Customer Reviews

Ucreate Games & Artimation

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(42)

 

 

I've been thinking/dreaming about some way to be able to take a simple drawing and then animate it. This thing actually does that. Amazing. From that point on, all the gaming, customizing, etc all makes great sense. Kids can now envision, scribble and cause those images to come alive and actually move. THAT is progress. The fact that it includes a digital camera is really nice - they don't just sell you programming and expect you to go out and buy hardware.

the mash up is really cool. the games are alright, i was hoping for a little more control of the charactors in mash up, but im using it for video purposes to use with my own music. i also have the u create music, which does allow you a good bit of control..
found this on google.

promises to "put mash-up creativity and game creation into the hands of kids." I was intrigued; it sounded like a lot more than a passive game-playing experience. Ucreate Games is geared toward kids ages 7 to 13; I figured my smart 6-year-old son would be into it--and he was for a while. After I installed the software for him and attached the USB camera, I worked with him to figure out how to use the Ucreate software.

In the Ucreate Games and Artimation package, you get a drawing tablet, software, a folding digital camera attached to a stand, markers, and a set of templates. The main activities are building and playing your own pinball games and puzzles; creating animations that Mattel calls "mash-ups"; and playing a game called Ball Drop, where you try to get a ball to move from one area of a room to the exit by placing objects in strategic places.

What's really cool about all of these activities is that you can create your own artwork to incorporate into the games. For example, you can draw different parts of the pinball table on the included templates, capture the drawing, and then import the pieces to be placed on your playing field.


Kids probably won't play the pinball game very much after they've created it, though. The playing field is small, and there's only so much you can add to it. My son has a pinball game for the Xbox that he really enjoys, and he didn't think the Ucreate pinball game was very much fun.

However, he has had a blast making mash-ups. On the second day of using the Ucreate, he spent most of his time drawing different characters in the templates and importing them. He also took photos of his Matchbox cars and imported them. He then grabbed these newly created objects and made them move: Using the character templates, he was able to make his people dance and walk around the screen.

The amount of control you have in the animation, however, is very limited. You can add an object and make it do something like move across the screen, but there doesn't appear to be any way to change the motion or action at any point. It's simpler than a typical animation package, which includes frames and points at which you can change things. This really limits the product and the creativity.

Additionally, there's no way to edit your pictures. As I mentioned, my son took pictures of his cars--but there's no way to use just the car in a mash-up. As he animated the car, the background moved with it. It would be great if you could use the base of the camera stand as a chroma key green screen, which would automatically remove the background from objects.

My son has played with the Ucreate a few more times since then; but the mash-ups, which he initially really enjoyed creating, have become too limiting for his imagination.

i agree with most of what he says, but i think the mash up game will hold young peoples interest. by design everything you do with this unit is creative, esp when you take your own images. note that you can also point the camera striaght up, and take self potriats or what ever they place in front, it gives you a 3 second countdown before it takes the pic, you have to get the light right because the built light is deactivated when the camera is in the up position. just by playing with this, they will learn about many things, by playing with the lighting in their room, the endless options of pictures and placement considering their toys, books, magazines,etc, the camera is capable of taking good pictures. what you will get is a photo album of your young ones work, in which the photos can interact with one another.. yes the templates and movements are limited, but the backgrounds, plots, and pictures are not. A+++
.

Super creative toy! It lets your kids make video games and animated characters using only markers! Only downside is that it requires an internet connection and a computer, but it looks like they are going to release more and more free games for this over time!

I bought this for my niece and she has absolutely loved it! You do need to connect it to the computer/internet to start, but apart from that it's been surprisingly easy to simple to use. She has created all kinds of drawings and has learned how to make them move and dance. We haven't tried that much from the game book yet, but so far I am very impressed!

I just got off the phone with customer service. They've discontinued this product and they've shut down the server which is necessary in order to download the games. Customer service told me there is "nothing they can do."

Thanks for nothing, Mattel.

While the concept may be good, it simply does not work. When installing the software on Max OS X 10.6, it updates twice (good), then prompts for registration. The registration cannot be completed, giving an Error 3, -9807 when attempting to submit the registration. We get the Error 3, -9807 with the firewall on or off on the Mac. No tech support was available on the Mattel site, and numerous other customers report the same thing on the uCreate Message boards.

Currently on hold with technical support for Radica / Mattel.

Any childs toy that requires technical support, Wireshark and a Network Engineer to get working is a fail.

I was first going to give this toy a 1 Star. My 11 year old daughter tried to install UCreate only for it to say, "Coming Soon." I was very annoyed that we purchased a toy that was still underdevelopment and not fully in use yet. She could only do the puzzles which were not that fun. Before putting in my 1 star review, I read the other reviews and saw that others were having the same install issues and that a few others were successful in their install. So my 11 year old and two 10 year olds sat down to try and figure it out again by themselves... and this time it worked! My kids told me they had to download all the updates, and then after the download, they received a pop up that had instructions for the username and password. They also had to put in the code there from the back of booklet included with the box. After they sucessfully registered, NO spaces (even accidentally at the end of a word), they are now playing with UCreate. They think it is fun and are initially giving it a 4 Star. So there you have it. It is possible to work and my kids figured it out without my help - Yeah!

This is a great system. My son (9 year old) has lots of fun using it. Mac Users: You need to turn of parental controls for the registration process (otherwise you get an error code).

Wow, what a big let-down this turned out to be. I ordered this before Christmas, and at that time it had pretty favorable reviews. While I didn't have the software installation or registering problems that other users had, we weren't able to ge the program to recognize the booklet pages that allow you to upload your own photos or objects. We were able to use the camera to take a photo and upload it, but then couldn't figure out how animate it or do anything but drop in a few canned images that come with the program. It's designed for 8 year olds, but I'm 38 and couldn't get it to work! My daughter lost interest in this very quickly, and it's doubtful this will be anything more than a dust collector.

I bought this non-toy for Christmas...after installing a dozen separate hardware drivers it was finally time to fire up the software. No way to connect to the server for the rest of the game & camera software, even after disabling the firewall on my son's computer. I have spent many hopeful hours but have given up & will be returning this dud to Amazon asap. DO NOT BUY this item!