Should I Upgrade to 13.5?

[demon3o5z]

I've been using Anime Studio 11 Pro for a really long time now. I'm mostly familiar with everything in it that I need to use for my projects. That being said, there are a lot of features I've missed (For example, I didn't know about the display quality options until recently, which are immensely useful).

I've been thinking about upgrading, to 13.5 but the features they highlight are either things I'm less interested in, or comparisons to version 12.

The big things I'd like are A) Character/Rig specific Styles B) Better action organization and C) A way to hide certain bones (finger control/face rig) via smart bones, although I'm sort of figuring out a simple way to manage that on my own.

Have things like that been added in the past couple versions?

Are they in their and they've just gone over my head? (seriously, I didn't realize the extent I could use the Z axis until only a few years ago. Felt so dumb)

Are there any other features that I haven't seen, or don't appreciate the scope of? Vitruvian bones looked kinda cool, but I haven't see how they can be used to their full potential yet.

[synthsin75]

In all honesty, I'd suggest waiting until there's a new feature you think you really need, especially if you're working on a tight budget.

That said, I couldn't possibly go back to 12.5, much less AS11. I don't remember when shy bones were added, but they let you hide any bones you don't want in the way while animating. You can sort actions alphabetically in 13.5, but not really organize. There are some saved style management improvements, but I couldn't detail them off the top of my head.

In 13.5, wind is amazing at bringing animations to life with very little effort, but you have to wrap your head around bone dynamics to get the most out of it.

[demon3o5z]

In all honesty, I'd suggest waiting until there's a new feature you think you really need, especially if you're working on a tight budget.

That said, I couldn't possibly go back to 12.5, much less AS11. I don't remember when shy bones were added, but they let you hide any bones you don't want in the way while animating. You can sort actions alphabetically in 13.5, but not really organize. There are some saved style management improvements, but I could detail them off the top of my head.

In 13.5, wind is amazing at bringing animations to life with very little effort, but you have to wrap your head around bone dynamics to get the most out of it.

Thanks for the context! Shy bones are a thing as far back as 11, I just wish I could tie them to a smart bone.

[synthsin75]

Shy bones are a thing as far back as 11, I just wish I could tie them to a smart bone.

Depending on how you're needing to use them, Vitruvian bones might serve that purpose.

[SimplSam]

I use AS11 occasionally to test backwards-compatibility for scripts, but the things I would miss are:
- Improved Layers panel: right-click menu items, columns, search/filter
- UI looks/feels 10x better. + More docking of panels + Zoom to mouse
- Beziers handles
- Smart Warp
- Pin Bones
- Import/Export actions
- Improved batch Moho Exporter
- Multi Layer Timeline visibility / animation / color
- Separate Dimensions
- Switch selection window (or use Syn's tool)
- Vitruvian bones
- Wind dynamics
- Quad meshes
- Overall stability
- Name change back to Moho !!

You can also download the 13.5.1 trial and run it side-by-side with AS11.


Also .... Can you clarify why you want to use Smart Bones to hide bones? Is it simply to declutter whilst animating? If so there is the Toggle Color Bones tool by Lukas that might help with that (but it appears to be Moho 12+ compatible at the moment). http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtop ... or#p186422

[Greenlaw]

+1 to what the guys wrote above.

Even when I consider only the UI improvements and bug fixes that were made in Moho 12.5, I could never go back to ASP 11. Moho 12.5 is just so much easier and more efficient to use. I remember a few months after we had transitioned from 11 to 12 at my workplace, it already felt awkward to revisit an old ASP 11 project.

For new features, Moho 12 got Smart Warp and custom meshes, the Switch Selection window, Interpolation for groups inside the Switch Layers, and Pin Bones. IMO, if you use Moho for character animation, these are essential features. If you use bitmap images for your characters, Moho 12 allowed you to create higher res meshes that are optimized to deform more smoothly and exactly the way you want. And because these meshes are visible, you can animate and bind them in ways that are impossible in ASP 11. The Switch Selection window makes it so much easier to animate Switch Layers, and it's even better when you add Synthsin75's Layer Shortcuts script to select Switch Layers with. For me and anybody who uses Moho with compositing programs like After Effects or Fusion, the improvements to Moho Exporter were very significant.

Moho 13.5.1 of course has all the improvements that were made in 12.5*, and adds significant new features like Vitruvian Bones, Wind Dynamics, Quad/Perspective meshes, and most recently, it got a simple 'right-click' method for setting up layer masks.

ASP 11 may have been groundbreaking for its time but Moho has come a long way since that version.

But of course, your decision should be based on how you use ASP 11. If ASP 11 currently suits your needs and you don't feel any of these features will improve your workflow, then you should wait until the features for Moho 14 are announced. You might be waiting for a while though.

Hope this info helps your buying decision.

*(Note: ...but don't look for the new features that were added to Moho 13.0, like bitmap painting or a new Actions window. These were great ideas but they released in a flawed state. After Lost Marble re-acquired Moho earlier this year, these features were removed for future evaluation.)

[Greenlaw]

Regarding being able to keyframe the visibility of bones, yeah, still waiting for that. The new Vitruvian Bones addresses many of the reasons I want this feature, but there are still situations where I wish I could link the visibility of specific bones to a Smart Bone.

I think Lukas' tool addresses this need as well as it can be in a third-party script. But I need to use bone colors for other things so I haven't taken advantage of Lukas' tool.

When I just want to toggle the visibility of some bones, I use Shy Bone. With my MQC panel, I can globally enable/disable visibility of all Shy Bones by clicking a button. This is not nearly the same thing as keyframing visibility for bones but it's a good native way to hide any bones you don't want the animator to touch during animation, but you want easy access to when editing the rig.