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Home ? Feedback ? Switch Layers for face mask, or textures?

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25/10/2012 13:03:14

artpenMuvizu mogulExperimental user
artpen
Posts: 362 		Hi team, I've touched on this before, but is there or will there be a way to switch
Textures, be it for body textures, face mask, objects ect??

I think this would be a great feature, you could animate facial emotions, tears ect
Just by switching your layers in the right order.

Could switch layers be the answer for photo facial animation, blood splats, bullet holes, window cracking........
What do you think, is this possible team Muvizu?
edited by artpen on 25/10/2012
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25/10/2012 17:36:33

ukBertyMuvizu mogulExperimental user
ukBerty
Posts: 975 		artpen,

You can animate the properties of backdrops - one of which is the image. I have done this for blood splats etc.

Animating the decals on characters would be very useful though.
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25/10/2012 19:34:35

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		Artpen, there is another way. And it's cunning. Very cunning. More cunning than a particularly cunning fox who's just been to cunning school (and earned a degree in cunning). I've started to use it myself, as you can see in the Dev Test : Radio Rental vid I made. Actually you can't see it, because it's so bloody dark you can't see the bullet holes appearing on the policeman's chest, but they do appear as he is shot. It's possible because of the Breathing option in the character properties - let me explain ;

(Using the cop as an example) I created 3 body textures - one with one bullet hole, one with 2, one with 3.

I applied the first texture to the cop, set him to not breathe, and filmed the scene.
I changed the texture to the next one, filmed the scene again (exactly as before, same session), then changed to the third one and filmed the scene one last time.

So now I have 3 pieces of footage, with the same cop performing the same actions precisely - without breathing turned on, there is no randomness in his positioning. It's then a fairly simple job of fading shot 1 into 2 into 3 to give the illusion of the bullet holes appearing on cue. I'm using the same trick on my Halloween vid to create lightning (just as I created the muzzle flash effect in Radio Rental when the guy fires the gun). You could do the same thing with tears, as you say, but you'd probably have to use more 'frames' of animation to make it look smooth. Hope this (long and rambling explanation) helps!
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25/10/2012 19:47:47

MrDrWho13Muvizu mogulExperimental user
MrDrWho13
Posts: 2220 		ziggy72 wrote:
Artpen, there is another way. And it's cunning. Very cunning. More cunning than a particularly cunning fox who's just been to cunning school (and earned a degree in cunning). I've started to use it myself, as you can see in the Dev Test : Radio Rental vid I made. Actually you can't see it, because it's so bloody dark you can't see the bullet holes appearing on the policeman's chest, but they do appear as he is shot. It's possible because of the Breathing option in the character properties - let me explain ;

(Using the cop as an example) I created 3 body textures - one with one bullet hole, one with 2, one with 3.

I applied the first texture to the cop, set him to not breathe, and filmed the scene.
I changed the texture to the next one, filmed the scene again (exactly as before, same session), then changed to the third one and filmed the scene one last time.

So now I have 3 pieces of footage, with the same cop performing the same actions precisely - without breathing turned on, there is no randomness in his positioning. It's then a fairly simple job of fading shot 1 into 2 into 3 to give the illusion of the bullet holes appearing on cue. I'm using the same trick on my Halloween vid to create lightning (just as I created the muzzle flash effect in Radio Rental when the guy fires the gun). You could do the same thing with tears, as you say, but you'd probably have to use more 'frames' of animation to make it look smooth. Hope this (long and rambling explanation) helps!

Yes, Ziggy, but this would be tedious. It's OK for now, however, it would be nice to have a feature built in to Muvizu.
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25/10/2012 22:05:54

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		Tedious yes, but it does work now rather than at some point in the future when it might get sorted - just giving everybody another option to consider Also, I take what Muvizu can give me and run with that - I don't see the point in hanging around waiting for features to show up before committing myself to making something - those features might never show up anyway, so I just play with the cards I've been dealt, as it were, and I'd recommend the same attitude to all other Muvizuers out there. There's nothing wrong in requesting features, just don't hold yer breath is all I'm saying...
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25/10/2012 22:25:06

artpenMuvizu mogulExperimental user
artpen
Posts: 362 		Berty, that's great advice, I'll use that method, you have educated me, thanks bud!

Mr Ziggs, you sly fox you, what a nice effective method that is, yes, very slick edit,
Using ordered pngs, it worked a treat and I couldn't see the blood bags, honest!
Now, I will use your secret trick in the future, but I would still love to see a switch
Gizmo inside Muvizu for this type of thing.
I think something where you could have your bullet hole pngs ready to go in the
Animation actions window in Direct Mode? Basically a texture action? That when you click on it, it will show you your stored Pngs that you have created for your
Characters Body map, ie, eyebrows, tears, blood splats, cuts, lipstick??
This would be fantastic for facial photo maps aswell, ( picture 1- smiling, 2-sad ect)
This could cure the facial animation problem, not a lot... just a little...
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26/10/2012 00:06:20

artpenMuvizu mogulExperimental user
artpen
Posts: 362 		Ooh, I've just thought of another way to simulate bullet holes or blood splats......

what about shining three spotlights in sequence with individual pngs for each light

just shining any png with transparency through a spotlight in sequence..

Mmmm, I'm gonna try this

I suppose your character will have to stand still for this to work, but
edited by artpen on 26/10/2012
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26/10/2012 00:15:34

urbanlamb
urbanlamb
(Account inactive)
Posts: 1786 		you can also try editing shots in something like photoshop I have done this in a few cases. Its like the old fashioned way they used to create animations but that works as well. I did a fly splat in one video well when I was farting around with muvizu to see what it did the first thing i ever did with it was to make a little video with a bug flying and going splat up against a window. I did this by taking 2 frames of the video and drawing in the splat for lack of a better way to put it using photoshop and then replacing the two frames in the video. This is where the ability to create series of still images is handy and I think I saw a codec pack wiz by on this forum that does that.. for me however I just use the snapshot feature of my video editor because it comes with a stop motion package for animating things like that.

Anyhow so there are three ways and all of them very old fashioned methods of creating such effects in animation which people still use to this day
edited by urbanlamb on 26/10/2012
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26/10/2012 00:49:22

artpenMuvizu mogulExperimental user
artpen
Posts: 362 		Well put urbanlamb, a lot can be achieved in post edit and rightly so.
All I want in the future if possible is to get these effects in our movies quickly, so
we can go to sleep in a decent time, and knowing our little creative wonders have
Uploaded for HQ to watch with their tea and shortbreads.

Remember fellow Muvizuers, Make Movies in hours not weeks, keep the faith!!!
Over and out, art
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26/10/2012 00:56:48

urbanlamb
urbanlamb
(Account inactive)
Posts: 1786 		haha actually the altering a few frames with a photo editing program is actually pretty fast but its up to you I just thought I would add that info in as well. In all cases you have to create the texture to make the effect its just a question of what your going to do with the texture but in all cases some sort of "drawing" is involved for lack of a better way to put it.

I have done ziggy's way actually in my last little movie. Anyhow just thought I would toss that alternative out there. I am not known for wanting to take the most complicated route to complete anything quite the opposite actually
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15/11/2012 12:35:16

EEFilmzExperimental user
EEFilmz
Posts: 397 		Not sure if you've tried this, but I was able to get a video into a decal, which will create that effect, just by importing the vid or I suppose you could even setup cameras and choose that camera too...hope that does it for you - EEFilmz CoolukBerty wrote:
artpen,

You can animate the properties of backdrops - one of which is the image. I have done this for blood splats etc.

Animating the decals on characters would be very useful though.
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