Case Study
Creating a Presentation Video with Motion Mixer
Last Updated: mars 12, 2025Visual Paradigm Online provides a powerful and intuitive platform for creating engaging animation videos, making it an excellent choice for presentation videos. One of the standout features is the Motion Mixer, which allows you to seamlessly blend multiple actions to create natural and expressive movements. Instead of relying solely on premade actions, you can mix and modify them to craft custom actions that perfectly fit your narrative. This is particularly useful for presentation videos, where smooth and professional-looking character motions are essential for keeping the audience engaged. In this tutorial, we will create a presentation video titled “Raising Working Efficiency,” featuring a speaker delivering a talk. We will explore key features such as applying and customizing actions, adjusting character movements, and refining the animation with the Motion Mixer. Let us get started! Bundle file is provided for you to take reference. If you want to start from specific section, please work with the scene after the section title. Click here to learn how to import the bundle file to your workspace. Download the Bundle File Step 1: Setup Your Scene To begin, we need to prepare the background and character for the presentation video. Since the focus of this animation is on information delivery, there is no need to build a detailed environment. Instead, we can use a graphic-style background, which keeps the visuals clean and professional while ensuring the audience stays focused on the speaker and content. Using an abstract background offers several advantages: Minimal Distractions – Keeps the viewer’s attention on the speaker and message. Professional Aesthetic – Provides a polished and modern look. Consistent Branding – Can match a company’s or presenter’s style with appropriate colors and themes. Apply the Background Open the Background menu on the left. Navigate to the Abstract category and select Memo. Click the background image to apply it to the editor. Add the Speaker Now, let us add a speaker character to deliver the presentation. VP Online offers various character styles, allowing you to select one that best fits your presentation’s tone. 💡 Tip: Some character families have customizable clothing. You can also upload your own texture to personalize the outfit. Learn more here. Open the Character menu and select Manga Vol. 1. Under Grouped by Character, choose Cheryl > Business. Drag and drop the character onto the editor. Resize and reposition the character as needed. Step 2: Make Your Character Talk To enhance the presentation experience, we can make the speaker talk naturally using the Text-to-Speech (TTS) features. These tools allow the character to speak automatically with synchronized mouth movements, creating a more engaging and professional presentation. Here are the reasons using text-to-speech in our video: Variety of Voices – Choose from multiple voice options to match the tone of your video. Smooth Lip-Sync – The character’s mouth moves in sync with the generated speech. Efficient Editing – Quickly adjust the speech without manual animation. Add Speech to the Character Click the Add button on the speech bar. Enter the script in the speech panel on the left. Select a voice that fits the presentation style. Preview the voice using the Play button and click Confirm Selection if satisfied. Click Generate to create the audio. Preview the generated speech using the Play button, then add it to the timeline with the Add button. Adjust the speech bar position to control the starting time of the dialogue. Step 3: Add Animation Effects to Elements To make the presentation video more engaging, we can add animation effects to elements like text and graphics. Entrance and exit animations help introduce elements smoothly, ensuring a polished and professional look. Animation effects help enhance the visual appeal of the presentation by making key content stand out. They also ensure smooth transitions, allowing elements to appear and disappear naturally without abrupt changes. Additionally, these effects are customizable, enabling users to adjust the setting like direction to match the flow of the video. Add text content and customize the font, size, and color. Select the text block. Click the Animation Effect bar on the timeline (default: Always Shown). Hover over animation thumbnails to preview different effects. Click on an effect to apply it to the element. Use the wheel button at the top right to customize the effect, such as changing its direction. Adjust the length of the bar to control the speed Move the position of the bar to control the starting time Step 4: Customize Actions with Motion Mixer Motion Mixer is a powerful tool that allows users to combine different actions seamlessly. VP Online provides 2,000+ actions, and while many may already fit the video’s theme, users may still want to customize movements for smoother transitions. For example, in this case, the speaker needs a talking action. Since different actions may have slightly different standing poses, simply linking them with transition effects may disrupt continuity. Motion Mixer helps solve this by letting users choose a base action—such as a standing pose—and then overwrite only the upper body with the desired talking action. This ensures the lower body remains consistent, preventing noticeable jumps between poses. 💡 Tip: The Idle category is a great choice for a base action when mixing upper-body movements. These animations have minimal movement, making them ideal as a foundation. Select the character. Apply an action from the Idle > Stand > Catwalk – Stand. Extend the action duration by dragging the edge of the action bar, aligning it with the length of the speech. Click Show Motion Mixer at the top of the action bar. The repeated action will automatically merge into a single action bar. Select the first talking action and click Set to Timeline. There is remaining empty space in the timeline. Click the Add button. Select another talking action and click Set to Timeline again. Preview the mixed action using the Play button. Step 5: Customize Actions with Motion Mixer (Partly) VP Online provides four default selections for quick adjustments, while users can also manually pick specific parts...
Creating a Dance Competition Scene with Motion Mixer
Last Updated: février 24, 2025Visual Paradigm Online empowers animators with versatile tools to create dynamic and engaging scenes effortlessly. One of the standout features is the Motion Mixer, which allows you to mix different actions in a few clicks. This makes it the perfect tool for creating complex and entertaining scenes, such as a vibrant dance competition. By combining multiple actions, you can easily mix and create the action you want! Here, we are going to create a dance competition scene featuring one dancer and two audience members. In this scene, we will explore features like applying actions, rotating characters and props, and customizing actions using the Motion Mixer. Let’s follow our steps and create the scene together! Bundle file is provided for you to take reference. If you want to start from specific section, please work with the scene after the section title. Click here to learn how to import the bundle file to your workspace. Download the Bundle File Step 1: Setup Your Scene First of all, applying an impressive stage image as the background for our animation. Visual Paradigm Online offers a vast library of scene backgrounds, covering different categories and styles to suit various animation purposes and topics. The filtering feature and searching system help you quickly find the perfect background that fits your needs. Select the Background menu on the left. As we already have a clear goal, we can directly search “Stage” using the column on top. Press the background to apply to the editor. An empty stage is ready now. Let’s add some chairs for the audiences to sit and enjoy the competition. 2D and 3D props are provided in VP Online. Here, we choose to add 3D props. Go to the Props menu, search “Chair”. Drag and drop the chair to the editor. Press the Rotate button on the top, 8 default orientations are provided. To freely rotate the chair with gizmo, press the Custom Perspective button on the right. Adjust the size and position of the chair to suitable position. Step 2: Add Characters and Actions As a dance competition scene, we need dancer and audiences. Visual Paradigm Online offers a wide range of character families, including realistic, manga, cartoon, and more. Selecting a character is as simple as dragging and dropping your choice into the editor, making it easy to bring your vision to life. Open the Character menu, various character families are listed. Here, we select Street People. Characters are grouped by role or character, drag and drop the character we want to the editor Once the characters are in place, we can apply actions and customize them to suit the story. Visual Paradigm Online offers 2000+ pre-made actions to help you create dynamic animations effortlessly, Pick the actions that fit the scene and apply to the characters. (a) Select the action bar on the timeline. (b) Move the playhead to specific action, then press the Change Action on the top of character. Action pane appears on the left, pick the action under different categories. Here, we select Sit > Sit on Chair. Press the Sit action and apply to the character. Continue to apply actions to other characters: Mike: Introduce – Freeze + Pointing Front (Fun) + Stand Zoey: Sit + Sit – Clapping [Repeat] Ben: Sit [Repeat] Here are some useful features we can use: Rotation: Use the rotation button in the feature bar above the character to adjust their orientation. By default, subsequent actions will follow the same rotation. If you want to rotate the character to a different orientation later, simply press the rotation button again. Press the Rotate button on top of character, drag to the side to rotate the character Repetition: Many actions in the animation maker are repeatable. You can find a swappable button at the edges of the action bar for repeating, trimming, and speed adjustments. Drag the repeat button to extend the action bar, allowing the action to repeat for a longer duration as needed. On the timeline, press the button on the edge of the action bar, drag to repeat the action. Step 3: Customize with Motion Mixer Let’s make the actions perfectly meet our needs! Although we already have lots of pre-made actions, there may be times when these actions do not perfectly align with your needs. Instead of starting from scratch with other customization features, you can also use the Motion Mixer for a quick and convenient solution. This feature allows you to merge different action parts together to form entirely new combinations. For instance: Walking + Singing → Singing while walking Waving Hands + Talking → Waving while talking In this animation, we want the male character to react to a dancer while sitting. However, the existing actions for reactions are designed for standing positions. By using the Motion Mixer, we can mix sitting actions with reaction gestures to create a custom action that fits our scene perfectly. (Optional) Split the part we want to mix the action Press the Show Motion Mixer button on the top of action bar From the action pane on left, , select the sub-action that we want to mix with the base action Select the body parts we want to overwrite Crop the action range to fit the allowable duration Press the play button to preview the mixed action if needed Apply the sub-action by pressing Set to Timeline button Adjust the blending part to have a smooth transition Step 4: More Touch Up Set Background Music Now the animation is almost finished! Being a dance competition, we need a cool music for the scene! Visual Paradigm Online offers a wide range of background music that you can filter to match your scene’s tone and style. After selecting the background music, adjust the volume to balance it with other audio elements. You can also fine-tune the transitions by setting fade-in and fade-out effects, creating a polished and professional result. Press Set Background Music button on top of timeline Filter the Genres and Mood...
