Site Search
Join Muvizu

glasgowjim - all messages by user

2010/9/1 12:49:26
Why can't I add subtitles or special effects? Most effects are added by users using other programmes in conjunction with Muvizu.

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 - please go to the "Resources" and "Tips & Tricks" sections of the forum for software types and guides on their use with Muvizu.
2010/9/1 12:41:52
I am unable to download Muvizu If you have trouble downloading Muvizu there are a few external mirrors that you can download the installer from:
CNETFilefront
Gamershell


If you are unable to download Muvizu from ourselves or these mirrors please go to the "Tech Help" section of the forum and post a message.
edited by glasgowjim on 30/11/2010
2010/9/1 12:32:31
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.

Alternatively, the links for registration can be found below:

Muvizu Registration: http://muvizu.com/Register/

YouTube Registration: http://www.youtube.com/create_account?next=%2F

You must be at least 13 years old to join Muvizu as a full member with a regular account. However, if you are a teacher, drama group leader or similar and some of your charges are under 13, you may open a "gatekeeper" account. This will allow you to set up subsidiary accounts for them which you will administer and over which you will have full visibility and control. These are invisible to anyone except members of your group or another gatekeeper group with which you have chosen to collaborate.

You can link the two accounts together in the "Profile">"My Account" 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 Profile > Upload Video.
2010/9/1 12:20:29
Performance Increase Programmes 3dAnalyze

If you cannot get Muvizu to run because your graphics card doesn't meet the minimum specifications there is one thing that you could try - it's a programme called 3dAnalyze - it fools games into thinking that your graphics card can meet the minimum specifications.

I used to own a laptop with onboard Intel graphics and it was the only programme that allowed me to run high-end games and software. I can't guarantee that it will work (as I haven't been able to test it) but it's the only way (other than upgrading) that you will have a chance of running any Unreal 3 engine software on your machines.

You can get the software from http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/tools/3d_analyze/download/ (you need to click on the little floppy disk icon) and follow these steps:

1. Unzip the installer to a location of your choosing
2. Run the installer, selecting a folder of your choosing
3. Open the folder and run 3dAnalyze.exe
4. Click on select
5. Select the Muvizu.exe file which can be found at C:\Program Files\Muvizu\Binaries
6. Click on the following check boxes:
Performance > Force SW TnL
Hardware Limits (Cap Bits) > Emulate HW TnL caps
Anti-Detect Mode > Shaders
Anti-Detect Mode > Textures
7. Click run

At this point Muvizu will either run or crash - I can't say which though

AMD Fusion

The AMD Fusion application will close any background programmes that are running which frees up system resources for Muvizu. It only works with machines that have an AMD processor.

Simply download, install and click the big grey button:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_fusion.aspx?p=1

SpyBot Search & Destroy

While SpyBot is an anti-spyware application it can be used to stop programmes launching when Windows Starts.

It can be found at: http://download.cnet.com/Spybot-Search-amp-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html

If do give it a try you would probably want to disable the installation of Tea Timer and SDHelper as most anti-virus programmes already perform the job that they do.

Once it's installed and updated you can access Advanced Mode by going to Mode>Advanced Mode, from there if you click on Tools then System Startup you can choose which programmes run at launch.

I deselect all programmes that I recognise as not needed at launch and if there are any that I don't know I Google them to see if they are necessary, but please be careful.

Please remember that any 3rd party software is used at your own risk.
2010/9/1 10:52:02
Forum Overhaul Morning folks,

The forums are currently being overhauled, it should be finished later on today:

Work being done:

Forum layout is being changed
FAQs are being written
Sticky topics are being added where necessary
Threads/Topics are being moved around - NO posts are being deleted.

I ask that you please be patient at this time - the forums should (hopefully) be a lot easier to use once we are finished.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/28 16:08:01
Multiple characters animation Hi Mike,

There are currently no ways to animate characters together - the Devs will be working on it after next week's release so hopefully it will make it into the application in the next couple of months.

Emily will be very glad that you used the videos - she worked pretty hard to put the subtitles together.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/27 9:24:38
More Keyboard Shortcuts Q and E in Muvizu have ruined me more than once in Video games - I have accidentally pressed E as it is the "Descend" key in Muvizu but in Unreal 3 it involves my character exiting the helicopter and ending up as a street pizza :/
2010/8/27 9:20:39
Having trouble! so sluggish Hi again artpen,

Here is a guide on increasing performance that will be in the new forums at the start of next week:

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.

If that doesn't help please let me know.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/27 9:12:53
More Keyboard Shortcuts Hi jslate, and welcome to Muvizu.

WASD are common video game controls for character movement;

W: Move forward
A: Strafe Left (move left without turning)
S: Move back
D: Strafe Right (move right without turning)

Q and E are used for vertical movement:
Q: Move Up
E: Move down

If you have any other questions or suggestions let us know.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/26 15:29:12
Top things we love about our users #5 - The huge variety of experience and personalities
2010/8/26 14:01:34
logging in Hello blowe56789, sorry you are having trouble with Muvizu.

Are you having trouble logging into the Website or the Application? If it's the application it could be getting blocked by your firewall software - in order for Muvizu to work correctly the files "Launcher.exe" and "Muvizu.exe" found in C:\Program Files\Muvizu\Binaries (or C:\Program Files (x86)\Muvizu\Binaries if it's a 64-bit operating system) need to be allowed through your firewall.

Take care,
-Jim
2010/8/26 13:58:04
Resources From Wikipedia:

"Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all, if the intellectual property rights have expired, and/or if the intellectual property rights are forfeited. Examples include the English language, the formulae of Newtonian physics, as well as the works of Shakespeare and the patents over powered flight.In a general context public domain may refer to ideas, information and works that are "publicly available", but in the context of intellectual property law, which includes copyright, patents and trademarks, public domain refers to works, ideas, and information which are intangible to private ownership and/or which are available for use by members of the public."

Generally if you use audio/video/textures from one of these sites you don't need permission - they simply ask that you credit them, for instance you will see the phrase "audio courtesy of the freesound project - www.freesound.org" on many of my videos.

Most countries also have a "Fair Use" policy on copyrighted material - the two most commonly applied types of fair use are parody and review. Again, it never hurts to credit the creators.

To be 100% sure that you can use the material available on these sites it's always best to view the Terms and Conditions - every site is different.

Take care,
-Jim.
edited by glasgowjim on 8/26/2010
2010/8/26 12:37:38
point A to point B animation Hi Jason,

There aren't any objects that block a characters movement - they simply walk over it.

I have passed on the suggestion for "Walk to" functionality - I think it's a pretty good idea that would make the programme easier to use.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/26 12:21:56
Robot interview and matters arising Kaynine wrote:
Than wrote:
I had assumed you could load more than 1 audio ... Like your animation.

Thanks.

Must admit, I think the audio system is going to be the one thing that will cause me problems as I really enjoy using sound. My solution at the moment is to use my previous animation program because it has such a superb system for creating complex soundtracks using 5 separate tracks which, when appropriate, can be mixed and saved as a single file. Each of those tracks can accept as many small imports as you need. (My most complicated project used over 100 such fragments, sound FX and other imports). So that side of things works well. With Muvizu, my main problems, I suspect, will be:

(1) The need to work with a fixed audio track which will effectively determine the structure and timing of the animation.
(2) The difficulty of being able to tell how long part of an audio track will need to run so as to work effectively with whatever movement animation(s) I use with characters.
(3) Other general timing problems. (eg: if footstep sounds needed to be synchronised with animated footfall).

What I think I'll do in the short term will be to make a rough audio track > create the Muvizu animation > export this into my other animation program > adjust the audio track there and add whatever else is needed > render to avi from that program. In a very simple way, that's what I'll be doing with my next project which will probably be titled 'Unfaithful Nancy'. It will use an animated 'sailor' singing a seasong with added audio FX as a first experiment. The Muvizu element has been completed and is now imported into the other program ready for further processing although most of that will involve the overlaying of separate animated sequences.

What would be really useful and interesting would be to hear from other users or members of the development team who have made some of the more complex Muvizu animations to explain how they go about creating their work .... especially as regards timing issues when having to work with the single audio file. In the forum for my previous program, I did that sort of thing with 'walkthrough's for specific projects which I thought might help other users if they also wanted to try some particular effects or ideas).


Hi again,

While there can only be 1 dialogue track there are actually 3 audio tracks in Muvizu: Background Audio, SFX and Dialogue - the SFX track is pretty useful as you can upload your own custom effects and use them in the same way as animations: either using the numpad or mouse then dragging them around the timeline until you have them at the desired location.

In my video "Casualty vs Match of the Day" all audio that I used was on the SFX track so that I could get the timing right.

The background audio is also pretty useful as it allows you do things like have separate music and lyrics which leads to better lip syncing.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/26 12:01:53
What actions would Muvizuers like to have? Hi Kaynine,

The Angry Subtle "Hands on Hips" and Sad Subtle "Hold Bridge of Nose" animations have the character shaking their head a little, but I can't think of any that get the character to shake their head a lot.

The listing system is changing slightly for the new release - you will be able to click on a heading and view all of the animations in the sub categories.

I love the idea of a "Curled Up" initial state - it makes a lot of sense, especially with new Dog character.

Thanks for the suggestions, I have passed them on.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/26 11:29:19
point A to point B animation Morning Jason/Than/Rob,

The movements are all relative to the characters starting location - so if I record the movement and the character is too far away from the desired destination I move the characters starting location a little closer. Doing this with multiple characters is a little more difficult as you would need them to walk side by side, but it can be done.

Another way I find that works is to place a ground plane where you want the character to go, with a dot or other recognisable symbol on it that you can drag the movement to. You can simply delete the ground plane when you are done so that it's not in your movie. (Pretty much what Rob said to be honest)

Some users have suggested the ability to Direct/Record your animations and locomotion at a reduced speed - allowing for greater control. I have passed this on but there are no plans to implement it at the moment.

Grouped movement is something that the Devs want to implement but they won't be looking at it until after the release at the end of the month.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/26 11:13:48
Dirty face paint, mask? Hi Ghenrig,

The Photo Face Mask is amongst the other masks in the "Face Masks" section - it's 256x256 pixels in size so any square(ish) image should do.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/25 10:59:11
List of improvements Hi again Rob,

I have passed that on - I like the idea of a character whistling away nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/25 10:49:05
Dirty face paint, mask? Hi again artpen,

I have passed your suggestions on - I really like the idea of the charred face (with matching hairdo )

There is already a Hockey mask if you want to create a character inspired by Friday the 13th, and you can use the photo face mask to import custom masks if you want to try some of the other stuff in the meantime.

If you have any more questions or suggestions please let us know.

Take care,
-Jim.
2010/8/25 10:10:35
free muvizu? Hi Than,

I can't answer that myself, but if you fire an e-mail to contact@muvizu.com with any commercial questions Vince will be able to fill you in.

Take care,
-Jim.
pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

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.