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PatMarrNC - all messages by user

2016/2/17 16:33:32
Moscow Assets Your link isn't working for me.... error message says "The link you followed may have expired, or the page may only be visible to an audience you're not in." (I'm guessing you have your privacy settings set to allow only friends to view content on your FB page)

but I want to modify my previous comments about ASE vs FBX

A lot of the problems I've had with ASE have been because of dirty models from Sketchups download archive. By dirty, I mean extra overlapping polygons and other geometry that muddy the task of exporting a nice clean ASE file.

Now that you are making your own model, you may want to try ASE again. It works much faster when you give it a nice clean model, and you don't tend to get the scrambled results that have been the norm for me when I try to use (downloaded) Sketchup models. If you make the model yourself in Sketchup it will probably be clean.

As far as adding textures, you'll have to consult ANIM8ORs docs and see how to create UV maps using that software. Once you get your surfaces laid out as flat panels and saved as a JPG, then you can open the JPG in a graphics editor and put colors or photo realistic textures on your 2-d JPG surfaces. Then when you apply the graphic you created back to your model, it will wrap around the geometry
edited by PatMarrNC on 17/02/2016
2016/2/15 22:08:44
Moscow Assets blickfang wrote:
Thanks for the timely response, Pat!

I was under the impression that only .ase files could be imported into Muvizu?


Muvizu can use ASE and FBX files
2016/2/15 22:07:00
Head attachment/ face mask Actions/Dialogue ??? braj wrote:
My issue is how to get the materials between a character and the attachment looking proper. Does anyone have any tips?


this is one reason why I don't use textures on attachments that have to blend in with a character... it's hard enough to find solid colors that are close enough to pass.
2016/2/15 18:51:38
Moscow Assets blickfang wrote:
Hi Pat

I was able to finally import an asset successfully. By successfully I mean it was a giant blob of funky angles.

ah yes, the giant blob of funky angles... I know him well...

Scrolling away from the ground (about midway up in the Muvizu world) helped; thanks!
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know!

I just need to figure out how to change textures to nothing in Sketchup 8 or figure out how to get those textures into Muvizu. Do you or anyone know of a good Sketch up 8 tute for that?

here's a good tutorial on applying textures in Sketchup:
http://muvizu.com/Wiki/wiki/99

Heres the model I am trying to import:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=2f60ed605e31f05163995fb119e59971

Thanks

OK... you may want to rethink the plan of converting this model to ASE format. I Love ASE for small items, because it smooths out the low poly surface and makes it look better... but for anything more complicated than a few surfaces (and that building is very complicated) the sketchup ASE converter will take hours, and then after the long wait, it'll choke. And you'll be angry. Don't ask how I know this.

You probably want to download and install Blender, because it can export to FBX format (and it does so VERY fast!). Also, Blender is pretty good about recognizing the textures that have already been applied to a model, so you might be able to skip that whole learning curve. And Blender is free... that makes it convenient!

The challenge is getting a Sketchup model into OBJ format so Blender can read it. If you go to Sketchup's Extension Warehouse and search for LIPID OBJ EXPORTER (also free), and install it, then you can save any of Sketchup's models to OBJ, open in Blender, resize, export to FBX

Hope this helps! Good luck, and keep us posted!
edited by PatMarrNC on 15/02/2016
2016/2/15 14:40:54
Head attachment/ face mask Actions/Dialogue ??? ritsmer wrote:
PatMarrNC: Right now I am on a long holiday only having my little 15 inch laptop around - so I can not make a tutorial here - however I would have tried to make it this way:


1-Muvizu-make video with the head attachment on the head of the character
2-Muvizu-make video with the head attachment off - but with an attachment similar skin tone of the character.
Note: between the 1) and 2) recordings the cameras must not be adjusted.
3-In Sony Vegas use 1) as the master and letting a small Bezier-masked part of the face from 2) cover the unmoveable head attachment...
... there will be a considerable amount of trial and error in this - but an acceptable result is quite probable.
edited by ritsmer on 15/02/2016

pretty clever! I'll have to try that! As workarounds go, that one sounds pretty easy and with a good payoff at the end.

FWIW, if you send me your email address, I'll send you a set containing my versions of some star wars characters, including a Yoda whose head attachment leaves the mouth uncovered, and whose eyes are standard Muvizu animated eyes.
2016/2/14 15:02:49
Head attachment/ face mask Actions/Dialogue ??? if your idea of using Sony Vegas to get the desired results works, please post a how-to video or message,as I'm sure a lot of people would love to get more mileage out of head attachments.
2016/2/14 14:56:54
Head attachment/ face mask Actions/Dialogue ??? if I understand your question correctly... you want to put a head attachment on fat man, then have the eyes and mouth move in response to actions and dialog... correct?

Head attachments are like putting a bucket over your head.. the attachment hides what's underneath.. and the attachment's eyes and mouth aren't animated.

In order to accomplish what you want to do, the attachment has to be made in such a way that the characters mouth is not covered, because it's only the original character's mouth that responds to dialog.

Also, if you want the eyes to be animatable, you'll have to use eyes from the standard character properties, and edit their position with the sliders so they can be seen outside the head attachment.

The end result won't look quite as much like Yoda, but it will get the idea across and be much more useful for animation.
2016/2/13 17:24:13
Capes for Standard Characters? one idea would be to use the Beefy character as the sidekick too, and scale him down in size. Since the Beefy character has a cape accessory, you'd be ready to rock!

Just change a few features besides size to make them as unique as possible.

Beefman and Robeef so to speak.
2016/2/12 18:01:54
New Asian character pack available now! I recently downloaded the free version of DAZ. Cool program with lots of potential.. but the included content is also very minimal. Clearly the path to generating income there is with add-on packs. And I support that thinking.. a viable product NEEDS to make money in order to survive. It also needs a large user base, and making it available for not much money helps to accomplish that.

One big difference between DAZ and MUVIZU is that DAZ has MANY 3rd party vendors who are all making EXCELLENT products for their store... which means that the usefulness of the product increases almost exponentially because so many people are adding value to it on a daily basis.

MUVIZU also has a user community that contributes value-adding content... but because we don't have the tools to duplicate the bells and whistles, we're limited to adding content that isn't as cool as the content that is being added to the stores of products like Daz, iclone, Poser etc.

My hope is that at some point MUVIZU will provide the tools or information required to create the cool stuff. Even if it's only licensed to a select few who have demonstrated the ability to use it, such a move would result in an explosion of new usefulness. And if part of the deal is to split the sale price with contributors, everybody would win.

Muvizu would get cool new content without having to expend resources, and income from its sale

Third party content creators would get a built-in market for their stuff, and income

Customers would get an incredibly useful product for not much money, along with an ever-growing set of accessories to meet the needs of professionals and amateurs

-----------------
standard disclaimer: my opinion. Your mileage may vary. No guarantees, express or implied, are included in this rant
2016/2/12 0:14:11
New Asian character pack available now! braj wrote:
And that fixed it. So, I am wondering about creating clothing, they have very minimal attire, even very specific like scarves you can't remove.


I notice that the Chinese new year outfit that just appeared for free uses some soft cloth... probably by starting with the karate uniform that comes with Beefy, then adding a texture to it... but I'd like to know how he knew how to create the texture... is there a UV map somewhere for the karate outfit? Or maybe it was based on the UV Map for beefy?

I wish there were a 3d mannequin OBJ for all the characters that we could use to create clothing.


a while back I tried to use Autodesk's free 123DCatch software to create 3d models for each of the Muvizu characters. 123Dcatch can create 3d models from a series of photographs taken all around an object.


So I set up a scene containing just a character and a camera, then circled the camera around each character, capturing the max number of frames that 123dcatch can use. But when I tried to upload my series of images, 123Dcatch choked on them

I sent a zip file of my images to Autodesk and support told me that my resolution was too low. The higher the better. I also should have created a custom skin with numbers and letters randomly added to it, because the algorithm requires unique "landmarks" that it can use to see how each of the frames relates to the one before it and the one after it. The landmarks determine where the pictures get joined.

A family member got sick and died right about the time I gathered enough info to try again... so I never got back to it. But if you want exact models of the Muvizu characters, that would be a good place to start.
2016/2/11 16:12:38
New Asian character pack available now! AWESOME! Thank you! (Going right now to buy it....)

============UPDATE============
I just installed the new characters and had a look at them and their options. First of all, I was pleased to see that they show up as 4 completely new characters, not modified versions of legacy characters. That's a good thing!

I also noticed that the included accessories for these characters was minimal... no extra eyes or noses, two hair options, two outfits... period. So my guess is that the plan is to sell add-on packs for the newer characters (which I think is a GREAT idea given the low price tag on MUVIZU and the low price on store items! Can't wait to see what you come up with!)

aside to MUVIZU developers: When you start to create add-on packs, consider other Asian cultures besides China. South Korea's K-pop music and TV dramas are gaining global popularity, and they're both full of trends that could be monetized as accessories. For example, extremely high-heeled shoes are practically a cliche in Korean dramas. Girls in the dramas even wear them on the beach!

Martial arts outfits are a no brainer, as such training (I'm told by my daughter's Korean TaiKwonDo instructors) is as common there as soccer is in western schools

I notice there are no instruments available yet... I suspect that Korean K-pop has already created a huge demand for Asian music videos, but they won't be easily created until the instrument option has something in it for the Asian characters

Also consider Japans huge anime industry.

But, I know you know all that already... this is just my excitement making obvious ideas flow...
edited by PatMarrNC on 11/02/2016
2016/2/11 16:10:30
Movement there may be other answers to this question, but here's what I do:

1) I create the moves for each character separately
2) Then I slide the movements on the timeline to synchronize the start time

If you are asking how to make them all do the same thing at the same time (like dancers) somebody else will have to offer their insights. There is no convenient way to do that as far as I know. I would probably just animate a lot of sequences then edit them in My video editor to get the final effect. But that's just me. If you put each person on a different layer in your video editor, it gives you a lot of leeway to cut and paste and slide things around until all of the characters move together.

Depending on how different the characters are (could one of the characters be modified with different hair, eyes, clothes etc to become the other?) you could create the scene with one character, and render it to video by itself. Then morph the character and render it again. That way you'd have the exact same movements in the exact timing, and it would be very easy to put them on different layers in the video program and line then up.

Lots of ways to skin cats, but I'm afraid none of them can be done without getting scratched by the cat.
2016/2/11 15:57:43
Lion character If you need a 4-legged animal type lion, you have limited options. You can create your own model and import it, but it won't move like the Muvizu characters. It also won't move its mouth for dialog or growling.

What most people do is create anthropomorphized animals (two legged characters with lion attributes). You might start with the dog character and add crazy hair to simulate a mane. And a tail. Here's an example: https://www.muvizu.com/Video/45036/The-Gone-Forever-Tree

If you know how to model your own attachments, you could create a custom lion head that leaves the mouth open so your character can respond to dialog

A few weeks ago, I uploaded a set of Wizard of Oz characters (which included the Cowardly Lion)... but It has never been approved by the mods and put into the store... if that would help, I could send it to you directly if you supply an email address. But my lion was made from all stock items that come with Muvizu, so you could make it yourself with the available hair and tail options.
edited by PatMarrNC on 11/02/2016
2016/2/11 15:45:52
Anime Studio Pro 11 sale til Dec 1st Just a heads up for the benefit of anyone who might be interested in adding some new tools to their animation toolbox without spending a lot of money.

Anime Studio 11 is having a sale on ASP11 Debut, their entry-level product. Even though it is their least expensive product, it is still quite powerful in my opinion.. and it gives you a way to animate the occasional scenes that would be impossible with Muvizu.

For example, you can take a screen shot of the characters in your Muvizu project and then rig them for ASP11. Once you have them rigged, you can make them do anything.

Oh, and even though it is touted as a 2-D animation solution, ASP11 is fully compatible with 3d objects... so you can import the same props you're using in Muvizu if you have the OBJ files. If not, just import a screenshot of your Muvizu scene as a 2-D graphic and put it on a background

the link to the latest sale: http://my.smithmicro.com/anime-studio-debut.html

$35 USD until Feb 16
2016/2/11 15:04:01
Keyframe camera and rotation did you use a keyframe at the beginning of the scene to nail down the starting position of the camera? One peculiarity of keyframes is that they can yield unexpected results unless you have a keyframed start point AND end point... especially if multiple attributes are keyframed.
2016/2/11 14:38:41
Moscow Assets I've gotten the message that my model is too large or outside the world just by adding collision to it. If you have added collision to the bottom of the ASE file, try removing it to see if that makes a difference.

Also, scroll away from ground level before trying to import anything large like a building.

And also inspect your model to make sure that the Y axis origin is at the base of the building. If Y0 is anywhere else, MUVIZU will try to locate Y0 slightly above ground level, which could plunge part of the building under ground.
2016/2/9 18:13:20
Can't activate Muvizu on my version of 1.6, latest release, the path would be:

FILE > LICENCE MANAGER > ACTIVATE

if that path does not appear in your menu structure, you might try reinstalling. If you still don't find that path, then you may need to contact support. (found under the HELP menu here on the forum)
2016/2/9 18:04:32
Star Wars spoof ( Do or Do Not,there is no try) "Luke... join me on the Brown side..."
2016/2/9 18:00:48
You have to pay for anything Good marketing is based on good psychology. There are scientifically proven ways to influence human behaviour, and that is essentially what marketing does.

One principle of human behaviour is "positive reinforcement", which states that behaviour that is rewarded is likely to be repeated. This principle works only when a behaviour has already been acted out, and THEN rewarded.

Rewarding behaviour that hasn't happened yet is not positive reinforcement... it is bribery.

Bribery yields much less predictable results, because once the reward is received there is little incentive to perform the behaviour; And that's the key problem with giving the product away in hopes that the recipient will pay for a few more features.

This is different than having free accessories available to people who have paid, because that really does provide an extended and continuing reward to everyone who has bought the premium product.

The way positive reinforcement manifests when you give stuff away is that it rewards people for NOT spending money, and it reinforces in their mind that begging for more free stuff is what gets results. This logical death spiral is what undermines the financial stability of companies and governments.

Indeed, I fear the world is already so submerged in debt that was accrued in order to give things away today in hope of a future payoff that will never come... well.. that's a whole new rant. Time to stop.

In summary, there's a reason why most software companies offer timed demo versions that stop working after a while unless the product is bought. A timed demo lets people see if the product is compatible with their work style, but it doesn't undermine the company's sales by giving away the product. And it makes a huge statement about the perceived value of the product.

Its a variation of the old saying "Why buy the cow if you are already getting the milk for free?"

standard disclaimer: This is all presented as my personal opinion, not as universal truth. Your mileage may vary. I'm a grouchy old man. Get off my lawn!
2016/2/9 4:25:56
Star Wars spoof ( Do or Do Not,there is no try) "The Farts is strong with you..."


"Poo or Poo not.... there is no dry (underwear)"
edited by PatMarrNC on 09/02/2016
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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.