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glasgowjim - all messages by user

2010/8/8 17:13:25
(new) video joiner not working? Hi TheCursedJester,

Our Tutorials are a little out of date, as we have recently updated the interface - we are looking to do some new guides once all of the changes are done.

The clothing colour can now be edited in the Appearance section - there is a colour picker on the bottom right of the screen when you select an item of clothing, such as the top or bottoms.

Sorry for any confusion, and if you have any other problems just let us know.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/8 17:06:27
no characters or objects appear Hi Pontaduro,

I am just checking something for you - I will hopefully be able to help you out shortly.

-Jim.
2010/8/8 16:13:54
32 or 64 Thanks Mark, I appreciate it.

I think you can configure Windows update to do Direct X, but I am not 100% sure - hope you enjoy using Muvizu, and if you have any other problems or suggestions please let us know.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/8 13:54:19
How to do soud propally Hi Coolchu7,

If you go to the Prepare Menu there are options for Audio and Dialogue - you can use those menus to import your own audio or select which of the in-built sound effects you wish to use.

In order to record them onto the movie you need to go to the Direct Menu, where there are also options for Audio and Dialogue. That brings up the directing mode for the Sound Effects or Dialogue, depending on which menu you have went to. You can then add sound effects or choose which characters are speaking in a similar way to selecting animations.

So, Audio is for Sound Effects and Background sounds Dialogue is for speech.

If you go to
there is a tutorial for adding sound to your movie, which can explain better than a forum post .

Take care, and thanks for trying Muvizu,
-Jim.
2010/8/8 13:47:07
32 or 64 Hi again,

Sorry about the delay in replying - I am at home and my internet connection is a little temperamental.

I didn't realise that the downloads had worked and that the crash/hang occured when Muvizu itself was launching.

From what I can see there is no obvious reason for Muvizu not working - you actually have a very similar machine to a few people in the office. From what has been said in other posts updating your DirectX runtime can fix startup problems - in fact there was an update released on Friday at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3

It says it's just an update for 9.0c but it will update DX10 and DX11 systems - as the Direct X 8,9,10 and 11 files are all separate.

If that doesn't work please let me know.

Take care,
-Jim
2010/8/8 11:49:17
32 or 64 Hi Clive/Mark,

We run it on Windows 7 64 bit every day and have had no extra issues with the software. There are obviously some wrinkles in the programme as it is still a beta version but there are none that are specific to a 64-Bit operating system.

Mark - did you create a thread with the error then delete it? I thought I had seen a thread where you said that the crash occurred when you were downloading the remote manifest? If so this may be fixed by running Muvizu in Administrator mode - it needs to download a cache to your hard drive and it needs to be started by an administrator to do so.

Edit- never mind, it was TCC-Hellgat's thread. Could you try running Muvizu as an administrator anyway please?

Take care, and if you have any other questions please ask.
-Jim.
edited by glasgowjim on 8/8/2010
2010/8/8 11:42:58
Help with program not loading up? Hi TCC-Hellgate,

You posted your reply just as I was looking into it , but if you have any other problems just ask.

Enjoy using Muvizu,
-Jim.
2010/8/7 17:06:24
tweeks and suggestions No problem John - was checking the site anyway, and cheers for clearing that up.

I will find out if it's in the pipeline for you.

-Jim
edited by glasgowjim on 8/7/2010
edited by glasgowjim on 8/7/2010
2010/8/7 16:10:24
Another Forum Suggestion Hi Kilted Ninja,

I like the idea of sharing .sets - I am not in the office today so I can't find out if it's been suggested before or if it's planned but I will do so on Monday.

-Jim.
2010/8/7 16:06:22
tweeks and suggestions Hi John,

I am not in the office today - but I will answer what I can .

1. Flip texture option. Helpful for making a mirror using a camera as a texture.

This is being worked on at the moment - it will be pretty handy when it's done.

2. Illuminate on all textures and on skybox textures.
Example ( If I need low enviroment brightness but nice bright sky.)

I will find out if it's been suggested before and if it's being worked on.

3. Being able to apply a texture to all simple blocks

We want this to happen - but it's not being worked on at the moment. (I would love the ability to apply textures to most objects)

A little bit more ambitious suggestions

4. option too slice dialogue track to make adjustment tweeks to timing

This has been suggested recently- and we liked the idea - but it's not being worked on at the moment.

5. A little bit of a trickier tweek. Scale option to head bone.
Example ( give a character a peanut head or fat head, ofcource hats, eyes, nose, etc.. need too scale aswell with the head. )

Noses, ears and other attachments are having a scale option worked on - I do not know if the ability to do the same with the actual model is being looked at as well, but I will find out.

6. Alpha maps on importing textures so transparent textures is possible

Transparent textures can be used at the minute - as long as you save it as a .png (if I have got the wrong end of the stick let me know)

7. Keyable props

Animatable Objects and Properties are being worked on at the moment.

8. Green screen option on selected camera.
Example ( camera displays the selected picture or video full screen no matter where the camera is moved so the charater can be put in position on top )

This would be similar to the current image overlay system, except that characters would be in front of any video or image - again I do not know if it's planned but I will find out.

Thanks for the suggestions, if you have any more or if I have interpreted any of them incorrectly let me know.
-Jim
edited by glasgowjim on 8/7/2010
2010/8/7 15:54:32
Features requests Hi lionelb8,

I can't answer all of your suggestions as I am not in the office today (so I can't poke the artists and programmers in the head until the answer your questions), but I will answer what I can;

1. Moving objects and angles with the three mouse click combination is a strain. Perhaps some experimention with other mechanisms could be investigated. Perhaps also an option to increase the movement sweep would help, so that there are less mouse movement with more distance covered - whe using left/right pan or in/out (zoom).

We are looking at alternative movement controls at the moment, but it is at an early stage.

2. The green timeline is too narrow (in director & timeline editing). Since this is the main point of interaction with scolling the timeline it should be wider so it's more easily selected

I will pass this suggestion on

3. There should be two types of slow motion:
3.1 In director mode there should be a slow motion recorder. This will allow more precision when adding sound effects and co-ordinating interaction
This feature could be implemented with a slider for 1x (normal) 2x 4x 6x slower. This will make action scenes much more realistic
3.4 A special slow/fast-motion option should be added to Prepare which is used in combination with any existing action, whereby the movement of the action is slowed/speeded up.

I will pass this suggestion on

4. The timeline items should be adjusted with little arrows at the end of each block, instead of having to edit it in a dialog.

You can drag timeline objects into free space to change the start time - some things (like animations) cannot have their duration changed, but the things that can (like camera cuts) already have the arrows at the start and end.

5. Need an indicator in the audio director which indicates where there is sound on that timeline. When I scoll through the timeline I don't just want to see green, but a block like on the timeline menu (where all the timelines are shown together)

This has been suggested in the past - it's something that we want to do but the devs aren't working on it at the moment.

6. In the timeline editor (the main one, where all items are shown together) it might be helpful to be able to put one specific timeline from a different charater in view at the same time as the main charater being edited. This might help with syncing interaction

6.1 If two or more characters timelines are visible, for specific action, e.g. audio, allow me to select a particular block (from each characters timeline) and then have the last one selected be the master timeline, when click sync. Provide a dialog with options to (a) sync start -align to left (b) sync end - align to right (c) - same length. Options A & B are radio and C is checkbox, so C can be combined with A/B.

Might as well answer these together - the devs have looked at having more than 1 timeline on screen at once and it destroyed performance. It is something that may come in the future, but it will require a complete rework of the User Interface.

7. Moving the sequence of actions/audio around in terms of position on the timeline would be helpful.

Are you meaning swappping their positions around like Animation 1.....Animation 2.......Animation 3 changes to Animation 2.....Animation 3.....Animation 1? If so that sounds like a good idea, I will pass this suggestion on

8. Screen real-estate could freed up if the forms had an option to transparent or provided a minimal look, e.g. just icons with limited text.

I will pass this suggestion on

9. Character clothes range would be great

This is being worked on at the moment - any new clothing needs to be compatible with the existing animations so it needs a lot of testing.

10. Since this product is for kids, perhaps the swearing in the tutorial 12 could be beeped out - tx. A post production edit.

Are you referring to the use of the words "Christ" and "God" in the dialogue? I will pass on the suggestion when I get back to the office.

11. The REC indicator flipping between camera is ok, but it would be helpful to have a master camera to see the scene on the timeline.

I think this has been suggested before, it is something that is being considered but isn't being worked on at the moment.

Feel free to give any more suggestions or feedback - it's all appreciated.
Thanks,
-Jim
edited by glasgowjim on 8/9/2010
2010/8/7 15:08:15
First impressions and a few hopes Hi Kaynine, thanks for trying Muvizu out.

I am glad you like the stylised cartoon style -personally I feel that it makes more sense as the more realistic you try to make something the less real it seems due to the uncanny valley effect (which I assume is the reason that Pixar humans are still cartoonish despite them having the technology to have very, very realistic humans)

We are looking at subtitles for the Tutorials, but unfortunately the YouTube subtitle technology doesn't recognise Scottish accents so they will need to be done manually.

Being able to download the Tutorials does make sense - I will pass on the suggestion.

The character editing is being expanded upon, and the devs are working on importing Objects - .ase format first with the aim of adding .fbx and COLLADA at a later date. They may add character model and attachment importing later, but they are only working on Objects at the moment.

Any feedback and suggestions are welcome, and if you have any trouble just post in one of the help sections - we try to answer any tech problems as quickly as we can.

-Jim.
2010/8/7 14:52:53
Total Newbie Thanks for trying Muvizu - I will be keeping an eye on the forums this weekend so if you run into any snags just post a message in one of the help sections and I will help you out if I can.

Take care,
Jim.
2010/8/7 14:41:56
Common Problems Thought I would create a thread with some of the more common problems that people experience, due to the number of new users in the last few days:

1. Why do I have no Objects or Characters when I launch Muvizu?

The programme needs to connect to the internet the first time that you launch the application in order to build a list of Objects and Characters - if your PC is not connected to the internet or Muvizu is being blocked by a firewall then it will not be able to build a list of characters.

Allowing Muvizu through your firewall:

The programmes Muvizu.exe and Launcher.exe need to be added to the list of allowed programmes. They can be found in C:\Program Files\Muvizu\Binaries or C:\Program Files (x86)\Muvizu\Binaries if you have a 64-bit operating system.

While allowing Muvizu through your firewall has fixed this issue for most people some users have been unable to get Muvizu to connect to the internet at all, meaning Muvizu cannot build the list of characters. We are investigating this issue but you should be able to manually create the required files by downloading these fixes:

Windows 7 and Vista:

http://www.filefront.com/17189470/Muvizu Cache - Vista and 7.exe

Windows XP

http://www.filefront.com/17189468/Muvizu Cache - XP.exe

You are still able to use the vast majority of features when running Muvizu offline - although you will have to upload any videos you make through the web site as you will not be able to upload them through the application.


2. Errors beginning with "Vertex element type 5 not supported", "This game requires at least Shader Model 2.0" or "Device does not support 1x 32 FP render target format."

Unfortunately this means that your graphics card doesn't meet the minimum specifications for running Muvizu - it is based on the Unreal 3 engine which is pretty resource intensive. I have posted a guide on how you MAY be able to get Muvizu working with one of these graphics cards at http://www.muvizu.com/Forum/topic269-error-msg--first-time-running.aspx#post422 but it is not guaranteed to work, and obviously you use any 3rd party software at your own risk.

3. Muvizu runs very slowly or gets an out-of memory error (general performance issues)

Muvizu is a very resource-intensive application so if you are running a lot of background programmes at the same time you may suffer a drop in performance, so I would recommend closing all unnecessary programmes while running Muvizu - especially on older PCs.

If you have Windows 7 or Vista closing Aero and the Side Bar can also increase performance:

Close Side Bar:
The following tutorial is pretty easy to follow:
http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutorial/How-to-close-or-exit-Sidebar-in-Windows-Vista-%7BTutorial-for-beginners%7D/27223

Disable Windows Aero:
This is also a pretty decent tutorial:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-aero-on-windows-vista/

Updating your Graphics card drivers to the latest version can also increase performance:

You can get the latest NVIDIA drivers from:
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

And the latest ATI drivers from:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

You can also lower the resolution that Muvizu is running at by going to the "Prefs" menu in Muvizu - generally the lower the resolution the faster Muvizu will run.

You can also disable lighting by pressing F2, but you will probably want to turn it back on using F3 when you are dealing with your lights or making any recordings.

4. How do I upload videos?

In order to upload videos to the site you need a Muvizu account and a YouTube account. You can get a Muvizu account by clicking Join Muvizu on the Home Page or by clicking Register after clicking Log In on the Muvizu menu bar. You can get a YouTube account by going to their home page and clicking on Register on the top.

You can link the two accounts together in the "Edit Profile" section of the web site, if you have not linked them when you try to upload a video you can do so at that point.

Once you have a YouTube and Muvizu account you can upload a video through the application (Video>Upload Video to YouTube) or through the Web Site by going to People > My Profile > Upload Video.

5. I uploaded a video and it hasn't appeared on the web site

This can be due to three things:
1. If you upload a video directly to YouTube it doesn't appear on this site
2. If the video has copyrighted music on it YouTube will automatically turn syndication off and as such it cannot be shown on other websites
3. All videos on the Muvizu site are moderated, which is only done during office hours (Mon-Fri 9:30 - 5:30 British time) so if you upload a video outside of these hours it may be a day or two before it's on the site.

6. How do I add subtitles or special effects?

There are some post-processing effects available in the application which can be added by editing cameras, these include: Black & White, CCTV, Sepia, Pixelation, Old Film, Underwater, Camera Shake, Colour Tint and Negative. If you wish to add other effects you will need to use an editing programme such as VirtualDub or After Efffects.

7. Muvizu crashes on first launch

On some machines updating your Direct X Runtime to the latest version can solve launch problems - the update can be found at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3

8. There are no start menu shortcuts for Muvizu

Programmes installed on a Windows 7 machine don't always get shortcuts generated for them automatically. You can create your own Desktop shortcut for Muvizu by doing the following:

Go to C:\Program Files\Muvizu\Binaries or C:\Program Files(x86)\Muvizu\Binaries if it's the 64-Bit version of Windows
Right-Click on Launcher.exe
Left-Click on Copy
Go to the Desktop
Right-Click on the Desktop
Left-Click on Paste Shortcut

9. I can't download Muvizu

If you have trouble downloading Muvizu there are a few external mirrors that you can download the installer from:

Filefront
Gamershell
FilePlanet
CNET

10. Muvizu crashes when I click on "Make Movie" on the menu bar

There have been some compatibility issues with the CineForm HD codec included with Sony Vegas 7. We are looking into the issue but you can either uninstall Sony Vegas 7 or download CineForm NeoPlayer 5 media player, which will update the codec and will allow you to keep using Vegas 7.

NeoPlayer URL: http://estore.cineform.com/neoplayer.aspx

Please remember that any 3rd party software is used at your own risk.

Thanks,
-Jim.
edited by glasgowjim on 8/26/2010
2010/8/7 14:02:26
Keeps running out of memory Hi Lionelb8,

Could you please give me a screenshot or tell me the exact message that comes up when you try to load one of the pre-made sets? Just in case it's a different problem that can be fixed.

Sorry you are having trouble,
-Jim
2010/8/7 13:50:18
Start up Error Hi Kaisar1,

Sorry you are having trouble with Muvizu - hopefully we can get to the bottom of it and get you up and running.

There are a few things that I would like you to please try (please try running Muvizu after each step):
1. The Intel Graphics adapter that you have sometimes has trouble with the Unreal 3 engine that Muvizu is built upon so could you please update the drivers?

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Graphics&ProductLine=Laptop+graphics+controllers&ProductProduct=Mobile+Intel%C2%AE+4+Series+Express+Chipset+Family

2. Could you please update the .net framework to the latest version?

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5b2c0358-915b-4eb5-9b1d-10e506da9d0f&displaylang=en

3. Could you update DirectX to the latest version?

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en

If none of these work could you please try uninstalling Muvizu and reinstalling it?

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/7 13:29:23
Can't start Muvizu Hi Bealel,

Unfortunately that error indicates that you have a graphics card that doesn't meet the minimum specifications for Muvizu. The minimum specifications for a graphics card are the Nvidia 7800 GTX or ATI 1300.

If you could look at this thread: http://www.muvizu.com/Forum/topic269-error-msg--first-time-running.aspx#post422 I have put a guide up that MAY be able to help you run Muvizu with a graphics card that doesn't meed the minimum specifications.

If you have a card that is equal to or higher than the minimum specifications please let us know so that we can look into it.

Thanks,
-Jim.
2010/8/7 12:38:33
no characters or objects appear mrjelly wrote:
I've just installed the software and tried to create a scene. The background etc is fine but the two things I can't create are the characters or objects. They don't appear when the window comes up. what can I do?


Hi Mr Jelly,

The first time that you run Muvizu it needs access to the internet in order to build a list of all the objects and characters, so if it is bein blocked by a firewall or you do not have that PC connected to the internet it won't be able to create a list of characters.

If the PC is connected to the internet and Muvizu isn't being blocked by a firewall we will need to investigate this further.

Thanks for trying Muvizu,
-Jim
2010/8/6 14:24:41
Competition rules re soundtrack Hi Mick,

Fingers crossed that it's good news for you!

Good luck,
-Jim.
2010/8/6 11:31:06
Competition rules re soundtrack Hi again Toonarama,

I have just been informed that, due to popular demand, the rules of the competition are being revised to allow post-production.

There will be a news update put on the site later on detailing the specific changes.

Cheers,
-Jim.
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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.