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CrazyDave - all messages by user

2011/7/20 15:32:28
Can I turn off collision? There's technical difficulties with the physics of interpenetrating objects: if you have them overlapping and then turn collision on then they have a tendency to go haywire. Also, much of our codebase makes the assumption that objects do not interpenetrate. It is a desirable feature however and we've not given up on it. I don't think that the problems are insurmountable in the long term.

" if you look at the "doorway" standard set you'll see that the lower levels of the buildings are tapered at the bottom, except they all look straight. If you move one you can see it's tapered and can never get it back to where it was as the tapers won't merge."


I've just had a look at this and while I'm not exactly sure what you mean, I suspect that it has been achieved simply by constructing the set in a specific order. Certainly there's never been a special "in-house" build that allows obejcts to interpenetrate!
2011/7/15 10:21:33
Avoiding random crashes ukBerty wrote:

Update - oh dear - my output is now total garbage ! I'll have to have a fiddle over the weekend.
edited by ukBerty on 15/07/2011



Yikes! My output still looks the same... I'm glad that your crashes seem to be fixed though.
2011/7/15 10:12:01
Second Muvizu project. uptonsdad wrote:
Hi again, I have now downloaded the xvid file and it is installed. It seems I need advice to get it to show in Muvuzu. I am sue someone knows amongst you very nice people.
Tony



I would guess you are using the 64 bit version of Muvizu. In that case you need a 64-bit codec... sorry my recommendation was not thoroughly well considered!

Other people here are recommending this 64 bit codec pack: I hope this fixes your problem.

http://www.codecguide.com/klcp_64bit.htm
2011/7/14 17:08:33
Second Muvizu project. Hiya,

The codecs the most people use are not actually distributed with the Muvizu application (because we didn't make them!) but I personally use the xvid codec which you can download from here:

http://www.xvid.org/Downloads.15.0.html

Once you install it, it should chow up in the list of available codecs in Muvizu's video options. If it doesn't, restart your PC. If it still doesn't, let us know.

Cheers, Dave.
2011/7/14 14:49:17
Avoiding random crashes Hi all,

I'd been playing around on a couple of the work laptops here at Muvizu... one of them would crash intermittently when using the app (especially when I changed video options or was running Windows Media Player at the same time) and the other would crash consistently when I tried to make a video with "FFDShow codec". After investigation I found that these crashes are not really faults with Muvizu but with the software setup on these machines: they just needed a little bit of TLC.

Both machines had had a codec pack installed at some point in the past that came with both xvid and FFDShow codecs.

I went to http://www.xvid.org and installed the 1.3.2 stable release of the xvid codec on both machines. I then went to http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/ and installed the lastest stable release "beta 7". Then I went to http://www.nvidia.com and updated my graphics card driver to the latest 275.33 version.

Both machines have since stopped crashing.

So my tip is: "update the codecs that you have installed and your graphics card driver" ... it's like changing the oil on your car

Cheers, Dave.
edited by CrazyDave on 14/07/2011
2011/7/14 14:22:10
New 64 bit and New 32 bit Crash on "Make video" Just a wee note to everyone who had this problem and fixed it with the patch.

I had this occur on one of our work laptops here at Muvizu. It was easy to fix by applying the patch but then I realised that actually I was using a Dell laptop that had two graphics processor modes: one is "High performance NVIDIA processor" accelerated graphics for running 3D application and the other is Intel "Integrated graphics" which gives better battery life for the laptop but is not so good for 3D and games (and doesn't support anti-aliasing).

The preferred choice between the two processors are accessed by following:
Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> NVIDIA Control Panel -> Manage 3D settings -> Global Settings

The reason that I'm posting this is that I suspect quite a few of you might have similar laptops and may be using the Intel graphics adaptor rather than the NVIDIA one. Not only would you be missing out on the anti-aliasing, but your machine will perform much more slowly when running Muvizu. I recommend that you check this out... if anyone is in this situation and switch to the NVIDIA processor you can uninstall and re-install Muvizu to get the anti-aliasing back on (or message me and I'll send you an "un-patch").

n.b. I believe that future versions of Muvizu will be sensitive to the machine's anti-aliasing capabilities and will not crash whether the card supports it or not.

Cheers, Dave.
2011/7/14 14:07:42
Strange message I've seen this happen when I accidentally started Muvizu twice i.e. I clicked on the shortcut and then clicked again before Muvizu had started properly.

In any case, if you can run Muvizu then your card does support alpha blending and this error message is nothing to worry about.
2011/7/14 13:56:04
Muvizu's long range plans
...and will it run on a mac?


"Mark Rein promised that UE3 on Mac OS X is still coming."

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/02/unreal-engine-3-running-on-mac-os-x-images-show-off-directx-11/

... so POSSIBLY in the future!! :-) ...

I don't like to comment on the business model (ask Vince) but I believe that the intention is that Muvizu will always be free for non-commercial use.
edited by CrazyDave on 14/07/2011
2011/6/7 13:25:05
New version she no work Hi TangledBliss,

As Jim says, you really should be able to use the new version of Muvizu on those machines but it might require you to update your graphics card drivers and/or DirectX.

The only thing you would gain by upgrading to Windows 7 is anti-aliasing on your video output. This does actually look lovely (everything looks smoother), but if you even have a single machine that has Windows 7 on it then you could load the sets produced in Windows XP into that machine and use it just to output the video.

Please let us know how you get on :-)

Cheers, Dave.

p.s. Until very recently, all the devs here at Muvizu were using Windows XP machines, so we're SURE it works on XP :-)
edited by CrazyDave on 07/06/2011
2011/6/7 13:13:52
The newest Muvizu release... Danimal wrote:
Well Dave, my apologies as it looks like I sent you on a wild goose chase.


No problem, just glad to get clarity on the issue!

I've been busy this week and have submitted a "shadow intensity slider" to our testing devils. Unless they can find something hideously wrong with it, it will be in the next release Thumbs Up
2011/6/1 11:31:34
The newest Muvizu release... Danimal wrote:
I just checked this again and it's definitely the reverse: Individual Shadows made the shadow sit in one spot without respect to where the light or object was. Non Individual Shadow works more accurately.



Hi Danimal, I'm having trouble understanding what you mean, but I'm interested to know!

I took screenshots to illustrate what I am trying to describe.

In the non-individual (default) shadow, the shadow is smaller and restricted to an area that is mostly below the object. Interestingly, if the light was below the object then the shadow would still be cast downwards (this is the bug that is now fixed at my end).

The individual shadow however is larger and more spread out. Given the actual positions of light and object in my scene, this is "correct" behaviour.

Please let me know if I'm missing something here.

Cheers, Dave.
edited by CrazyDave on 01/06/2011
2011/5/31 18:00:25
The newest Muvizu release... Danimal wrote:
In other words, no matter where I moved the light or the object the shadow stayed directly below it.


Yeah, the non-individual shadows have always had this problem. It's now fixed internally and I expect it to be in the next release Big Grin

p.s. Setting "individual shadows" on your lights should give more correct shadow shape in the current public release.
edited by CrazyDave on 31/05/2011
edited by CrazyDave on 31/05/2011
2011/5/31 17:57:30
The newest Muvizu release... ukBerty wrote:
Dave,

Thanks for coming back to me. The individual shadow used to give you a really dark shadow which you could use in bright sunlight scenes.

Here's the scene I'm just redoing at the moment. There is a single light a long way away with individual shadow turned on, to represent the sun.

http://www.imagebam.com/image/d32bec134636167

(I have changed the background, sky and codec in between old and new)

See the old one on the left - notice the car's shadow in particular. With the new version although the shadow is better defined it is much weaker and consequently does not look as good.

Cheers

Berty
edited by ukBerty on 31/05/2011



Cool, looks like we may need some kind of adjustable shadow darkness/intensity slider: one that would preferably work on both individual and non-individual shadows in a uniform way. I'll investigate the possibilities...

Thanks for the input :-)

Dave.
2011/5/31 16:36:48
The newest Muvizu release... ukBerty wrote:
Whilst we're talking lighting......

It appears that the "individual shadow" button now has virtually no effect - this is a real shame as scenes set in daylight are now looking a bit bland.

Berty



I'm not sure what you mean here. If you have one object and two lights then click "individual shadow" for both lights then it casts two separate shadows (like a football player under floodlights). With this option un-ticked for both lights, the shadows are combined into a single shadow (this helps a LOT with performance on sets with large numbers of lights and also stops the scene getting cluttered with many overlapping shadows).

Previously, the "individual shadow" option had an unwanted side-effect: the individual shadows appeared darker and somehow "granier" then the non-individual ones. This was a bug and has now been fixed: the shadows now look similar to each other in terms of colour and quality. This is the desired behaviour and any accidentally useful behaviour seen previously will be gone.

I hope this explains the situation from my end, but I'd be interested to know what it was about the old individual shadows that was useful when constructing your lighting (e.g you mention scenes set in daylight). It might be possible to re-introduce the desired behaviour as an extension to the current set up.


Cheers, David.
edited by CrazyDave on 31/05/2011
2011/5/31 15:01:20
The newest Muvizu release... Dreeko wrote:

No probs Dave
It's all for the greater good I'm sure!



Yes it is! :-)
2011/5/31 13:00:13
The newest Muvizu release... Hi Dreeko,

With regards the differences in the lighting engine... The code within the lighting engine has changed subtly with the Engine upgrade, and it turns out that subtle changes in the lighting engine can have un-subtle effects on the lighting of an entire scene. I was aware of this and tried to calibrate the lights in such a way that in general, lighting on most scenes is roughly the same as the previous version.

It was impossible to get this exactly right however and so a certain amount of tweaking will be necessary when loading old sets in order to get it "just right". It's the same for colour/contrast/brightness on camera post-process effects: as the calculation method has changed (and improved!) it introduces backward-compatibility issues that can be unfeasible to fix.

Cheers, Dave.
2011/5/27 13:00:44
Freeze when click make video Very glad to hear it, Storm369 and thanks for the valuable feedback.
2011/5/27 12:28:30
New 64 bit and New 32 bit Crash on "Make video" Hi Chuckles.

Claire, I think that it is unlikely he will be able to follow your suggestion as his machine hangs before he will have access to the video options dialog.

Instead, Chuckles, could you find the file: "DefaultGame.ini" that lives here (for 64 bit):

C:\Program Files\Muvizu\MuvizuGame\Config

Delete it, and replace it with the version that you can download from here, you'll have to unzip the file first:

http://www.muvizu.com/download/DefaultGame.zip

This is a version of the same file but with Anti-aliasing turned off by default.

Please let us now how you get on, thanks.

David.
2011/5/26 12:40:56
Using the kinect as a cheap motion capture system Dreeko wrote:
Very interesting Jon!

I can see Muvizu HQ turning into a dance studio!
" And next on the floor..It's Crazy Dave!!....Oh dear,... could someone phone an ambulance..." LOL!



D



Oh by the way I am an awesome dancer, cast or no cast.

I love the Kinect idea and there's no reason that it couldn't be hooked up to Muvizu characters and, with a bit of work, used to record animations.
2011/2/4 16:16:13
Output Sync timing Great info Jon. I think we have a fix for this but can't say when it will be released as yet.
edited by CrazyDave on 04/02/2011
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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.