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Home ? Your Videos ? Death by Jelly - scene 1 WIP

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20/05/2014 03:05:08

primaveranz
primaveranz
Posts: 520 		Dreeko wrote:

Throw the dog a bone for God's sake!


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20/05/2014 19:06:01

urbanlamb
urbanlamb
(Account inactive)
Posts: 1786 		mysto wrote:
I feel your pain toonarama and I agree with you, Dreeko and others thoughts about the situation. I still support the Muvizu team and have "high hopes" for the future of the software but it's getting increasingly difficult to keep waiting for something to happen.

I'm still using Muvizu to create animations but I too have been spending a bit of my animation time on the "dark side".


I enjoy muvizu as well but as others have said and done in many cases and I know of a few conversations I have had over the last year that some of the rigidity is frustrating. (for me as well) I have in the last year or so spent way more money then I would like to admit on that "iclone thing" there

I continue to work away at my iclone pipeline stuff and enjoy it. I keep my eye on muvizu and every once and awhile come up with something that I can do in muvizu without getting frustrated and so I do it. For the most part though I have with even that superman series hit a wall some of the scenes I want to do (i dont want to skip any episodes because it cannot be done inside muvizu) so I have had to on the last episode decide what i want to do. I have for the moment just canned that series I dont want to move it to iclone i feel somehow that it would be not a good thing and have started to work towards another project. (as I do love the radio shows and old stuff and to somehow make it relevant to today it gives it new life in my opinion) which I wont be doing seriously until the fall as you know my winter cabin fever .. i will be outsdie in nature when not working so i do very little in the summer that way.


I had some grandiose plans but they are not doable in muvizu so I will do them elsewhere. I want to see digimania/muvizu succeed so keep checking on things. However the closed muvizu system although fun has limited application.


So we shall see where they go from here. I am hoping their summer release package will solve all my present woes
edited by urbanlamb on 20/05/2014
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20/05/2014 20:22:04

Harb40
Harb40
Posts: 81 		I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way but I do find this conversation funny and a bit of deja vu. Moviestorm, another 2D animation program had a similar thread a while back, 'Is Moviestorm Dying'. Shortfuse, which made Moviestorm, which eventually just became Moviestorm Inc., had a decent size staff and went through many development phases. Sometimes the upgrades and content came slowly, other times it came weekly if not daily. The staff was downsized to where now it is maybe 3 or 4 people total in the company. Upgrades come very slowly. Even today, people wonder how long Moviestorm will last with a skeleton crew for a staff and slow updates.

Some modders have produced excellent addons which keep the program interesting while the MS staff trudge along. In fact, one of the former staffers actually started modding while still on staff and continues to create fabulous addons today long after he left.

Every program out there has it's high points and it's drawbacks including iClone. Some have gone the way of the transistor radio while others are trying to adapt. Slowly they are working to keep us with choices to help our creative juices flowing. The modding communities have always been central to keeping the programs going. Even though Lionhead Studios stopped support of The Movies years ago, the modding community has keep it a program of choice for many people and new users are finding it every day. The modding community has helped Moviestorm thrive (well, survive is a better word) and Reallusion encourages people to make their own content.

Muvizu is going through the same pains as all the rest. Are they doing it well enough to keep their users happy? Only time will tell.
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20/05/2014 20:56:38

urbanlamb
urbanlamb
(Account inactive)
Posts: 1786 		hehe I dont know if they are exactly the same as muvizu and iclone are not and this might sound harsh "obsolete". Iclone has managed to stay ahead because its left its backend open (they saw the future and adapted). Muvizu is at a cross roads but at the same time they have recognized the need to adapt and are. Their parent company digimania does a lot of production work and indeed from my observations this is how they are financing their software development process.

The other cases are cases of basicly the software got old and could not move forward for whatever reason.

Iclone survives because basically "if its 3d you can get it into iclone" so they have made it possible for it to be used for everything and the biggest advancements are in their 3d exchange system. They are working on iclone 6 now which will give us better and more modern direct x support but they are a huge company that saw mocap coming and added it quick among other things.

Muvizu has to change and adapt to move forward that is why they released that play + package and that is why they are working on that other render package. If the render package is successful it will impact the development of play + I am sure. Muvizu "regular" is probably at the end of its development cycle with the exception of some patches and making it compatible with new versions of windows etc etc. Play + has the same limitation and for it to do more needs to be recoded from what I am seeing, but ironically digimania is working on a third package. Also there is that project Bradley and the Bee which seems to be using this package to create it. So I am thinking that the woes of closed back end are probably going to be solved in part at least by their summer release. This is what my spidey sense tells me.
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20/05/2014 21:14:34

primaveranz
primaveranz
Posts: 520 		The good thing about Moviestorm is that the staff respond and fix things within hours not months (if at all) as is the case with Muvizu. I guess the new management here decided that the hobbyist customer was a not a viable money spinner. But by not engaging with the community they just accelerate the downward spiral.
iClone6 is certainly the best bet for the immediate future, as Toonarama has recognised.
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20/05/2014 22:10:02

toonaramaMuvizu mogulExperimental user
toonarama
Posts: 661 		Iclone has always had a more extensive feature set but I was never keen on the characters; I didn't want to do realistic. Muvizu was closer to what I was after and was unique(ish) in taking this approach.

But when iclone made it possible to import and animate any properly rigged characters this changed everything. Now I can use any characters I wish to buy or even make in any style I want. My Death by Jelly animation would just not be the same without Nursoda's wonderful Doctor Pitterbill character. And this was the main reason I took the step of putting the video up on here as I wanted to start the debate.

Muvizu needs to provide this ability - they could even take a lead from Reallusion and sell it as a separate product thereby generating extra income.


But I think the reality is Muvizu will never be a money spinner unless they take the approach of making their money from assets and plugins. I don't think it ever was the plan; they originally hoped someone would buy up the software.


Thanks to everyone for their good wishes!
edited by toonarama on 20/05/2014
edited by toonarama on 21/05/2014
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20/05/2014 22:45:11

urbanlamb
urbanlamb
(Account inactive)
Posts: 1786 		well the debate started myself I have spoken with several over time on what i am up to and you will have noticed a lack of activity with muvizu. I did try but as I said I had to can my superman series due to the fact that the next episode was not doable in muvizu. Every approach I tried turned out to be insanely tacky. I had a choice to move the entire project to iclone or put it on hold to see what muvizu does in the future. I chose the latter.

I now have two projects i am working on in iclone but there will be no visible movement for a long time one is bordering on insane the other one is not so insane :/

plus I have a third that i am writing the screenplay for but its slow because i keep getting blocks and have to sit and wait till my mind comes up with a solution and 'unblocks'. (this is an age thing if i were 20 it would have been done 5 times over by now lol)

I know likely what muvizu's original intent was unfortunately the market is too wide and varied for that and so they moved onto plan B which I think is doable. We shall see meanwhile one day I may get round to putting things up for sale on iclone or something i dunno since they are so open ended I feel less inclined to share anything and keep it all "custom" i posted a photo once of a half rigged character once on this forum there are others now.
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27/05/2014 17:19:46

mos6507
mos6507
Posts: 34 		All signs indicate that we are at the natural endpoint of a generational cycle with machinima software.

Even Plotagon, which isn't even a year out of the starting gate, is refactoring to mobile in an effort that smells of "Plan B".

Making truly cutting edge and useful machinima software is not easy to do on a shoestring. And all you need to do is compare the existing offerings to today's commercial games and you can see how far off the mark they are in almost every category.

(For example, go to youtube and search for Vindictus Character Creation if you want to really despair over the sorry state of machinima programs compared to today's games, and Vindictus came out 4 years ago)

Games are getting more and more cinematic while simultaneously not letting you drive them as machinima software. Fluidity of movement, physics, lipsync, destructible environments, it's all coming together. Why? Because that's where the money is. It's just that all of the R&D money is going into games and nothing filters over into machinima.

So the engines (Unreal or whatever) aren't the problem. It's having the resources to build a tool on top of it.
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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.