursor is hovering over". Maybe it's possible to have this in a cascading fashion, example: I press the key, hover over a key in the timeline, a little ballon shows up giving me the interpolation and the channel. Additional right click shows me the bone name or point number, and the layer name.

2. Faster navigation, less clicks. In general:
- lists should be navigable by arrow keys
- items anywhere (e.g. bone names) should get selected when clicked
- if possible, this should work no matter which layer is selected.
- optional "apply to all (filter)" should be used wherever possible.

3. Better visibility, clickable area.
After all UI elements are successfully scaled to the connected screens (Retina, I look at you!) I'd like to be able to scale it per user. Some of us already have bad eyesight. A major overhaul should replace all bitmaps with SVG files.

I always struggle with the timeline in reduced size. Keys become un-selectable, much cursing occurs. I'd like to have a hovering solution here, which enlarges a portion of the timeline horizontally to 1:1, giving me a chance to select successfully.

1 + 3 should be possible now with all that processor power available. I've already seen nice implementations of this enhanced realtime feedback in other software, so I know this works.

4. Overhaul of graphic style.
There's been a lot of change in the style of UI elements over the years. Less outlines, de-saturated colours, more transparency and blur, rounded corners ... not all of this is for the better.

Moho is on the better side of design decisions in this field! I especially like the black outline/white fill for tools and keys, best contrast for me. But other parts could be re-worked. Contrast of channel lines in the timeline should be reduced. Outlines around items should be removed wherever possible, like in the layer palette.

5. Customization.
Years ago I already suggested that the intervall of vertical lines in the timeline (indicating seconds) should be more flexible. The real seconds must stay, of course, but I like to see my 24 frames raster, and maybe be able to indicate every 8th frame, and wouldn't it be great to be able to type in a BPM number and get the beats shown (a bit blurred because of odd numbers) for animating to music?

We could change the UI elements' colours since forever in the prefs, but it's tedious. Maybe we can work out a way to only have a colour XY field (saturation and hue) and a brightness/contrast slider. The old way to change colours might still exist (as legacy mode).


OK, that's a lot from my side, does any of this makes sense? I know that certain points call for fundamental changes deep in the graphics toolbox of the software. If any of these get tackled in the future, I'm willing to submit examples of what I think would be an improvement, I just need some hints what's possible and what not (what's the abilities of the new toolbox).

[Greenlaw]

...the negative keyframe area just in case anyone has ventured into that "hidden territory", I would LOVE to see moho have a "design" mode that is separate from an "animate" mode but for now, I can live with it)

Good point! Yeah, I wish I could slide the timeline to reveal negative frames like I can in many other animation programs. This is useful when I wish to offset some cycling animation or pre-roll events (i.e., physics/particles.) Then way it works now, I'm offsetting my keyframes into the negative zone blindly and just hoping the keys land where I want.

[slowtiger]

just hoping the keys land where I want

That's my problem with the sequencer, each and every time! Should be possible to add a numerical input, and a feedback during dragging showing me the frame offset I'm creating. (Every video editor has this when I shorten clip lengths.)

[Greenlaw]

That's my problem with the sequencer, each and every time! Should be possible to add a numerical input, and a feedback during dragging showing me the frame offset I'm creating. (Every video editor has this when I shorten clip lengths.)

Exactly! I use Sequencer this way all the time, and it makes me nuts...every time!

[chucky]

I agree with all Slowtiger's points, very good.
Also the frame zero is a bit of an issue I agree.. had never seen that way back version, interesting.

I remember when I first started with Moho and I actually rage quit.
Being that I'm a hot-head and a bit of a brat I complained mightily to support.
I actually got a fantastic response from Mike Clifton, Moho's Author, who explained where I had got it all wrong, with great calm and grace.
I had a good look at myself and had another go, with the new approach in mind and suddenly I got it.
Yes there are a few annoyances and gripes, like how the selected bone is not named unless the select tool is on-(I'd like to see the name whenever a bone is selected), and I'm always looking for enhancements too, but generally it is stating from a good place, it just needs to mature a little further, it's come a long way.

I also used Maya which was so easy to learn ,and tried many times moving to Blender ( still trying) , OMG. It's like one of those magic eye pictures, why is everything arse about face? It requires a hundred click's ( just know the shortcut keys, ugghh , yes one day but I want to use the program first).
Moho is a lot easier to get than Blender, so stick at it and do make specific suggestions, if you can say what you want and it makes perfect sense, there's a much better chance of it coming about.

[Palhil]

I'd also like to add that I've always found the Styles panel a bit counterintuitive. It never works quite how I imagine it to. In particular those tick boxes on the right-hand side of Fill and Stroke. For a newbie, it's just not obvious what the purpose of them is. It also feels like the palette box should be up the top, nearer to where you would be picking colors. I wondered about making a clear separation between the Styles panel and a Shapes panel rather than mingling the two. But I'm not sure that would work. I don't know. It just never communicates easily how it is supposed to function.

I also wonder if there is a more graceful way of linking bones to the artwork. I remember as I was learning the software that I would constantly get lost with the different methods of linking. Flexi-Binding is on by default. Great for a simple puppet but something that a rigger would probably immediately reset and start from scratch. I would possibly like to have an option in preferences that turns off Flexi-Binding as a default.

I think what I found most confusing was the order in which you would have to do things. Binding a layer to a bone means selecting the layer first and using the tool to click on a bone. Binding points means selecting the bone first, then the layer and then using the tool to select the points. Flexi binding doesn't have a tool and instead, you have to find it in the menu. It would be great if there was a way to combine these three methods into one tool. Also at the same time have something that more obviously highlights in what way a bone is influencing artwork layers. Maybe a toggle switch that gives visual highlights and clues when you click on a bone. I know that bones do get a thicker line when linked or points on vectors are highlighted with a color. It never seems quite obvious to me. That may be my problem.

One last thing, I'm forever getting lost in masking. Maybe having visual icons next to the descriptions in the Masking panel may make it easier to work out what each option is going to do. I don't know. Maybe I just have difficulty with it as it's nothing like any other program I use.

I'm not saying that any of this is actually possible. Even if it were, I'm well aware that changing tools that users are used to can cause a lot of upset.

[Greenlaw]

I remember when I first started with Moho and I actually rage quit.

Technically, I 'started' way back with version 1.0. Moho's novel animation concepts intrigued me, but in practice, version 1.0 just didn't cut it for my work. But I still felt Moho was promising enough that I upgraded to almost every new release since. The game changer for me was version 9.0-9.5, when Mike added Smart Bones. Other notable improvement came a a rapid pace, and I began to take Moho seriously. Once I really dug into Moho, I found some things puzzling about the workflow and UI, but with the help of users here in this forum, I stuck with it.

I'm glad I did! In a short time, using Moho had a big impact on my career options, and it made work fun for me again.

I actually got a fantastic response from Mike Clifton...

Yeah, Mike is awesome! He's genuinely very interested in how animators use his program, and he's passionate about making it better. I miss the days when he and Victor could visit my workplace to check out what we were doing with Moho, and ask us what we needed. I hope those days will come back before too long.

For me, the best way to learn a new program is to come up with a project where I can test out key features, and develop a workflow for getting things done quickly and efficiently.

To learn Moho, that project was my short film Scareplane. I found Moho's manual and tutorials were okay to get me started, but the most helpful advice came from members of this forum, including Mike and Victor. After completing Scareplane, I decided some of my early complaints about Moho were actually irrelevant, and I was now informed enough to make specific suggestions and requests that would help me on my next project. (And the next one, and the one after that, etc.)

Tip to new users: I use a lot of different animation programs in my work, and for me, one key to learning Moho (or any new program,) is to not get hung up on how I did things in another program. Instead, I'll clear my mind, use the tool as it was meant to be used, and try to create stuff with it. After I'm done, if I still feel the tools could be made better, I'll show my work to the developer, and start up a conversation. The best way to get help is to demonstrate your needs clearly and with examples. Even better if you have many examples.

[Greenlaw]

I'd also like to add that I've always found the Styles panel a bit counterintuitive.

I agree, Styles isn't completely intuitive at first, but it's really not bad once you get the hang of it. FWIW, with all the excitement about Moho's return, I'm back to making 'explainer' videos for using the program, and I'll be sure to cover this topic for beginners and intermediate users.

[Greenlaw]

I also wonder if there is a more graceful way of linking bones to the artwork...

There's like a half-dozen ways to bind artwork in Moho and they're all valid and useful in different situations. Flexi-binding by itself is not great for rigging an entire character but it's a good base to start from. The two most useful methods for me are Use Selected Bones For Flexi-Binding, which limits which bones have an affect on selected layers, and Point Binding, which locks points to specific bones. These methods can be used separately or mixed together. The trick to using Use Selected Bones is to make sure all layers are explicitly bound. This eliminates any unwanted 'squishiness' in the character when you start animation.

I also use Layer Binding a lot, but mainly for items that I don't wish to deform. Common examples are all parts of the face, including the Mouth switch layer, or non-deforming props and clothing (handbag, hat, weapon, etc.)

I'll try cover the different binding methods, how and when to use them, in another video.

I think what I found most confusing was the order in which you would have to do things.

I don't have time to go into detail on this subject but here's a rigging tip you may find helpful:

If you get things mixed up and you become unsure which binding method(s) are in effect, select the affected layers and choose Reset All Bone Rigging. This command's name might sound scary and destructive, but what it does is it resets the selected layers to use only the default Flexi-binding settings; the rest of your character remains bound with their existing methods. When I get lost, I find this is much quicker than trying to figure out the problem and how to correct it. Just reset it and re-bind it.

Important note: be sure you have at least one layer selected before using this command, or it will reset the binding for all layers in your character. (Unless, of course, that's what you want.)

One last thing, I'm forever getting lost in masking...

Like Styles, masking in Moho isn't exactly intuitive either, but like Styles, it's pretty easy to use once you get it.

In most cases, you're going to want to use 'Hide All' on the Group layer and set the bottom layer (vector or image) to 'Add to mask' or 'Add to mask, but make invisible'. This tells Moho to use the interior of solid regions of the mask layers to 'reveal' what's been 'hidden' by the Group's mask setting.

Obviously, Moho allows you to get way more complex with masking techniques, but the above will cover most common situations.

(Hmm...another video topic I think.)

Hope this helps.