Site Search
Join Muvizu

PatMarrNC - all messages by user

2016/10/9 7:14:19
Muvizu Hot Rod for the store very cool Clayster! Above and beyond the models themselves (which are always very nice) I like your way of showcasing your latest offering. You have a knack for this side of things, and you might want to explore advertising as a possible outlet for your talents.

On a related topic, now that Ikes has taught me how to get glass into an FBX, I'll have to post a car too. I think the Muvizu store benefits from the modelling enthusiasm of the users! In fact, the availability of so much extra content is part of the reason why Muvizu is such a good value... no other animation platform offers so much content for so little money.

-----------------------------------------------------
edited by PatMarrNC on 09/10/2016
2016/10/9 7:07:14
TRANSPARENT MATERIALS IN FBX FILES This is one of those topics that has driven many of us to the brink of insanity... and thanks to IKES, I may have new information for that will help some of those who haven't been able to get transparent material (such as glass) into their FBX files.

When I saw that IKES had uploaded cars with glass, I asked him how he did it. He told me step by step... and I followed his instructions... but it didn't work! So Ikes sent me an OBJ and its MTL file to compare with mine,

Much to my surprise, I discovered that my modeling program stripped out the information needed to get the transparency working!! I manually entered the missing information into my MTL file, converted it to FBX, and whattaya know?? It had transparency!!

After reading some threads and seeing that guys who use Milkshape have a time with this, I discovered that Milkshape does the same thing! It strips out a key part of the material description that allows Colors (not textures, they're handled differently... and Milkshape doesn't strip that out... which is why you can get transparency when using textures)

Anyway, here are two examples of an MTL file... one showing what many of our Modeling programs generates, and then an edited version that actually works:

newmtl blue
Ka 0.8 0.8 0.8
Kd 0 0 1
Ks 0 0 0
Ns 64

newmtl banjo
Ka 0.611765 0.611765 0.611765
Kd 1 1 1
Ks 1 1 1
Ns 0
map_Kd /home/pat/Pictures/BANJO.png


Notice that the blue material (a color) has one less line than the banjo material, which uses a texture file. With a texture file, if there are alpha areas in the texture, the alpha is inherited from the image.

The first material only shows information for Ambient (Ka) Diffuse (Kd) Specular (Ks) and shininess (Ns). For colors, Alpha is declared as a decimal percentage after the letter "d". With that in mind, here's the edited version that works:

newmtl blue
Ka 0.8 0.8 0.8
Kd 0 0 1
Ks 0 0 0
Ns 64
d 0.20
illum 2


Since "d" is a percentage of opacity:
d 0.0 = totally clear
d 1.0 = totally opaque (solid)
d 0.2 = 20% opaque (or 80% clear)

In conclusion.. if you've been having a fit trying to get transparency into your FBX files, start by looking at the MTL file that gets generated along with your OBJ file. If it lacks the "d" parameter, that may be your problem.
edited by PatMarrNC on 09/10/2016
2016/10/8 18:06:24
3D artists: Chubby bellies (and other parts) I'm not at my graphics PC at the moment, so I can't test how small you can make characters... but the new asian and south asian characters come with children that might be reducible to an infant (depending on how you frame the shot) They have round heads, so they keep that child-like appearance when you reduce them.

Thanks to Ziggy for responding to a forum request in such a timely and excellent way!
edited by PatMarrNC on 08/10/2016
2016/10/8 5:55:32
NEW IN THE MUVIZU STORE..... mindiflyth wrote:
The piano is certainly very impressive, but a whole new hairstyle for Mandy seems like a newsworthy item all by itself! May I ask what program you used to create it?


You make good points, Mindiflyth! I've been scratching my head trying to figure out what kind of content to create, and it's slowly dawning on me that common items that can be used in everybody's projects (like hair, cars, etc) are more useful to more people than specialty items. A set of new hairstyles fitted to the OBJ mannequins would probably be very useful to a lot of people!

In answer to your question, this particular hair was exported from Poser, (like the long curly hair BRAJ posted a while ago when he was still active on the forum.) I'll start including new hair styles on the musicians when I post sets of musical instruments I'm modelling.
2016/10/7 18:15:20
NEW IN THE MUVIZU STORE..... uploaded to the store and awaiting approval: a grand piano for your music videos! The animation shown in the video below is still recorded in the set, so open the timeline and hit PLAY to see the same thing. Added bonus: custom hair for Mandy!

youtube demo video:



2D view from my modelling software:



--------------------------------------------------------
edited by PatMarrNC on 07/10/2016
2016/10/7 14:38:12
Opaque Parts Of The Galaxy IanS wrote:
PatMarrNC wrote:
aw crap! I just spent a friggin hour writing a detailed review of your video, and when I submitted it, I got dumped to the LOG IN screen with no warning and no way to retrieve what I wrote!

Apologies PatMarrNC but, for security reasons, the site automatically logs people out after a long time of inactivity. What you could do to mitigate this is :- when logging in, tick the 'Keep me logged in' box. This obviously isn't advisable on public computers though and won't work with Facebook logins..

I may be able to do a fix for the forums, though, as typing shouldn't really be considered inactivity in this case.

Not a big deal, Ian, although I really appreciate your willingness to help!

My "oh crap!" response was entered immediately after I got blind sided, so it contains all the adrenaline of the moment... which doesn't accurately show that I accept responsibility for my own successes and failures.

Putting it into perspective: If losing a long post is the worst thing that happens to me today... then life is good!
2016/10/7 7:26:13
Lion character ziggy72 wrote:
I re-downloaded the latest version, re-installed, and still can't load the set without the 'unknown format' error. Anyone else having issues?


Process of elimination: I downloaded them all from DropBox, and the sets still loaded into Muvizu for me. So that suggests they aren't being corrupted by DropBox. The only time I've ever gotten the "unknown format error" was when trying to open a set that was saved in a different version.

As a double check, this is version 1.8, build 2016.09.07.01R 64 bit
2016/10/6 21:16:46
Opaque Parts Of The Galaxy aw crap! I just spent a friggin hour writing a detailed review of your video, and when I submitted it, I got dumped to the LOG IN screen with no warning and no way to retrieve what I wrote!

Sorry, but I'm not doin' it all over again. Rest assured it was all highly favorable.
2016/10/6 19:26:23
Opaque Parts Of The Galaxy yeah, I noticed how shiny it was.. apparently HitFilm is able to take full advantage of all the material properties that you can put into a model with 3D-Coat?
2016/10/6 15:52:40
Lion character I added some variations to the lion theme.. here's the new set:

(Set was saved in the latest version of Muvizu, might not (probably won't) open in previous versions
edited by PatMarrNC on 06/10/2016

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gx9ngamcbz220sf/LIONS_2.set?dl=0
edited by PatMarrNC on 07/10/2016

edited by PatMarrNC on 07/10/2016
edited by PatMarrNC on 12/10/2016
2016/10/6 14:39:31
Muvizu on the Amazon store congratulations! I'm sure a lot of effort went into this, and it's got to be rewarding to see everyone's efforts pay off! If I can figure out how to do it, I'll be happy to leave a glowing review!
2016/10/3 17:38:41
Not a Video but It is an Ensemble nice work! And just in time for halloween!
2016/10/3 17:35:34
Lion character anabanana wrote:
PatMarrNC wrote:
lion character has been emailed to the address you specified. Please let me know if it opens OK.



Hey. Can you please send me the lion character too?

ana_tarlea@yahoo.com

Thanks a lot!


Hi Anabanaba! Love your name!

In a few minutes I'll post a link to my latest lion character... but you can also DL this free set, which contains the cowardly lion
http://www.muvizu.com/Set/45937/SPOOF-PACK-1

OK, here's a picture of the other lion, to help you decide if it's right for your project:



and here's a link to a zip file containing a set with the lion, plus the FBX mane attachment (which could also be used as hair for a human character)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tshe6717uupu8y2/lion.zip?dl=0

------------------------------------------------------------
edited by PatMarrNC on 03/10/2016
2016/10/3 14:43:47
NEW IN THE MUVIZU STORE..... We could use this thread to announce new uploads. I'll go first:



Part 2 in my ongoing series on LEGENDARY GUITARS and AMPS


http://www.muvizu.com/Set/46957/LEGENDARY-GUITARS-AMPS-SET-2




Part 1 in an ongoing series on LEGENDARY GUITARS AND AMPS


https://www.muvizu.com/Set/46939/FENDER-TELECASTER




-----------------------------------------------------
edited by PatMarrNC on 03/10/2016
2016/10/3 14:35:03
Muvizu Halloween Contest 2016 Entries we should start seeing contest entries trickling in before too long....
2016/10/3 14:34:19
Fantasy Pack 2 yeah Clayster.. you do such nice work!

The thought occurs that there should be a dedicated thread for announcing new store items. I think I'll start it since I just added an item to the store today too...
2016/9/30 16:35:28
Am I missing something?
Nope !! Not North Carolina here but instead L.A. ~ Lower Alabama. Grew up with Andy. I am at the young age of 60 and have always been an Andy Griffith fan.


so, the Pilot Mountain backdrop image was a coincidence?
(Pilot mountain is near Mt. Airy NC which is where Andy grew up, and was the inspiration for the imaginary town of Mayberry. The show often referred to Pilot Mountain as "Mount Pilot")
edited by PatMarrNC on 30/09/2016
2016/9/30 0:48:39
Am I missing something? Welcome to the forum daddycoolj...

I especially liked the stained glass windows made in the likeness of Muvizu characters! Very creative!

Are you in North Carolina by any chance? I ask for two reasons:

1) North Carolinians all seem to like Andy Griffith
2) at 6:30 in your video, your background image is Pilot Mountain.

(I'm in Winston-Salem)
2016/9/29 14:06:01
3D artists: Chubby bellies (and other parts) hard to tell from a still shot ... lots of attachments that look great in stills don't hold up under the full scope of movements... but dang, sure looks good in a photo! Nice work!
2016/9/28 10:39:02
Special request to built 'Malay' character & Sets Hi Camycast, and welcome to the forum!

Muvizu can import only two specific model file formats: FBX and ASE.

Most of the files you find on download sites like the ones in the link you followed are in other file formats, so most of us have figured out ways to convert files from one format to another. Autodesk offers a free FBX converter that you can download.

Blender is another free product that has a LOT of capabilities, one of which is the ability to convert lots of file formats to FBX.

Another free product many of us use for file conversion is Sketchup... but it requires a plugin which also has to be downloaded and installed.
pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

About

Media

Legal

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.