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Home ? Competitions, Events & News ? Muvizu Halloween Contest 2016 Entries

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20/09/2016 18:45:27

MrDrWho13Muvizu mogulExperimental user
MrDrWho13
Posts: 2220 		Hey guys,
Here’s where you post your entries to this year’s Halloween competition.
This competition will be judged by the Muvizu community, and I imagine many of us regulars will give feedback on what went well and what could be improved.

The rules for this competition are very simple:
  • Entries must be submitted before midnight on October 29th, and judging will take place on the 30th ready for the announcement of the winners on the 31st.
  • Entries must have a Halloween theme, but other than that it’s open to your imagination.
  • Entries must be made within the time constraints of the competition. No using old videos please.
  • Entries must be made in Muvizu. (Duh! )
  • Entries must contain only your own or royalty-free material. We don’t want anyone to have their video taken down due to a copyright dispute.

You can submit as many entries as you like.

There are no prizes for this competition, but you will receive high quality feedback on how to improve your skills.

Here are some videos from previous years that may give you some inspiration:

The winner of the 2012 competition by Artpen:


Ziggy72 managed to get 2nd place with this video:


And 3rd place went to Woztoons:


Good luck everyone!
edited by MrDrWho13 on 20/09/2016
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20/09/2016 19:15:55

MrDrWho13Muvizu mogulExperimental user
MrDrWho13
Posts: 2220 		Top tips for stepping up the quality of your films:
  • Experiment with different lighting to get your desired effect. Try to avoid using the ambient light that Muvizu puts in by default. Often a scene will gain a lot of depth with just one or two well placed lights. For larger scenes, you could try the directional light.
  • Once you've sorted out your character actions and movement, add a bit more personality and subtle emotion to your characters by using head and eye movement. If you find that your character isn't quite coming across as you intended, you might want to have a go at animating the "expressive" property with "Prepare/Direct character properties"
  • You may not notice at first, but good sound quality make a massive difference on how you perceive a film. When you record your dialogue, try to keep a good distance from your microphone, and avoid recording around anything loud like a desk fan that could leave a noticeable noise in the final recording.

edited by MrDrWho13 on 20/09/2016
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20/09/2016 21:26:27

tonyob67
tonyob67
Posts: 211 		I just had a great Idea for a Halloween video....I am inFroot muaaaaahahahaha
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21/09/2016 18:33:44

Speedking5
Speedking5
Posts: 50 		Wow those were all really good I'm definitely going to do one! Ziggy that opening scene with the house looked amazing was that all lighting with muvizu or was it those luts effects that you say you add?
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22/09/2016 13:23:07

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		Speedking5 wrote:
Wow those were all really good I'm definitely going to do one! Ziggy that opening scene with the house looked amazing was that all lighting with muvizu or was it those luts effects that you say you add?


That was made a long time ago, with the beta version of Muvizu (with the old logo) and the standard Muvizu lighting. Muvizu has an amazing lighting system, but by default when you create a new set it goes to the 'simple' version, which looks like crap. Go to your Environmental settings, set it to Custom, turn off the ambient lighting and shadows, set the upper and lower ambient lighting to zero, and THEN begin lighting your set (with the lights set to 'cast individual shadows', not ambient).
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22/09/2016 15:39:38

PatMarrNCMuvizu mogul
PatMarrNC
Posts: 1738 		the standard Muvizu lighting flattens things out and doesn't take full advantage of Muvizu's 3D look and feel. Ziggy's settings definitely add visual interest, as evidenced by just about any of his videos.

But, playing devil's advocate here... the standard lighting can be useful in other ways.

If you have proficiency in one of the 2D animation packages and you want to merge content from the 2D world into Muvizu's 3D world, a flat lighting scheme makes it less noticeable.

If you want to show something that Muvizu can't do, that's a good opportunity to merge content from your 2D package. A very simple way to transfer your Muvizu set to a 2D world is by simply taking a screen shot of your Muvizu set, then apply it to a layer in Moho or other program.

You can move characters to 2D by taking a screen shot of the character from a couple of different angles, then in a garphics editor, cut it into individual features (like arms and legs) that can be rigged in the 2D environment.
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22/09/2016 16:48:31

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		Muvizu defaults to the 'simple' lighting system because it's the least demanding on your system. If anyone thinks it looks okay or can use it to help them then great, but I would strongly recommend against using it ever. Flat lighting is boring and fake. Look around you - the world is full of shadows and highlights. If you're making a Halloween video with flat lighting and no shadows then... well, good luck to you
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22/09/2016 19:41:03

tonyob67
tonyob67
Posts: 211 		Hello Ziggy, Is the house a png file?,it looks very real
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22/09/2016 20:11:50

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		It was a model of a haunted house I got on Sketchup's 3D Warehouse (or whatever they call it this week). 3D models always work better than images when you have to move the camera, I find. Also, I knew I had to set it on fire at the end, so an image just wouldn't have worked anywhere near as well. Avoid using images when possible is my advice - flatness is rarely all that helpful in a 3D environment.
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22/09/2016 20:29:21

tonyob67
tonyob67
Posts: 211 		I tried to import a house from sketchup, but for some reason muvizu crashes, and is only like 5,000 polygons...
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22/09/2016 20:38:52

tonyob67
tonyob67
Posts: 211 		How you did that small hill where you put the house?
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22/09/2016 20:45:28

MrDrWho13Muvizu mogulExperimental user
MrDrWho13
Posts: 2220 		tonyob67 wrote:
How you did that small hill where you put the house?

I believe that's a stretched out hill object from Muvizu.
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22/09/2016 21:08:36

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		If you pause the video at 10 seconds in, when the lightning flashes, you can see how the whole set is made - everything is Muvizu except the house and a backdrop with the picture of the moon on it. The hill is just a hill from the Nature section, yes. The treeline is a picture of a treeline on a couple of backdrops. Everything was scaled to the hill's largest size, since I didn't know how to make my own stuff back then.
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22/09/2016 21:10:05

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		tonyob67 wrote:
I tried to import a house from sketchup, but for some reason muvizu crashes, and is only like 5,000 polygons...

Models can cause problems because of their geometry, regardless of size. Sometimes chopping it up into smaller pieces can help.
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22/09/2016 22:02:22

PatMarrNCMuvizu mogul
PatMarrNC
Posts: 1738 		tonyob67 wrote:
I tried to import a house from sketchup, but for some reason muvizu crashes, and is only like 5,000 polygons...


The models in Sketchup's warehouse are uncontrolled. Anybody can post a model, so the quality varies quite a bit... ranging from quite good to horrendous. The good news is that there are thousands of models on just about any theme, so if one crashes, Try another one.
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22/09/2016 22:12:33

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		Tony, Try searching for Phantom Manor in the 3d Warehouse - that's where I found that house that I used. Still had to do some work on it to get it 'Muvizu-ready'...
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23/09/2016 00:27:58

Speedking5
Speedking5
Posts: 50 		ziggy72 wrote:
Speedking5 wrote:
Wow those were all really good I'm definitely going to do one! Ziggy that opening scene with the house looked amazing was that all lighting with muvizu or was it those luts effects that you say you add?


That was made a long time ago, with the beta version of Muvizu (with the old logo) and the standard Muvizu lighting. Muvizu has an amazing lighting system, but by default when you create a new set it goes to the 'simple' version, which looks like crap. Go to your Environmental settings, set it to Custom, turn off the ambient lighting and shadows, set the upper and lower ambient lighting to zero, and THEN begin lighting your set (with the lights set to 'cast individual shadows', not ambient).


Thank you I have been using this lighting this way for a while now and its completley better. (even named it Ziggy Lighting) when I turned the shadows up on my old computer it shut down the whole computer lol. When you are lighting a character do you use point lighting or the spot lights. What about the dark lights?
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23/09/2016 08:16:34

tonyob67
tonyob67
Posts: 211 		ziggy72 wrote:
Tony, Try searching for Phantom Manor in the 3d Warehouse - that's where I found that house that I used. Still had to do some work on it to get it 'Muvizu-ready'...



I have downloaded a few houses,...Thank you Ziggy and Pat, lets keep working, when I am working with muvizu, time gos very fast
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23/09/2016 14:20:34

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988 		Speedking5 wrote:
When you are lighting a character do you use point lighting or the spot lights. What about the dark lights?

Usually spot lights (since point lights go everywhere and light things you don't want). Dark lights have only recently been fixed but yes, I use them when the AO doesn't reach far enough. Be careful with the distance slider on Darks though - they can generate black highlights on the character's eyeballs.
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25/09/2016 14:09:15

MrDrWho13Muvizu mogulExperimental user
MrDrWho13
Posts: 2220 		Just a brief example of how lighting can completely transform a scene.

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