Why Messiah has a bad user interface???

[Panikos]

I can understand your frustration.
Many guys like you (myself included) came from LW.

Messiah brought some new concepts about GUI and not only.
Take the GraphEditor for example and compare it with LWs.
Messiah is far superior.

Its a matter of time to get used to messiah.
Its practically impossible to have all 3d-apps in the world to fit into the same user-communication protocol.

[THUR]

I secon thatonce you get rollin' in Messiah, there is no way back!
I tried studio max, maya and Lightwave .. messiah simply rules dude
practice a bitt and you will see!


the only thing is .. sometimes it takes a bit to long to see some updates :-) .. but thats ok, the guys are probably working very hard



THUR

www.whatsmyname.be (http://www.whatsmyname.be)

www.grid-vfx.com (http://www.grid-vfx.com)

[heynewt]

I come from LW, and I'm only about 2 weeks ahead of you. If you do a search for my earlier posts, you'll see my own frustrations with Messiah's interface coming from other programs and some helpful answers.

What's really frustrating is that Messiah's programmers came largely from LW and Newtek, and lots of Messiah is copied from LW's way of doing things. I just wish someone had written 5 pages in the manual that started as such: "If you're coming from LW these are the things that are going to be just like LW.... AND these are the things that are going to be different..."

First thing to do if you come from LW is turn "off" the Coordinate system in the right hand corner of the World View screen. This will make moving stuff around a little more LW like. After 2 weeks (a few hours here and there), I'm beginning to really like Messiah. But I can't say that I like the edit sphere much.

Also, I've heard Joe Cosman's DVDs are a good way to learn. My set arrive tomorrow. Can't wait.

As for Rendering. Geesh, the only guys who seem to understand Shader Flow are programmers. I can't make any sense of it. Lot of work to be done there to make it user-friendly for artists.

Robert Newton

[Panikos]

I dont have intention to fire any argument.

I've seen similar complains from Maya users that they want messiah to work like Maya,
similarly users from elsewhere.
Messiah is a standalone app that came to fill a hiatus. It works like this.
With the logic of copying UI from other apps, you can easily ask Allias/Newtek to make their apps to work like Messiah. Thats not the case of course.

I repeat, learning new things causes some frustration. The fruits will come later.

As far as shaderflow, think of shading as a composition of various ingredients.
Lets say for example Specularity=SpecularMap+(Colormap-Diffuse/2+3*Reflectivity)/Bump
Its impossible to do this in LW.
Why do you need that complicated ?
Well, the 2005's needs make users asking for more, and the classic surfacing is not enough.

[chikega]

Heynewt,
All will be right with the world after you get Cosman's DVD's. :) As far as the shader flow goes, take your time and start with simple tests. As you gain more confidence, you'll start to see the power of a node based shader flow. I'm in no way a programmer or mathematically inclined ... and I was able to do few nice test renders (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=115932&highlight=chikega) when I first got messiah. I'm also from a LW background ... and it seems LW'ers have been screaming for a nodal based shader (http://www.nodalideas.com/visualtexture/index.html) ... something like DarkTree (http://www.darksim.com/) when it first came out years ago. And talk about a more complex system, you should give XSI a whirl. (Vector to Scalar, Scalar to Vector?) messiah's shader flow is more elegant in a lot of ways. Thomas Art of Noise plugin is superb and his PDF manual goes into a lot of detail about messiah's shader flow system. A definite accessory for the complete messiah user. ;)

[SpikeWorx]

Ok, edit sphere needs an overhaul.
Other than that I find Messiah workflow more user friendly, modern and flexible than LightWave`s.
The hierarchical effects and expression system, resizable Interface, customability through armatures, to name a few have improved my workflow.
Messiah is not LightWave, and I´m glad it´s not.
Messiah feels like LW10 for me in some respects :D
Give Messiah a chance :)

[Memodin]

I tried the demo. Messiah is wonderful.
But, i have to agree with tt99.
For the begining it is hard to get used to messiah's controller interface. Some says all application is hard for begining but i tried alias motion builder 6, and it is not hard even in the begining. There are options for maya, lw, max and xsi users. And the new xyz square system is nice. When you hit alt key + left-middle-right mouse buttons, you can easily manage the layout.
Messiah doesn't use middle mouse button (even right mb usually when managing).
And both messiah and motion builder don't use scroll button of mouse. But Lightwave does !!
In lightwave scrolling mouse button is switching to move, rotate and resize. I usually use this. Messiah must use these i think. And there must be the "xyz" squares like in motion builder (or arrows at least).
Also,
in messiah, 1-2-3 button is shortcuts of x-y-z. But which short cut button is the "M" or "R"? (Clicking the middle of that "edit sphere").
And edit sphere... i didn't like it.

When i look at motion builder,
hmm... it is more tidy and simple than the others, i dont know but it is pleasant. The guy on the right with blue miami dress is cute... Easy to pin the parts, easy to handle the fingers and feet (one by one) managing parts are realy simple and nice. (Too bad to modify the bones like messiah... its a bit rigid)

But i know, Messiah is stronger, more professional. And i want to play with it... It has all that features. No limits like MB. But, messiah must learn something from MB6.
More options please! More flexibility!

I can be wrong. But these are just my opinions as a new rider of these both programs.

[ThomasHelzle]

Hm... messiah is built for people who want to build their own solutions rather than using presets. MB is giving you fast results but man would I hate doing a full custom rig myself in this app :)

This is mainly a decision the user has to make for himself, not exactly something pmG has to change ("Oranges should look like strawberries since they are better"?). They are including stuff like Autorig but the main strength is you as the user being able to do your custom rig faster and more versatile and flexible than in any other software I know.
While I agree with everyone that the editsphere/navigation needs an overhaul very badly, almost everything else in the interface is very nice IMO. The direction the latest revisions have taken are great. (And you better don't ask me about the LW8 "interface" ;) )

And there _are_ a lot of rightbutton menus (almost all of the tabs, the worldview etc.) the Mousewheel can zoom and scroll through dropdowns, press a key with the mouse over a dropdown list and it will jump to the first list item with this initial letter. The middle mousebutton has also a lot of uses (selecting objects, creating keys etc.)
Armatures allow almost everything (and maybe even more) than the blue MB guy - again, it is made for custom building. I have even done a quad-like overlay-menue myself (http://www.screendream.de/plugins.htm - fully customizable)

The same is true for the shaderflow. It is 100% better and more userfriendly implemented than the one in XSI for instance. And again, it is giving you the power to do almost everything you can think of in a custom way rather than just using some presets or standard options. So if you want to really dig into 3D and shading, messiah offers a lot of depth.

If you have seen what Taron is able to do with it, it should be clear that it "got the power". It is a fact that not everybody is a "Taron", but at least we all can try :). To have such people in the developing team makes me feel very confident that we will see some cool stuff in the future.

So I would reduce it to: "what is it you want to do". If messiah offers what you need, you have to invest some serious time to master it. The same is true for Maya, XSI, even Lightwave if you have never used it before.

This forum has quite some people to help you if you are stuck.

Just my 3.1415 Eurocent :-)

[Julez4001]

of course, do a search in this (messiah) forum
chances are, someone asked the question alreay and it got answered.

[MoodyB]

in messiah, 1-2-3 button is shortcuts of x-y-z. But which short cut button is the "M" or "R"? (Clicking the middle of that "edit sphere").


0 cycles through the channel groups ( move/rotate/scale ) and selecting the 'm' in the middle of the editsphere can be user-defined in the KeyCommand Manager ( 'Select Channel Group ' in the popup on the customise tab )

Unfortunately both of these are broken in the current release :hmm: so keep this in mind for when the next patch is released :)

While we are on UI issues, anyone else find the viewport popup menu annoying ? Might be more user-friendly if it was activated by a key combo, say ctrl + r-mouse button, rather than just the r-mouse button (BTW I know you can turn the world menu off or assign its 'on/off' state to a key but it doesn't feel 'right' this way. Maybe change the assignable 'on/off' command to register the key being held down as 'on' and let go as 'off' instead of its current behaviour )

Why ?

Lets say you're currently using the old-style coordinate system and have a motion channel selected. Left clicking on the viewport and moving the mouse will affect this channel in parent coordinates, but right clicking brings up the menu, when it would be better for workflow if this affected the channel in local coordinates ( like it used to :) ).

Just to clarify what I described above does work when the world menu is turned off, it's just that this isn't Messiah's default behaviour.

[heynewt]

Good to see other non-programmers can learn Shaderflow. I totally agree it's potentially more powerful than LW. But for me, with texture maps and bump maps, I've always been able to get just about exactly what I need in LW. But it's nice to know I can go further.

Look, I really like Messiah. Being able to hit play and then make so many adjustments to your animation and see the results in realtime makes it SO much better than LW. Armatures, MetaEffectors, AutoRig, how freaking FAST it is, those are incredible.

As far as learning Messiah goes, I'll say again what I've said in so many posts. Look at Zbrush, it's a fairly complex program with a whole new paradigm of working. I learned most of it in a few hours. How? The folks at Pixologic (and Newtek, and Alias, and Softimage) know that the secret to selling a complicated piece of software is to have learning resources out the wazoo. I know PMG is just a couple of guys in an office, I'm just saying....


Heynewt,
All will be right with the world after you get Cosman's DVD's. :) As far as the shader flow goes, take your time and start with simple tests. As you gain more confidence, you'll start to see the power of a node based shader flow. I'm in no way a programmer or mathematically inclined ... and I was able to do few nice test renders (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=115932&highlight=chikega) when I first got messiah. I'm also from a LW background ... and it seems LW'ers have been screaming for a nodal based shader (http://www.nodalideas.com/visualtexture/index.html) ... something like DarkTree (http://www.darksim.com/) when it first came out years ago. And talk about a more complex system, you should give XSI a whirl. (Vector to Scalar, Scalar to Vector?) messiah's shader flow is more elegant in a lot of ways. Thomas Art of Noise plugin is superb and his PDF manual goes into a lot of detail about messiah's shader flow system. A definite accessory for the complete messiah user. ;)

[ThomasHelzle]

I'm sure almost all users will agree with you. Better docs for some areas (compose and render mostly) and more learning material would take messiah a long way towards being more user friendly. Or maybe a bundle that includes the Joe Cosman CDs right away and a DVD where Taron shows how he does his Neckling :)

This was exactly the point why I have made the docs for my AoN:Studio shaders so massive (50mb) and free to download (link see my signature).

One thing we users can do is helping each other in the forums and mailinglists and writing and posting tutorials.
http://www.zoogono.com exists - filling it with content is up to the community.
"Power to the people" :)

Cheers! :bowdown:

[heynewt]

Thomas, your extensive documentation is one of your prime selling points!!! Never stop pointing that out to people. Most programmers think it's all about features. You at least "get it" that it's not all about features, it's a lot about making slow-brained guys like me comfortable making the purchase.

Dan Ablan seemed to almost singlehandedly transform the LW user base. I personally know 2 people who picked up LW because they sat around reading my Dan Ablan book and thought, gee this isn't as hard as the demo makes it seem.

Those same 2 people are watching me in Messiah. They want to learn character animation. One of them is considering going the $2K Gnomon route with Maya. You see, it's the Gnomon training that is dictating what package he's going to end up using, not the features or even the price (well, it's also the ubiquitous nature of Maya).

I agree, the neckling thing was incredible. But like several posters, I read through Taron's explanation and just laughed, because so much of it I didn't have a clue. It's ok, I understand that it represents features not yet implemented. I hope when it's released someone will "translate" Taron's explanation to a simpler form and maybe a sample scene.

Robert



I'm sure almost all users will agree with you. Better docs for some areas (compose and render mostly) and more learning material would take messiah a long way towards being more user friendly. Or maybe a bundle that includes the Joe Cosman CDs right away and a DVD where Taron shows how he does his Neckling :)

This was exactly the point why I have made the docs for my AoN:Studio shaders so massive (50mb) and free to download (link see my signature).

One thing we users can do is helping each other in the forums and mailinglists and writing and posting tutorials.
http://www.zoogono.com exists - filling it with content is up to the community.
"Power to the people" :)

Cheers! :bowdown:

[ThomasHelzle]

So the following statement Taron made in this thread (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=187263&page=4&pp=20) should make you quite happy:

"Yes, in fact, more so I am going to share this entire scene/project with the release of messiah:Studio2.0c and the TextureDeform plugin! An entire tutorial will follow up...I might just make a DVD with an even more evolved workflow that goes a bit further than that."

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[heynewt]

"Happy" would be an understatement! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:



So the following statement Taron made in this thread (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=187263&page=4&pp=20) should make you quite happy:

"Yes, in fact, more so I am going to share this entire scene/project with the release of messiah:Studio2.0c and the TextureDeform plugin! An entire tutorial will follow up...I might just make a DVD with an even more evolved workflow that goes a bit further than that

[Insider]

Dan Ablan seemed to almost singlehandedly transform the LW user base. I personally know 2 people who picked up LW because they sat around reading my Dan Ablan book and thought, gee this isn't as hard as the demo makes it seem. Hey, Newt,
Thanks for the kind words. While we haven't announced yet, I'll be releasing 3D Garage training for messiah in the new year.... so hopefully that will help people get over the "lw to messiah" curve.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[heynewt]

Hey moderator, there's this guy on this list pretending to be Dan Ablan. I know it can't be the real Dan Ablan, because... well because guys whose book I have sitting beside me right here don't just up and write posts on this mailing list. (Besides, didn't the real Dan Ablan get married to Jennifer Lopez, and they call him Dannifer?)

Robert N.

(That's great news. Can't wait to see it. 3D Garage fills a big demand for training.)


Hey, Newt,
Thanks for the kind words. While we haven't announced yet, I'll be releasing 3D Garage training for messiah in the new year.... so hopefully that will help people get over the "lw to messiah" curve.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Insider]

Dannifer. Hehe. Haven't heard that one before.

I'll tell my wife about it and see what she thinks :)

Lots of changes coming to 3DG soon...

[DMack]

Hey, Newt,
Thanks for the kind words. While we haven't announced yet, I'll be releasing 3D Garage training for messiah in the new year.... so hopefully that will help people get over the "lw to messiah" curve.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cool! - Just as I was writing about tutorial DVD's on another thread...why does this always happen to me....Just like when I 'Broke' the news of Modo being released...and suggesting it has its own forum....only to realise...everyone knew....and it did have it's own forum! Oh man!

Yeah a good ground up explanation of Messiah Animate would be super cool - you've got my order already!

[chikega]

Dan!!! What are you doing in this neck of the woods? :applause:

[DMack]

Hey - Dan...Check out my bit on the 'Subpatch toggling to speed up refrash' thing. Sorry - I don't know how to link to other discussions!

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.