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PatMarrNC - all messages by user

2016/3/12 16:46:53
adding motion, making movement +1 .... it would be great if Muvizu offered tools to the users for creating their own actions and characters. I don't think anybody here would disagree on that. If Muvizu included those tools I would gladly pay ten times the current asking price for the software!

Having said that...

Past requests for such features have not been met with the response we wanted to hear. So we use workarounds.
2016/3/10 18:09:42
Integrating Muvizu characters into existing video! very clever!! I enjoyed not only the technical aspects that made it work, but also the fact that in a little over one minute, you developed a bizarre scenario and brought it to climax.

In amateur forums of all kinds, it is a fairly common phenomenon to find examples of projects where one skill set clearly dominates the others. For example, a technically proficient video that supports a lame story line... or a great story that is not presented very well.

In my opinion, the ideal is to get all the aspects of a project to "about the same level" of proficiency. .. best case being excellence across the board... but for lack of perfection, at least having consistency at SOME level.

I said all that to say this: I thought your project is a good example of a balanced project. You started with an interesting concept, developed (or adapted) the real footage to support it, then figured out how to put the mummy where he needed to be. I thought the end result was truly entertaining, and that's what you set out to do. Success means that the end result meets the intended goal! Great job!

Your story was brief, never had a chance to get boring, and had an interesting and unexpected conclusion! I can see this as being one episode from a series about somebody's weird dreams. As such you wouldn't need to justify any of the stories' premises... it would be expected of the viewer to accept whatever weird premise a dream might start with, then sit back and enjoy how the animator resolves the suspense.
2016/3/9 23:46:35
animation fans this discussion reminds me of one I saw recently on a musician's forum where people were talking about how many guitars were "enough." ... and as I get older, the question of "enoughness" is on my mind quite often.

There is actually an answer to the question that's more than just how one feels at the moment... it pertains to the result you want to achieve.
2016/3/9 20:47:29
animation fans thanks, Drew, for posting this! I think you're right about it being another useful tool in the ol' creative toolbox
2016/3/9 20:45:25
animation fans ohhh... OK... previous version to get more customers interested in the product.. that makes perfect sense and makes the download seem less like a trojan horse offer that nobody can refuse.

For those of you who like to make the Dreamworks -type animations, this is probably the right product for you. I'm basically a cartoonist looking for ways to animate my comic ideas, so the cartoonized actions and potato headed characters in Muvizu are perfect for my use.

It seems to me that for those who want more, the time saved in animation could easily get lost again in creating custom content. In contrast, there appears to be an abundance of relatively inexpensive and high quality content available for iClone. People who want to work in that environment might never need to make anything themselves.

But if they want to, they still can.

Bottom line, this is a no-brainer acquisition. Even at full price, Iclone seems to offer a pretty amazing cost / benefit ratio.

Damn. I'm too old for another software learning curve. Every time I think I'm ready to roll, something new comes along....
2016/3/9 15:24:55
animation fans I snagged it, but I have to admit I am not entirely comfortable with it... why does this company give stuff away? There doesn't appear to be any secondary compensation for them. Has anybody installed software from this site in the past?
2016/3/7 18:58:01
intro to one of my new series.... "ILLUMINAUGHTY" FWIW, I created the "kids with round heads" a while back in anticipation of this project about school -aged kids. Since then the Chinese character pack has been introduced and I am thrilled to see that the Asian kids have round heads and child-sized proportions! Awesome! (Thanks MUVIZU developers!)

So now as I start this project I have more options for characters that have the right appearance for the roles
2016/3/7 18:51:31
intro to one of my new series.... "ILLUMINAUGHTY" ziggy72 wrote:
Nice monopoly set!


Thanks! The Monopoly set was a fun project... most of it is just images on backdrops. Modelling the little metal player pieces (race car, scotty dog, top hat, iron etc) was the challenge. Only the race car appears in the intro. Hopefully I can work the other pieces into subsequent episodes so the time spent creating them isn't wasted. It'll end up on the asset store unless posting something with proprietary rights isn't allowed. But then, there's a ton of comic characters, star wars, star trek and syndicated TV show content in the store... so apparently that's not an issue. However, I did upload some Wizard of Oz characters that never got approved, and I was wondering if that's why.

That is a cool setup you've got there, look forward to seeing where this goes


Me too. I hope it doesn't end with silence after I disappear. ;-)
2016/3/7 16:17:20
Super Hero Man Gotta love any video that ends with the phrase "There's only so many sardine sandwiches a man can eat"

I remember hearing once that there are only a handful of unique plots for stories, and they are categorized by the type of conflict. (Man vs man, man vs nature, man vs himself, etc)

A true super hero storyline would probably take the form of Man vs evil... but a bumbling superhero story might go the route of "man vs. himself" (trying to rise above his own incompetence)

One of the things I like about this product and this forum is watching how different people use this software to develop a story. It's inevitable that there will be recurring themes (like super heroes) ... but I find it fun and interesting to see how each person develops the theme.

Apparently you've chosen to make your hero not so heroic, which opens up a lot of potential for humor. I look forward to seeing more from Super Hero Man. Good luck on your series!
2016/3/7 7:43:08
Use Mandy for animal heads sounds like a great way to use your time, Braj! And at the rate you're learning this stuff, I predict you'll do quite well!


On a different but related note... Poser game dev is pretty expensive! Did you find a deal somewhere? oh wait... 2014... ebay? I think I may have looked at that too!

I'm in a similar situation.. not disabled, but retired with time on my hands. Keep us posted on whether the Poser Game Dev stuff works out... either for your own projects or with MUVIZU in general.
edited by PatMarrNC on 07/03/2016
2016/3/7 7:29:44
intro to one of my new series.... "ILLUMINAUGHTY" I have a bunch of projects in the oven... here's a teaser for one of them:



The internet is full of conspiracy stories about the Illuminati. My goal is neither to refute nor promote the stories, but rather to put my own absurd spin on them. Imagine all that global domination power play projected onto a bunch of elementary school kids... Its not that hard to see all the same human motives at any age... it just plays out differently.

Maybe the kids who cheated at Monopoly grew up to be world bankers... and the kids who had secret clubs went on to create secret societies. Anyway, this teaser intro sets the stage... actual episodes will come later as time allows.

Theme song is original, recorded with PGMusic's Band In A Box software

Credits to Pumpkin for the Inferno set. Credits for anything else will be added to actual episodes.
2016/3/7 1:12:02
Use Mandy for animal heads braj wrote:
Yeah, I'm spending my time in Poser a lot, I'm about to buy add-ons for it instead of Muvizu.


Speaking of Poser, there's a ton of free Poser content out there if you search for it. I'm not at the computer where I have the links saved, but next time I am, I'll post a few. But if you just google it you'll find it.
2016/3/7 1:04:17
Use Mandy for animal heads braj wrote:
The closed nature of all content development beyond static props IMO is what is limiting the audience for Muvizu. It really needs an injection of energy. Blow the doors off, I say.


I don't have the insider information to make any claims about whether Muvizu's audience is growing or declining or staying steady. But I suspect its pretty large... and growing.

Although they have some do-it-yourself expansion options available, my gut feeling is that their prime demographic is people who don't WANT to make their own content.. they just want to snap animated Legos together and quickly create presentations. And Muvizu EXCELS at that! In fact, its in a class by itself.

The ability to model attachments has indeed led to a core group of really talented power users who have a real presence on the forum... so it's easy to imagine that most of Muvizu's customers must do that. But I doubt it.

Statistically speaking, there are always more people with dreams than there are with talent. This software makes it easy for the dreamers to create animations that are actually better than users of other software and more talent are making. That's a pretty compelling advantage.

Yes, there is almost no doubt that the smaller number of more talented animators will eventually drift away to other software... but I think there are more people whose skill level is compatible with Muvizu than there are people who will out grow it... so theoretically, as long as they keep this baby floating, they should continue to get customers.

(My opinion, not expressed as universal truth, but as one point of view. Other people may see it differently)
2016/3/6 23:01:09
Use Mandy for animal heads True quadrapeds would DEFINITELY be better. The gurus here have been asking for that since long before either of us showed up. Still waiting.

But until that happens, at least having the tools to create reasonable workarounds would be better than no options at all for creating animals. You make a bunch of good points... one of which is that by forcing customers to use other software to include animals, they inevitably start to prefer the other software.
edited by PatMarrNC on 07/03/2016
2016/3/6 22:24:40
Use Mandy for animal heads braj wrote:
That cow has some skinny legs!


Assuming you read what I wrote above then you realize that's exactly my point. If we could make the heads invisible, I could have used the Rosie character's legs, which would have been more proportional. Better yet, if we could attach our own modelled appendages to an otherwise invisible character frame, we could do ANYTHING!

When I first joined this forum, the general consensus was that there are no quadrapeds because the engine didn't support it. The whole purpose of this test is to point out that the MECHANICS are indeed possible, even with the current engine. The missing ingredients are not that far different from what already exists. My hope is that by showing how close we already are, the developers will provide a character that can be used to provide attachment points for whatever we need, and remain invisible apart from that.
2016/3/6 20:55:15
Use Mandy for animal heads OK, using the newer characters that can have parts of their bodies made invisible, I took another stab at creating a quadraped. The result is functional (in that it proves that my premise works) , but not usable (because the characters we have to work with still don't give quite enough flexibility to provide correct proportions)

If Muvizu developers could provide us with a utility character as stated in a previous post... one that could be completely invisible except for the legs.... or, one with attachment points at the feet so we could model legs that are proportional to the rest of the creature... then we could make our own quadrapeds all day long



notes:
1) The head is attached to a character that is completely invisible except for the head (which is inside the attachment)

2) The legs are two separate characters that are invisible except for their head and legs. In order to keep their heads from popping out the cow's back, I had to make them so small you can barely see the legs... but this shows that using the current Muvizu framework, all the elements necessary to create a quadraped can be assembled. Now it's just a matter of refining the elements that are available

3) Because the newer characters don't yet have separate eyes that can be moved around in 3D space like the potato heads, I had to hard-model the cow's eyes. It would be better if we could add "live" eyes to our creatures
UPDATE: after more testing I see that most of their eyeballs can be moved around in 3d space and the pupils can be directed... but the blinking is hard-modelled to the head.

4) The legs are directed to walk in place. That way you don't have to worry about two moving entities getting out of synch positionally. Movement is simulated with scrolling background and camera movement.

to Muvizu developers:
any chance of getting either a utility character that allows any/all body parts to be invisible except what is needed? Or with attachment points for adding modelled legs/feet?
edited by PatMarrNC on 06/03/2016
edited by PatMarrNC on 06/03/2016
2016/3/5 18:55:19
Use Mandy for animal heads this ability to make certain parts invisible would be a lot more useful if it also came with more attachment points
2016/3/5 18:51:06
Use Mandy for animal heads I just spent some time messing with this...

I wish they had gone one step further and allowed the head to be made invisible too... then it would be more convenient to create quadrapeds by adding an extra set of animatable legs to a model.

But the ability to "turn off" the arms already provides the solution to one problem with using human characters to simulate animals.

Suggestion for the MUVIZU development team: How about a utility character with the following options:

1) all parts of the character can be made visible or invisible (including the head)
2) foot and hand attachments include paws, claws, hooves etc.. or at least attachment points
3) allow use of the potato head eyes or other new style animatable eyes that can be arranged in space to line up with head attachments
4) create a standalone mouth that can also be attached to a head, but repositioned within a certain radius, so characters could have an animatable mouth at the end of a long snout
5) allow the grouping of character s so that actions assigned to one character will automatically transfer to the other grouped character(s). This would allow dance sequences and also it would allow two sets of legs on a quadraped to walk at the same time.
2016/3/5 16:20:27
Use Mandy for animal heads thanks for sharing that braj... I should have known that the newer characters could do that, but somehow it passed by my radar. Yes, excellent and creative use of Muvizu to simulate new content! I will definitely be using this idea too!
2016/3/3 18:28:56
ASE plugin urbanlamb wrote:
yes its all the same. It works just check the script window the "errors" are probably messages telling you what is wrong with the model.


I started with the cube that automatically appears when you start blender. I figure blender should like its geometry, since it created it.

Then I tried to export it as ASE. Didn't work, and error message suggests its because I didn't apply a material or create a UV map. (I don't know Blender well enough to do either of those things in that environment)

So next I imported a cube from Silo that DID have a material applied and UVMap created. Still failed to export as ASE.

I wish Blender was made the way I think. It is a very cool and powerful program that is perhaps the most un-intuitive software I've ever tried to use. ;-(
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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.