Moho Animation by Lost Marble
Moho is our most highly-recommended 2D rig + vector animation software. We absolutely love using Moho, and just look at some of the beautiful, and entirely new, aesthetics you can achieve with it. We have used Moho in our freelance work, and expect to use it more frequently in the future.
Why we recommend this software:
One of the many things that I love about using Moho is how scalable the rigging system is. It can be very simple and achieve a straight-forward, yet desirable result in very little time, or you can really put a ton of minutiae into the rigging process and have a character that you could re-use throughout an entire episode or film.
It is also an incredible positive sign that Cartoon Saloon (The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, Wolfwalkers, Éiru), whom we love, uses Moho in their products in a variety of ways. See one of Moho’s featurette videos below to see how they managed to animate an entire scene filled with characters in it.
In the first video of the wolf walking (ironically unrelated to the Wolfwalkers animation film mentioned above) you can see a demonstration of the much desired “line-boil” effect that harks back to an earlier form of animation, the replicates the slight irregularity of each line that’s drawn to achieve a more traditional feeling to the animation. All of this is also achieve with vector artwork (though it can easily import PSD or other image files too, and run extremely smoothly with them at that) which means that you can modify it endlessly.
In my personal experience, I’m also incredibly impressed by how much motion you can drive through the use of “actions” that can trigger a tremendous variety of different animations to be keyed to one simple controller.
The actual drawing and painting using the vector brushes takes a little getting used to, and I expect the UI will continue to be cleaned up with each update, but once you’re used to how it works, your creativity can really flow. It’s also pretty amazing how you can create such a textural, traditional feel to vector brushes… this still surprises me as I continue to learn more about it. It reminds me of a vectorized version of Rebelle (another of our recommended softwares) but for animation.
As a staunch 2D frame-by-frame traditionalist, I’m surprised at how much I love using Moho in my animation work (and my personal work!).
Keep it up Lost Marble — we love your product here at the Animation Tutor!
Version: Moho Debut or Moho Pro
Operating system: Windows, Mac.
Requirements: Compatible Drawing Tablet, otherwise listed on their website.
