Site Search
Join Muvizu

mysto - all messages by user

2012/2/7 21:57:32
Random requests! I'm pretty sure this has been mentioned before but being able to control when the characters blink would be nice. I've spent a fair amount of time re-rendering scenes trying to get a "blink" from a certain character in the right spot.

Being able to "mix and match" the characters movements and emotions would be nice to. For example, taking a movement from the "fight" category and putting a "happy" face to it. Make sense?
2012/2/3 4:48:14
totally stumped by transparent textures help? Since I've started using Muvizu my main focus has been to take what the program is currently capable of doing and try to create the best animations I can with the program all by itself. I guess I'm just a simple animator but I'm quite happy being that. I'll always try to create the best videos I can with Muvizu.

You and a few other Muvizuer's are taking Muvizu to whole new levels and IMHO I think it's great. It's the creative efforts and hard work and research of the Muvizu staff and people like you that are going to make Muvizu something even more special then it is right now.

Keep up the great work Dylly.
edited by mysto on 03/02/2012
2012/2/2 16:37:20
totally stumped by transparent textures help? I'm not an expert on the subject but it would seem to me that there would be a way to do what you are wanting. Look at the helicopter model in Muvizu. The cockpit bubble is transparent while the rest of the model is opaque. Maybe one of the devs can chime in here with some advice?
2012/2/2 1:15:19
The Death of Barry the Roofer with Vertigo I agree. I watched it 3 times and saw something different each time. Really great work toonarama! A LOT of time went into that video and it shows. Well done!
2012/2/1 18:34:38
Censorship by Muvizu ? Just to chime in here, I agree with most of what was not agreed to because of what wasn't said, wait, I mean I don't agree with what wasn't agreed with about, um, I mean I think I agree with...

Got any more coffee Luscan?
2012/1/31 16:08:56
Muvizu - My personal thoughts... Being in sort of a "reflective" mood today I was looking back on my experience with using Muvizu for the past few years and I wanted to share my thoughts with fellow Muvizu users...

I have been creating animation in one form or another ever since I was a wee child. It's something that I've always had a deep passion for. As a child I remember getting up early on Saturday mornings and watching Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Popeye, and all of the other old favorite cartoons and as I sat there watching something kept "stirring" inside of me. As I watched with my childlike awe I thought to myself "This is really neat, I want to do that!"

My first "real" animation was a simple flip-book. I drew a little ball moving around on pieces of paper and when I flipped through the drawings I watched as the little ball seemed to move about all on its own. I was mesmerized watching that little ball move around and I made it myself!

I was 5 years old when I did that...

For the past 30 years or so I've been creating animation in all forms. Flip-books, stop motion animation, hand drawn cels, you name it. When personal computers came along naturally I spent a fair amount of my time learning to animate with a whole new set of tools. I spent most of my time and money buying and using all of the "high end" animation packages that were available. (3d Studio, Softimage, Topas, Maya etc.)

About 10 or so years ago my passion for creating animation took a "nose dive". I guess being a "grown-up" and dealing with all of the things that grown-ups have to deal with took its toll on me. The "spark" for creating animation just kind of "died out" on me. It just wasn't fun anymore. I spent the next several years just being a "grown-up".

In June of 2010 I got laid off from the job I had been working at for over 6 years. That REALLY hit me hard. I went into a state of depression. Then one day I was browsing the web and for no particular reason I did a Google search for "free animation software". All kinds of things popped up on the screen but one that caught my eye was a web site called MUVIZU. Muvizu? What in the hell is that? I thought to myself.

So I clicked the link and went to the web site...

As I looked around the Muvizu web site I thought "this looks kind of interesting" so I downloaded the software, installed it and "fired it up". After playing around with it for a few hours I created my first Muvizu animation. I thought to myself, "Wait a minute, that was too easy. Creating animation is a LOT harder than this!" So I kept "playing around" with it and the more I played around with it the more I wanted to keep doing it. Something happened to me that day. I felt that "old spark" again. I was creating animation and I was enjoying doing it! WOW!

I have some of the "latest greatest" animation software available but I choose to focus my creative efforts on using Muvizu. In all my years of animating I've never come across another piece of software like it. It's free, it's easy to use, some really professional stuff can be created with it and above all it's just plain fun to use.

To top it all off, Vince and the whole Muvizu staff are really nice people. They will help anyone with anything at any time. That's a rare thing now days. Also, the whole Muvizu community is a really great bunch of folks. Everyone helps everyone. The Muvizu forum is unlike any other forum I've been a part of. There are a few members of this forum and the Muvizu staff that have really helped me out these past few years with many things. I won't embarrass them by mentioning any names (they know who they are) but I do want to thank them all.

Even though I may be several thousand miles away you guys have always made me feel like a close part of the Muvizu family and I am extremely grateful for that.

So here we are in 2012. I'm happy again, I'm doing what I love to do again and I have my old "spark" back. My personal thanks to EVERYONE at Muvizu.

I look forward to being a part of the Muvizu community for a long long time...
edited by mysto on 31/01/2012
2012/1/30 4:32:18
Down Down by Status Quo Here's my Muvizu rendition of Status Quo playing Down Down live. I hope everyone enjoys watching it as much as I've enjoyed creating it. Please feel free to comment and subscribe.



This is one band that I'd really like to see someday.
2012/1/29 18:41:11
TALES FROM ZOMBIETOWN - Season 1 I agree with Dylly, I would have shot it in a wide screen format as well. Other than that small detail I thought it was a great video. Well directed and animated and great lighting and dialog. Good job!
2012/1/28 21:34:03
Directing movement is really hard I've been working on another musical animation here lately (Status Quo - Down Down live) and have been trying to give it more of a "rock video" type of feel with lots of camera cuts and moving camera shots. Basically I'm trying to have it look like there's more than 4 cameras used to shoot the video.

It's been a daunting task but I'm starting to get better at controlling camera shots and movement.

I should be finished with the video this weekend and I'll post it on the site for everyone to see and comment on.
edited by mysto on 29/01/2012
2012/1/28 1:44:50
Avid are a pain in the arris! I've been using some editing software called AVS video editor and I find it's quite good. AVS has all kinds of neat software for audio and video editing but I mainly use the video editor. I purchased a lifetime membership to their software for $59 us.

I found out the membership is for ALL of their software which is cool. I've had no troubles downloading their software or getting help from them when I've needed it.

Here's the link to their site in case you may be interested...

http://www.avsmedia.com/
edited by mysto on 28/01/2012
2012/1/28 0:30:25
Directing movement is really hard Fairly simple movements aren't too bad but complex character movement in Muvizu can be tricky indeed. My solution so far is to get a cup of coffee and spend a few hours "fiddling" with things until I get the movements pretty close to what I want. It takes time and patients but it can be done.
2012/1/28 0:25:08
Avid are a pain in the arris! I hear ya Dylly! Not only having to re "activate" the software but remembering where the hell the activation key is in the first place! I have a print out of all my activation keys for my software (that I can't find by the way) and I also have the keys stored on a memory stick. So far I do know where the memory stick is.

If my cat gets on my desk when I'm not around that may change, he likes playing with and hiding things that are on my desk.
2012/1/25 1:18:37
Holding guitar, Light movement... Right now I believe you can only view the actions of one character at a time.
2012/1/24 22:54:08
Holding guitar, Light movement... I have a fair bit of experience with the musical aspects of Muvizu so I'll try to help you as best I can.

Although I personally have never tried to have a character play a guitar in the sitting position, I don't think it's currently possible in Muvizu. With the exception of the keyboard player and drummer, characters can only "play" the instruments in the standing position. If I'm incorrect about this I'm sure someone will let me know.

You can have any of the lights turn on and off at any time during an animation. In my experience there are 2 ways to do this...

The first way is to have the color of the light set to black at the beginning of the animation and then when you want to turn it "on" you change it's color. You do this by right clicking on the light. This will bring up a box showing all of your options for that light. Click on the "colour" bar and this will bring up a pallet of colors for that light. Click the black color and exit out of the pallet box. Your light is now set to black, or "off".

When you are ready to "turn on" your light go to the place on the timeline where you want the light to come on and then "left click" on the light. This will "highlight" the light you want to come on. Then go to the top menu and click "prepare". Go down to where it says "object properties" and click. You'll see another box pop up called "prepare object properties".

Click the box that says "track" and select "colour". Then move down and click on the "animation" box. Select the "animate" option. As soon as you select the "animate" option you should see the box expand to show a pallet of colors available. Each of the colors shown can be changed to any color you want by clicking on it and then picking from the pallet shown.

When you are ready to "turn on" your light you'll notice at the bottom of the box there is a button called "direct". Click on that button. The "timeline recorder" box pops up. Click the record button on the lower left of the box. This starts the recorder. When the countdown is finished click on the color you want the light to be and then hit the "stop" button. Your light will now have changed from black or "off" to whatever color you want it to be. Now it's just a matter of moving the lights little box on the timeline to where ever you want it to turn on.

The second way to "turn on" a light is to use the slider bar. It's the same process as above except that after you hit the record button you move the "slider bar" for the light instead of clicking a color.

As for having the lights "follow" a character I don't think there's an "automatic" way of doing this yet. You will have to manually move the light to the movements of the characters and in my personal experience at this point in time it's not for the "faint of heart". It can be done but it's a rather complicated procedure trying to get the timing of the movements for everything "just right".

I hope this explanation helps you out. If you need to know more just let me know and I'll try to help out the best I can. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Happy Muvizuing!
2012/1/23 20:49:24
Copy between sets andla wrote:
When I copy from one set on to the other the menu paste option are grayed out.

Note I don't mean in the same set but in another set loaded in another process (a new instance of muvizu)

I'm using Windows 7 64 bit


You can't copy objects or characters between 2 instances of Muvizu that I know of. I've copied things between sets using the method Dreeko suggested though.
2012/1/23 14:12:27
Problem with loading saved Muvizu file I've had this issue several times too and it can be very frustrating. What I do is when I make any changes to my animations I'll save it and then immediately try to open the file. If it opens ok I save it again with a different file name. eg: savefile for the first one and savefile-1a for the second. I then continue working on the animation repeating the process as I go.

When I come across the error message I load the file that I know is good and look for the most recent changes I made in my animation that may have caused the error.

In my case the errors usually but not always pop up when I try to use too many lights, effects and character actions in the animation all at the same time.

So, my advice would be to save your work very often. That way you always have something to fall back on in case of the dreaded error messages. It seems to work pretty good for me.
2012/1/22 18:31:43
Reset head movement so action can happen? If the head is not in the "default" position before you implement another action the characters head will stay where you last placed it. To get around this here's what I do...

After you are finished recording your head movements hit the "release" button on the head movement window while still recording. This will put the characters head back in the "default" position. When you record your next character action his (or her's) head will go along with the movements that were programed to the next actions you want.

I hope this helps, if not let me know and I'll try to explain it better for you.
2012/1/21 0:07:19
Random requests! Maybe the developers can get Muvizu to distribute a nice frosty beverage while we are animating? Milk and cookies for the younger folks? I mean if they can do dragons...
2012/1/19 18:43:40
Feedback Thread - v0.19b release (January 2012). Just to chime in here, I've found that the less I have running in the background (browsers, other software, etc.) the better Muvizu likes to run.

I like to be able to "multi-task" but Muvizu seems to get a bit "grumpy" when I do that too much. For me, the less I have running while using Muvizu the better it seems to behave.
2012/1/16 19:45:31
Shopping List & thanks for de-trumpeting There's nothing I could add to "the list" that others haven't mentioned many times before. Besides, I'm sure it's getting difficult for team Muvizu to keep track of all those post it notes!
pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

About

Media

Legal

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.