---

Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

I agree.  It's nice to have software that is self-sufficient on its own.  Hopefully Cartoon Animator will get there someday.  The Moho vector tools fro drawing are amazing and there is no need to depend on other software fro character and prop creation.

That being said, I have to give Reallusion credit for adding other software like Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, Photopea, Clip Studio Paint, Inkscape, etc as non-Photoshop options to use.
The confusion is that they still keep mentioning Photoshop in webinars, etc.  They should eliminate the word Photoshop from everything and just use the phrase "your favorite PSD editor".

I personally like Clip Studio Paint and Affinity Designer to use with Cartoon Animator.  With Affinity Designer you can have BOTH VECTOR and RASTER layers in the same document. This is great for designing characters.  Photoshop and Illustrator can't do that.   The brush engine in Clip Studio Paint is amazing.

But the Vector drawing tools in MOHO are top notch.  I just checked out the demo and I am very impressed.  You don't need any extra PSD editors.  Everything can be done inside the software.

The other amazing thing about Moho (and then I'll shut up and leave this thread - so if you have any other questions to me personally just email me at mike at kelleytown dot com) is those amazing tools you are using are all written in an easy language that you can, yourself, edit.  IOW, you can easily customize those tools to do EXACTLY what you want.

I edited the vector drawing tools so they would perform differently - a lot of us did, and some of those changes ended up in future versions (that's how a lot of my code ended up in there).  Writing that code is FAR easier than the Python enabled stuff Reallusion uses, because ALL of the tools inside of Moho are editable AND transparent (IOW - if you change the way a selection tool works, when you boot the program up that's just the way it always works now).

I wrote what I called my Swiss Army tool that did EVERYTHING with just different mouse presses so it made creation/animation a treat.  (Of course I gave those tools away for everyone).  I had really hoped when Reallusion made Python scripting available for iClone it would work similarly but perhaps because 3D is so much more complicated (or because the program itself wasn't designed that way) it's a pretty clunky process to run Python stuff.  I've been able to write a few things and that's good, but it's also frustrating because, unlike Moho, not everything is exposed (a LOT of stuff we need exposed is not).

Okay - off soapbox.  To all those with Macs - check out Moho.  (And now I disappear into the night - not even sure why I'm following Cartoon Animator - even though I have the latest version after I bought and tried it I realized it was NOT the program for me).

---

Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

PhotoShop isn't required; I use Affinity Paint and Phototopie (which came free with the Pipeline version of Cartoon Animator).

I agree. The confusion is that Reallusion keeps mentioning Photoshop in webinars, etc.  They should eliminate the word Photoshop from everything and instead use the phrase "your favorite PSD editor".

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.
93% of original size (was 540x16) - Click to enlarge

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb

I have to disagree regarding the rigging, I think Reallusion has done an excellent job and the software works very well for creating and rigging characters with their 5-angle rigged templates, as well as a couple of their add-ons for creating custom hair and such. It's about a billion times easier than modelling and rigging a 3D character in most cased (though the iCone auto-rigging looks pretty neat).
I think their lip synch is still much faster and easier to use than MOHOs, from what I've seen so far (haven't used it in a very long while but I did check out some tutorials that didn't look promising), especially when you also use their face tracking package and the various face animation tools in Cartoon Animator.
I've always viewed Moho as a higher-level, more professional 2D animation package, but some of the tools in Cartoon Animator (and the price) makes it very, very nice to use and a lot more powerful than I'd originally expected.
I'll continue to use it for now, as it hasn't suddenly stopped working and is still a lot of fun to use. I'll continue to develop my own characters, but I just won't be thinking of opening a store here anytime soon.

You'd be just the guy to create characters in Cartoon Animator. I haven't fully tested it (as I use the Pipeline version, highly recommended you add it if you're going to do this more than once, but download the free trial and Phototopia to test it)
The pipeline version really does make it easier, as you can work from inside CA while selecting a single part to edit in your external program where you can do your tweak, hit save and be back in CA almost seamlessly.
Without pipeline, you lose the immediacy of character edits, but yes, you can work with Affinity Designer -- one of the main character designers uses it to make his characters on his iPad, exports it to PhotoShop, then into CA.
Without the Pipeline version, you can import your layered PSD into CA and work there for fine-tuning rigging and such, importing edited parts (like eyes, hands, etc.) as you go.
To test it, I'd grab one of the template characters (there's a nice set of the five body poses) and open the layered PSD file in Designer. Duplicate each layer as you work on it (e.g. forearm, hip, etc.) hiding the original and once you've done all your layers, you can export your Designer file as a layered .psd, open up Cartoon Animator and import your character.
Without Pipeline, you might have to tweak your Designer file and re-import, but you should be able to update your Designer file and export an image for just the image you're updating and import that into your character's layer for that part (e.g. you can open your character inside CA and select, say, the left eye and you'll see all the different images for the eye -- closed, open, iris change, etc.) and add new ones or replace the ones there.
There's a lot of tutorials out there dealing with character creation but I think most use pipeline.
If you take a run at it and have any questions, you can message me on the DAZ forum and I'll help in any way I can. In the meantime, I'll see if I can find a tutorial or that might help you.

Quick tutorial and different templates here: https://www.reallusion.com/cartoon-animator/import-PSD-file.html

Thanks!
 and yes I have the pipeline version one of  my  windows machines.:D:D

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.
93% of original size (was 540x16) - Click to enlarge

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb

Excellent, then I think you should be able to use the web-based Phototopia.
Another method, of course, is to open one of the existing CA characters that fit the format you want to use and use it as a template, doing the same as with the empty templates, making your own layer using the original as a guide and once you're done, delete the layers from the original CA character until only your artwork remains.