Why Pmg Site so quite?

[DMack]

Reason.....they have been very hard at work.....evidence......wait and see (hopefully) later this week.....oooooh the suspense....

[pnoland]

Later this week? Is there some sort of update coming out? Is this going to be a huge rumor thread? Oooh, the suspense is killing me! :D

[Suricate]

Later this week? Is there some sort of update coming out? Is this going to be a huge rumor thread? Oooh, the suspense is killing me! :D

Take a look at Lyle's recent post here (http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=1997835&postcount=8).

[Modollor]

i dont know messiah appear since when or year.Just my personal opinion.if till now the software just hang half way or lack of user i rather join or merge wth other software company.why waste time for R &D .in fact user wasting the time to wait for them to glow up.As i know Motion builder is take over by alias why dont Messiah Join with lw or Lux.It going to be powerful pack instead.(I mean integrate.)i tire of waiting them to do a R&D make few plugin then let user to download the plugin,then link this link that.not to said what i hope is they serioesly make a good animate software not a third party software now(ya.i mean now).i dont see messiah going to be as power full as motion buider.Pls ok,may be u said they being busy work at thier work,then what bout us user,we have to sit there and wait ........................................today is 28feb2005 is going to march...........ya ....wait...........i going to motion buider,Maya......at least i saw what they did,i like lw,after i saw Modo ,I never used Modeller,i used Modo....but no animate part ,sad.............i can wait ......man....

[SpikeWorx]

I often wonder how the small pmg team realizes features that another company I don´t want to name couldn´t even manage with a team a few times bigger.
Messiahs features and updates aren´t only better, faster and more usable for me from a practical point of view *in my mind*, they´re also *most of them* more innovative.
It´s either magic from pmg or that other company must suck. Or both :shrug: :p.
Think of what could be done with a bigger team.
Messiah is not perfect *which software is ?* and has its shortcomings.
The community isn´t large, but helpful and the communication between users and developers is well.
That doesn´t mean it´s sufficient for everyone or couldn´t be improved.
They´re multi talented prisoners in a dungeon and develop on bread and water ;) .
No time left for more frequent web updates i think.

[DMack]

Speaking of coders.....has PMG ever thought of expanding it's coding team?

[Julez4001]

I'm sure its about economics and what they can afford.

If Luxology release a new rendering app, they will definitely be promoting to the tilt.

[heynewt]

You got to figure that PMG was created with the idea that they'd be bought out by a big animation company (like Alias buying Motion Builder) but it clearly didn't happen as quickly as they had hoped. They ain't gettin' rich off Messiah, you can bet on that.
And VC money doesn't flow forever. I'm just musing here, but it seems such a waste to have these 3 companies with such strong connections (Newtek, PMG, Luxology) operating 3 different 3D programs that sort of specialize in 3 different things, though obviously LW and Messiah overlap quite a bit as well as LW and Modo.

I just wonder what Worley's doing. He's been quiet for a long time. I can't help but think that something big is brewing between him and LW (and possibly others, I have no idea). The LW 8.2 release was disappointing and it took a year. Something's happening. Everything's just so quiet from everyone.

I don't know. Mind is wandering. It's been a long day, and I'm doing scientific animations, wishing I could get back to some character work. I envy you guys.

Robert Newton

[DMack]

I wrote something very similar some time ago re Lux, NT and PMG...a real missed opportunity....never mind.

Regards Worley....I can't help but think that he might be doing something with with both NT (FPrime 2? and Sasquatch 2) and LUX (sasquatch 2)......I'm guessing here completely but I reckon that LUX will bring a renderer out within the year and that Worley will port Sasquatch over (think all those people moving over to LUX from NT and buying sasquatch again....great for revenue!!!). That's my guess.

I guess this is why IMHO, PMG would be best concentrating ALL their efforts (Let's face it, they just don't have the manpower) in messiah animate and making sure it works really nicely with Lightwave (I mean really good, simple integration...hopefully easier with the SDK opening up), Lux renderer, maya etc.

Please say if I'm not making sense here PMG but I just can't see how you can stay ahead with both an animation AND a rendering module with sooo few coders compared to the competition........specialization (and here...read character animation) is your best future....Just my 5 cents worth.

[heynewt]

I think you may be right on the money on all that. And I agree with your thoughts about PMG. Their strength is the animate module. The more resources they throw into the render module, the less they can innovate on animate. I've got Messiah Studio , but I've never actually opened the render nodule. One look at shader flows and my hair stood on end.

Messiah links pretty well now to LW, but (I'm told) you still have to use point-oven for a lot of things. That should be fixed. With LW opening up their SDK, maybe Messiah can have a total link to LW.

The question is what's Luxology doing? If they introduce a renderer then what does that mean for LW? For PMG? Is it just a "renderer". Or is it a complete character animation system/renderer like LW?

Maybe we'll get some answers by NAB. I'd hate to wait for Siggraph, though I'm going this year.

Robert

[tjnyc]

I disagree with the idea that pmG shouldn't concentrate on the renderer. That would really be a missed opportunity. Right now the renderer isn't finished, yet it is a unique renderer that does separate itself from others. For one thing it works with and enhances character animation, you can even call it a CA renderer. A renderer that is built for animation, a real first of its kind. I wouldn't use m:Studio to do product design renderings, arch or vis stuff, but it would work great for medical animation and such. At its core messiah is all about character animation, and the renderer is very much apart of it. However, it needs improvement. If you are going to be doing just the CA and CA rendering in Studio, it needs to have better support for compositing, via baking, mult-pass and better depth features. Some things I would like to see in the animate features are things like RBD, ragdoll physics, and Cloth effects to name a few. For Cloth pmG should take a look at Syflex or C4D's Cloth, both work great.

Right now, I can't see myself using anything other than Studio for CA and CA rendering. It is just that much better than anything out there for a single user or a small team, even in it's far from prefect state. Right now I am testing stuff for a more ambitious ZB-messiah animation project and I am amazed how well it is going in a short amount of time that I never would have been able to do in any other application as a single user.

I do agree that pmG should be more visible and get more involved with other companies like Lux and/or Pixologic ZBrush for cross promotion and that they probably do need to add in a solid programmer(s). But I think we have seen them be more proactive in that regard, they got Taron to join up and I am sure he has had a big influence on the visibility of the product and is steadily gaining more users because of it.


Cheers,

[heynewt]

Great post. This is a good and constructive debate.

Look forward to seeing any samples of what you described that you're working on.

Robert

[lmilton]

Interesting thread. Now if you'll permit me, I'll share my view:

I understand those that get nervous when we haven't added to our site. Don't worry, we're still here:) There is much work going on, and that includes our site. In the meantime, you can catch Ron, Fred, & me here on CGTalk and on the Yahoo messiah forums. While I'm still confined to the dungeon, I do try to come up for air to provide support & info.

Those who feel that we shouldn't develop our renderer are either animate users :D and/or those who haven't used the renderer in its true context. Our renderer is closely tied to our animation system. This coupling is crucial for the type of control & focus on character animation that we envisioned for a complete & professional character realization environment.

Of course, an endeavor such as this is not quick or easy. This is an ongoing effort, but Taron (programmer & artist extraordinaire) having joined pmG really rounds out our team. We're constantly working on both the rendering *and* animation systems (and the coupling of the two).

So, things may *seem* a little quiet right now, but you need not worry about pmG. However, if you are interested in helping, using the software and sharing what you know with the rest of the community is the best way that you can assist us. It's the ongoing feedback that provides the fuel for development, builds a better community, and creates more powerful messiah apps for the masses.

Thanx for listening;)
-lyle

[heynewt]

Thanks for jumping in and clarifying those things, Lyle.

Robert Newton

[Julez4001]

hey I know taron released a new basic shader a while back
Is it part of the next rev or did he release a patch for that patch....

[DMack]

Good comments from tjnyc and Lyle.....maybe I'm not 'getting it'. I use 3D for a broad spectrum of work from documentary re-constructions, to medical work and braodcast graphics and character work....For this I need a full array of features....like Hypervoxels, fur, really good DOF, instancing etc......when I last looked at the feature list of Studio, I just couldn't see it working for me...I hope that one day I will....I guess the point on focus was based on a very (quite possibly overly) simple assumption....to keep ahead in a very competitive market, you need either lots of coders or lots of focus .... Don't know....maybe I've missed the point completely ;)

[tjnyc]

hey I know taron released a new basic shader a while back
Is it part of the next rev or did he release a patch for that patch....

He already released it. You can go to download section on the pmG site and scroll to the link with the replacement file.


Cheers,

[AAAron]

But I must say that the render system, with it´s nodes is one of the most intuetive I´v ever tested including c4d xsi and lw. Sure it lacks fur and stuff like hypervoxels but one can always use lw for that, not that a good fur/hair solution would do any harm :rolleyes:

Can´t wait til the next update :bounce:

[chikega]

I was wondering that myself ....


" Can you hear that .. <silence>.. that is the winds of change" Monster, Inc.

[Modollor]

if got hair & exported boner rig is better.

But I must say that the render system, with it´s nodes is one of the most intuetive I´v ever tested including c4d xsi and lw. Sure it lacks fur and stuff like hypervoxels but one can always use lw for that, not that a good fur/hair solution would do any harm :rolleyes:

Can´t wait til the next update :bounce:

[DMack]

I was wondering that myself ....


" Can you hear that .. <silence>.. that is the winds of change" Monster, Inc.


That Monsters Inc quote....what a great one!

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