Character creation and animation process. This video is about experimenting with cutout animation in moho. I'm considering using this technique for my next animation.
Your so young, yet have such a beautiful concept of backgrounds, characters, and storytelling! Great things, great things are in store for you young man.
love the style of these characters, this is some beautiful and impressive work! Especially from such a young guy! You are very driven! Keep it up! Your talents and abilities will only increase! Excited to subscribe and follow your progress.
Hey there! Good timing - my next tutorial is about to come out, which covers simple Blender cut-out animation. I show how to animate this character and compare it to Moho. I then go on to step people through the basics with a new character. I am in the process of switching from Moho too. Blender currently has fewer 2D rigging features, but the ones that it does have are more reliable and there are workarounds for anything else. Blender runs smoothly and rarely crashes and recovers really well even when it does. Blender outperforms when rendering (GPU can be utilised) and comes with an expected wealth of 3D environmental tools. NPR shaders can be used to quickly merge your 3D assets into your 2D animations. There are a tonne of others reasons. Smart bone behaviour can be emulated using action constraints and although this process is currently more involved, you quickly find your workflow and it's not an issue (and it comes with greater control). I'm going to look at streamlining the "smart bone" technique with a python script (another bonus for Blender). My next project is a music video and I'm going to jump in with both feet using Blender Grease Pencil, wish me luck. I feel that there is a freedom and stability in an open source platform that you just wont find with closed source applications like Moho. There are currently some anti-aliasing issues and masking limitations when working with GP but there are also many workarounds (and a responsive development team). If you want a feature, you may write an add-on yourself or pay for someone to do it for you - then everyone benefits. The more users that use Blender/GP in a 2D rigged way, the more this will shape the development of potential tools. OK this has become a book so I'll end this. Stay in touch. Joel
@@SketchySquirrel Wow Thank you Joel ! such a detailed answer I Appreciate it :) yeah I also want to switch to blender, as it looks like blender has unlimited possibilites, and it will be developed all the time ! I'm just starting with blender, but i already love this software ! Moho is also amazing, but as you know it has many issues. Once again thank you Joel for you answer, and your great videos on youtube ! We wish you all the best for animwood.com !
Hey! You have been of great help throughout my project. You actually pushed me to try Moho myself. I unfortunately ran into some trouble and I would like to hear your opinion about it. I own a MacBook that uses the Mac OS BigSur operating system. As I found out after unsuccessfully installing it, Moho 13 does not work with this operating system which leads to a black screen when I try to use the software. Surprisingly the previous versions such as Moho 12 and Anime Studio Pro 11 actually did work but when I tried to buy the license for perpetual use I found that it is no longer supported by the developers. I found it in Amazon and tried to buy it but I was unable to do so because of geographic restrictions (I am currently based in Colombia). I have reached a dead end, I feel, with this software. Harmony seems rather expensive and it does not seem to have the compatibility with other software which I really dislike. I tried rigging in blender but as I commented on a previous video, the performance of blender was being compromised. I like to work in photoshop and I am trying to integrate blender along with it, Animate seems to have a very annoying png sequence export and After Effects really seems like the best contestant so far.. As synfig would probably mean re-education and that could postpone the project several months I feel, and Cartoon Animator did not convince me enough. I would like to know what you would advice me to do, I really tried to buy this software the right way but it seems impossible. Thank you for your time, I look forward to seeing more content from you!
Moho has been an excellent tool for 2D rigged animation and it has recently been sold by Smith Micro to Lost Marble LLC, the company founded by Mike Clifton, the original creator of Moho, and Victor Paredes, Supervisor of Moho animation at Cartoon Saloon and former Moho Product Manager. Moho 12.5 has been great, I have found Moho 13 a little buggy (and have seen that the BigSur update has caused issues), but with Victor Paredes involved, I'm certain that it will soon be an excellent tool once again. Depending on the context of where you are using your animations e.g. Games/Short Films I would recommend different options. I'm sure you have looked at OpenToonz, DragonBones etc. There will be new tools added to Blender GP in the near future with addons like Duik for Blender also being released also. All the best and let me know if I can help in the future, especially with Moho as there will be a new push for bug fixes and more development due to the recent change in ownership.
@@SketchySquirrel thank you so much for answering so fast! I am planning on doing 2-4 minutes animation short films with my colleague, given that information, do you think I should best wait? I was planning on rigging the characters in Moho and export them as a png sequence w/ transparency and then place those png as a plane so that it would interact with the 3D environment. My current plan is to rig them in after effects and try the same method. I would really like to hear your opinion about it. I am not a properly trained animator, I am an illustrator venturing into animation, this is my first big animation project and I have been doing research throughout all of this year on the most effective way to create these animations. I have gone far in the GP rigging but I’m having some issues I believe with the size of the files, I do want to clarify that I am not designing these assets directly in blender but in photoshop and converting them to GP from pngs. It works well, but I have seen better results that seem to involve less work. Harmony has a truly enviable 2D rigging toolset but it seems off-the-charts expensive for what I am ultimately planning to use it on. Moho was truly the most attractive software due to its reasonable price and the compatibility with other software. I had not heard of Dragon bones but I will check it out! I do have Opentoonz in my computer and it’s really encouraging to see princess mononoke being done with it. I do not know if it is possible to create a time offset kind of rig for the hands and the mouths. Ultimately that is what worries me the most. Thank you very much for answering my questions and helping me get along this very difficult process. It is very hard to find someone who truly understands the technicalities of the issues you as an animator are facing.
@@mateoacevedocontreras6087 I agree with you, Moho is a great middle of the road and you can produce amazing results within a tight schedule (though it needs to actually work on your Mac!). Based on your project requirements, I would either go for After Effects with the Duik addon ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-i63vPXJ00r0.html or learn the rigging tools of OpenToonz ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YVNlenF7LHk.html there are lots of tutorials for both out there. DragonBones is still an option but I feel it would be better for game development than short films.
@@SketchySquirrel thank you so much! I have been looking specifically at duik in after effects, it seems to be the best for to the price, I have also been slightly considering joysticks and sliders but I am still hesitant if it is completely necessary. I thank you a lot for giving me the info on Moho’s new owners, I knew they had recently changed ownership but I didn’t know to whom. I am very excited about the Duik blender add on, I did some research yesterday and found some info about it. I am going to wait a little to see if Moho fixes that issue, as I had read in the internet that there was no news on them attempting to fix it or anything. I have no issue with paying the license the right way, but it is a little discouraging and even weird that as Moho developed, it got developed for older Mac operating systems
I also looked at dragon bones and I agree with you, I couldn’t really find any lipsync tool or work method, which ultimately led me to stick with the plan I currently have.
