Live demonstrations will be available at the stand (C401) and of course an opportunity to meet the team of developers and artists at Digimania.

Voxelise makes 3D modelling easy by using versatile little cubes called voxels.

Voxelise is a fresh take on voxel modelling and produces overall, a different style to Muvizu. Free trials are available to all - visit voxelise.com to download a copy.

Voxelise allows models to be exported as .FBX which can be imported into Muvizu as demonstrated in the above tutorial. Models can also be exported in a host of other formats including; .GIF (Animated), .STL (for 3D printing), and Minecraft Schematic. (More tutorials are available on the Voxelise website)

As most of you will know - we launched our Oculus experience expansion pack this week and so far the feedback has been very encouraging.

Veronica from Go Media Academy was one of the first people to tweet their appreciation.

'OMG, I'm shocked at the VR package you now have. I just can't believe it! I've been waiting on something like this for a long time! And the fact that young kids can use this too - INSANE! You really have no idea about the possibilities of this. Thank you for all of this'

Well, thank you Veronica and we look forward to hearing more about the work you and your students produce.

If you haven't yet checked it out - go to the store area in our website.

Muvizu, or rather Man Xiang Jai - walked away from the PSPE show (Popular Science Products Expo) with best new product, best value product and popular booth award! We are so pleased that Muvizu was celebrated and recognised in such highly competitive categories.

The PSPE show is dedicated to the science industry. Its key aim is to promote and celebrate the science industry and to engage the general public in new and exciting inventions.

We are now busy making plans to take Muvizu to more and more people around the world – so watch this space!

2016 is looking to be an exciting year!

The content store is a new place where additional content for Muvizu can be purchased.

We will be releasing new content packs starting this month with a Chemistry set, followed by a Chinese history pack!

We are also in the early stages of planning Indian, Chinese, Caucasian and African characters. The timeline for these new additions are still being finalised but when we know more you will be the first to know.

Ultimately the store will turn into a market place where users can upload and sell their own content.

Thank you for your continued support. Enjoy!

This is only the beginning.......

Our funky booth meant we could demonstrate the latest version of Muvizu where we also ran a number of promotions offering the chance to win all things Muvizu!  from mugs to fans and even Play+ licences! The show was enormously successful and we have had over 700 Chinese users register to date. We are expecting more to follow. We are now looking at a number of opportunities to kick-start sales in the Asian market. We'll keep you updated!

Martin Lawrence, Sales Manager

This means that you will be able to put different items in to different ‘layers’. Of course, there will always be a background layer that contains the main sky-dome and this will be the default layer that items are created in.

So, you can choose which items are visible when you work in a scene and which are to be rendered out (not with videos). This can be incredibly useful if you are working in a busy scene. You will also be able to render shadows and depth to separate images so you can composite them differently at a later stage. We think this is a great addition to Muvizu Play+ and we hope you do too!

Coming soon - content packs and key framing.

We’ll be in touch again soon!

The event was a resounding success and marked another milestone in our partnership with Chinese animation specialist Pikatoons Inc.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said:

"Scotland is globally renowned for its innovative work in software design and animation, and is an industry which has enormous potential. Digimania moving into China is testament to the company’s expertise and knowledge, and I hope this move will enable the firm to expand further and spread Scotland’s influence".

Paul Collimore, Commercial Director added,

‘We are passionate about our industry and want to ensure the future quality of the industry by teaching the younger generations the skills required at an early age’.

‘I am very happy with the partnership with Digimania. Pikatoons has been focused on creative software solutions for the animation industry for over 15 years. We see the launch of Muvizu as key to the growth of our industry by attracting K12 students to 3D animation' said Mr. Felix Yip, Pikatoons Inc.

We have taken a long look at our product and development has been halted for far too long. Over the next couple of weeks and months you can expect to receive news updates on this blog as well as via email.

If you haven’t yet registered, click here now

It is hard to contain our enthusiasm so here is a quick peek at what’s to come: we are working on updating the look and feel of Muvizu, we are creating new features and we will start to release new content.

We plan to create and release regular content packs for our customers.

Imagine new characters, new environments, new objects and artefacts, new functionality and a clear and easy way to download them and use them in your Muvizu.

If you want to keep at the forefront of what’s happening here at Muvizu then keep checking in or subscribe to our Muvizu newsletter for updates.

Muvizu CEO, Maurice Van Sabben

As you know the team have been beavering away on RenderDigimania for a while but we did promise you bug fixes and by jingo bug fixes we have here!

For a while now this first one has been a source of some pain and frustration for Muvizuers. Occasionally, some of you'd get so far into making your animation and the character would suddenly stop responding to movement commands. Well, no more! It’s officially fixed. So all of you hiding behind the sofa, scared to even attempt movement in your animation can come out and get back to it! The movement bug is squished.

Some of you budding directors are just not satisfied with working on one scene at a time and need to be able to multi-task between between scenes to maximise your creative output. We unintentionally reduced the productivity of several of you by introducing a small bug that prevented more than one instance of Muvizu from running at a time. We've fixed this now, so you can ramp up your productions to full capacity again!

As we’ve made Muvizu even more affordable we’ve decided folks will be less inclined to pay by the minute for watermark-free renders. We’re sure many of you will now want to jump in there and create endlessly with not a watermark in sight!

There’s a load of other minor tweaks that collectively will just make things even smoother and better than ever for us all.

Oh and ZIGGY72! Brace yourself. Dead bodies! CAN now actually stop breathing – takes them 3 seconds to actually stop mind you (bit morbid), but they will now stop.

OK, let’s brighten things up a bit after that! Alongside these welcome little bug fixes, we’ve also unleashed a new character. Meet Mandy!

Some of you might have seen Mandy before in a series of sketches produced by some of the team at Digimania last year.

She a sassy chick with attitude and we can’t wait to see how you all write her into your Muvizu work.

Here’s what Mandy brings with her to help you to craft her into your leading lady:

We have also introduced half a dozen new items for other characters (mostly male):

Remember if you’d like to have the ultimate Muvizu experience and while you’re at it make Mandy really happy by giving her a mobile phone then now really is a great time for an upgrade.

Look what they’ve done to the station clock right round the corner from Muvizu HQ.

Over the years, you’ve applied your creative genius to a whole host of creepy Muvizu animations:

Halloween competitions...

Spooky poetry...

Bathtime massacres...

Dracula’s birthday surprise...

This year keep your eyes peeled this year for some great, new spooky Star Trek work from fazz68 who’s been teasing us with some incredible, gruesome characters over on the forum.

Not quite managed to make your own Halloween short? Don’t despair!
Now’s the perfect time to start writing and planning your Christmas masterpiece.

Don’t forget, this year we’re celebrating the spooky season with a haunting £25 off the price of an upgrade to Muvizu:Play+ - only until midnight (GMT) on the 4th of November! Don’t miss it.

We so agree with Shrek – especially when it comes to ideas! And here’s it is. Your chance to get it all out.

It’s competition time again here at Muvizu and we’re looking for all you budding animators to come at us with some more awesomeness, and if we’re impressed you may just win yourself a great prize!

The competition
This year the world is celebrating 20 years since the birth of one of the greatest animation studios in history, DreamWorks. In honour of this we are asking Muvizuers to create and submit Muvizu re-creations of their favourite scene from any of DreamWorks Animation’s long list of animated feature films. To jog your memory have a browse through the many options here.

Let’s keep the scope wide open to allow your creative juices to flow (flood even!). So, be true to Dreamworks vision or add your own creative twists or embellishments! There’s no limit on entries - you can even submit some wild and wacky clips – yes, we know you can do those! We’re letting this one run for a whole 3 months, so no excuses, get in there new Muvizuers - and those of you with busy schedules have loads of time to polish and show off your work. Post your entries to our gallery and then add a link over on our forum for your chance to win.

The prize
We have the complete DreamWorks Animation collection on DVD to give away to the Muvizuer who shines the most. Including no less than 10 films this prize is a great tool for those looking to learn from some of the most talented animators in the world.

The rules

1. The promoter is Digimania Ltd, The Lighthouse, 70 Mitchell Street, Glasgow, G1 3LX UK (the "Promoter").
2. This competition will commence on 23rd July 2014 and the closing date is noon on the 26th of September 2014 – NB.
3. No purchase of Muvizu:Play+ is required for entry – though it’s worth bearing in mind it will make your Muvizu experience even better! ;)
4. There is one copy of DreamWorks Animation: Ultimate Collection as a prize for the best entry judged by the Muvizu.
5. All entrants must upload their video to the Muvizu site Gallery or post it in theDreamWorks Competition thread in the forum before the closing date in order to be in the running.
6. The winner will be notified via email by Friday 3rd October 2014 and will also be announced on the Muvizu Forum page. If the winner does not claim the prize within 14 days of notification, the prize will be deemed to have been forfeited and the Promoter may dispose of such prize without any liability to the winner.
7. The prize is non-transferable & no cash alternative will be awarded in lieu of the prize.
8. In the event of any dispute regarding the rules, conduct or the results of the competition the Promoter's decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. Entries that do not comply in full with these rules will be disqualified. The Promoter reserves the right to disqualify any entrant for any reason whatsoever in its sole discretion
9. If for any reason the prize is unavailable the Promoter reserves the right, at its absolute discretion, to substitute a similar prize of equivalent value.
10. The Promoter reserves the right to alter, amend, suspend or terminate this competition without prior notice in the event that circumstances make this unavoidable.
11. All entrants' personal data will only be held for the purpose of the competition and will not be used for any other purposes whatsoever without their prior permission.
12. Entry into this competition shall be deemed to be a full and unconditional acceptance of these terms and conditions.
13. The prize and or the competition is not offered in conjunction with any other offers.
14. The Promoter will not accept any responsibility whatsoever for any loss, expense or liability arising from the winner's use of the prize.
15. These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the United Kingdom and Great Britain.
16. All enquires relating to this competition should be made to Digimania Ltd, The Lighthouse, 70 Mitchell St, Glasgow, G1 3LX, UK or via the Muvizu forums.

We asked the group to tell us a little more about their recent production 'Donut Girls'.

Students Michael and Heather, created the imaginative short comedy about three women who escape a diet bootcamp in a bid to recover their stolen donut maker.

Michael and Heather had created some short experimental pieces with Muvizu and empowered by how easy they found it to work with, felt confident enough to tackle the larger, more complex story of the 'Donut Girls'.

The five and half minute story sprang from writing random words on bits of paper, placing them on the floor and shuffling them around a bit. As they did this, ideas for scenes, characters and the humorous plot jumped out.

Once they were happy with the story, scenes were storyboarded and a voiceover script produced. For voiceover they used a desktop booth with Yeti Microphone and Audacity audio editing software.

Heather voiced Nora delivering such lines as "I can't survive on one lettuce leaf a day", and Michael voiced the Dance Off Girls plus game show host ‘Swift Corniche’ who was named after his Father's caravan.

Michael especially enjoyed voicing the Dance Off Girls as he got to pitch shift his voice in Audacity with bizarre results. The other characters were voiced by Sooper Trooper staff, which added a great sense of collaboration to the whole production.

Donut Girls has several locations and both Michael and Heather were fascinated by the fact they could work independently on different scenes and edit them all together at the end of the animation process.
This is how they managed to complete ‘Donut Girls’ in just six Tuesday workshops. With the voices recorded, Micheal and Heather split the tasks for character design, scene creation and animation. One of Heather's favourite moments is the street chase scene built by Micheal and featuring Johan Tusselhoff, who is chased by a rather unfit Donut Girl designed by Heather. (If you have watched it you’ll know why!).

Heather shouts “Get him, get him!” every time she watches it! The Sooper Troopers love that with Muvizu they can upload their animations straight to YouTube and show their family and friends. Micheal has played 'Donut Girls' to friends who he says, "howled with laughter". Which is of course, exactly the response they were looking for.

Michael and Heather also used sound effects from www.freesound.org and their final edit was produced in Lightworks with help from staff.

Overall they tell us it was a wonderful collaboration for students and staff alike. Using Muvizu kept the fun levels up from concept to completion, allowed them to be really spontaneous and left them all with a very real sense of achievement. Michael and Heather enjoyed working together so much they’re keen to team up once more and have already started working on another short about a family holiday into space – bring it on guys!

There was a lovely theory doing the rounds recently on the web that Andy’s mum in Toy Story may actually be Jessie’s previous owner ‘Emily’. We get really excited here at Muvizu Towers when we read about secret back stories and some of the hidden detail work in the movies. Our Marketing Manager was lucky enough to tour the studios and hear first hand from one of their incredible pipeline supremos about the boy scout badges on Russell from Up’s uniform!

Anyway, back to Toy Story - after connecting up the fact that the hat with the string edging that has been floating around since the first movie, with the facts that 1) Jessie belonged to Emily back in the 60s 2) we don’t know Emily’s surname and 3) we don’t know Andy’s Mum’s first name – well, the world’s hidden ‘Inspector Gadgets’ went completely into overdrive!

Here’s the Huffington Post's take on it!

We couldn’t believe ourselves that we hadn’t ever noticed the connection. Pixar do have a history of subtly connecting up their movies; we remember in Monsters Inc ‘Boo’ had finding Nemo and Toy Story toys in her bedroom, and then there’s the pizza planet truck that manages to make it into pretty much EVERY Pixar movie.

There have been a multitude of theories around the Pixar movies – connections left, right and centre. Even letters and numbers that manage to make re-appearances like the classic A113 – most of them are listed over at www.pixartheory.com

I first saw this video a couple of years ago. There is a vast amount of scientific research on the topic of creativity and many other videos exploring the subject available if you should be so inclined, like myself, to watch videos on creativity rather than to go ahead and just do something creative! But that is the thing with ‘being creative’. When it is put in those terms it becomes a difficult, mercurial and elusive activity. I quickly find myself seeking ‘inspiration’ when really I’m just watching other people’s efforts. I would however urge you to watch this.

The video is quite old now but it remains one of the most refreshing views on what can be a somewhat abstract concept and is one of the few pieces I’ve watched or read on the subject that has really stayed with me. John Cleese’s effortless delivery peppered with humour really makes this hugely enjoyable, and it is exactly that sense of playfulness that allows the crux of the matter to be apparent. Being creative is all about playing and having fun.

So often, I for one, become bogged down by imaginary problems like ability, comparisons with others and many of the other barriers to creativity described by Mr Cleese. The analysis he offers in terms of open and closed ‘modes’ makes a lot of sense to me and being mindful of this even when I’m at work and have a deadline pressures bearing down has helped me a lot.

How you use the different modes or sides of the brain or however you want to think of it. Being aware of how you are approaching a task and employing the correct mode at the right stage of development has huge benefits for any job whether it is producing a piece of animation or writing an essay.

Hopefully you will find it as useful as I have.

Here’s Nava…

What if kids no longer needed to complement public education with costly private lessons? What if we could provide them instead with free access to animated & interactive online lessons? Allowing kids to use these lessons to self-learn all school subjects enjoyably and at their own pace.

We believe that today this is possible. Cloud technology and simple yet powerful animation software like Muvizu enable everyone - teachers, students and parents - to create powerful animated lessons.

I'm Nava Levy, I'm an expert on cloud and other technologies, a volunteer tutor for disadvantaged kids and a mother of three. I founded LerGO, a new nonprofit education venture, because I believe the time is right for technology to step-up and improve and democratize education.

LerGO will help address this challenge, through its cloud platform, which will leverage the goodwill of the community, and like Wikipedia, will enable contributors to easily create animated and interactive lessons. A cute animated character will guide the students through the lesson step-by-step. Here are example lessons we created with Muvizu that illustrate this - lesson in Biology and lesson in Geometry. Once LerGO's platform is ready we will be able to add interactivity to the quiz and to send a lesson report to teachers and parents after each lesson (what the student did, which questions were correct and which were wrong and the recommended next lesson).

We want LerGO to make an impact on kids everywhere, so we are building LerGO as a multilingual platform from day one. Here is an example of an English Grammar Lesson we created with Muvizu in Hebrew, and we are in the process of creating similar lessons in Russian and Arabic too.

To help fund the development of LerGO's platform, we have just launched an Indiegogo campaign! LerGO isn't just about offering high quality online lessons, and it's not just about providing an alternative to private lessons. LerGO is about giving the community tools to take education to the next level; it's about reducing the social gap and helping to make the world a better place. LerGO is about helping our kids’ dreams come true and we need your help to support it.

To learn more about LerGO please watch this 3-minute video.

Click here for more details on our campaign, the awesome perks we’ve created for you and for other ways you can help.

Together we can make it happen!

Here’s Kevin – Hi! I’ve been working in the animation industry for around 10 years now and have many wonderful stories to tell.......for example there was that one time when my old boss went into his gun cupboard and... actually most of my stories might not be appropriate for this blog coming to think of it.

One thing that has come up ever since I started working in companies and still comes up all the time is the "mocap will steal our jobs" discussion. The very first time I heard this was literally in my first week as a junior 3d dogsbody. One of the lead animators told me...."don’t get into animation, mocap will take all our jobs in the next few years". I was young at the time and didn’t take any notice and I’m glad that I didn’t... because he was wrong... well, half wrong.

It won’t happen for 2 reasons...

Reason 1 - The main reason I believe it won’t happen is that I believe there will ALWAYS be an appetite for non-real animation which has a more charming feel and takes you more effectively into fantasy than mocap will ever be able to do.

Reason 2 - Mocap isn’t magic. I’ve worked on a handful of mocap projects myself and it brings a whole new set of challenges and needs as much care and attention to make look good as key frame animation does. As a result we need animators to process, clean up and sometimes completely replace sections. Mocap can be amazing and we see it every day in Hollywood blockbusters, games, adverts, TV and we don’t even notice because of how far mocap has come and just how good the artists that use it are.

BUT whether the project is key frame or mocap it still needs animators and our jobs are safe for a while yet. Phew.

After he shone the spotlight on the fascinating video he added some of his thoughts on how difficult it is to create only one scene for a feature-length animation.

“If you've ever wondered what goes into making an animated feature film then this video does a decent job of explaining 1% of the effort. It shows the artistic progression of one shot from Disney's "Tangled". This four minute clip shows the efforts of dozens of artists and programmers. There's probably a few PhDs thrown in too.”

We hate to imagine the stress levels at Disney. Great find Barry!

Quick congratulations too to our Christmas Cracker competition winners whose stress levels should have been a good bit lower thanks to Muvizu bringing their festive felicitations to life – Artpen wins a Play+ licence and Simonheffer, Kenhub and Percensus will soon be the proud owners of blob mascots.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to create an entry we were so impressed by the variety of talented talking dogs and your creativity with assets, canned laughter and timing when telling the jokes.

We hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and New Year, and give us plenty of Gallery video submissions to moderate when we get back! If you're looking for video inspiration, remember our Christmas Crackers competition page has plenty of pre-recorded audio for you to work with, and uploading a competition entry to our Gallery before December 25th 2013 will put your name in the draw to win a top prize of a Muvizu:Play+ upgrade (worth £150) or one of three cuddly toys based on our infamous "Blob" characters! For an EVEN EASIER way to be in with a chance of winning a cuddly Blob, simply Like and Share this post on the Muvizu 3D FaceBook Page! Easy!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - see you in 2014!

We’ve really enjoyed how you’ve all been warming up for next week’s big event with some fun digital directing. This year’s competition is as inclusive as we can possibly make it! ‘Easy as pie’ if you’d prefer it that way and are just starting out with Muvizu or offering you the chance to use all of your skills and ramp up the Muvizu magic if you’re feeling more ambitious. We’ve had a whole bunch of exciting entries in to our Gallery which is great.

What creative and imaginative minds you all have! Here are a few that have caught our eye:

Percensus chose to use our audio for the Fresh Prints gag and delivered a clever and funny Will Smith animation which we all really enjoyed.

Snoopylino’s first ever Muvizu creation demonstrates well how experimenting with your own audio and being creative with our end board sections can have really fun results.

While one of our more experienced users Fazz68 has gone extra-terrestrial with some ‘unidentified’ flying objects, and we don’t mean Santa’s sleigh! We love the dogs with their alien brains and laser guns Fazz.

Watch the video here for some inspiration.

Remember the prizes are allocated via a draw so don’t be put off - be inspired and use the template as a great jumping off point for your future as an animating genius. ;0)

Thank you all for using Muvizu to create some Christmas magic - keep sharing!

Merry Christmas when it arrives!

Using projection techniques onto rectangular shaped surfaces moved around by a robotic arm; the digital optical illusion has definitely frazzled the edges of our brains. Here’s what Emily says about it.

“I’ve been interested in the possibilities of projection mapping for some time. Most of the videos I’ve seen before use this technology in a very specific way. Usually a video is projected on pre-calculated static objects; very often architecturally interesting buildings. While this is impressive, and can create astonishing optical illusions, it is often technology for technology’s sake.

When I first saw The Box – I knew it was something entirely different. For one, the objects - and the maps - are constantly moving. The maps were pre-calculated but the action was shot completely live, and choreographed to perfection. Secondly, the creators of this video have made something sublime; it’s a video that fuses visual experimentation with immersive beauty.

Also – it was made using Maya! Just like the characters and objects in Muvizu.

It ends with a quote by Arthur C Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” I think that’s what I like most about this video. It leaves you with a genuine sense of awe.”

Our Muvizu superstars were jamming with guitarist, songwriter and singer Steve Hackett in London’s Royal Albert Hall and in Liverpool on his recent solo band tour. Steve was originally in Genesis with Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins in the 70s and helped popularise the “tapping” and “sweep picking” guitar techniques. Muvizu forum user ‘IanHolmes’ created a fantastic Muvizu version of Peter’s band to accompany them on the big screens during performances of the popular Genesis song “The Return of the Giant Hogweed”.

Ian Holmes tells us: “When “Hogweed” came into the band’s set it inspired me to play with Muvizu as a backdrop. The plants, Steve and Lee at the start and the royal gardens - all were created with the Muvizu application. They went down a storm from reading the reviews. In fact, by the end I’d made up characters for everyone in the band and they also appeared during the bows - Steve’s character got the biggest cheer of the night! Steve doesn’t move around too much in person – but the character is a proper full-on rock star which the audience loved. I was even getting requests from the band just before the show and it’s a testament to the ”just direct” approach that I was able to do this as well as coping with the normal chaos of a two-truck load- in, reprogram and running the tour.”

Of course we aren’t going to leave you in the dark; here are the performances from London’s famous Royal Albert Hall:

and Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall:

Big thanks to Ian Holmes, Steve Hackett and to the band for using Muvizu as part of a large-scale entertainment production!