UK's top tech startup: Glasgow's tiny circle of animation wizards

Tech startups that can truly be considered game-changers are rare - especially in Shoreditch. The more hype that the Silicon Roundabout "leisure startup" scene receives, the more painfully apparent it is that the emperor has no clothes – see these comments for example. Which is a pity, for less attention is paid to genuinely …

[Phil Atkin]

Normally I wholeheartedly agree with Orlowski, however ...

... I don't get this. At all. Is that badly-synced, badly-animated, badly-rendered video supposed to be a showcase of world-beating technology?

Maybe it's just that particular video is rubbish, but if it's genuinely representative of what the software is all about, then the software and the company that created it are doomed. I really hope it's a great piece of software with a very, very poor showcase video.

[Nigel Leeming]

Not at all

All you have to do is go to the website, download it and start playing to see what a joy this software is to use. All of the animation I have done in the past has taken me about a week for 30 seconds of video. With Muvizu, I created a pop video in 3 days, and that included learning how to use the software. The software has its limitations, such as only having cartoon characters, but the limitations have to be measured against what can be achieved, animation wise, in an extremely short time, and also against the potential of creating animation this way - the software is still in beta.

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8S8wkjBtmw, the first animation I made with Muvizu. If I posted the first animation I made with Maya, you would be forced to conclude that Maya is the poorest animation package in the firmament, and if you downloaded and tried to use it, your opinion would be reinforced. It was good enough for Avatar though, and in the hands of a semi-skilled animator/producer, so is Muvizu.