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PatMarrNC - all messages by user

2016/4/24 3:41:47
hearts a-flying I was sure that in my explorations I had seen a way to make effects like hearts flying when somebody's in love... but darned if I can find anything like that now that I need it. Does such an effect exist in Muvizu? Or am I possibly thinking of something I saw in another product?
2016/4/23 16:05:30
Coming Soon 2016 This project is so spectacular, it's bound to get a lot of attention for Muvizu!
2016/4/22 19:51:08
Coming Soon 2016 ziggy72 wrote:
The new website looks very smart, nice job. You know, I bet all the Muvizu people who see the film will spend most of it going 'how the hell did he do that?!' and miss the story completely the first time they watch it


LOL! I'm sure there will be a lot of that! From what I've seen so far, Berty has stretched a boundary or two in the making of this epic masterpiece!
2016/4/22 14:11:55
Coming Soon 2016 UKBerty,

this looks amazing! So professionally done in every way! You have set the bar out of reach for the rest of us! I wish you much success in marketing this film... all the work and time you've invested in it is about to pay off!

Now if this crazy world holds on for at least another year, and I don't die, I look forward to watching the full movie in 2017!
2016/4/21 20:39:31
avi import emergencysquirrel wrote:
Returned today to a set I haven't touched since 1.7 came out, and whadayaknow? The video screens with AVI textures are all messed up.
Some swearing ensued.

Found this quick fix:
  • Install Xvid: http://xvid-codec.en.softonic.com/
  • Navigate to Progran Files(x86)\Xvid
  • Run MiniConvert.exe
  • Add existing broken AVI as source file and choose a target directory, then Convert
  • Reimport new AVI, problem solved

Hope this helps someone.

thanks for sharing that information, Emergency Squirrel (Love that name!)...
But I'm curious to know: How on earth did you come up with that solution?
2016/4/20 20:59:27
Thinking of buying Muvizu-a few questions. musiclover wrote:
Hello folks,
Have downloaded the trial version of Muvizu to see if I like it, rather limited in its missing so much stuff compared to paid version, would have expected to see at least one scene in it, but seems to have none.

It comes with lots of resources to build MANY scenes, but that might not be obvious at first look.

If you set aside a block of time and watch all the tutorials (they're very short, and it doesn't take long to watch them all) you'll have a good idea of what to expect and how to proceed with this software. If it's scenes you want, the Store has plenty of user created free ones that you can load and re-purpose.

Thanks Pat Marr for informing me about this software on another forum..

I'm happy to see you here, and I hope you enjoy this software as much as I do!

Anyways a few question if that is ok.
1 what usually is the best time to buy, as I don't really want to take the leap and then find that almost immediately another version is available that I have to upgrade to? Is the current version not out long or is it better to wait a while.


I'm not aware of any good reason to wait... the price for the full product is amazingly affordable, and once you've bought it, upgrades for the program are free and may occur multiple times in the course of a year. So, in a nutshell.. the best time to buy is NOW! The sooner the better! Let the fun begin!

2 is there a lot of user content available for Muvizu,

YES!! One of the strengths of this software is its very active, talented and generous user base! And also the official add-on packs offered by Muvizu are surprisingly inexpensive, so there's very little reason not to buy everything you can before they realize how underpriced Muvizu is and quadruple the price!

I do notice that there are some official add on packs, but would prefer if there was user content that is royalty free to use as well.

That's a good question.. I've never noticed any copyright restrictions posted on any of the user created sets. If you use one of the free user created sets, It's good practice to mention the creator in your credits; but you'd probably want to read the SET descriptions on an individual basis to see if it is offered freely or with restrictions.

Sorry for all the questions.

Joe

Please don't apologize for asking questions... I think you'll find this forum to be an oasis of friendliness.
2016/4/20 20:23:52
I'm thinking of buying Muivizu. Hey Musiclover! I know you! Welcome to the forum and to an absolutely amazing bit of software! Feel free to message me privately on this forum or the other forum through which we already know one another... I'll be happy to answer any questions I can...

But I think you'll find that the veteran users here are brilliant and very willing to share their vast experience with those who ask. You've already met one of the best through your first response! (MrDrWho13)

This is one of the best sites I've ever seen for having good tutorials, wiki archives etc, and usually the answer to most questions can be found in the WIKI.

FWIW, I have bought most of the animation solutions that are currently available, and it is my opinion that Muvizu stands head and shoulders above everybody else in terms of "bang for the buck".

Based on messages I've received from others on the PGMusic forum, I think we may be seeing some other familiar names here in the near future!
2016/4/19 23:58:21
favourites suggestion MrDrWho13 wrote:
That's an interesting solution PatMarrNC, thanks for sharing!
Of course, as either Ziggy or Berty said (Sorry I can't remember which), if you simply mention this concept on every email you send to Muvizu for a few years, you'll get the feature. Simple!


LOL! That is truly funny! You and Ziggy and Berty have been here far longer than I, so I'm sure the joke is based in a healthy dose of reality!

Hard as it may be to imagine (since I've probably made a real pest of myself on this forum) But I have mixed feelings about badgering the developers of software that I really like. My gut feeling is that they are far more aware of all the possibilities than I am, and they have their own ideas too... all of which exceeds the budget and time for actualizing any of it.

So, whereas I realize that it is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, I'm not comfortable being the person who raises the discomfort level to the point where somebody else's agenda gets superseded in order to shut me up.

So I end up being that annoying guy in every forum who suggests workarounds that can be used today, and who therefore inadvertently undermines the grass roots improvements that would normally come from the collective mind of the users.
2016/4/19 19:50:05
favourites suggestion I like being able to save favourites, but eventually the dialog box gets so crowded it isn't convenient to find things anymore. I like the organization idea posted above, but it may never happen, so here's a follow-up idea that's possible now:

1) depending on operating system, the favourites folder is probably located at one of these locations on your PC:
On my Windows 8 machine, the path is C:\ProgramData\Muvizu\Favourites\
on other systems it may be: C:\Users\All Users\Muvizu\Favourites

2) Since MUVIZU is hard coded to look in this directory for favourites, and doesn't recognize the existence of subdirectories... the existence of subdirectories doesn't hurt anything!

3) So I've gone ahead and created sub directories that help me to organize my favourites. When I save a favourite, it goes to the main folder... and from there I just move it manually to a subdirectory associated with a project or asset type. This helps me find stuff when I need it

4) then, when I'm working on a project, I move favourites into the top level directory where Muvizu can find them. This approach accomplishes three goals:
.......a) now I can have many more favourites without cluttering up my favourites selection dialog box
.......b) and can easily populate the dialog box with exactly the items I need for the current project (and nothing more)
.......c) and it greatly enhances the ability to organize the favourites so I don't waste time finding whatever I need for future projects

after completing a project, the top level directory can be cleared by dragging the items to subdirectories according to asset type

Its easy to create a shortcut on the desktop (or wherever you choose) to rapidly access the favourites directory for housekeeping and organization
2016/4/19 19:21:57
Asset library? I'm always blown away when gurus reveal how they make their magic... (now I want to go read all 10,000 posts on the TIPS & TRICKS forum!) Your projects are all so richly detailed and full of interesting production techniques! Can't wait until you release the Bundy project! I'm sure there will much for people like me to learn from it (if my awareness has expanded enough by then to even notice that what you've accomplished isn't even possible in Muvizu unless you have mad video sorcery skills!)

Thanks for your willingness to share your knowledge with others... its part of what makes this forum less like an information archive and more like a community of friends
2016/4/19 17:08:10
Need help for two scenes of Muvizu film bigwally wrote:
Unfortunately, the mirror effect using a background panel is broken, otherwise I imagine you could have done something similar to what I did in this video...



I never used more than 6 robot models at any time.


Hey Wally, I had never seen this before... Mind if I review it? I find that analyzing why other people's work appeals to me helps to create structural guide lines that I can draw on for my own projects.

here's so much to like about this.. where to begin...?

1) When I tried to duplicate your example of using a few characters to simulate many, I noticed there was a "frame" around each of the reflections ( which is apparently the color variance in the BG between each of the reflected views)... but your video does not have that. Can you elaborate on what you may have done to isolate the characters?

2) I really like all the miscellaneous "electrical artifacts" you've added, such as static, the look of an old TV when it's between channels, the sound of an old radio when i's being "dialed in" (you're dating yourself here, my friend... younger people might not have ever hears a tube radio being "dialed in" or a CRT television with poor antenna reception!) ... but anyway, those are interesting additions that help to establish the mood you are building for the video...

3) I like the way you superimpose the vocalist-bot at the 0:35 marker... was that done in Muvizu by placing him in front of the backdrop containing all the other bots? Or was it done in your video editor?

4) At the 0:52 marker when the robots start dancing, great job on getting it all synchronized! I know you only had to get the first 6 right, but still you took the time to do it and the end result is very impressive!

5) You used a spiral away effect in which the character rotates around the screen and gets smaller... I'm guessing that was done in your video editor.. can you say more about that? I like the way it draws the eye, and it works quite well in this application. I guess what I want to know is the name of your editor and/or compositing software and the name of the effect used (so I can see if I have something similar so I can shamelessly steal your cool idea) ;-)

6) at the 1:22 marker you introduce guitars/hands with the rest of the animation masked out... then you copied it 4 times... very cool! I would definitely like to hear more about how you accomplished this little bit of sorcery! That's a very creative alternative to simply showing a character playing the instrument Especially when you combine it with that cool spiral background, providing a kaleidoscope effect

7) at the 2:16 marker you introduce a string of flying robots which I'm guessing were created with the same "hall of mirrors" trick discussed in your previous message. But again, I am impressed with the clarity and the way you have managed to mask out everything but the robots. Did you by any chance save to individual frames and edit each frame individually in a graphics editor? If so, wow.. you're a more patient man than I am!

8) Same question at the 2:27 marker when robots start dropping from the skies! Such clarity! Very impressive! I really like the way you have kept this fresh by constantly changing the action, while simultaneously keeping the theme constant!

9) at 2:57 I like the way the background blurs and divides so the singer-bot can pass thru... where do you come up with these transitional ideas? It's off the charts creative, and you do it all so well!

10) at the 3:08 marker the background morphs into a space scene... I take it that's an AVI texture... but I'm curious to know where it came from. Is it something you created, found online, got from a royalty free site...? Wherever you got it, it is perfect for your application!

11) and last but not least I want to comment of the addition of your own watermark in the bottom right corner! VERY cool idea!

In summary, I like that you took the standard music video concept and introduced a variety of ways to make it more interesting! I like the variety of production techniques you used to create scenes that really sparkle, and which require special skill and understanding of the software in order to be possible at all! And best of all... you shared it!

Very cool! I need to spend more time watching the gurus' videos. They are inspiring!
2016/4/19 16:18:14
animation fans part 2 OK... the giveaway of the day for April 19 is another video converter utility.

I already posted that the last video converter came with a setting for exporting AVIs that work in Muvizu as backdrop textures. If you didn't get that one, maybe this on has a similar setting.

The interesting thing about TODAY'S variant is that it has a built-in way to download video from the web! That could be very useful for Muvizu ! All sorts of active textures like rippling water or moving backgrounds like waterfalls or beaches with crashing waves... could easily be downloaded and edited for use as textures in Muvizu

If you don't already have a tool for grabbing online video, here's one for free if you get it today!

https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/aiseesoft-video-converter-ultimate-9-0/
edited by PatMarrNC on 19/04/2016
2016/4/19 5:53:22
Need help for two scenes of Muvizu film MovieFrog wrote:
Great idea! Thanks, I'll try it!

EDIT: Worked perfectly! Thank you all a bunch!
edited by MovieFrog on 19/04/2016


Awesome!

Hats off to Urban Lamb and Big Wally for each offering great workable ideas for solving this problem! And another hats off to Movie frog for taking the ideas and making them work!

I love it!
2016/4/19 1:14:05
Need help for two scenes of Muvizu film
Thanks for the tip. I suspected that, somewhat, especially when an old saved set (using the mirror effect) still works on the latest version.


I figured a veteran like you already knew that, but I mentioned it for the sake of the person who wrote the original post... he may want to try that himself.. it's such a great idea, and something that can be done completely in the Muvizu environment without any video editing sorcery!
2016/4/19 1:10:08
Asset library? Thanks for the detailed response Ziggy. I know you use some very nice looking car models that I'd guess were downloaded from one of those sites and then exported from Sketchup as ASE. Great job on those, by the way!

Did you break them into parts? And if I were to break more complicated models into parts, at what point would I reassemble the parts back into a car? Inside Muvizu?

oh, and thanks for the max polygon info.. I'm sure I've read that somewhere, but I've reached an age where being reminded of the details is needful and greatly appreciated. ;-)
2016/4/19 1:00:20
LOST IN MUSIC Awesome video, Thorsten! You have a lot of interesting things going on here...

1) first of all I like that you didn't just put your band on a stage ... I really like the approach you used of depositing your musicians along a path in the desert where they are revealed one at a time as the chick singer marches past... very clever!

2) at the 0:43 and 1:24 markers I notice all 4 characters are walking in beat with the song! That looks very cool, and I would like to know how you accomplished that!

3) the fades between scenes are effective and they add interest

4) I thought the cameos between the 1:52 and 2:18 markers worked well as a change-up from the other previously used footage

5) I thought the video was well cast character-wise... the female character exudes the attitude that such a song requires

I liked so much about this that I almost hate to comment on the fact that you reused several of the same scenes multiple times... considering the high click-away rates on youtube, repeating any scenes at all sets you up for viewers to leave before the video ends. One very simple solution would be to use the same moves but recorded from different camera angles. That would accomplish the need for visual interest without requiring you to create a bunch of new scenes.

suggested camera angles for the same scene:
overhead, ground level, panning camera, view from the front, rear and both sides

But art is highly subjective, and I wouldn't put too much stock in anybody's opinion, especially mine. My opinion says more about my preferences than it says about the quality of your video.

Bottom line, I liked this video a lot! Thanks for sharing it with the community here on Muvizu! I look forward to seeing more from you!
2016/4/19 0:38:29
Need help for two scenes of Muvizu film urbanlamb wrote:
you need to green screen this sort of scene this is how its done make a couple of sets and then use compositing to fill them out and duplicate them.


What she said! ^^^^^
2016/4/19 0:30:52
Need help for two scenes of Muvizu film bigwally wrote:
Unfortunately, the mirror effect using a background panel is broken, otherwise I imagine you could have done something similar to what I did in this video...

I never used more than 6 robot models at any time.


Wow! That's extremely clever Wally! Let's see if I understand what you did:
1) You lined up your 6 bots...
2) you put a backdrop behind them...
3) you pointed a camera at the bots and at the backdrop behind the bots...
4) you set the backdrop to use the output from the camera as its texture...
5) and because the camera was capturing a mirror image of itself, it has the effect of a hall of mirrors... correct?

And FWIW, that isn't totally broken in the current version... the only part that doesn't work is the menu text where you select the camera... for some reason a text description of the camera doesn't show up as an option.. BUT... if you go ahead and click where the menu option would normally show up... IT WORKS! (the only thing missing is the text... but the link itself is there, even though its invisible)
2016/4/18 21:06:24
Need help for two scenes of Muvizu film yeah, I'm afraid that adding thousands of fembots to a scene is going to crash everybody's machine. Time to talk about workarounds I think.

a few ideas off the top of my head:

1) create a scene with a handful of fembots (as many as your computer can handle) and export it to video with a green screen background
2) when you get to the production stage where you're working in your video editor, put multiple copies of your fembot scene on different video tracks. Use the video editor's arranging power to reduce the size of each clip and start filling up the screen with them until it looks like thousands

another approach might be to start with the small scene of fembots and take a screen shot from whatever angle you want...

then open the screen shot in a photo editor and copy paste resize until you have a 2d graphic filled with fembots..

then in Muvizu, load that graphic as a texture in a backdrop, and set the animation to make it look like they are moving

Others will have ideas that are probably better than these, but I think its safe to say that nobody here is going to be able to load up thousands of characters in one scene. I had a scene with about 50 characters and it slowed me down to the point that I had to abandon the scene in order to complete the project
edited by PatMarrNC on 18/04/2016
2016/4/18 17:11:45
Asset library? this brings up a related topic...

There are lots of cool 3d objects available for free online... but I haven't had much success converting them into anything I can use in Muvizu. Unless its a really simple model (low poly and not very complicated design) after I resize it to match the scale of my Muvizu world and export it as FBX, just about everything I've tried to use from these sites comes into Muvizu looking scrambled.

Apparently others have overcome the obstacle that I can't seem to get past, and I'm curious to hear what others are doing to help downloaded objects import more accurately into the Muvizu environment

It should be noted that I don't have this problem when I make the model myself. I have to think the problem originates with the complexity of the models (overlapping polygons, duplicate and triplicate copies of the same features embedded in the model etc)
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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.