Moho Adds Showtime Live Playback, Reallusion's Cartoon Animator Makes Concerned Face!

Vtubers come to Moho with
Showtime Playback Live.

Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 has been something of a leader in using motion capture features to animate 2D characters quickly.

It particularly got a boost when Reallusion launched its Puppet Stage Live features, that combined motion capture performance with keyboard, pre-defined, animated sequence commands, making it a versatile animation studio for vtuber avatar users.

Now, with Moho's new 14.5 free update release, which includes their all new Showtime Live Playback, Cartoon Animator has lost much of its edge, and point of difference to Moho specifically.

Showtime Live Playback targets the same vtuber content creator audience who want to create an avatar they can perform live during game streams and other vtuber style content.

As well, just like Cartoon Animator's Puppet Stage Live, Showtime can record performances directly into the timeline (including audio) making it an extremely fast workflow to animate any character quickly for any kind of animated project, not just live performance.

In addition Showtime Live Playback can also incorporate the use of a gaming controller with smart bones to further add pre-animated sequences to characters as well.

Rather than me describing what's possible with Moho's new Showtime Live Playback (which is just one of several updates in version 14.5) I would encourage you to watch the showcase/tutorial video below. It's extremely impressive.

Introduction to the new Live Playback mode - Moho 14.5 Tutorial

I've long said, in comparing Cartoon Animator to Moho, Moho is the better application, feature for feature for 2D animation.

However Cartoon Animator is the one I enjoy using. I'm not just saying that either. I took the time to learn all aspects of Moho and still have never animated anything with it, outside of what I animated while following 104 official tutorial videos. (I also have the 14.5 update because, for reasons I don't know why, I keep updating Moho and then never using it - I started with version 12 pro).

If you want ease of use, a more gradual but easier learning curve, and are more of a visual animator (i.e. you don't like spending time in the weeds of adjusting settings in a myriad of properties palettes, and trying to understand a very complex timeline and bone rigging system) then Cartoon Animator is still my recommendation.

But, if you were leaning toward Cartoon Animator for Puppet Stage Live and motion capture features, Moho's Showtime Live Playback features are a very compelling alternative, that might just be a cause for concern for Reallusion's Cartoon Animator development team.

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