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Home ? How Do I ...? ? Spinning propellers?

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07/01/2016 23:05:46

braj
braj
Posts: 286 		I am thinking an animated 2d image would work, but I don't know how to get animations with transparencies into Muvizu. Is there a way? Is a certain color a transparency mask or anything, or a file type handles this? What would be really useful is a circular animation setting, right now it scrolls but it would be great if it spun, then a simple PNG would work.

I was able to get it working somewhat by using the Direct Object Properties with keyframes, changing the angle through 4 frames, then going back to the first and repeating the cycle. It would be cool in this sort of instance to have a cycle function so you just set up what you want to cycle through and animation once.
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08/01/2016 01:40:38

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		Not easy, but I think this is how you'd do it :

http://www.muvizu.com/Forum/topic1281-transparent-videos-as-textures-in-muvizu.aspx
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08/01/2016 04:09:06

braj
braj
Posts: 286 		Ah, thanks. I've got it working, pretty easy actually. My 2D animation app takes care of the initial alpha when it renders to TARGA sequence, then VirtualDub nicely wrapped it into an AVI. Perfect, thanks!

EDIT: that's not actually correct, uncompressed AVI straight from Anime Studio Pro did the job. I actually couldn't get VirtualDub to do the trick with the image sequences I tried.
edited by braj on 08/01/2016
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08/01/2016 05:14:21

braj
braj
Posts: 286 		Well, I was able to get it looking OK quickly I think, it works ok but to really work, I need to group it but then I can't animate the movement of the copter. I guess I can put it up on an invisible object and film it that way, moving the camera instead of the copter. The animation can definitely be made much much better too, this is just a test, but it is another technical challenge resolved! Oh, and the bird was my initial test of the transparency. I'm planning on making better birds that hopefully can fit Muvizu's style and then have a couple fly by here and there where you wouldn't notice it was 2d.


edited by braj on 08/01/2016
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08/01/2016 07:21:31

MrDrWho13Muvizu mogulExperimental user
MrDrWho13
Posts: 2220 		Yep, using either a greenscreen or making use of layers and moving the camera is probably the easiest thing. But if you're running a recent Muvizu version, you might be able to keyframe movement of each object in sync:

(This object is made in 3 parts, but using lineal keyframes allows me to move them to appear as one object)

The propellers do look good, and I'm sure there was a tutorial for Ziggy's method somewhere.

Ah, it was woztoons who initially did this:
http://www.muvizu.com/forum/topic2054-how-do-i-.aspx?p=f#post11680
(I can't find a tutorial though.)
edited by MrDrWho13 on 08/01/2016
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08/01/2016 08:43:24

WozToonsExperimental user
WozToons
Posts: 494 		MrDrWho13 wrote:
Ah, it was woztoons who initially did this:
http://www.muvizu.com/forum/topic2054-how-do-i-.aspx?p=f#post11680
(I can't find a tutorial though.)
edited by MrDrWho13 on 08/01/2016


It's in the post above my video in that thread.
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08/01/2016 08:45:19

MrDrWho13Muvizu mogulExperimental user
MrDrWho13
Posts: 2220 		WozToons wrote:
MrDrWho13 wrote:
Ah, it was woztoons who initially did this:
http://www.muvizu.com/forum/topic2054-how-do-i-.aspx?p=f#post11680
(I can't find a tutorial though.)
edited by MrDrWho13 on 08/01/2016


It's in the post above my video in that thread.

Oops, I thought that was what Ziggy posted here, thanks for pointing that out.
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08/01/2016 15:15:31

PatMarrNCMuvizu mogul
PatMarrNC
Posts: 1738 		Braj,
that propeller looks great....
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08/01/2016 16:18:32

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		Ha! Found it (thanks MrDrWho13) - I actually went looking for this originally, in answer to braj, posted by jamie, but it doesn't show up on a search in here anymore (I think) :



I added a link to it on the Wiki.
edited by ziggy72 on 08/01/2016
edited by ziggy72 on 08/01/2016
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08/01/2016 19:27:10

braj
braj
Posts: 286 		Yeah, thankfully I don't need to use Photoshop for this. It would be great though if Muvizu allowed you to take screenshots of layers within itself as transparency supporting PNGs so we could 'sample' Muvizu images without having to trim away the surrounding bits. No matter how well this is done, it would be easier, faster and better quality by leaving out any backgrounds to start.
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08/01/2016 19:30:16

MrDrWho13Muvizu mogulExperimental user
MrDrWho13
Posts: 2220 		braj wrote:
Yeah, thankfully I don't need to use Photoshop for this. It would be great though if Muvizu allowed you to take screenshots of layers within itself as transparency supporting PNGs so we could 'sample' Muvizu images without having to trim away the surrounding bits. No matter how well this is done, it would be easier, faster and better quality by leaving out any backgrounds to start.

You could render a very short clip as a png image sequence, only selecting the required layers which should give it a transparent background.
Alternatively, Muvizu has a screenshot function built in. Press f11 to take it, and it's in C:\Program Files\Muvizu Play\MuvizuGame\Screenshots\PC
edited by MrDrWho13 on 08/01/2016
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08/01/2016 20:12:38

braj
braj
Posts: 286 		MrDrWho13 wrote:

You could render a very short clip as a png image sequence, only selecting the required layers which should give it a transparent background.


Yeah, that does give the best results, a bit of work though either way, it would be nicest if the engine could do this natively, like a simple menu item, right-click an object, select 'capture object view as 2d' and tada, a new image sans background is added to the library, ready to be employed. But that sounds like a bunch of work for probably little benefit to most users.

(oh, and setting the movie duration to minimum (.8 seconds) results in a very manageable 2 frame output. Nice.)
edited by braj on 08/01/2016
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