Mosketch

Hello, I am in the process of developing an action game using Unreal Engine 4 and am considering purchasing this software for use in making animations. I have a few questions that I want answered before I consider using the program. Keep in mind, these are things that are, for me at least, essential before I consider committing to anything.

Probably the biggest question I have because I couldn't find an answer for it is whether or not Mosketch allows the inclusion of background images? Specifically what I'd like is a feature to allow uploading animated gifs or videos as part of the background to make quality animation go a bit smoother. Specifically because I'm not particularly good at visualizing and like to use references as part of my animation. And, of course, when a background video or animated image is uploaded, have the playback be tied somewhat to the animation timeline with offset options to allow the video to begin playing later in the timeline or to allow a later part of the video to begin at frame 1, the latter of which is more important. Everything else may have information tied to the internet in some tutorial somewhere but this is the one thing that I'm not sure has been addressed yet.

I would also like to know if there is still some sort of dummy model inside the program. I read that the characters of Mosko and Okto are no longer in the engine as of one of the more recent versions but my issue is that the modeling program I use is Blender and the characters I have to work with have rigs associated with them specifically to make it easier to import them into Unreal Engine 4. However, the documentation says only the mesh and joints, no rigs, and I don't know if that's possible in Blender, nor do I think I want to do that since I don't know what attempting to do that will do to the models or my ability to progress in the development. If Mosketch comes with a male and female model respectively, that would alleviate the issue completely.

Finally, and this isn't necessarily a requirement as much as a nice to have for me, but I think it would be advantageous for many people, myself included, if there were two different versions of the software, one paid software where the majority of your money would come from, and a free version for the purposes of animators who may not have a lot of money to work with but who do have ideas and the talent to execute on those ideas. Better still if the software could become free or at least a lot less expensive if you consider doing what Epic Games does with Unreal Engine 4 and taking a certain percentage of profits of anyone who makes commercial products using this software. I think this would be the best approach so that the most successful users help funds the improvement of the software but those who just want to try it out wouldn't have to spend so much money on a software that they may end up not wanting to use.

If my feedback could be considered, I'd greatly appreciate it, or at least answers to my first two questions.

Thank you and have a wonderful day.

Since this is here, I'd like to request one more feature that I found in a competing animation program called Akeytsu. This function is called "Pose Mirror" and it allows the mirroring of a bone pose along the up and down axis (I'm kind of afraid to name the axis because in some Programs up and down is Y but in Blender and Unreal Engine up and down is Z so I don't know what it is for Mosketch). This could be just a simple command to select the bones you want to mirror and reflect the pose onto the bones on the opposite side, if bones opposite of each other are selected (like say the right forearm and left forearm), they'll swap poses, and if the entire rig is selected, mirror the entire pose. This is one feature that makes Akeytsu a really strong competitor against Mosketch and if Mosketch could implement this same feature, that would make it a much more favorable option.

To do a quick comparison between Akeytsu and Mosketch, the two programs seem to be relatively even in terms of overall usefulness and efficiency. Automatic IK/FK is something that both programs seem to have, both are easily capable of importing to Unreal Engine 4 and seemingly Unity as well. The curveboard feature is something that Akeytsu has that Mosketch doesn't but this is really only a benefit to Akeytsu if you're someone who prefers to animate with curves. If you prefer animating with linear stepping, like I do, this won't matter much. Akeytsu does have the spinner which makes rotation adjustments easier but the draw pose feature Mosketch has, which is its primary selling point, mitigates this issue somewhat and also makes animating in Mosketch overall more efficient than in Akeytsu. The Akeytsu Stacker might be worth looking into as something that could be implemented into Mosketch in a similar way but this is not required either. Price comparisons might be an issue, given the whole $180 for 2 years for Mosketch and $180 for permanent access to Akeytsu but I believe you already said you're considering distribution methods already so I won't make you rethink anything just yet. Pretty much the only feature that Akeytsu has that I think Mosketch would benefit from tremendously is the Pose Mirroring, since that is the only one I believe will work in tandem with the pose drawing feature of Mosketch no matter what way you slice it.

Thank you and have a good day.