Site Search
Join Muvizu

PatMarrNC - all messages by user

2016/7/14 23:47:44
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) eugenecheese wrote:
Hi Pat
Yes, It's My voice alright! The backing track was a Karaoke I got From the Net. Thanks for your kind words.


wonderful wonderful job! downright amazing in fact!
2016/7/14 23:46:42
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) Ikes, I'd never seen that clip... wonderful skit.... But I like yours better, I think you did a better job of capturing the essence of it.

I really like your idea of using backdrops with 2d graphics... that opens a lot of creative territory!!

<steal> IDEA</steal>

;-)
edited by PatMarrNC on 14/07/2016
2016/7/14 23:24:22
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) a few observations about my own entry:

I started thinking about this idea way before I even knew about Muvizu. At first, all the thoughts pertained to creating an original song that would work as a takeoff on the book 50 SHADES OF GREY (which had just been released).

Even at that point, I intuitively knew that the song needed to be animated in order to achieve its maximum impact. Subsequently I started buying and trying a variety of different animation solutions, but got bogged down in one learning curve after another. As soon as I learned about Muvizu and realized I could understand it and develop animations fairly quickly with it (weeks instead of months) I knew I had the tool that would finally make this project possible. I'm very happy with Muvizu and the other creative tools I use with it.

The cats hanging from his head, arms, legs and back would not have been practical without the OBJ models that IKEs provided and Ziggy refined. The ability to bring a right-sized character into my modelling environment and then model a cat around the exact geometry it will mate with in a story is just PRICELESS! It's amazing we got it for free.. thanks again to IKES and ZIGGY for making such a complete set of models available to the people making models and attachments for Muvizu.

I know the blob-based cats don't walk like real cats, but I like the stylized goofiness they bring to the equation. The ability to add animals to my stories really pleases me, and the long range planning for this story s what led me to create the blobcats in the first place.

Creative endeavors like this require a lot of different skills. You already know how many different learning curves you've had to claw thru in order to do what you do in Muvizu.

There is no doubt that sharing some of the workload with professionals results in a far superior product. A script written and recorded by a pro (like the Burroughs dialog in Ziggy's entry, or the Firesign Theater shows) automatically leverages the pro's skillset to elevate the whole project. Likewise, using the original Star Wars soundtrack in a video automatically inspires the same anticipation as the original movie.

Anybody who is serious about film making at any level would be nuts not to use professionally created props, music, scripts, voice acting etc. to whatever extent possible in accordance with the law.

But for my purposes, the music is the noun and the video is just the adjective that modifies it. Given those creative guidelines, I think it's fair to conclude that I will never hold a candle to any of you as an animator. And I'm OK with that. As long as I'm learning new stuff and having fun while I do it, I'm a happy man.

Great and fun contest... kudos to everyone who participated!
2016/7/14 22:45:18
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) There are enough of us using Hitfilm (and learning it at the same time) that we should probably start a thread to share things we've discovered... like how to create the color effect behind Ziggy's closing credits. It's so powerful, but the sheer abundance of options is a bit daunting, so shared discoveries might be useful to us all
2016/7/14 22:37:29
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) My review of IKES' video:

First of all, thanks for all of the cool threads you've started on the forum in the last month or two! You are clearly one of those people who has the ability to delve into technology and figure out things, and I'm so glad we have a person with that discovery mindset on the forum! And I'm extra glad that you aren't selfish with the knowledge you acquire... many people keep knowledge to themselves as a strategic ace, but you've shown yourself to be a team player. I respect that.

Regarding the story, I think it is an absolutely brilliant premise, an interesting study in human behaviour, and a totally unexpected ending! I was very impressed to watch it unfold! I must ask: is this your own story, or is it based on one that was professionally written? I ask because its just so well developed! From the moment hes sees the money, it's so easy to identify with all of his choices

Your sets are very good... as Ziggy has said in the past, you didn't just build a SET, you built a PLACE, and it totally works as a busy city street occupied by random people and shops. Did you build the sets or are they from the user assets? I don't recognize the coffee shop as being a store asset,so I'm guessing you made it.. and it looks great!

You threw me a curve within the first few seconds by focusing on a character, then having him turn down a side street as the main character enters the scene unexpectedly from around the corner. Stuff like that really makes a video interesting to watch. Set the audiences expectation, then change it abruptly. Very good.

Oftentimes the set of programmed actions isn't close enough to what we want in order to create believable character responses and actions... but I thought that ALL of the behaviours of your character were amazingly believable. Good job on taking the time to search and discover just the right ones! We sometimes complain about the lack of actions, but when you're looking through all of them to find one in particular, it serves as a reminder that Muvizu does have a large set of actions from which to choose.

The car pulling up to the intersection at 1:02... is that a 2d graphic on a backdrop? It looks too realistic to be a model

When the waitress takes the main character's order, I don't know if you planned it this way or not, but I interpreted the low volume of the exchange to be "just enough" to imply what was happening, without drawing the viewer's attention away from the story by suggesting that the dialog had significance (Its the only dialog in the video, and normally dialog in an otherwise silent script WOULD be significant)

The wait in the cafe heightens the interest in the story... you did a great job of framing everything to keep us wondering what will happen next. I also like the way the car (and, by association, the money under it) takes on a 3rd person presence as the man watches it.

Again, I don't know if it was planned or if it just worked out that way... but at the 2:02 marker when the woman comes out of the building , she looks down, creating the question in the viewer's mind "did she see it?" If it was intended, great suspense building device!

What action did you use to make the car owner get his keys out of his pocket?

I laughed when the main character's final expletive was bleeped out! The timing in this was extraordinary... not one scene was too long or too short. Your sense of "enough-ness" is very good.

Final analysis is that especially if this is a totally original story and an equally original animation, then you are a born story teller! My hat is off to you, and you really have something to be proud of in this story! Congratulations!
2016/7/14 21:54:00
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) Here's my review of Eugene Cheese's entry "MONSTER MASH"

First of all, what a great program for the task! I can't think of any other animation package that would come to mind if somebody said "I want you to animate the song MONSTER MASH

Clayster says you sang the song... true? If so, that was awesome! Great reproduction of the original voice!. Did you use a backing track to sing along with? If so, may I ask where you got it?

I liked the green glow in the laboratory

HA! At 00:44 the background singer skeleton chicks made me laugh because they were wearing bikini tops to support boobs that were long gone. Nice touch. Man, you ain't right to have thought that up! LOL!

The next time I laughed is when the heads in the jars started singing backup vocals. You should definitely seek help. LOL! The stuff that you think up is just nuts!

All of your characters are cool, but I especially liked frankenstien's monster and Dracula. I kept expecting wolfman to get on the Milennium falcon. ;-)

All in all, a great visual portrayal of a classic... but not so classic that it's public domain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bobby_Pickett_-_Monster_Mash.ogg


Congratulations on making a very entertaining and well-done video!! Lots of good stuff going on there!
2016/7/14 21:29:09
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) clayster2012 wrote:
Ok winners I just sent you your prizes, check your emails and messages!

let me know if everything goes well
if not then message me


I'd like to surrender my prize to Rocque in appreciation for her diligence and willingness to take risks in this contest!

But don't worry, I'll get all 3 sets in the store. I don't mind supporting the arts. ;-)

(I'll forward the DL link to her)
2016/7/14 21:21:39
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) Here are my thoughts on ZIGGY's entry:

You must have disqualified yourself from winning, because this was by FAR the best of the 5 (judged solely on my own sensibilities). I thought it was a totally pro presentation from start to finish... full of all those subtle details and use of techniques that make all of your videos sooooo good!

One second into the video, and I love your splash screen. Pro. You already da man at 00:01 on the timeline...

Loved the Burroughs set and use of Sinister as character. Your sense of lighting is very appropriate to the types of videos you make

Some of the details have already been discussed on the forum, and that could dilute the impact when watching.. but I want to point out all over again just how cool the sheet draped over the patient's body is. There is a tendency to watch videos and just take everything for granted... but at the production level somebody has to envision every detail and figure out a way to actualize it, and then do it in a way that is technically proficient. Those are just a few of your strengths. Well done!

Am I correct in believing that at 1:44 marker, the ziggy arms are wielding the scalpel? The positioning is a bit too perfect for a built-in action ... Likewise when he puts the cigarette in his mouth at 1:38

Loved the boiler room scene and the ship model in general

The smoke by the loudspeaker at 34:00... is that from Muvizu or Hitfilm? It looked great.. it added movement and texture to a scene that otherwise would have been static and less interesting

I liked the sea-sky environment at 00:42 ... that water texture is about as seamless over that large area as an I've ever seen in a Muvizu project!!

I take it the splattered blood at 1:44 is HitFilm? Very cool! What I'm seeing is that hitFilm is very good at providing all sorts of things that are not otherwise possible in Muvizu, and it reinforces my belief that the creative toolbox needs to have a variety of tools to provide solutions that will never be available in one piece of software. Your closing credits indicate that you feel the same way.

I like the way the scene is framed at 1:47

When the ship is sinking, I guess you tilted the camera to make the operating room look sloped?

I really liked the animated colors behind the closing credits, and I'd like to know where it came from. I'm finding that HitFilm makes it very easy to generate backgrounds like that by taking just about any video that contains movement and then stacking a variety of effects on the clip, ending with a pretty steep blur.

All of your sets are top-notch. You are very good at taking an existing story and turning it into a visual smorgasbord. Based on what I've seen of your work so far, your key strength is visual awareness. You naturally know what LOOKS interesting to the eye and captivating to the imagination. You have built on that awareness by acquiring software skills that allow you to self-actualize the images you intuitively know will work. I predict that as your familiarity with HitFilm grows, you will be exploiting its strengths to make your images even better than they have been up until now, hard as it may be to imagine that you could possibly get better than you are already.

Two enthusiastic thumbs up, in conjunction with a standing ovation!
2016/7/14 20:22:43
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) Rocque, here are my thoughts on your video:

I just loved the way you whole-heartedly experimented with a variety of techniques! Whereas in a different kind of project the author would probably have been fixated on making all the balloons look the same, with same shape and font etc, you tried a BUNCH of different approaches and in the process I'm sure you learned a lot. In fact, right now it's safe to say that you know a LOT more about using thought bubbles than I do!

Likewise, I enjoyed the fact that you experimented with a variety of transitions too.

Good use of ambient noise (birds in the park) and mood music.

I thought it was an interesting stylized choice to make the male character's dialog happen via dialog bubble. The fact that his mouth moves shows that you took time to insert details that you replaced later in order to achieve a special effect. To me, the absence of a real voice made the scene somewhat surreal, and emphasized that we were watching the female character's thoughts more than we were watching a real world scenario. In fact, it made the guy seem more annoying, and that appears to have been your intent

Interesting use of the greytone when she first launched into remembering mode

I really like the floating smoke background at 1:41 and 2:09 ... is that in HitFilm, or did you get it elsewhere?

I like the use of a thought bubble as a mask at 1:43

I interpreted the lightning to be an indicator of anxiety and/or danger

I interpret the green monster to be a flashback to another time when the character actually said what was on her mind and it had an adverse effect on the situation

In that light, I thought your title was a bit tongue-in-cheek, because what was going on inside the female character's head was anything but peaceful

I like the background that starts at 1:49

at 2:13 when the 2nd female character enters the story, I interpreted her to be the first character's alter-ego... the perky, beautiful, health conscious, outgoing, confident person she really is, but which was overshadowed up until that point in the story by her annoyance with the male character

"I better run..." caught me totally off-guard, and that's where you scored my laughter! I interpret that to mean that Alpha Kristie is about to be suppressed by Omega Kristy again... which, if any of my interpretation is true, strikes me as a very clever way to portray the crazy stuff that goes on inside our heads.

So.... how'd I do? Did I get ANY of it right? Or have I been like the archeologist who imagined every detail about an ancient civilization based on one shard of pottery he discovered in the jungle?

One thing I'm pretty sure is right: this was a good experience for you, and you learned a lot! Now I look forward to seeing more!
2016/7/14 19:47:19
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition)
let's do this again next year

Let's not wait that long!

Thanks to...
...MrDrWho13 for starting the idea of a competition...
...Clayster, for taking the idea and running with it...
...Clayster again for creating such awesome prizes! (thanks!)
...everyone who participated in it
...Muvizu, for creating the software that made it all possible

In individual follow-up posts I'll comment on each of the videos... but here I want to say that I really enjoyed all of them! They all brought a smile to my face, and each of them reveals differing creative strengths in the project's author/director!

Great job everybody, I am very impressed by the display of talent here, and I am inspired by the various techniques used in these videos!
2016/7/14 16:53:17
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) works for me

especially since it's been so long that I've posted a video thru my Muvizu account that I'll have re-learn how to do it. At my age, that could delay the conclusion of the contest by WEEKS
2016/7/14 3:13:39
Make Me Laugh ( Comedy Competition) I'm really looking forward to having a big belly laugh as I watch everybody's submissions!
2016/7/14 3:06:29
making seamless textures and backgrounds The same concept works with video. Let's say you have a snippet of moving water texture, but it's very obvious when the video starts over.

==========================================================
VIDEO TEXTURE (LIKE WATER, CLOUDS, HIGHWAY DRIVING OR OTHER VIDEO BACKDROPS)

1) In your video editor load your video texture

2) make a copy of it and place it AFTER the original

3) reverse the direction of the copy
(procedure depends on which video editor you use, you'll have to figure that out)

4) save the the normal and backward clips together as one double-long clip.

This works the same as the scrolling 2D graphic in the first example
edited by PatMarrNC on 14/07/2016
2016/7/14 3:03:46
making seamless textures and backgrounds A similar procedure makes TILABLE textures out of any image
(tilable meaning it has to spread out in all 4 directions without showing a seam)

to make graphics seamless in all directions, mirror it as described above, them take the result and mirror it again in the vertical direction. Once again, where the two copies touch, they need to be a mirror image of one another

if the original graphic was ABC the tilable version would be :
---------
VBCCBV
ABCCBA
---------
(V represents an upside down A.. the other letter already look the same upside down)
edited by PatMarrNC on 14/07/2016
2016/7/14 3:01:31
making seamless textures and backgrounds I was using a 2D graphic in a backdrop to simulate the scenery passing by as a car drives along. But the graphic wasn't seamless, so every couple of seconds it showed a stark line where the image ended and restarted. It occurred to me that if the image started and ended and started at the same place, it would flow from left to right seamlessly. After experimenting, I came up with a very simple way to make any graphic scroll sideways seamlessly:

MAKING SEAMLESS SIDE - SCROLLING 2D GRAPHICS
===============================================
2d graphics that scroll sideways seamlessly in a backdrop can be created by opening any graphic in a graphic editor, making a mirror image of it, and pasting the two images together. The 2nd image should start exactly where the last one ended, and end up where the first image re-starts.
metaphorically, it's like a visual palindrome: "MADAM I'M ADAM"

LEFT_RIGHTTHGIR_TFEL
edited by PatMarrNC on 14/07/2016
2016/7/13 16:52:55
I need a test file...(animated AVI) MrDrWho13 wrote:

I'll PM you my transparent clip if you need it for testing.


thanks! I'll PM you my email address!

I just checked my AVI in HitFilm, and it is indeed transparent in that software. Now I'm thinking the reason it didn't work in the older version of Muvizu is because I didn't change the default game ini for that installation.....

update: yep, changing the defaultgame.ini file for the 2nd installation of a prior version allowed the AVI transparent animation to work in that version. Now I can relax and move on to other problems knowing that a future update will sort this out.

Thanks again for your help MDW13! I appreciate all that you do to help people on the forum!
edited by PatMarrNC on 13/07/2016
2016/7/13 16:18:07
I need a test file...(animated AVI) MrDrWho13 wrote:
I spoke to support about this a couple of weeks ago. It's a bug in the most recent version so you'll have to wait for a patch.

Estimated patch date: 2016
edited by MrDrWho13 on 13/07/2016


thank heavens! I appreciate the response MDW13... I was getting ready to waste a day of my life trying to solve a problem that can't be solved yet. (hmmmm... If it's the current version, it should still work in a previous version.... )

update: I just tested my AVI in build 2015.08.05.01R, and it isn't transparent there either. Neither is the rotating wheel AVI that rodrsilva posted a while ago. I guess I'll examine it in other software to see if its transparent there. If not then the problem is still my creation technique.
2016/7/13 15:30:31
I need a test file...(animated AVI) I'm beating my head against the wall trying to create animated alpha channel AVI textures like the rotating axe tutorial.

I have already edited my defaultgame.ini file to allow alpha (bStripVideoAlpha=False)

Starting with a graphic of a propeller (transparent background) I can create the rotation animation, but when I apply the AVI to a backdrop as texture, the animation works, but the transparency is lost. Before I start changing my procedure, can somebody send me a link to an AVI that has transparency so I can see if it works on my system? I need to use process of elimination to determine if its my procedure or my system that is preventing the results I want.

thanks in advance for any help you can provide
2016/7/12 21:52:01
To Urbanlamb Regarding Radio Shows? there's a distinction to be made between copyright law and licensing fees. You're talking about copyright law, but I'm talking about licensing. All it takes to satisfy the law is to pay the licensing fee for your use of the material.

What youtube has done (a fairly recent development) is to satisfy the claims of copyright holders by paying them when people post cover songs etc. Whereas they weren't making ANY money from piracy, this new paradigm has created an income stream for them that simply didn't exist before. The money they get from ads on the pirate's page is probably MORE than they would get if the pirate had bought a license to use the material.

but, all that's a bit moot because the point of my message was DON'T waste your time using assets you don't own. Even if you pay the licensing fee to use it legally, youtube's algorithm (which compares your music to their database of protected works) will throw a red flag and they won't let you monetize it anyway... at least not without a lot of headaches.
edited by PatMarrNC on 12/07/2016
2016/7/12 19:37:38
My 6th and largest production hey Tony ... great job

I liked the photo scenes at the end.. very clever
pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

About

Media

Legal

Muvizu

Muvizu is easy to use 3D animation software that allows anyone to create high quality animations quickly and easily. Muvizu’s animation engine is ideal for storytellers, animators, teachers and businesses looking to engage, enchant and delight audiences with animated content.