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12/12/2010 12:30:59

artpenMuvizu mogulExperimental user
artpen
Posts: 362 		Hello fellow muvizuers, Team Cool

Just watched some silly wrestling on the box, and thought some of their moves would be good to use.

1 - The clothes-line
2 - chest beat
3 - jump and fall on bum ( ouch! )
3 - the grapple
4 - forearm smash ( you would need your victim sitting or kneeling to work, maybe the praying position? with a
Falling to side animation, or a clever camera cut to spread eagle from the ko punch animation.
5 - Throw animation, and victim animation sort of like a forward roll thing?
6 - and finally, the famous Big Daddy run and belly splash! " easy, easy, easy! "

I think people would love to see" The Muvizu Wrestle Mania, oh yeah!! "

Pay per view?
edited by artpen on 12/12/2010
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01/01/2011 17:23:19

FurryCakes
FurryCakes
Posts: 7 		Yes please, more subtle animations would be great.

I also second the handshake. Rather than create a complicated(?) two character action, why not make a single character handshake (moving the right hand up and down). Apply this animation to two characters then put them facing each other so that their shaking hands line up with each other. (Is this making sense?).

How about finger wags?
1. Front to back (Naughty, naughty!)
2. Side to side (I wouldn't do that if I were you)
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03/01/2011 07:43:57

inlimbo
inlimbo
Posts: 70 		One more vote for generic all purpose animations. This is back from Ziggy's comment:

"I agree with all above - subtlety and more control over the existing animations would probably allow most actions you could think of, rather than just adding more and more preset animations."

If we can cover most bases and be able to position the hands, stance, and various expressions in the spine and neck, then the characters will be able to do most actions. It's the context of these generic moves that will give them emotion and meaning. If we are locked in to the excellent animations currently in Muvizu then we often have to work around them to tell the story. Functional and generic animations will allow story to come from the context and the audio.
__
edited by inlimbo on 03/01/2011
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07/01/2011 17:04:14

mos6507
mos6507
Posts: 34 		Hi, I thought I'd be able to contribute to some of the theoretical discussions like this before I really dig into Muvizu, based on my prior experience with Xtranormal. If I say something that Muvizu already does, my apologies. Take what I'm saying as the wisdom of a complete outsider.


What Xtranormal does is separate animation into discrete channels. So there is a head zone (for yes/no) main gestures (which are mostly upper-body) postures (which are more full body) and expressions (the face only). Then there are walking animations and the lipsync.
It is then able to blend this together. So if you tell your character to do "hands on hips" and walk at the same time, they will do just that. Somehow they determine how to establish priority and blending between the two animations. So while a walk cycle would normally have swinging hands, instead that part of the body has the arms at the side.
In this music video, at 1:10, the character walks while hands are on his hips. It's kind of a weird shoulder position he gets into, but it works.

Likewise, when a character is in a sitting posture, then all the gestures only impact the upper body and therefore don't disrupt the sitting pose.
What this does is allow you to create a richer performance than you'd ever be able to do with just one main animation "channel" for the entire body.
If you only have one channel then you need a zillion variations. You know, hands on hips with head nod yes. Hands on hips with head nod no, etc... That's a game you just can't win.


The kinds of gestures that I would expect first are ones that you'd use in the course of dialogue, as body-language. Think of how people move when they speak with their hands. These are the things that Xtranormal added first. The reason these are important is that if you use text-to-speech, the hand gestures go a long way to filling in the emotional content that is missing from the vocal delivery. So when Xtranormal added the Starz pack, they added stronger gestures like hand-punching-fist that work well with people like Mel Gibson. They can speak like automated call centers, but by doing the hand-punching-fist move, they will come across as menacing.
They also tailor the way these animations play out based on gender or body type. So the female version of a particular animation may have more hip-sway or graceful movements. At the very end of the youtube clip I embedded, that coy little head tilt move and the eye movement is all part of the idling system.
What I would like to see from Muvizu is an emphasis placed on these subtle aspects that make characters appear more lifelike, more Pixar and less Veggie-tales. Then it will be possible to empathize with them. I don't know if the company wants to move in this direction, but that's my wish.
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08/01/2011 15:06:59

freakmoomin
freakmoomin
Posts: 272 		hey mos6507

almost all of which you described is pretty much how muvizu works (with the facial controls the obvious exception).

It would be usefull for us for you to delve straight in and play around with the muvizu animation tools and then tell us things that you like and vice versa. we are always looking at ways to improve muvizu.

At the moment we are looking at ways to improve the movement system and additional facial animation is also high up on our list.
again please give us any feedback that you feel would improve the animation system, were all ears
kev
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11/01/2011 18:52:18

inlimbo
inlimbo
Posts: 70 		Basically I want to be able to do scenes from Raising Arizona. I will link to images below that are two separate Raising Arizona scenes. These two scenes have actions that I can't yet do in Muvizu. Please give me a rough idea of when I will be able to accomplish these types of actions in Muvizu.

This one he's crawling under a crib after a baby:
http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/raising-arizona-baby-300.jpg

This one he's holding a package of Huggies diapers:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CuucyFreZoo/SNx0uZkks2I/AAAAAAAAAwk/oDhtICM2Q8w/s400/huggies.bmp


Thanks,
inlimbo
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15/02/2011 18:25:47

inlimbo
inlimbo
Posts: 70 		Following up on when I can recreate Raising Arizona in Muvizu. After the Unreal Engine gets updated, when might I expect to be able to do something similar to this?

1. Ability to hold and carry a box (Huggies).

2. Ability to crawl.

Thanks for listening!
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15/02/2011 19:16:12

PinguinoStudios
PinguinoStudios
Posts: 13 		This may have already been mentioned in this thread (I didn't read all the way through it) and it's one of those suggestions I'm sure the development team has discussed, but rather than bringing in more animations, I would focus on giving users the ability to import their own animations using a format like .bvh. This would open up possibilities with Muvizu in a huge way, because there are thousands and thousands of .bvh animations available out there and it's compatible with virtually all other 3D software. It also empowers users; for example if someone needs a crawling animation someone else maybe able to provide it and it could be added to the community database that's coming soon.

Most of the platforms that have been successful like Second Life, iClone, etc. have been because they were either open to some extent and allowed for a high degree of customization or were at least hackable. I showed Muvizu to someone today and he immediately loved it, but said he probably wouldn't use it until it supported custom animation or characters and I suspect a lot of people might have that reaction to it.
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15/02/2011 21:27:14

inlimbo
inlimbo
Posts: 70 		I appreciate your input, I think there is a great need for customization and animation "coverage". As far as I understand what Muvizu intends, their style, focus, and mission is to have hand animated motions in their software and never have motion capture.

The strong aesthetic of hand animation is undeniable. Plus I much prefer the smoothness in Muvizu over the popping motion in MovieTempest.

And once they have Huggies and crawling animations their animation catalog will be complete! Well, that and animations for wings, a tail and a long neck.
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15/02/2011 21:34:17

mos6507
mos6507
Posts: 34 		Motion capture doesn't have to pop. It depends on how the engine eases into and out of the motion capture, and how it blends with whatever else is going on with the model (head nods, walk cycles, idles, etc...)
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15/02/2011 22:06:52

inlimbo
inlimbo
Posts: 70 		That's true, but mocap certainly can't add well placed exaggeration to sweeten the timing, the spacing, and the overall motion.
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16/02/2011 07:47:53

PinguinoStudios
PinguinoStudios
Posts: 13 		You make a good point about hand animation vs. mocap Inlimbo and I agree (mos is also quite correct that mocap doesn't have to "look" like mocap). My point about .bvh is not really about using mocap - .bvh is just a nearly universal format for exchanging skeletal animation between different 3D programs - but rather about making Muvizu a more open platform.

I'm really trying to suggest that opening up Muvizu to more customization by users might attract a much wider user base. This often opens up software to uses (and potential markets) that its creators never imagined. Much of Twitter's success for example has been built on top of the fact that it has always been a very open platform with a good API so it could "talk" to other programs and websites.
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16/02/2011 10:26:06

glasgowjim
glasgowjim
Posts: 698 		Hi inlimbo/Pinguino,

The devs intend to allow importing of pretty much any custom content, and the current plan is to implement it in this order:

Objects (Done) > Character Attachments > Animations > Characters

I can't provide a timescale as the Devs are still working on other areas, and obviously there could be changes to the order etc. that things are done but they want to open up Muvizu as much as possible in order to increase creativity.

As for mocap, the most accessible way for this to be done is probably with the Kinect, as it has both PC drivers and Scaleform compatibility, but due to the fact that it's very new tech the dev's haven't had a chance to have a proper look at it to see if it's possible to implement.

Take care,
-Jim.
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16/02/2011 10:33:24

glasgowjim
glasgowjim
Posts: 698 		inlimbo wrote:
Following up on when I can recreate Raising Arizona in Muvizu. After the Unreal Engine gets updated, when might I expect to be able to do something similar to this?

1. Ability to hold and carry a box (Huggies).

2. Ability to crawl.

Thanks for listening!



We all want to add holdable objects - it's something that the devs have been looking at for a while but is still quite a way away due to the complexity involved- but you could probably "fudge it" by having the characters perform the "Happy Pose: Object" animation and have a box float between the character's hands.


As for crawling - thanks for the suggestion, the artists are looking at extra locomotion types all the time and they do try to put in what people ask for.

Cheers,
-jim
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16/02/2011 11:16:56

toonaramaMuvizu mogulExperimental user
toonarama
Posts: 661 		glasgowjim wrote:
Hi inlimbo/Pinguino,

The devs intend to allow importing of pretty much any custom content, and the current plan is to implement it in this order:

Objects (Done) > Character Attachments > Animations > Characters



This looks like a very interesting/exciting roadmap for the future - it's great to see that the team have such adventurous plans for the future.

By the way Jim, best of luck in your new venture you have been a tremendous help to me and many others with your informative, friendly and concise input in the forum. I'm sure you will be a great success in your new job.
edited by toonarama on 16/02/2011
edited by toonarama on 16/02/2011
edited by toonarama on 16/02/2011
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16/02/2011 12:29:08

barrys
barrys
Posts: 102 		In the interests of managing expectations...

Objects (Done) > Character Attachments > Animations > Characters


...is months and months of work. And then some more months.


Barry
edited by barrys on 16/02/2011
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16/02/2011 13:31:22

glasgowjim
glasgowjim
Posts: 698 		toonarama wrote:


This looks like a very interesting/exciting roadmap for the future - it's great to see that the team have such adventurous plans for the future.

By the way Jim, best of luck in your new venture you have been a tremendous help to me and many others with your informative, friendly and concise input in the forum. I'm sure you will be a great success in your new job.



Hi Mick,

Thanks for the kind words Mick - I appreciate it - although I will be kicking about for a while longer; you can't get rid of me that easily .

Also, as Barry said adding the importing is a truckload of work so it will be a while before it can be implemented. (which is why I never give a timescale )

Take it easy,
-Jim.
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16/02/2011 15:59:31

inlimbo
inlimbo
Posts: 70 		I understand about it being complex and taking time, but what about doing a few prop interactions in the vein of musical instruments way sooner? Muvizu makers would have to cut around shots as we couldn't pick up or put objects down, but at least we could hold a few.

Just like the guitar prop, what would it take and how soon could you add animations with a box, a pen, a mug, and a ball?

Thanks!
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07/03/2011 14:19:16

sirih
sirih
Posts: 18 		A gesture I'd like to see in Muvizu is talking/whispering behind the hand. Hard to describe what I mean - but here's a picture (hard to find the search terms even to locate it!): http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/42-18343469.html
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09/03/2011 00:14:26

DanimalMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Danimal
Posts: 477 		Not an animation but still - with all the pirate outfits and animations, how about a hook for a hand? Maybe I missed it but I didn't see one in there.
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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.