theotherguy - all messages by user

2016/2/25 23:52:44
Mandy Character and a Mic Hi blickfang, like you I largely misunderstood what Muvizu is until fairly recently. Muvizu isn't really a 3-D animation program, Muvizu is a programmable game that uses the Unreal game engine. All the characters are made and programmed using other software. I've seen and tried to use that grade of software, in my case 3-D Studio Max, and it wasn't pretty. The fellow who (tried to) show me how to use it makes big bucks making sets and stuff for Ubisoft, I asked him if we could use the set he made in 3-D Max in Muvizu and he laughed out loud. This in part demonstrates why modifications are somewhat limited.

I use my gaming computer for Muvizu because it has a fairly speedy video-card, Muvizu files render way faster with a good video-card as the Unreal game engine uses all its features. All the great stuff Muvizu does , dynamic lighting etc is because of that. The downside is, when you have a few character doing multiple things, moving, speaking, looking around etc. - just like in a game - things can slow down, and crash. One way that you can tell the kind of load Muvizu is putting on your computer, is by listening to the (load sensing) cooling fans, just like when running a high end game, they are running full blast!

The best way to work with Muvizu is to work withing it's limitations, it's a $30 program, you'd have to add a couple of zeros to get something as capable and you'd spend months learning to use it. Eventually they will have more elaborate movements for all the characters, but in the meantime you'll have to figure out work-arounds. Happy Muvizuing!
2016/2/25 21:31:43
Mandy Character and a Mic I've just discovered something interesting, I too been trying to get the Mandy character to sing into a mic. I took the available 'pipette' and coloured the bulb and dropper black, adjusted the rotation and scale and have a perfectly okay mic.
2016/2/25 17:47:56
New 360 video function is now available! A neat effect but I was expecting the camera to rotate around something.

MP4 is great for the final Youtube (etc) upload, but a loss-less AVI format like lagareth is better for bringing into other programs, like video editors. I stopped bothering with time consuming image sequences after discovering I could get the same results with the aforementioned AVI.
2016/2/14 19:35:34
Pause/ slow direct character actions MrDrWho13 wrote:
I used to use Muvizu on a really slow computer, and the 321 was helpful since that's the amount of time it would take for the computer to unfreze after hitting record.

Muvizu is a lot closer to being a game than an animation program. I have two computers running Muvizu, one is considerably faster than the other CPU and memory-wise, however I use the slower computer for Muvizu because it has a much faster Video Card - Nvidia GTX 750 - than the other. I imagine that unless you have a really old computer buying a new video card would make Muvizu run way faster, and the 3-2-1 business is simply annoying anyway.
2016/2/14 1:50:05
Pause/ slow direct character actions Thanks I'll try your system. I would like the superfluous 3-2-1 sequence banned forever. If a character has a limited set of motions why not assign a keystroke/number to each to aid in adding to a timeline?
2016/2/13 6:56:20
Pause/ slow direct character actions Hi y'all, one of the toughest things to do in Muvizu is direct character actions. I generally have to just cram them all in there and then fiddle with them on the timeline, which is time consuming and aggravating. It would be nice to just pause and restart without going through the 3-2-1 stuff, or better still just click on the timeline and put the action you want where you want it. Since I'm working with other backdrops etc. I know exactly when things should happen down to the second, even if I could slow the timeline down, that would be better than nothing. Any suggestions?
2016/1/28 23:23:23
Episode 1 Complete, Plus Karaoke! Hi gang! I've compiled my three short clips into an episode, should be cranking them out a lot faster soon. Here it is....


I also made a karaoke video around an old song of mine I wrote ages ago (the midi file was on a floppy disk!) and I used my first Muvizu special effect (rain) I used Sony Vegas Pro for everything else. That's ME honking away on the vocals, I'm looking for someone who can do a lot better!
2016/1/19 0:24:08
Mandy Character and a Mic I'm also trying to have a singer use a mic, I've tried downloading the file into Sketchuo, but from there it doesn't allow you to save or export a file type Muvizu can use.
2016/1/8 14:43:44
Moving custom characters to new computer Yes, important to note: in order to see the ProgramData folder, you must enable 'show hidden files and folders'
2016/1/7 2:57:07
Moving custom characters to new computer Okay, now I find them. Thanks fazz68. However ProgramData appears to be a greyed-out folder not normally searched.
2016/1/7 2:07:15
Moving custom characters to new computer I can find none of these folders C:\Users\All Users\Muvizu\Favourites or anything like them, also no sign of any .FAV file types on my Windows 10 64bit computer.

The closest I came to it is program files/muvizu play/muvizu game/content/packages which contain files called .upk i.e. at_beefyz-hats.upk

I'm no further ahead for a quick and easy solution to moving my favourites from one computer to another, but I've figured out a work-around which will have to do.
2016/1/6 13:09:39
Moving custom characters to new computer Ok, thanks. That's basically what I've been doing. I just wish there was an easy way to dump the new characters into the other machines Muvizu without going the 'save as' route.
2016/1/6 3:55:02
Moving custom characters to new computer All well and good except that... I do not know how to create a set. I do not know how to move this set from one device to another. For instance, the only way I know to even get to the Favorites folder is to click 'Create' then Characters, then favourites. I've tried right clicking, everything, I can't do anything in, or with, this folder.
2016/1/6 3:28:43
Moving custom characters to new computer Yes, I would like to have all my own custom characters in my favorites folder of the other machine. I can't seem to do much of anything with the favorites folder aside from adding and deleting, it would be nice to save them to a single set like you describe and keep them safe.
2016/1/6 2:38:10
Moving custom characters to new computer Hi y'all, I have Muvizu on two computers, one I use mainly for rendering as it has a more powerful video card, and the other for creating textures and characters. I know that the custom characters come with the project file, but they don't show up in the library. Any idea how I would do that?
2015/12/21 20:03:21
Improved Muvizu/live footage hybrid I figured it out but it wasn't easy getting the image INTO the camera overlay section. I'll be sure and use it next time I do something outdoors. Thanks for your input!
2015/12/21 19:27:28
Improved Muvizu/live footage hybrid LOL, I forget how I got to 'overlay'
2015/12/21 1:33:39
Improved Muvizu/live footage hybrid Thanks! I understand what you're saying, I can do everything you described and a full semitransparent overlay would be ideal, as backdrops don't fill the screen. However camera overlay doesn't appear to allow importation. (?)

mrmuviz wrote:
What I've done is take a still frame from your video, then bring it into Photoshop and
put it at 50% opacity(or so) and then save as a .png.... then use that as a camera overlay in Muvizu.
This way helped me a lot to frame up characters with things in the video.

P
2015/12/20 5:17:47
Improved Muvizu/live footage hybrid Hi y'all! It was a struggle getting everything working with my latest project, the chroma-keying was a particular headache as I mindlessly rendered the Muvizu animation off, and then tried to re-frame everything in my video editor. It only occurred to me after the third or fourth attempt that MAYBE I should frame the Muvizu sequence as close to the video as possible.

Now, everybody knows what a chore setting up cameras in Muvizu can be (please , a control panel of some kind would be nice for this!) but it's definitely worth the effort to get as close to the same framing as the live footage, I even preserved the shados this time.
2015/12/16 19:14:55
My lastest animation, with shadows and everything Thanks Ted!
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