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ziggy72 - all messages by user

2010/10/31 18:43:51
Competitions and Post processing "Ziggy72 - I'm afraid your Muvizu logo idea won't work. I have an AVI file of just the logo which I superimpose over my projects in AE to keep the logo there and consistent"


Damn! Thought I had an idea there, and you go and ruin it by being all clever and resourceful!
2010/10/31 1:15:56
Constructive criticism on Beware of the Bench I'm assuming by 'constructive' that you mean 'don't hold back', so here goes...(and please remember, I'm trying to help you see this from an arbitary point of view to let you know what the average punter thinks, this isn't personal!)

Your initial camera setups are good, but then don't change (a common problem it seems). Unless there's a particular reason to frame a shot a certain way, it's a good idea to move the camera to somewhere else between shots to keep it interesting for the viewer.

Your aliens are looking straight ahead for the most part (another common problem!). Looking down at the console in front of them with their eyes and head looks better than just head alone. Similarly, your heroine doesnt react at all when asked if she hears a noise. Also, when your hero gets abducted, she stands up then sits down again for no reason. Take two...

When the two aliens advance on our hero, his head intersects the right alien. Golden rule of computer animation - never show clipping. Blows the whole thing. Also, it's just one shot - a cut to show a closeup of our hero reacting, or a reverse to show the aliens advancing would have been more engaging. When our hero is beamed up to the ship, you can see him intersect the bottom of it - cutting away a few frames earlier would have looked better.

The alien asking "what do you look like" has no sync betwen his words and his mouth - you're limited by Muvizu at this point of course, so Take Two, let's go again people...

The UFO is round, but the interior is all squared off, and overly bright and cheerful looking. Mind you, they are fashion victims...

The landscape the couple are sitting in is completely void of character. It might seem odd to refer to a landscape as having character, but they do. A horizon line showing hills, or trees, or a cityscape would have added depth and interest. Also, a few bushes and shrubbery (bring me a Shrubbery!!) would have made it less bare looking.

Last thing - lighting. You did a nice job of setting the mood, but I would have tried a little more to use the lights to help shape and define the objects in the movie. In particular, the shot of the UFO when our hero jumps from it (or is he ejected?). The UFO is just a solid green, with little definition to show it's curves.

It is tedious to have to go back and redo shots again and again to get it exactly right, but that's what you gotta do to make something that really engages the viewer, and doesn't distract them with thoughts of 'oh, that bit's wrong' or 'why did that happen?'. Hope all this helps, and that you appreciate I'm talking to everyone else out there too, not just yourself (especially the clipping - please people, it's easy to avoid if you take the time). Anyway, keep up the good work!
2010/10/30 22:50:45
Competitions and Post processing You know, I was thinking the same thing when I was going to comment on 'The Book' - brilliant as it was, it was clearly way beyond what you could achieve with Muvizu alone, but there was no stipulation that you weren't allowed to, so...where do you draw the line? 'Beware The Pie' relies on post production much less, but it's still not what you'd call pure Muvizu. One thing occured to me though - in 'The Book', the Muvizu logo disappears sometimes because of the post production. A 'pure' Muvizu film would always have the logo displayed in the same place, so could that be the limiter, the defining factor to say that a film counts as being less processed and therefore more of a pure Muvizu creation? I try to avoid post production if I can, but there's just no way to properly edit a (complex) scene in the program, and the animated objects and effects are not here just yet.


Muvizu is a great tool to generate characters and actions, but until it can do proper editing, FX and multichannel sound mixing you'll always need more programs to support it. Personally, I think the Devs should just stick to improving what Muvizu does best, and accept that 3rd party software will always be necessary (for the more complex stuff anyway).


One last thing - did Mysto's 'Adventures Inc' have any post production on it? It looked entirely Muvizu generated to me. Even without After Effects and the like, you can make something really good. The case for the prosecution rests.
2010/10/29 0:03:42
General protection fault! Another odd thing - I've just discovered that if you load a set that gives you a GPF, then restarting Muvizu, and loading a different (working) set, it then allows you to load the first set sucessfully. Don't know if that works absolutely every time, but it's worth a go.
2010/10/23 16:40:05
General protection fault! Odd thing - had the same GPF, which stopped the set file loading. Was going to send it to you (Muvizu) but it was 8 meg and I couldn't be bothered. Before I deleted it, I tried loading it again to get the exact code off the error message, and the damn thing loaded okay! No idea why, but I noticed that more of my characters had sunk through the street than usual. Normally, I've had to review each set I've loaded to lift (some of) the characters back up onto the pavement as their feet always sink down to the ground plane - not a big problem. On this new set, however, one of my characters was lying on his back (at the end of the 'Heartbroken' animation which I was using for him) and had sunk down to the ground plane. Why he was at that part of the animation I don't know, normally he would be standing in his inital state, but it seems an odd coincidence that he, for the first time, is out of place and sunk down. It has only happened (as far as I know) on this occasion on this (buggy) set. Hope this is of some help to you and Mozart there.
2010/10/20 15:26:07
Military rank signs Hey dude. Your insignia and shoulder add ons are fixed by the program (currently anyway). Never had an issue with anything becoming upside-down, so can't help you there.

You can change a figure's chest by going to the characters Decals page, and loading up a picture of what you want on his chest or back. Not ideal, but you will be able put medals on his chest.
2010/10/15 19:26:42
Character won't warm up Yup, same problem, and reloading didn't seem to help either. I've since discovered none of the Idle fight moves seem to work when recorded, only when previewed.
2010/10/13 19:26:28
Favourite ever cartoon? Dangermouse!!! How could I forget the little fella, and how could I have forgotten Penfold?! One of the best theme tunes ever, too.

@GlasgowJim I had completely forgotten about those toons until I read your post. Good memory!
edited by ziggy72 on 10/13/2010
2010/10/12 21:57:41
Favourite ever cartoon? Anything made by Tex Avery, but particularly Droopy. Also the Tom & Jerry cartoons made before the mid sixties - wonderfully gratuitous violence back then, when you could slam a hot iron into a cat's face, or drop an anvil on it's head, drug him, shoot him, stab him...ahh, the good old days! Back then cartoons were made to be shown in cinemas, for a mixed adult/kid audience. Not like now, with all this politically correct junk...<moan cuss mutter mumble>

Having said that, the Fairly Odd Parents impressed me. And are we not counting the Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, etc? Are we just talking kids cartoons here, TV stuff? GlasgowJim, it's your topic, any guidelines?
2010/10/10 23:18:20
Animation Not Triggering when Recording I've tried cutting and pasting the character, loading and reloading, moving, clearing, etc, but I have a persistant problem. Fat Man character, fight stance (or any stance for that matter), Switch Stance animation. I can trigger the animation (and see it) when in Prepare mode and Direct Mode, but when I hit record and do it 'live', nothing happens. On the timeline, the events are exactly where they should be, marked as Idle time. Switch Stance is classed as an Idle animation, so that makes sense, but why doesn't he move when I record or playback the recording? The other animations all seem fine when I record, just not this one. A bug for the Fat Man maybe?
2010/10/10 23:04:59
Animation trail showing up after deleting timeline I'm having the same trouble - even after hitting the reset all tracks button, the trail is still there. Not that the character necessarily follows the trail anyway...and why do they sometimes walk, stop, walk, stop, etc? I've tried different mouse speeds and techniques, but I just cant get any consistency out of the buggers when I want them to just walk in a straight line for a bit.
2010/10/7 20:17:49
What actions would Muvizuers like to have? (pulling soapbox over a bit)
Well said Mysto! A blunderbus in the face can be comedy or tragedy, it's all about context and intent.

(shoves soapbox back where it was)
2010/10/7 19:41:39
What actions would Muvizuers like to have? I agree with all above - subtlety and more control over the existing animations would probably allow most actions you could think of, rather than just adding more and more preset animations. One thing I don't agree with is Kaynine's point about guns. Slapstick guns should be in there, absolutely, but so should guns used normally. I'm struggling to think of any of my favourite films that don't include guns or weapons...2001 is about the only one that really springs to mind. Point is, I don't think you cant ignore such a fundamental part of modern storytelling - this is a sad reflection on our society for sure, but that's just the way it is. This is about an animation program, not morality. The creator must have freedom to express their stories how they want to, good or bad, without restrictions.

And if we don't have guns, then what about bows and arrows? Swords? Light sabres? Hammers? Weaponry and stories are almost always interlinked, and I believe the Dev team should include them properly. We have a Military set without guns - what's the point? And the Western set? No chance of a High Noon style shootout there. And the SciFi set? We need our ray guns, man. Damn, just remembered - in 2001 the apemen use bones as weapons, and remember that famous jump cut to the future spaceship? The ship is a military satellite - a giant space cannon, essentially. See what I mean?!

Anyway, please, give us weapons and the actions to go with them.
En Garde! Gavel Gun Darth Lightsabers poke
2010/10/6 21:28:46
Sit without Chair or have Invisibility? inlimbo wrote:
How do I sit a character without a chair around (as if it were invisible)? Similarly, if that can't be done - can objects be hidden or made invisible?


If you were to create a transparent png image, then put in on a backdrop, you would have an invisible object that would still be there to interact with. Well, I say that, hang on...

Yep, that works. Set it to be able to be stood on, and it's a solid invisible wall. You could do it to a ground plane too, and build an invisible stage. Levitating characters? I'm sure there's some use in having invisible stuff. Only one problem though - you have to use the Scene Window to find the bloody things...
2010/10/6 21:12:22
What sets would you like to see? Just had a thought - medieval sets. I'm talking drawbridge, portcullis, stone walls and steps, wall torches, gothic windows and arches, agricultural stuff - you know, they whole renaissance bit. Of course, you would also need the costumes to go with it, and armour...especially armour - and if you've got armour, then a lance and a horse would seem necessary...
2010/10/5 19:54:21
Let's hear it for the Muvizu team We're Not Worthy! worship
2010/10/1 20:33:37
What codec do you use and why? Cinepak - although I seem to alone in using it! The files it creates are bleedin' huge, but high quality, and work natively in Adobe Premiere (which I use to edit everything - love that program).
2010/10/1 20:21:36
What sets would you like to see? @ Emily - Thanks for the reply - I have been using png files to get transparencies for other bits, but I hadn't considered builing a fake wall...I'll keep it in mind for the future!
Now, hate to be picky, but there's no reflections in the windows, they are just void spaces - what I'd really like is a glass object with an opacity setting, like the glasses you get for the characters, so that you can 'see' the glass, if you get what I mean. A future build perhaps?

Oh, and thanks for the hospital set - very nice, and has just given me an idea for a future animation...Doctor Benway will live again!
(if you're not into William Burroughs, that will mean nothing to ya - sorry!) Big Grin
2010/9/30 21:48:54
Option needed in preferences to remap keys... WASD - all gamers know these keys are for forward/back and sidestep - but not in Muvizu, for some reason. Y4ArtU is dead right here. I had to program my Saitek GM2 to be able to restore WASD, but it would be easier if we could just assign the keys ourselves. Please!
2010/9/30 21:43:34
What sets would you like to see? Like toonarama said, buildings. Need more variety of normal city-style buildings - pubs, clubs, banks, shops, etc. Mundane stuff really, but great to add to the realism of a scene. What I'd really like to see though is windows - proper, see-through numbers so you can see what's inside. I've just had to construct a takeaway restuarant by making it out of big bricks to fake a window. It's taken a looooong time to do!
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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.