c4d users using messiah render?

[tjnyc]

I'll do the best I can to give some insight, but keep in mind that I haven't done a whole lot of renderings with Studio.

- Displacement is faster than C4D R9 and produces better accurate results, but crack seams exist in messiah's renderings than in C4D. There is very little to be done to get around the problem, but doing your own UVs instead of ZBrush's AUV is one way to greatly lessen the problem.
- m:S doesn't support separate channels for displacement and bumps, unlike in C4D. So you can have both mid-freq and hi-freq maps from Zbrush.
- Studio supports Multi-UVs, were C4D R9 doesn't. This is very important when you want to get film/TV hi-details results from texture maps.
- GI is a toss up. C4D is a better solution but messiah:Studio is faster solution, but the slow anti-alias in messiah even things out speed wise.
- No option to save GI solution for re-rendering.
- Much better lighting and camera properties in C4D, but faster raytrace "area" lights in messiah, but slower shadow-maps in messiah.
- Anti-Aliasing is very slow in messiah, this is an area that needs serious optimization. While you have a renderer that produces fast results in many ways, the slow anti-aliasing negates most speed advantage.
- C4D has better options for handling texture maps, giving users the ability to optimize a scene, messiah doesn't at this point.
- messiah has a tone mapping option, similiar to the Color mapper plugin for C4D, but not as robust.
- Materials is a toss up. C4D provides an extensive canned solution, but is easy to use and does an excellent job of providing everything anyone needs. messiah has a robust node-based setup, but needs some love to get what you want.
- Shaders in messiah produces better looking results than C4D's. C4D's shaders all come out looking very plastic, and needs quite a bit tweaking and adjusting to get good results like metals or wax, but messiah right off the bat produces excellent looking results that don't come out looking plastic, but very real and organic.
- Combo with deformers in messiah also makes for a very interesting setups for complex materials.
- No post in messiah
- No multi-pass setup in messiah
- No camera-projection mapping in messiah.
- Creasing rendering problem from 5-point/star geometry, needs serious fixing for this in messiah.

If pmG works on greatly improving the speed of anti-alias, then I would recommend messiah:Studio for large Res environment/architecture GI renderings, but for right now C4D is a better choice. C4D is also a better choice for motion graphic, but if you want to have highly detailed organic characters with/without GI then messiah is a better fit than C4D.

Just IMHO though.


Cheers,

[chikega]

Hi Flingster,

I'm a part time C4d user and I agree with what Tony mentioned above. Like you, I'm also more of a still image artist and recently attempted a large render at 1913 X 3338 (6" X 11" @300dpi magazine cover). I was never able to render the image in the current version 2.0b as it continually crashed, usually after an hour or more of calculating. This issue is being addressed by pmG. I have to give it to Maxon, C4d is one of the most stable apps around. But the shader flow in messiah is extremely powerful and addicting. :)

[flingster]

wow thanks for taking time and making a detailled response for me...also very objective opinions which was what i wanted to know...cheers tony and chikega.
the large res images is an area very dear to my heart..so this is crucial for me...one of the reasons i kicked xsi foundation into touch..i've had c4d 16000x16000 up there and it is stable on this which is key for something like an AO size print..
is there a demo of the renderer part of studio due for release or currently available do you know? kinda thought i could bolt it onto my current setup helping give me a different look and different options.
arh well its all good...thanks again guys...appreciated.:thumbsup:

[chikega]

Unfortunately, there's no demo version of messiah:studio for whatever reason. :shrug:

[AlexK]

Well, there is maybe. Check your private messages fingster.

[ThomasHelzle]

Just some very tiny additions:
- There is camera projection ("Front projection") it does "just" miss the option to use another camera than the current or a specific frame - but for some stills it may work anyway. (I know what you mean though - you want to shift the camera from the original position to have more freedom)
- No post is true but not forever, since everything is there with the "Image_Filter" surface of the camera. The only missing thing is filters - funny as it sounds. So currently there is nothing but I'm already looking into this to maybe provide at least some initial stuff.
- Rendersize is merely a problem of memory. Cinema was always the only software to do really huge stuff without _any_ problems even on limited hardware (I rendered 13000x8000 on a PII dual 400 with 128 MB of memory in 2.5 hours in version 6 some years ago - the image file alone was 250MB).
I have rendered images as large as 6000x6000 in messiah:studio without problems, it has a very interesting approach to that (saving image chunks to disk to save memory). But in certain constellations there are problems (seems to depend on output image format and heavy use of subpolydisplacement). So my impression is, that it is merely a matter of some patience until this stuff will be ironed out, since the ingredients are already there.
- I personally don't have much problems with AA or it's speed, but that may be dependent on what your do.

[flingster]

thanks guys...some nice positive stuff and some watch out stuff which is always useful...love it when people can be objective really helps to get the information you really need...
cheers.
:thumbsup:

[jono338]

Flingster, before you get too excited ... there is no usuable work flow between C4D and Messiah.

[flingster]

Flingster, before you get too excited ... there is no usuable work flow between C4D and Messiah.
why not? care to elaborate for me bud? please...:shrug:

[chikega]

Flingster,
Are you interested in a workflow from C4d(animation) to messiah(rendering) or maybe a little both ways? Historically, most C4d'ers have been mainly interested in the CA capabilities of messiah.

Essentially, Jonathon is referring to the tenuous connection between messiah and C4d. I've tried it myself and essentially the object disappears on reopening the scene. You can view the detailed discussion from both sides on Yahoo! pmGmessiah Group (Oct 29 - Nov3). Lyle states that they have released the Host API for a knowledgable C4d programmer to write a more robust connection. Point Oven is also a possibility. But, Mark Wilson, the developer, says it's a time thing. tjnyc has a workaround here:

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=183798&highlight=c4d+workaround

[Suricate]

Thanks everybody for the insight. I am currently also exploring the differences between the C4D and the m:s renderer, so this is a useful comparison.


- Creasing rendering problem from 5-point/star geometry, needs serious fixing for this in messiah.
A tiny addition: In m:s 2.0b they introduced the 'Pre-Generated polygons' option which fixes the creasing issue.

[ThomasHelzle]

Flingster, before you get too excited ... there is no usable work flow between C4D and Messiah.This is no longer 100% true:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=187040
With this tool from Suricate you can use the very versatile .mdd workflow (that I personally prefer over the plugin anyway). And I am sure we will see more in this direction in the future.

Cheers!

[flingster]

ok guys just to clarify what i mean't really.
i intended doing all modelling in c4d and zb...then use the messiah:render part...instead of rendering in c4d basically. i'm less interested in the animate part as i mainly do stills...BUT i did try the animate awhile ago and was very impressed so this is a plus...i currently have MB but don't really use it anyways but maxon seemed to support it. even though i know a lot of work went into early connectivity between c4d and messiah..not sure if this is on going though?
its primarily the render part that interests me...so please let me know of anything i need to worry about getting my stuff from c4d to render...nothing immediately stands out to me apart from whats been mentioned...i'm aware of the connection/bridge part to animate and those issues though..but thanks for pointing that out.
its probably a bit of an unusual request really as most would move to use the animate part i guess which is cool...but the renderer was what interested me primarily.
cheers for your help guys.:thumbsup:

[tjnyc]

Thanks everybody for the insight. I am currently also exploring the differences between the C4D and the m:s renderer, so this is a useful comparison.

A tiny addition: In m:s 2.0b they introduced the 'Pre-Generated polygons' option which fixes the creasing issue.No, even with 'Pre-Generated polygons' creasing is still a problem. It gets rid of most creasing, but not all creasing.

Cheers,

[tjnyc]

its probably a bit of an unusual request really as most would move to use the animate part i guess which is cool...but the renderer was what interested me primarily.
cheers for your help guys.:thumbsup:
What is it you have in mind?

I am in a similiar situation. I have been working on my personal time a graphic novel of short stories. I broke down what I needed to get the work done. I plan on using C4D for large environment print quality renderings as well as interior using AR, possibly Maxwell. And some environment matte painting with BP R2. With m:S I plan on rigging and rendering Zbrush detailed models, and I mean high-detail film/TV quality for close-up shots, which will require Multi-UV support which C4D doesn't provide. Also, I want to use SSS and some GI with the character renderings, which messiah does better than C4D. Then back again into C4D using camera mapping on the character rendering from messiah so I can create separate passes for things like intergrating the character with the environment, cloth, fur/hair and so on. Everything will eventually be put together in After Effects.

I should have my first real production test shot in the coming month with one of the characters from my graphic novel. If you want to watch out for that, I will try to break down how I created the shot.


Cheers,

[flingster]

well basically i do quiet a few large format high quality art prints at the moment...mainly abstract type work and use c4d pretty successfully for this sort of thing. what i want to be able to do is push what i'm doing (increase my scope for experimentation a little more)...by using zb to create more sculptural type work and possibly character work and then using this in c4d AR module as usual but also experiment more with look/style in something like messiah render or possibly another renderer...messiah was attractive because of it seemingly adopted zb into its workflow...it also seems a capable renderer which i might be able to develop a different style/look than some of my current renders. really its about achieving or trying to look at things differently than i currently am...tweaking/modifying some of the work i'm currently doing to something slightly more unusual...i'm also looking at maxwell as you point out which would also offer an alternative rendering approach...i looked at xsi foundation with MR but it runs into limits on memory which are not acceptable for me..eg 800meg mark as opposed to c4d around 1.8gig...and from what i've read you can't get around that without essentials or probably advanced...dunno.
basically i'm after a different look to my work...unfortunately i can't define that for you atm..but exploring all options within a realistic budget...

edit: oh and tony...i'd love to see a break down from ya..interesting in high quality close up stuff you mention.

[chikega]

Yes, Tony, please do share a breakdown of your workflow! Looking forward to it. By the way, what scale ratio do you find works best when creating objects in Silo, C4d and importing it into messiah. I've created some objects and they're sometimes so big when imported into messiah, they're off the chart or screen rather. LW objects seem to work as intended scale-wise. :)

[Suricate]

Oh yes, a workflow explanation would be great.:bounce:

Speaking about importing objects into messiah from C4D: How do you export morphs (e.g. facial morphs) from C4D ? Do you have to export a series of .obj files (which you have to redo every time you change the base model) or is there a more elegant way ?

[tjnyc]

If it comes from SILO I scale down to 0.1, from C4D it is 0.01. But to makes things easier I place all imported models under a NULL and scale the null down so I don't have to scale each individual models, sometimes I have over 50 pieces I need to bring into messiah, and that can be a pain to scale each one.

On I forgot to mention, I am also using Blender for their LCSM UV mapping feature. It is simply an easy and power tool for unwrapping UV. Does a great job of giving you distortion free UVs and the whole process takes minutes to get good UVs.


Cheers,

[tjnyc]

If some of you guys want to venture into using Multi-UVs setup, here is the explanation from a series of trial and error I did with Zbrush and back into messiah.

- You must manually create your UVs instead of relying on Zbrush's UV mapping. Using an application like Maya, Modo, Blender and so on that supports Multi-UVs, you can place your separate UVs in their only UV space. So one UV set, say the UVs for the head would be in 0-1, and the body would be in 1-1 and so on. Make sure the UVs are exactly in the correct UV space. In Maya you can adjust the gird to display more than the default 4 UV space.

- Make sure there is no overlaps, Zbrush tend to crash when you try to create displacement maps that have overlapping UVs.

- Import the model as a Tool into ZB, check under ZPlugin, you should find the Multi-Displacement button. Click on GetMeshInfo to see if your UV information matches up. If you have 10 or so separate UV sets, then that is what should show up in ZB.

- Open up Tools->PolyGroups and click on UV Groups. Turn Frame on and you should see your separate UV groups that are assigned.

- You can sculpt away at this point and use PM for deformation, but you can't paint in PM, because ZB doesn't support painting across Multi-UVs, just deformation.

- When you are done, just go into ZPlugin-Multi-Displacment and adjust the MaxMapSize, and Click Create-All. You should see ZB creating separate maps for your UVs.

- In messiah, load your model. You should see in the Render section, that your model is broken up exactly along the Multi-UVs you had setup.

- All the UV parts will have their own default material. Change the color of one of the parts and see which part of the model the UV belongs to. So if you change the color of the first material to red and you see that the head part is now red, you should mark down on paper that that UV part is for the head. Return the color back to white or whatever the material's default color was. Now go down the list of UV parts and repeat the process so you know what each and every UV part belongs too. You will need this when you assigned the separate displacment maps.

- Now delete the default materials since you won't need then anymore and create and assign one new material to all the UV parts.

- In the shader-node section, add a min/max node and attach the A out to the bump of the material. Add a texture map node and assign that node to the A in of the min/max. In min/max make sure it is -1 to 1.

- Now Load all the displacement images into the texture map node. You will be using just one for one node, cycle through the maps and in the thumbnail view you should see each map. Change your map type to UV, you should see a list of UVs sets now. Since you wrote down which UV set goes to which model part, you just need to connect the map and UV together. If you map is for the head, then just check green the UV that you had marked down for the head.

- To connect the other UVs and maps, you just need to add another texture map node and attach that to the A in of the min/max and go through the above process again. See below pic

http://www.telescript.com/images/tony/muv.jpg

Okay, now for some advance work. If you want to get truly high amounts of detail, you will need to break off piece into separate tools in ZB and divide those separately into the millions. Here is the explanation, it isn't easy work though, but it will pay-off in the final result if you are willing to deal with the hassle.

- Sculpt away on your model with the Multi-UVs, until you have it to a point were you want to get some high amounts of details.

- This is where your UV Groups come into play. If you active the masking tool by shift+ctrl and click on a section of your model/tool in ZB, that groups of faces for that UV group will show and the others will be hidden.

- Now what you need to do is clone your tool, set that clone as the active tool, clearing the original tool. Show the group you want to work with, lets say the polygons for the head which is in a separate UV group. Now delete the hidden polygons. The reason why you would do this is, is because ZB tops out at 8 million polygons for one tool. If you have one whole model that has been divided into 2.5 milliion polys, you won't have enough polys to get high amounts of details for lets say the head. By cloning and deleting you can further divide a part of the main model into the millions for some high amounts of detail and extract only the displacement for that UV set.

- There are some problems with this though, ZB smooths out your broken up part, but this zscript should resolve that problem, written by Tveyes

http://www.pixolator.com/ubb/uploaded_files/user_file-1090244596ddd.txt

- Avoid changing anything along the seam, as it will create ugly seam problems when you render outside of ZB which can't be fixed afterwards. It is very important that you create your UV seams in areas that won't need alot of fine detailing via breaking parts of the tool off. If you do need heavy amounts of detail along a seam, try to get the detail in as much as possible prior to breaking parts off.

- Once you have finished detailing the part, create a displacement map for it, using just the normal single displacement map, instead of the multi displacment plugin. Make sure you have adaptive turn-on, especially if you use pinching alot.

- In photoshop or some image app align up the new displacement map you extracted to the separate UV for that part.

- The messiah part is pretty much the same as usual.


Well, that is it more or less. I have a better break down when I get the test shot done. One word of warning, ZB is very unstable if you have a tool with over 2.5 million polys no matter if you have a system with 2GB or 4GB. This has been reported to the Zbrush guys and I believe it will be fixed with the upcoming ZB update.


Cheers,

[flingster]

crikey tony..is there any software you don't use..heh heh.
multi uv's to cool...need to learn to much...damn it..
thanks for the info and time bud..:thumbsup:

[chikega]

Yeah ... Tony left out the part about Houdini ... hehe. Thanks, Tony for the detailed outline ... really good stuff! :)

[tjnyc]

Yeah ... Tony left out the part about Houdini ... hehe. Thanks, Tony for the detailed outline ... really good stuff! :)Can you export out your models with Houdini Apprentice? I didn't think you could.

Cheers,

[chikega]

I jokey, jokey... :D

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