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PatMarrNC - all messages by user

2016/7/7 16:24:52
New South Asian character pack available! ziggy72 wrote:
ukBerty wrote:
ziggy72 wrote:
When I use Muvizu my first thought isn't "I wish there were more types of bodies", it's always "when are they going to fix this f*@king thing?"

A better solution... and I may have mentioned this before.... is to open up the interface so people can create their own action packs to sell through the store. Then once it's done, Muvizu can take a cut whilst others do all the work. Now that's my kind of business model....

What He Said
Damn straight.

When Braj was active on the forum, he really pushed this idea, but he hit a brick wall. The response he got was pretty lame, I thought. The SDK exists already, or Muvizu couldn't do what they do. The biggest obstacle for most of us would be the cost of software like 3DSMAX, if in fact that was even required to create actions in an SDK.

Skills can be acquired. Software can be bought. My guess is that they just don't want anybody competing with them for the future asset pack business. But, if that's true, why did they open the store up to 3rd party asset sales?

I just can't believe that the process of creating new actions is too complicated for anybody else to learn.
2016/7/7 16:08:48
Hello, I need a cinema or movie theater I trust your judgement on whether or not there's a way to get alpha and opaque objects together in the same import.. you know a heckuva lot more about this stuff than I do. Meanwhile, I'll keep researching to try & figure out how. Event5ually I'll bite the bullet and learn Blender... or at least how to do a few key things in it.

It's hard to justify the learning curve when I'm already fairly competent in another modelling program, and there are other programs screaming for the attention of my 3 remaining brain cells...
2016/7/7 15:36:08
Hello, I need a cinema or movie theater urbanlamb wrote:
i have windows that are ase that are not perfectly clear. (snip)

http://muvizu.com/3D/21842/windows-with-transparency


I was just studying these windows yesterday! Again, thanks for these, one more of the value-adding contributions you've made to the world of Muvizudom!

These windows are what taught me the technique I detailed previously... the glass and frames are imported as separate objects so the transparency of the glass doesn't affect the opacity of the frames. Also, the glass is imported with alpha treated as OPACITY (not opacity mask) so the 30% opaque glass texture can be used.

As far as I can tell, with ASE, this is the only way to get an alpha object and an opaque object together: Import them separately and then group them.
2016/7/7 15:25:40
Hello, I need a cinema or movie theater primaveranz wrote:
That certainy looks hopeful, but my proper had several groups some opaque and one transparent. I tried using separate materials for the groups and then merging them all in to a single group before exporting to ASE. I also tried a single material with transparent parts and merging, And in both cases I tried "use ID textures" and "don't use" but when I get it into Muvizu it is either partially transparent all over or not at all, and I can only apply a colour not a material in game. Will try again later but I can't think of another variation of choices to use.
Cheers.


Yep, if you select OPACITY MASK you lose the ability to select a texture...
but if you use OPACITY you can apply either colors *OR* textures

Using my approach above (actually, it's Urban Lamb's idea) lets you load the transparent part as a separate object, so you can treat alpha as OPACITY. That way, you have real-time control of the texture. Then by GROUPING the alpha object with other solid components, you get the best of both worlds.

For my current project, I made a transparent wine glass with wine in it (much like Clayster's beer glass with beer in it)

Except I made the wine a separate object from the glass, and mated them together in Muvizu by grouping. In the final analysis, I ended up not using it because the characters were making a toast, and the glasses weren't level... you could see that the "liquid" didn't adjust for gravity... so I went back and made the glass opaque. ;-(
edited by PatMarrNC on 07/07/2016
2016/7/7 15:02:40
Hello, I need a cinema or movie theater Urban Lamb,
thanks for weighing in on this... the forum is a poorer place in your absence! Your contributions to the forum's modelling knowledge have added a lot of value, and I hope that continues

And yeah, your trees are awesome! I use them all the time! Thanks for all past and future uses!

The ASE transparency (using opaque mask) works for the trees because the area between the leaves is 100% clear, which is necessary for that look. Apparently "use Opage Mask" forces the transparency to 100% whether or not the original texture was 100% transparent. Same problem with applying transparent textures to the Muvizu primitives... they always apply at 100% transparency, which tells me they're using opacity mask for texturing the primitives

Until I have time to explore the power of Blender, I'm stuck with using ASE for my transparency. I can get the effect I want using the approach detailed in my last post... it just takes a little more time.

Too bad that Autodesk's FBX converter doesn't offer any controls to help with transparency.
edited by PatMarrNC on 07/07/2016
2016/7/7 13:32:51
Hello, I need a cinema or movie theater My experience has been the same as Primaveranz when trying to make partially transparent ASE textures. (in Sketchup,not Milkshape). I've tried all the Import settings without ever finding a satisfactory solution

(Satisfactory = part of the object has a completely opaque texture, and part is maybe 30% opaque, like glass)

In all my experiments, I can get the 30% transparent part right... and from certain views the opaque part also looks right... but when I rotate the object and view it from a variety of different angles, there are always ghost-shaded surfaces where I want 100% opacity.

closest I've been able to get is to create an opaque car, and save it as ASE, adding 4 small collision cubes at the base of each tire so the car doesn't sink into the ground... this also serves to remove collision from the area where the windshield will fit later.

Then create a semi transparent windshield at the same coordinates where the windshield would be in the car's coordinate system... and again, save as ASE with a small collision cube somewhere near the top of the windshield. This keeps the two ASE objects from repelling one another when you join them together.

Load both objects into muvizu, and if they fit together in the designing coordinate system, they should come into Muvizu with the same relationship. (if not, manually move the windshield to wherever you want it). Highlight both objects and GROUP them together. Now you have what looks like a solid object, but it is actually 2 separate objects grouped together
2016/7/6 19:23:56
HIT FILM SALE June 30 - July 4 $100 off theotherguy wrote:
I've noticed Hit Film works on a modular basis, I'd want to do some research before buying.


That's true. You can buy just the effects you need a little at a time. Add-on packs start at just $20. But consider the following:

1) At list price, buying ALL the add-on packs will cost more than buying the pro version

2) the pro version contains all the add-on packs plus more stuff that you can't buy separately

3) at the sale price (which ended yesterday) the pro version was SUBSTANTIALLY less expensive than buying all the add-on packs

having said all that, the free version is already more capable than a lot of editors that have a healthy price tag... and that plus a $20 add-on pack can really give you some great new possibilities. It's also worth noting that people who are already using the free version tend to get a better sale price than the general public... so next time a sale comes around.... ;-)
2016/7/6 19:14:58
New South Asian character pack available! theotherguy wrote:
I'd sure like to be able to move the characters precisely where I want them though, this, in my humble opinion, would make Muvizu 100% better.


That would definitely be awesome! I think it's unlikely that Muvizu will ever give us that capability; But for anybody with good modelling skills, programs like Poser and Blender will already let you rig your own models and pose them any way you want.

Considering the fact that we now have OBJ models for most of the early characters, that is highly do-able and its in the power of the individual to make it happen.

The ability to create animated content in multiple platforms and blend it all together in Hit Film or other editor already exists. Most of us are already using a variety of different software to create our projects... so its not a huge logical or procedural jump to substitute animated 3D content for the static 3D content most of us are already using.

If I'm not mistaken, Hit Film lets us import animated 3D content! If that's true, we can now start manipulating 3D content from other platforms as more than just a 2d layer.
2016/7/6 18:22:06
New South Asian character pack available! ukBerty wrote:
ziggy72 wrote:
When I use Muvizu my first thought isn't "I wish there were more types of bodies", it's always "when are they going to fix this f*@king thing?"


The sad truth is.... we get round it and soldier on, but I know that some users have walked away from Muvizu because it's just too damn finicky ("like juggling eels" was a recent description) - so maybe tidying a few things up would reap financial benefits although they'd be difficult to quantify.

I would like to see action packs. 10 actions on a theme for $5 or whatever. First pack could be "shuffling around" - two steps forward / turn round, but the other way/lean forward etc. OK - it's not exciting but boy would it be useful. The trouble is that you need to individually crate each action Maya for each character - so for the potato heads that's what 8 or 9 per action. It's a lot of work.

A better solution... and I may have mentioned this before.... is to open up the interface so people can create their own action packs to sell through the store. Then once it's done, Muvizu can take a cut whilst others do all the work. Now that's my kind of business model....


^^^^^^^^ I agree! Would love to see either of those things happen!
2016/7/6 17:50:32
New South Asian character pack available!
More clothing attachments for the potato heads would be my choice, like they have in the chemistry and Chinese pack. but it looks like they are moving away from that look, which is a shame. so i doubt that will ever happen.


it's hard to say at this point exactly what the Muvizu team has in store for the future... but it does look like selling new asset packs is a big part of that plan. If that is in fact the case, it would make sense to include more assets for the potato head characters, since they are by far the most used and useful characters in the set. It's a simple matter of supply and demand... there's already a large demand for ANY assets that work with the potato heads.

I'm glad you mentioned the chemistry and Chinese packs, because they offer proof that such assets have already been produced recently. I predict we'll see more professionally designed assets for all the characters. And I think that's a good thing. Long overdue, in fact.


When I joined this forum about a year ago, there was widespread speculation that Muvizu was a dying product. In the past year we've seen the release of 8 new characters, several new asset packs including the Chinese history and chemistry packs, keyframes, 360 rotation etc... so it's good to know that development is alive and well at Muvizu. I see all of this as being extremely positive, even though the benefits won't be fully realized until we have more assets to use with the new characters.

I think it's significant that the new characters in the store don't say "FREE with Muvizu +". That indicates a commitment to generate enough revenue to keep Muvizu alive for a long time to come.

Regarding the stability issues, surely they realize that they'll have to keep refining the engine and addressing bugs...
2016/7/6 17:21:25
New South Asian character pack available! now that Jamie has increased my number of allowed activations (Thanks Jamie! You da man!) I've opened the characters and played around with them. I'm guessing that the absence of attachment points means that all of the future accessories and clothes will have to be bought as asset packs.

The obvious disadvantage is that many of us LOVE creating our own accessories, and it's looking like the future direction of Muvizu is going away from user customization. Hope I'm wrong about that. It looks like the new characters can hold and use models as tools... it's mostly clothing that will have to be selected from a menu once the items are available.

The good news is that whoever is designing the new stuff is an excellent designer! If new characters continue in the current style (translation: if we don't end up with a hodgepodge of mismatched character styles that can't be used together) it will make Muvizu more useful for business, advertising and other applications where the potato heads are not a good match.

If the soft cloth outfits provided are an accurate example of what's to come, we'll have some great things in store <-pun intended

The Indian outfits are particularly good examples of what's possible clothing-wise when a professional designer is making the outfits! Kudos to whoever is designing this stuff... in my opinion it is very VERY well done!

The low price of Muvizu is starting to make sense. Give people an initial set of options that lets them do quite a bit immediately, then to generate ongoing revenue offer asset packs of characters and accessories. That is a solid business plan.

Now I wonder if we'll see more characters next... or if we'll start seeing asset packs introduced with more clothing for the existing new characters.
2016/7/6 15:30:33
Hello, I need a cinema or movie theater clayster2012 wrote:
I finally got a reply from the creator of milkshape, it seems his job has been keeping him tide from having alot of time to work on milkshape, but he's planning on a vacation to finish the updates that he never got to release yet, he also told me that milkshape is still under development and the fbx exporter will have new updates as soon as he gets the time to add them


awesome... maybe I need to give it a try. I downloaded it months ago and never installed it due to learning curve overload (which is still a problem)... but if it ends up with functional ASE and FBX export, it could become the modelling solution of choice for Muvizu users. And at $35 it's even priced like Muvizu...
2016/7/6 15:24:07
New South Asian character pack available! My guess is that it's all driven by the economics of staying in business. Any actions that get added will become part of the core program unless they figure out a way to sell them separately. They could potentially spend a lot of time and effort creating stuff that can't be monetized.

Characters and accessories can be sold as add-on packs which generate income... So that's what I expect to see going forward.

I like the new character packs... I think they are very well made, and they address complaints from the past about realism. And I have to believe that the plan is to continue adding accessories and outfits for the new characters as asset packs. They needed to develop the characters before they know proportions for the accessories. We now have 8 characters in the new style. That's the equivalent of many more once they add accessories that let us mix & match to create new looks

And I'm betting that whatever accessories they eventually provide will work for all of the new characters. If that happens, we'll have enough characters in that style to build whole stories around them.

Or not. But I'm hoping....
2016/7/6 15:03:43
Finger Pistols Crack ups ( Ground joke) haahaha!

Clayster, you ain't right! (And I mean that in a good way....)
2016/7/6 5:51:41
Gorilla Film Makers Course for FREE Thanks guys.... I appreciate the help.

Now that I got past that hurdle, I have to say that I really like Hit Film so far... the basic editor functions work about the way other editors work, but it runs faster and cleaner than my other editor. Add all the compositing capabilities and I think this purchase was well worth it.

Buying a different version of something I already have is often a recipe for second-guessing and buyer's remorse... but ... not this time.

Thanks for the product recommendation, UKBerty!
2016/7/5 23:55:01
Gorilla Film Makers Course for FREE ok, I have a Hit Film question already....

On my other video software, when I want to load a series of PNG files, there's a check box that tells the editor whether or not to treat it as a series of stills. In Hit film, I don't see a way to select between one contiguous scene and multiple individual pngs.

Being one to just click and see what happens... what happened is that Hit Film froze, and I had to use the 3 finger salute to get out of it.

Probably missing something painfully obvious, as usual.....

;-(
2016/7/5 22:39:03
Gorilla Film Makers Course for FREE "Gorilla" film makers?

;-)
2016/7/5 21:55:07
New South Asian character pack available! ziggy72 wrote:
Hang on, are we counting thumbs here...? Big Grin


let's just call them "digits", and the semantics get a lot easier... ;-)


On a different note:
If we're going to have to activate every time we buy something, Muvizu is going to have to rethink the idea of "Maximum number of activations" or poor Jamie will spend all of his time helping people get their latest purchase installed after they run out of "max activations allowed"

On yet another different note:
I wonder how long it will be before we get UV maps for the new characters.. to my knowledge we still don't have any for the 1st set of Asian characters
2016/7/5 21:48:36
Gorilla Film Makers Course for FREE Signed up!

Thanks for the push, Rocque... you're turning into a regular forum cheerleader! You need a nickname!
(How about Rocque Raccoon?)

;-)
2016/7/5 18:13:22
Hello, I need a cinema or movie theater oh, $35 ain't exactly free, but for a reasonably powerful modelling package that save as ASE that's a very reasonable price
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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.