Moho Forum

SM is offering a Muvizu Pro package in partnership with Digimania. What I don't quite understand is the difference between SM's offer and the one at the Digimania website - SM doesn't list the "premium features" it includes.

The concept of the software seems to be easy 3D production of something that looks good from pre-made content. Import of FBX files, for example made in Blender, is possible. As far as I can gather, there are no quadrupeds, although they have animal heads. So basically it's something like the AS/Moho character wizard further developed with all sorts of variable actions in 3D. Obviously not the high road of original animation, but possibly useful for educators.

The Muvizu chat room moderator told me this:

yes, what you bought for $45 includes a lot more assets than you'd get for the lower price shown on the store. In fact .. if you bought the basic program plus all the additional assets you got, the normal store price would be around $90 USD

if you're wondering whether its worth the money to get the extra assets, consider this: Some of the free assets require you to have the add-on packs. So buying them also opens up a lot of other free possibilities.

I haven't bought it - tested the free version. It's sort of like Crazy Talk, but works easier although it's 3D. There are all sorts of pre-fabricated actions that can be applied to characters, so the beginner gets something that looks good right away. It seems to be a nice toy ...

exile wrote:It seems to be a nice toy...

Yeah. That's it right there. I tried it a while back. For one thing I hated the dopey expressions on their puppets' faces, and having to work with what they gave you rather than designing and building your own characters. (Although using Blender for this now seems like a step in the right direction). It fills a niche, I guess, but those developers would have to put in a lot of long nights before I take another look at it.

From Moho's point of view, this is something you might see in your rear-view mirror as you accelerate away...

Thanks, jahnocli, you've helped my decision-making process. I'm not a professional animator, but a big part of the satisfaction is creating something no one else has done exactly that way before. And the "quick production" argument is dubious, too. One guy wrote that he imported some sequences into Anime Studio to add parts that couldn't be done in Muvizu. Sounds like just as much work without the freedom to do your own thing. Let's save our money, we'll need it.

I thought that for education in scripting, background setup, lighting, camera shot setups, that this would be excellent tools to use. Would be easy to grade on and offer technique in story telling and basic movie making planning.

ruscular3d wrote:I thought that for education in scripting, background setup, lighting, camera shot setups, that this would be excellent tools to use. Would be easy to grade on and offer technique in story telling and basic movie making planning.

In case you got it, I hope you're happy with it. I didn't want to try to influence your decision, different needs fit different software, so I waited a bit to answer. I was just wondering if you couldn't achieve the same effect with your students if you took pre-made characters and let them animate in Moho. They would have more control over their characters and actions than in Muvizu - of course the cost of Moho is a lot higher.

Having read this thread I had a quick look at Muvizu - According to Digimania's website, "The Muvizu Animation Engine is powered by Unreal ® Engine™ 3. Unreal ® is a registered trademark of Epic Games, Inc. Unreal ® Engine™, copyright 1998 - 2012, Epic Games, Inc. All rights reserved." - so I had a look at Unreal and they say "If you are using Unreal Engine 3 (UE3), including the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), we highly encourage you to move over to Unreal Engine 4." And if you're hoping to import your own FBX artwork into Movizu watch out for differences in the FBX versions (UE4 uses FBX 2014 so I'm guessing that UE3 will be on an earlier version; Maya can export "any" FBX from 2006 onwards; Moho12 seems to export 7.4 which might be a version or two old - maybe 2015 - but I'm guessing here????)

so for me the real challenge of Muvizu (and other similar offerings) is "how do I get my artwork in there?" Right now I don't see a comfortable route ... but I'd love someone to tell me it's a breeze .... (as long as I don't need to buy Maya to do it!) Like John said

jahnocli wrote:From Moho's point of view, this is something you might see in your rear-view mirror as you accelerate away...

But I'm intrigued that SM are in some kind of deal with Digimania!!!???

exile wrote:SM is offering a Muvizu Pro package in partnership with Digimania.

Do they this as a valuable addition to their graphics portfolio????!!!

hayasidist wrote:Do they this as a valuable addition to their graphics portfolio????!!!

It appears that SM will try and sell you anything they can - including Rosetta Stone language courses!

They appear to have no core focus unfortunately.

It's starting to look like a garage sale.
Got drunk in Vegas, now I have to sell all my stuff.
Oh this thing belongs to my neighbour, I'm selling their stuff too.