What exactly is Movie Maker?

Novica

I hate the search function in the forums, I KNOW Movie Maker must have been discussed- but nothing is coming up! So here goes.

I am not really sure what Movie Maker actually DOES? When I typed in backgrounds, it came up- then I went to Movie Maker and the links to the videos all focused on animation, not the backgrounds. (Although they are beautiful.) And it allowed for panning around the scene- but can't you do that anyway- aren't sets 3D?

What exactly does it do that speeds up the renders? (That was a broad statement which means zippo to me- HOW does it do that? What exactly are you buying with this product????)

Jaderail

That Plugin only works in DS3, not in DS4. It allows you to animate faster because the SET (background) is pre-rendered and set up so the lighting and cameras all match when using the plugin.

In Normal mode of Animating the SET you use needs rendered for every frame. That can add HOUR's of time and extra wear and tear on your PC.

carolinebegbie

As Jaderail says, it only works in DS3, and has not been updated for DS4. And it is brilliant that you don't need to render the set for every frame. It takes only seconds to render a frame, instead of minutes (sometimes many minutes).

It also includes the light set that goes with the background, and a shadow catching plane.

Basically, it's a camera in the center of a huge sphere, which is textured with a pre-rendered background. Because the camera is in the center of the sphere, you can only rotate the camera to look around the scene, not move through the scene (as you would be able to if the scene props were actually there). There are a number of pre-rendered backgrounds included with each scene, which means that you can go easily to different angles. It's a very clever idea, and it's a shame it has not been updated to work with the new version.

You can also pre-render your own backgrounds, and apply them to the sphere.

This was done way back in the days when I had time, using Carrara rendered backgrounds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDvvIi2SwoE

And this is someone else's using one of Dreamlight's pre-rendered backgrounds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZwIWXjYI8s

Novica

Oh my gosh that Sonata is precious! I love the bird singing on the branch too, and the different camera views from top, side, etc.
Thanks to everyone for explaining about the version it can be used with- shame no 4.5 Pro- it really looks like a lot could be done with the plugin. So I guess no one knows of one in the works. Darn.

bigh

you didn't miss any thing - once you have seen a few you have seen them all
and it don't sale that well because of that .

carolinebegbie

You can fairly easily replicate the functionality by prerendering your own backgrounds. The Movie Maker backgrounds are all very large size, and take a long time to render. I remember for that Sonata (thanks for the kind words, btw :) ), each background (one for each camera angle) took about 24 hours each to render in Carrara using a pre-made Howie Farkes scene (I don't know how to use Carrara).

Or you can use any 360 degree jpg background, for example the ones here are good quality:
http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html

You create a massive sphere, and then texture it with the jpg background. Then place the camera in the dead centre of the sphere, and place the character in a good relative position. The camera can be rotated, but not moved.

If you want lighting and shadows, then you have to set up a light and a shadow catcher plane, but that's a whole 'nother thing, which you're probably not ready for yet.

Novica

:) If you're referring to the video with the bears in the yard/garden, I watched that one last week and already took notes because I found it so fascinating! It's amazing to throw shadows onto a jpg image! It does seem like I am starting with difficult things, but when they are explained so well, it's actually a LOT easier than trying to doodle and dabble with some of the more poorly done beginning videos / missing information. So bears beware, I can probably cast a shadow with that tutorial!