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PatMarrNC - all messages by user

2015/12/21 21:02:53
Video Salvage WOW! Just wow!

That was so richly detailed you could easily have spun any of those scenes into a standalone story! The faeries are remarkable! And I was particularly mesmerized by the aurora effect in the sky... how on earth did you achieve that?

and how did you conceptualize each of those scenes? Unlike most music videos, where there are lyrics on which to base the visuals, you worked with instrumental songs, making you totally responsible for figuring out what would make an interesting scene for each musical passage! Great job though! It reminded me somewhat of Disney's FANTASIA! ( high praise, as I love that movie)

And beyond the use of MUVIZU for what it does so well, your incredible set is almost beyond belief! And the fact that you made it available for free... wow, what a generous gesture on your part! You clearly invested a great deal of yourself into the modelling, and then simply let people have it! This world needs more people like you!

Did I mention the lights? OK, let's do that. They're so... um... "lighty"... seriously, its as though you are the Sorceress of Scenery, everything is just over the top in terms of quality!

Thanks for posting that. The videos I've been watching over the past few days have raised the bar so high I may have to drop out of the game.
2015/12/21 18:21:27
Merry Christmas to my friends and family! thanks Ziggy.. good information there.

I'll give the hooves another try and slow down the elf's voice a couple of notches.



============ UPDATE =========
Now includes hooves


edited by PatMarrNC on 22/12/2015
2015/12/21 18:17:19
HOLIDAY SHOWCASE 2015 TIM MINCHIN: WHITE WINE IN THE SUN (review of a video by UKBerty)

Many of the people on another forum to which I belong write songs and then follow up with a video to add an additional sensory dimension to the song's experience. As creative people, they (and we) search for inspiration wherever we can find it.

I presented UKBerty's video to them as having not only an excellent song from a song writer's perspective... but as a good example of capturing the songwriter's imagery and of making it visual... in a very emotionally impactful way.

Music and video are somewhat unique in that they both seem to offer direct access to our emotions, circumventing most of the filters we have in place.

There's so much good to say about this video that I'm not going to bother talking about each individual design choice that I found to be inspiring... except for one: the scene in which the overhead view of the family projects out into space until we are presented with a view of the planet.. which then morphs into a Christmas card. That was nothing short of being inspired! Very clever and effective transition!

It has been said that editing is a subtractive process... it isn't about adding more, but about taking away everything that isn't essential. I tend to be a minimalist, while UKBerty loves to fill his stories with lush detail on a variety of planes at once. Two schools of thought... but I am very impressed by his ability to retain so much detail without distracting his audience's attention with peripheral activity.

Regarding all the detail... watching through UKBerty's videos I am astounded by the minute details he works into each scene... a flickering light in one of the letters in the sign of a sleazy motel... coordinated sound effects for just about everything that is going on in every scene... relentless attention to continuity in all of the seemingly extraneous details. Multiple stories seem to be happening at once, much like in real life. He probably triples the time it would take to make his videos by including such an intricately woven tapestry of detail... but wow.. the end result justifies the effort!

Thyanks for including this video on your list, I might have missed seeing it otherwise, and it is a video that I';d strongly recommend to every MUVIZU user
2015/12/21 15:59:53
Objects from Christmas set have lost their color Here's an odd problem that just came out of nowhere...

I was working on a project that used objects from the new Christmas collection. The sleigh and the Christmas tree. They originally came into the project with their colors intact.

At some point, however, I noticed that all of the objects in my project that were drawn from the Christmas collection were displayed as grey models. If I open the properties tab, it shows the correct color; but no matter how many times I change it, the color does not activate on the objects.

Has anybody ever seen this? Any ideas what might be causing it?
2015/12/21 15:48:43
MUvizu not importing SketchUP model... what a great community of people who are willing to help!
2015/12/21 5:54:30
Failed to load object from file For whatever it's worth.. armed with the information presented in this thread, I went back and recreated the project that wouldn't open, and got all the way through with no problems... presumably because I didn't make any timeline edits of head movements. If I wasn't satisfied, I just recorded over it rather than dragging it... recording over head moves didn't cause any problem

I do have the keyframe pack, and there is keyframing in the project, and lots of head moves and eye moves. The only thing I did different was to steadfastly avoid dragging head and eyes moves around on the timeline.

=============== UPDATE ===============

I take it back. Today when I tried to reopen the project after making head moves, I got the dreaded "Failed to load object from file" error again.

So (at least in my case) making no timeline edits did not save the day. In retrospect, I guess the only reason I was able to finish my project is because I added the head moves and then created the video without closing and then reopening the project file.
edited by PatMarrNC on 21/12/2015
2015/12/21 5:14:55
Merry Christmas to my friends and family!


This is actually scene 1 of a longer project... but Christmas is sneaking up fast, so I'm just going to post what I have. Comments and reviews welcome. I know there are nits, some of which didn't show up in the MUVIZU environment, but did in the Adobe Premiere environment... and by that time, I was unwilling to revisit the project.

Some concerns I have are as follows:
1) can you understand the obnoxious elf? Or do I need to slow the processing down a little?

2) A key part of scene is Rudolph's frustration with having to type with hooves. I actually made hooves that attached like gloves, but I elected not to use them because the built-in clearance for characters hand and arm movements is close enough to the body that it continually looked like the hooves were passing through his body. I found that to be more unacceptable than my final approach of shrugging my shoulders in defeat and using the title to let my audience know they havbe to play along with the gag.

But what are your thoughts? If I were SELLING it, it would be unacceptable... but its an informal Christmas card

3) there's a moment just after the camera enters the building when you can see a flaw in the surface of rudolph's head. That didn't show up in MUVIZU... any ideas what may have caused it?
2015/12/21 0:22:41
MUvizu not importing SketchUP model... I don't know if Roland hand-typed the example of his error message, or if he cut and pasted it... but if he cut and pasted it, the "file not found" error could be coming from a typo in his ASE file where he edited the texture file name.

His example error message said "toto. bpm" instead of "toto.bmp"
2015/12/21 0:18:12
HOLIDAY SHOWCASE 2015
I accept your challenge sir!

PatMarrNC, I look forward to your detailed synopsis of each one - should only take you a couple of months...


heh heh... as I read your list , I was thinking "this is gonna take more than a week!"

But, I'm up for the challenge, as time allows! I'm currently working on my own Muvizu Christmas project, so that's keeping me busy. I'll review a few each day until my video is finished, then I'll spend more time on the list! I'm looking forward to watching movies that are so highly regarded by talented people like all of you!
2015/12/20 18:57:06
Failed to load object from file winini33 wrote:
Small further clarification:

The .set file deteriorates with action "head movement" on characters.
It is systematic, if you move the head, and move a little parts on the timline, and save after this.
With a timeline not modifided (the line named "head"), I have no problem.

I have not tested all the characters, but this is more precise.



yes, now that I look back over my work flow just before I got the error, I do recall that I was working on head movements, and tweaking the timeline was the last thing I did before the project stopped opening.

I guess one workaround would be to save head movements for last, and have a good copy saved before starting to work on them. Also, don't tweak the timeline on any head moves! I figure if I have a project just about done except for head moves, in one sitting I may be able to wrap it up and create the video... that way I won't get caught dead in the water ten minutes away from being finished
2015/12/20 18:45:47
MUvizu not importing SketchUP model... roland1963 wrote:

I tried all of these; no result...


The ASE file is in plain text format. Are you saying you opened it in Notepad and manually replaced the path and filename from TOTO.BMP with the path and filename to your texture, and MUVIZU still won't find the right texture?
2015/12/20 18:39:53
MUvizu not importing SketchUP model... Roland,

On a slightly different topic... if you are now importing models, I must assume you've either solved the enigma of installing Sketchup's ASE converter, or you downloaded and installed some other package that supports ASE export.

What did you end up doing? Enquiring minds and all that.
edited by PatMarrNC on 20/12/2015
2015/12/20 18:04:10
HOLIDAY SHOWCASE 2015 REVIEW OF ROBOPHONICS

At only 34 seconds, this video offered up several creative concepts that will be useful to me, and no doubt to others. First of all I liked the idea of using a speech engine to create the robot's dialog. I will definitely be latching onto that idea! I also thought it was clever to use dance moves coupled with robotics audio to make the 2nd robot all the more convincing in his actions and sounds.

It was a clever idea to make a spoof about an infomercial too... you really nailed it! Classic infomercial logic presents two examples... one desirable (after using the product or service being advertised) .. and another one that isn't so attractive... much like the person who is up at 2 am watching late night TV infomercials while eating junk food. The two robots in this short episode do a good job of approximating the two character paradigms.



REVIEW OF THE COMPUTERS REVENGE
I thought this was an interesting "concept video", exploring the TRON-like idea of a computer user getting sucked into the PC... then following it up with an opposite but equivalent transfer of the PCs character to the real world... leaving the original user trapped inside while the robot takes off to explore.

The fact that all this happens with no need for dialog made it somewhat of a universal theme. I also think its cool that video can be applied to some objects, and applying it to the computer screen in this video was an ideal application. It really ended up being the central focus of all the action, effectively making the computer itself an implied 3rd character
2015/12/20 17:20:04
HOLIDAY SHOWCASE 2015 CLASSIC KIRK FIGHTS REVIEW

Wow! That was awesome on multiple levels!

For starters, the characters were very convincing clones of the originals! And then.. there is that awesome Enterprise bridge set! Whoever created that sure did a great job! Looks just like it! Having already matched the characters and the set, the look and feel of the original series is completed by ripping audio directly from the episode, and by using a display font that looks like the one used in the original TV show. Within a few seconds, I am already totally buying into this as a lost episode that has been rediscovered in Muvizutopia.

But then the scene turns into a StreetFighter spoof, and I might add, one that is equally well done! (I was especially amused by the health gauge at the top of the screen. It would have been cool if the color in that bar turned a little more red every time Kirk was kicked)

At this point in the review I should probably remark that I had never before seen blood spewing forth from kicked testicles. Nice touch. Apart from the kicking, I'd like to know how that was accomplished. I'm pretty sure Muvizu doesn't have a "testicle blood" effect. ;-)

I thought the "FINISH HIM" climax was a good way to go full circle from Star Trek > Street Fighter > Muvizu because it employs a clever use of one of Muvizu's available actions to complete the Street Fighter scene logically.

I even liked the credits! Where on earth did that jazzy version of the Star Trek theme come from! VERY cool! I'm assuming the bouncing text credits were added in whatever editor was used to piece it all together

Lots of technical skill demonstrated here in terms of making it all work, but even more than that there is a great deal of conceptual cleverness displayed too, especially the way Star Trek segued into a video game. Great job, Fazz68! I'm very impressed!
2015/12/20 16:44:28
HOLIDAY SHOWCASE 2015 Let's make the week leading up to Christmas into a "BLAST FROM THE PAST!"

Break out all those videos that you poured your heart into when you first discovered the possibilities in Muvizu, and I'll rave on and on about how awesome you are! (And I'll really mean it! I'm truly impressed by the videos made by the people on this forum!)

There may be people out there wondering whether to buy Muvizu... those people need to be inspired by your collective genius!

And if you are an altruist who feels that breaking out the old stuff for praise is a little bit self-serving... then you're looking at it incorrectly. It is my opinion that even creative people hit periods when they just can't think of any new ideas. There is no better cure for that problem than total immersion into a world of other people's inspiration. So think of re-posting your work as a public service, and let no negative reasoning enter your thoughts at all.

Plus, I find it helpful to analyze what works in other peoples' videos. It eliminates a lot of trial and error, and helps me learn more quickly.

Eventually, we should do something similar to showcase the modelling gurus here in the forum! There is a LOT of talent here, and I'm just blown away by the fact that everybody is so willing to share their knowledge!
2015/12/20 4:07:50
Failed to load object from file Add my name to the list of people whose projects are stalled by this error.

I don't know if it's significant, but the last thing I did before the problem started was this:
I wanted to delete one of my characters actions, but I went brain dead and instead of "right-click > delete" I pressed the keyboard's delete button, which effectively deleted ALL that character's actions .. and the character too. Seems like maybe something more benign could be programmed to happen when the delete key is pressed.... like maybe a dialog box that says "CURSE YOUR VERY EXISTENCE? (Y/N)"

When I saw what had happened, I closed Muvizu without saving, hoping that when I opened it back up, my last saved copy would have all my characters and 99% of my work intact. Instead, the project failed to load at all.

Previous messages in the thread indicate that the promised delivery of the fix was sometime last week. So I guess asking for more dates is kind of pointless. The fix will come when it's ready whether I pester or not.

In spite of stuff like this.... I just LOVE this software!!
2015/12/19 20:45:50
HOLIDAY SHOWCASE 2015 SILENCE OF THE CODERS
I already wrote this review, but apparently I took too long and the forum logged me off, so when I tried to ADD MESSAGE it evaporated. So here's a shorter version:

Wow! Another Dreeko masterpiece! I thought that opening the scene on the adjacent cell was an interesting approach because the prisoner's eccentric behavior captured my attention right away.. then the camera drew it to the next cell, where the story really begins. The adaptation of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS was very well done, in my opinion.. right down to Clarice's southern accent... which I am guessing was voiced by Dreeko, then pitch modified to sound like a females voice.

I really liked the cinematic technique of stopping the background music when Hannibal said "... and a dragon", implying that of all the requests, the dragon was a deal killer.

The line "But I want a dragon! Dragondragondragon! Give me a dragon!" made me laugh out loud.. glad I wasn't drinking coffee! It would have been all over the computer!

Side note to Dreeko: you really have a knack for presenting information in small packages. I hope that talent is useful in your real life. My hat is off to you!
edited by PatMarrNC on 19/12/2015
2015/12/19 20:30:36
HOLIDAY SHOWCASE 2015 MrDrWho13 wrote:
PatMarrNC wrote:
-- the inside joke, presumably on the name of one of our forum members?

Doctor Who's a British sci-fi show: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who
The main character is called "The Doctor" which is where the joke comes from.
K9 is a robot dog in the show, so K99 is a parody of this character.


I knew Dr Who was a British TV show, but I erred on the side of a more local application to the forum. I've never seen the show, so I appreciate the explanation.
2015/12/19 19:32:46
HOLIDAY SHOWCASE 2015 8) THE IDEA: iPHONE KILLER
I'm becoming a real Dreeko fan! The very concept of comparing the word iDEA to Apple's convention of prefacing their devices with the letter "i" downright inspired! I admire the idea even before seeing how Dreeko develops it... FIrst of all, I loved the "iDEA logo".... a cartoon-style thought bubble represented as an Apple icon. Off to a clever start! Then the music and format of the presentation is such a good representation of the sort of ad Apple has used in the past! The line "We knew you would buy the same things again and again, if they were just SHINY and FLAT..." Now that's FUNNY.... and quite true, it would seem. Then it gets REALLY clever when the character (who really LOOKS the part of a west coast Apple employee) starts to describe an idea in terms that use such glowing marketing buzz words that by the time he's done describing it, I'm frothing at the bit to spend $500 to buy something that I can already have for free! I thought the visual representation of each of the salesman's "features" was also very well conceived and executed! The closing "WAKE UP" was also inspired. I think that's part of what makes Dreeko's videos so compelling.. he's really good at making a series of bullet-style observations in rapid succession, and making an interesting point in a short presentation that holds the audience's attention. If Dreeko isn't in advertising, he should be.. and his videos would be better than any resume he could type up.

9) NINJA ASSASSIN
hahaha! this is a classic! I like the way the personalities of the characters collide to provide the conflict necessary for a plot! And I like the use of what I'd refer to as a peculiarly British form of humor in which the common man finds himself in a situation where he's a fish out of water, and undermines the implied gravity of the scene with his every-man "nothing special about me" dialog. The scenes are well framed and the point is delivered succinctly in under a minute!

10) THE PRINCESS RESCUE
hahaha! I loved the use of a Blob for Jabba! And it was an interesting premise to combine Indiana Jones with Star Wars (and one might even add Princess Bride to the mix)! One nit on this one is that I found the audio manipulation on the voices to be mostly unintelligible to my American ears. But then, I'm an old rocker with impaired hearing so you can't go by me. ;-)

11) THE WHO
Simple premise, but well executed ! Things I especially liked:
-- the ending
-- the way the time machine appeared
-- the subtitles for the robot (who was hard to understand)
-- the inside joke, presumably on the name of one of our forum members?
-- the animated text in the intro
edited by PatMarrNC on 20/12/2015
2015/12/19 18:52:45
HOLIDAY SHOWCASE 2015 4) A FISTFUL OF CODERS
again, this one is a textbook example of how to build tension in a scene, with silent characters in a tense situation, accompanied by the right music. The camera moves are downright inspired... they could easily have been ripped right out of an old western. The scene that opens on the grave, then rises to capture the confrontation works well as an implied foreshadowing that somebody is about to die. But the glory of this drama is when the plot takes a completely different twist after delivering intentionally misleading clues. It's especially cool that there was a point, it wasn't just random humor... and even cooler that it got results! I'm going to guess that the slow motion walk (which is very cool, by the way) was created in some other software? Yeah, this is definitely one of my favorites too!

5) MICHAEL CAINE DOG: WALKIES
In my opinion, the star of this show is the impressive and truly funny dialog! But underpinning it is the premise of a dog with Michael Caine's image and likeness, who can articulate his thoughts from a Michael Caine dog's point of view. That in itself is quite an amusing punch line.. the rest is icing on the cake.

6) ON THE NEWS BORDER CONTROL
For starters, I REALLY like Dreeko's version of a news show intro...the music, spinning globe and ticker-tape style news headlines all work together to make a quite believable new intro template! The anchorman and the remote contact are really well-done approximations of what we normally see on news shows. My favorite line (after watching a lot of people slip through border control) is "So things here at border control remain the same as they've always been"... very British tongue-in-cheek humor. ;-)

7) BATMAN BEGINS WITH A B
In my opinion, Dreeko really has the cinematic experience down! He must watch a lot of movies. ;-) The intro with its music and camera moves is a perfect representation of an opening scene in any number of Hollywood thrillers. But the star of this show is the single joke that gets unwrapped in one hilarious onion layer after another with skillfully delivered dialog between the characters. A lot of literary plots have traditionally revolved around character conflicts, so simple as this scene is at about 2 minutes, it uses the time effectively by cutting right to the chase and revealing only what's needed to make the point. Over and over again. The premise that "I Spy something that starts with the letter B... and you aren't allowed to say anything that starts with BAT..." is down right inspired.... but not quite as inspired as the follow-up response by Batman! This clip excels on a number of levels... everything from concept to dialog to scene framing to surprise ending is all just masterfully executed! Awesome Job Dreeko!

more reviews in another post
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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.