Adobe Animate is going end-of-life

[CyberFilth]

So Adobe is shooting itself in the foot and just getting rid of it's animation software?
There's going to be a huge influx of animators coming to Moho from the Adobe ecosystem very soon.

[Greenlaw]

Yeah, I got the email announcement from Adobe yesterday. I knew this was coming, but was still surprised to see it. I used Adobe Animate at DreamWorks, mainly for effects animation (smoke, fire, water, etc.) and combining the effects with Moho. You can see some of this footage in the premiere episode and main titles of Curses on Apple TV+, and in my third DW demo reel.

I've since adapted to using only Moho for this sort of thing, but I still found Animate occasionally useful. Plus, it was more affordable than Toon Boom.

Animate's UI and features may have grown dated, but it is still very capable. A ton of great TV and interactive media are its legacy, so this is the end of a once-great era. I'm sad to see it go.

I'm hopeful that Moho's vector drawing tools and FBF system will continue to evolve and fill this hole that Adobe is leaving in the animation industry.

[CyberFilth]

I always avoided Adobe products because I don't like subscription models, but I know that Animate was really well regarded.
Is this just because it doesn't fit with their drive to integrate AI into everything? I genuinely don't understand their business decision here.

[Greenlaw]

At this stage, I've pretty much moved away from Animate, but now I'm concerned about the future of Adobe Character Animator. I use ACA for the semi-automated VTuber animation that appears in the corner of our tutorial videos. If they kill ACA, I'll have to find another 'automated' VTuber system that I won't have to fuss over too much.

The ACA setup I use is mostly (but not fully) hands-free, and I haven't found anything that quite replaces it yet. Early on, I adapted Moho to do what ACA does for me, but I had trouble getting Moho to handle many minutes (up to an hour) of audio. I have another setup where I used Veadotube with After Effects and Vegas's multi-camera controls. This setup worked for the first episode where I used the VTuber, but it's really not practical...my ACA setup is much simpler and faster. I also tried Cartoon Animator, but that doesn't meet my 'simple' VTuber needs either. Sigh!

For now, I'll keep using ACA for the VTuber, but I may experiment again with getting Moho to do the work.

FWIW, at least Adobe is still posting updates and beta releases for ACA. I don't think Animate has seen an update in years.

[slowtiger]

This sounds like something somebody might already have scripted in Blender?

[CyberFilth]

Looks like Adobe have U-turned already.
Now they'll continue to maintain Animate, but with no new features. Sounds like their stock price took a hit.

[Greenlaw]

I'm glad about the reversal, especially for my friends and colleagues who rely on Animate, but this debacle forces me to reconsider my own reliance on other Adobe products (After Effects, Audition, Photoshop, Character Animator, etc.)

Right now, I'm taking great comfort in preferring a non-Adobe product for my 2D cartoon animation.

I love you, Moho!