Where is ProRes 4444 with alpha in Moho Pro 14?

[NealF]

In 12 I used to pick Quicktime/ProRes 4444 to get a transparent background.

In 14 I don't see that option. The only ProRes option doesn't use alpha.
I also tried the one that says PNG but that apparently isn't supported in the QT player.

How do I export a ProRes with a transparet background?
Thanks.

[Greenlaw]

Hmm...I see ProRes with Alpha on my list...



Running Moho 14.1 on Windows 11.

I don't normally export movie files from Moho, so I don't know how well it works, but I do see the option. If it doesn't work, try AVI with Alpha. It should be lossless.

[NealF]

That was my first choice. It exports as ProRes 4444 but not with a transparent background. I have no other objects in the background so it should work fine.
Never tried AVI. Is that a Windows thing?

Also, in the older version of Moho (12) I could export as ProRes 422. (i think. Not near the pgm now). It would give a smaller file when no alpha was needed.
I don't see that option either.

[Greenlaw]

This would be really weird, but maybe ProRes with Alpha is missing on Moho for Mac OS? I can't verify it here, so hopefully, someone else in this forum can. If it is missing, this should be reported.

Re: AVI, yes, it's an old Windows format, but it's a very reliable container until you need higher bit-depths. AVI is fine for Moho because Moho is limited to 24-bit color output anyway. I don't know if the AVI option is available on the Mac version of Moho, though.

FWIW, I prefer to export my Moho layers to PNG Image Sequences using Layer Comps and Moho Exporter. This is mainly because I always bring the data into a compositing program for additional work and then export my move file for the video editor from there. Even when I don't composite the scene, I still export the PNG Image Sequence from Moho and output my movie file from the compositing program because there are more options for exporting a movie file there.

[NealF]

Image files would probably work. I'll be going to Apple Motion and FCP anyway.
But I sure would like the original 2 options I've always used. Keeps the file size down when I don't need transparency.

I bet there's a button hidden somewhere. There usually is. Just need to keep looking.
Thanks for your posts.

[Greenlaw]

Hopefully, there's more work being done for an update to the Exporter.

I'm still hoping for higher color-depth support because many shows I work on require it. This is another reason I export to image sequence for compositing; the Moho exported character pass might be standard color, but I'll at least be able to composite it with higher-bit color background art and effects in the compositing program.

[NealF]

That's something I hadn't thought of.
I'm currently working on a full-length animated musical.

Being primarily a songwriter/producer, I'm learning animation as fast as I can. There are still many challenges working in Moho, but this forum is a huge help.

[Greenlaw]

I'm currently working on a full-length animated musical.

Cool! I've enjoyed your other works, and I'm looking forward to what you're cooking up now.

[sang820]

I usually use this option to output mov files with transparent backgrounds, which are very clear. There may not be as much detail and color space as 4444, but it is sufficient for animation. I hope it will be helpful to you. Wishing you all the best

Yang

[NealF]

I usually use this option to output mov files with transparent backgrounds, which are very clear. There may not be as much detail and color space as 4444, but it is sufficient for animation. I hope it will be helpful to you. Wishing you all the best

Yang

Thanks. Still not working.

[Greenlaw]

I ran a quick test to see how it worked on the setup at my workplace. Here's what I found...

I rendered a movie file for the four formats that supported an alpha channel: ProRes, MOV-PNG, AVI-PNG, and ASF-PNG.

All four files displayed an alpha channel when played with MPV player.

After Effects 2023 for Windows could only read ProRes-PNG and MOV-PNG. It errored with AVI-PNG and ASF-PNG. I'm guessing the current version of Ae doesn't support these latter two formats.

While Ae 2023 could read ProRe-PNG and MOV-PNG, it could see the alpha channel for only the MOV-PNG file.

So, all four formats contain an alpha channel, but for whatever reason, some programs cannot see it. This was tested on Windows 11 with Moho 14.1.

This is probably a bug. I'll report it when I get home tonight.

[Greenlaw]

Update: I checked the Moho movie files supporting alpha in Nuke 13. Here are the results...

ProRes could not be read and errored.

MOV-PNG was read but the alpha channel was not recognized.

AVI-PNG completely crashed Nuke.

ASF-PNG completely crashed Nuke.

[sang820]

Update: I checked the Moho movie files supporting alpha in Nuke 13. Here are the results...

ProRes could not be read and errored.

MOV-PNG was read but the alpha channel was not recognized.

AVI-PNG completely crashed Nuke.

ASF-PNG completely crashed Nuke.

This is unfortunate~~I have no problem using Adobe Premiere Pro to handle MOV-PNG, as the decoding environment may vary on each computer.

[NealF]

Thanks for all the testing, D.R.

This is unfortunate.

I'm going to do some checking with FCP and Clip Studio.
I'll post the results later today.

[NealF]

I just exported 3 versions:

1. MOV ProRes alpha
2. MOV Png alpha
3. Image Seq Png

It's clear Moho isn't exporting it with a transparent background. You can see that as it's rendering.
The Image Sequence did have the alpha, but when I imported it into FCP all the numbers were out of order.
Don't know if that's because I'm starting the export from frame 208. Is there a way to delete all the beginning frames so it'll start at zero?

Also tried importing into CSP Exp. But it doesn't import image seq. The MOV files also didn't have alpha in CSP (predictably.

If I can get the frame numbers in order in FCP I can export from there and it should have the alpha.