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31/05/2011 12:07:15

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257 		Hi folks

I've been pottering around with the new Muvizu (the 64 bit beasty)

Very Nice

I love the wobbly mode. Hats of to the animators on that one.
The swaying foliage is a bit odd looking though, it reminds me of the sit-on toys you see in kids play parks. you know the ones where the child sits on a seat which is supported by a spring (see below)


I aint seen any plants or grass that move around like that.


I have also experienced the same problems with the brightness of sets with the new version (see below)


I've got to adjust the brightness of all lights and environments on all sets which is a bit of a pain.

Also all my favourites have disappeared for characters etc which is probably due to the fact that i installed the new version in a different location from the old one. (something to keep i mind if you are thinking of doing the same.)

Great to see that animation options have been added to the brightness and colour of the environment. Maybe at some point when we animate lights/environments we could blend between colours over time rather than just 'click' blue, 'click' orange' etc

Texture on abstract objects will really make things easier, but I would have loved to see scaleable textures (uniform and non uniform) for backdrops.

All in, it's good to see new stuff added for us to play around with considering it is mainly an update to allow other updates.


Can't wait to see what the new UI brings to the party
All eyes on Neil now then eh?.....

Cheers

D


PS: Any chance of my ancient request for a walking on the spot mode making it into the next version?
edited by Dreeko on 31/05/2011
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31/05/2011 12:38:45

DanimalMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Danimal
Posts: 477 		Dreeko wrote:
PS: Any chance of my ancient request for a walking on the spot mode making it into the next version?

There are two new actions in the update called "walk on the spot" and "run on the spot" under Themes -->Miscellaneous. I think this would do what you wanted as you could then have them in front of a moving background, yes?
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31/05/2011 13:00:13

CrazyDaveMuvizu staff
CrazyDave
Posts: 118 		Hi Dreeko,

With regards the differences in the lighting engine... The code within the lighting engine has changed subtly with the Engine upgrade, and it turns out that subtle changes in the lighting engine can have un-subtle effects on the lighting of an entire scene. I was aware of this and tried to calibrate the lights in such a way that in general, lighting on most scenes is roughly the same as the previous version.

It was impossible to get this exactly right however and so a certain amount of tweaking will be necessary when loading old sets in order to get it "just right". It's the same for colour/contrast/brightness on camera post-process effects: as the calculation method has changed (and improved!) it introduces backward-compatibility issues that can be unfeasible to fix.

Cheers, Dave.
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31/05/2011 14:38:41

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257 		Danimal wrote:
Dreeko wrote:
PS: Any chance of my ancient request for a walking on the spot mode making it into the next version?

There are two new actions in the update called "walk on the spot" and "run on the spot" under Themes -->Miscellaneous. I think this would do what you wanted as you could then have them in front of a moving background, yes?


Oooo never noticed I'll need to check it out later!
Thanks for pointing it out!

D
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31/05/2011 14:59:58

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257 		CrazyDave wrote:
Hi Dreeko,

With regards the differences in the lighting engine... The code within the lighting engine has changed subtly with the Engine upgrade, and it turns out that subtle changes in the lighting engine can have un-subtle effects on the lighting of an entire scene. I was aware of this and tried to calibrate the lights in such a way that in general, lighting on most scenes is roughly the same as the previous version.

It was impossible to get this exactly right however and so a certain amount of tweaking will be necessary when loading old sets in order to get it "just right". It's the same for colour/contrast/brightness on camera post-process effects: as the calculation method has changed (and improved!) it introduces backward-compatibility issues that can be unfeasible to fix.

Cheers, Dave.


No probs Dave
It's all for the greater good I'm sure!
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31/05/2011 15:01:20

CrazyDaveMuvizu staff
CrazyDave
Posts: 118 		Dreeko wrote:

No probs Dave
It's all for the greater good I'm sure!



Yes it is! :-)
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31/05/2011 15:52:33

Marco_D
Marco_D
Posts: 582 		Hey guys,

If you are having problems with the brightness, one of the things you can do is use the scene manager window to turn down the brightness of all the lights.
Of course if you have specific settings on one of the lights, this won't help much.

Press Ctrl+W and select the lights tab, select all the actors on that tab and click the edit button.
This way you will be able to use the brightness slider for all the lights.

I hope this helps a bit.

Cheers,
Marco
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31/05/2011 16:27:01

ukBertyMuvizu mogulExperimental user
ukBerty
Posts: 975 		Whilst we're talking lighting......

It appears that the "individual shadow" button now has virtually no effect - this is a real shame as scenes set in daylight are now looking a bit bland.

Let me know if I need to give an example movie as I'm sure it's not right.

Also, has anyone else had speed issues with the 64bit version - I've had to drop back to the new 32 bit version to get anything done ! Again do the devs want some .set files to have a look ?

Cheers

Berty
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31/05/2011 16:36:48

CrazyDaveMuvizu staff
CrazyDave
Posts: 118 		ukBerty wrote:
Whilst we're talking lighting......

It appears that the "individual shadow" button now has virtually no effect - this is a real shame as scenes set in daylight are now looking a bit bland.

Berty



I'm not sure what you mean here. If you have one object and two lights then click "individual shadow" for both lights then it casts two separate shadows (like a football player under floodlights). With this option un-ticked for both lights, the shadows are combined into a single shadow (this helps a LOT with performance on sets with large numbers of lights and also stops the scene getting cluttered with many overlapping shadows).

Previously, the "individual shadow" option had an unwanted side-effect: the individual shadows appeared darker and somehow "granier" then the non-individual ones. This was a bug and has now been fixed: the shadows now look similar to each other in terms of colour and quality. This is the desired behaviour and any accidentally useful behaviour seen previously will be gone.

I hope this explains the situation from my end, but I'd be interested to know what it was about the old individual shadows that was useful when constructing your lighting (e.g you mention scenes set in daylight). It might be possible to re-introduce the desired behaviour as an extension to the current set up.


Cheers, David.
edited by CrazyDave on 31/05/2011
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31/05/2011 17:03:07

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257 		just checked out the walking/running on the spot option for character actions. It's good to have but I would really like it to be a mode that simply stops a character from moving physicaly forward but still has the character acting as if he is moving (as if on a treadmill).

when we animate a character's actions and have them moving forward they still perform the actions as they travel. I still want to be able to do this but have the little guys moving on the spot when required.

cheers

D
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31/05/2011 17:49:32

ukBertyMuvizu mogulExperimental user
ukBerty
Posts: 975 		Dave,

Thanks for coming back to me. The individual shadow used to give you a really dark shadow which you could use in bright sunlight scenes.

Here's the scene I'm just redoing at the moment. There is a single light a long way away with individual shadow turned on, to represent the sun.

http://www.imagebam.com/image/4c7c39134635141

(I have changed the background, sky and codec in between old and new)

See the old one on the left - notice the car's shadow in particular. With the new version although the shadow is better defined it is much weaker and consequently does not look as good.

Cheers

Berty
edited by ukBerty on 31/05/2011
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31/05/2011 17:55:18

DanimalMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Danimal
Posts: 477 		Dreeko wrote:
when we animate a character's actions and have them moving forward they still perform the actions as they travel.


I get it now, yes, you're stuck with the action of walking, nothing else for the arms to do. It's funny too because when I first saw the actions I thought "just what Dreeko wanted! Except no dragon!" I guess it wasn't.

As for the Individual Shadows, I have never used them before because they were too bold and distracting. I did try it just this morning though and noticed that the perspecitves seemed off. In other words, no matter where I moved the light or the object the shadow stayed directly below it. Again, not much of a concern for me as I always leave the box unticked, just thought I'd mention it.
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31/05/2011 17:57:30

CrazyDaveMuvizu staff
CrazyDave
Posts: 118 		ukBerty wrote:
Dave,

Thanks for coming back to me. The individual shadow used to give you a really dark shadow which you could use in bright sunlight scenes.

Here's the scene I'm just redoing at the moment. There is a single light a long way away with individual shadow turned on, to represent the sun.

http://www.imagebam.com/image/d32bec134636167

(I have changed the background, sky and codec in between old and new)

See the old one on the left - notice the car's shadow in particular. With the new version although the shadow is better defined it is much weaker and consequently does not look as good.

Cheers

Berty
edited by ukBerty on 31/05/2011



Cool, looks like we may need some kind of adjustable shadow darkness/intensity slider: one that would preferably work on both individual and non-individual shadows in a uniform way. I'll investigate the possibilities...

Thanks for the input :-)

Dave.
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31/05/2011 18:00:25

CrazyDaveMuvizu staff
CrazyDave
Posts: 118 		Danimal wrote:
In other words, no matter where I moved the light or the object the shadow stayed directly below it.


Yeah, the non-individual shadows have always had this problem. It's now fixed internally and I expect it to be in the next release Big Grin

p.s. Setting "individual shadows" on your lights should give more correct shadow shape in the current public release.
edited by CrazyDave on 31/05/2011
edited by CrazyDave on 31/05/2011
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31/05/2011 21:54:41

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257 		CrazyDave wrote:
Cool, looks like we may need some kind of adjustable shadow darkness/intensity slider: one that would preferably work on both individual and non-individual shadows in a uniform way

Yes, yes and yes again!!!
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01/06/2011 01:50:22

DanimalMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Danimal
Posts: 477 		CrazyDave wrote:
p.s. Setting "individual shadows" on your lights should give more correct shadow shape in the current public release.

I just checked this again and it's definitely the reverse: Individual Shadows made the shadow sit in one spot without respect to where the light or object was. Non Individual Shadow works more accurately.

I also agree on the shadow intensity slider. The shadows in the new version are practically undetectible, and it was the excellent use of shadows that made the program always look so great!
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01/06/2011 11:31:34

CrazyDaveMuvizu staff
CrazyDave
Posts: 118 		Danimal wrote:
I just checked this again and it's definitely the reverse: Individual Shadows made the shadow sit in one spot without respect to where the light or object was. Non Individual Shadow works more accurately.



Hi Danimal, I'm having trouble understanding what you mean, but I'm interested to know!

I took screenshots to illustrate what I am trying to describe.

In the non-individual (default) shadow, the shadow is smaller and restricted to an area that is mostly below the object. Interestingly, if the light was below the object then the shadow would still be cast downwards (this is the bug that is now fixed at my end).

The individual shadow however is larger and more spread out. Given the actual positions of light and object in my scene, this is "correct" behaviour.

Please let me know if I'm missing something here.

Cheers, Dave.
edited by CrazyDave on 01/06/2011
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01/06/2011 12:58:23

DanimalMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Danimal
Posts: 477 		Well Dave, my apologies as it looks like I sent you on a wild goose chase. Sure enough, this time I looked closely and indeed the shadow was there and more spread out. It just became so hard to see the only shadow I saw was the one directly beneath the objects from the regular environment lighting.

Logic
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02/06/2011 10:03:36

freakmoomin
freakmoomin
Posts: 272 		yeah i must admit, the shadows being so light is a bit of a problem.....an intensity shadow slider would be great but even just having the shadow darker by default like before is better than the way it is just now.

its pretty hard to get any depth in a scene without good shadows.
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02/06/2011 10:23:29

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257 		freakmoomin wrote:
yeah i must admit, the shadows being so light is a bit of a problem.....an intensity shadow slider would be great but even just having the shadow darker by default like before is better than the way it is just now.

its pretty hard to get any depth in a scene without good shadows.


Agreed. The new version with it's New found smoothness really needs decent shadows to make the most of it
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