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View Full Version : why should I get Messiah?

batzilla
07-16-2005, 04:45 PM
Hi all

I just purchased Hash Animation Master and am not too thrilled so far. Dont get me wrong here, I'm new at it and plan to give it some time. However, its modeling capabilities stink IMO.
The animation side of it seems fantastic. But after using it for the last few days i've come to realize that I may have jumped the gun on purchasing it and not have thought thru the whole modeling issues before hand.Not to mention the fact that I can't load the help files or corrctly set up the directories to find the correct folders as well as several crashes so far (and this is their latest version which I had heard was stable).

I'm a long time Lightwave user and the idea of modeling in LW and then animating in Messiah sounds like it may be the way to go. I'm a novice at character animation and have been thru several rigging and animation tutorials for LW and IMO LW is too clunky for CA still so now Messiah has peaked my interest.

So, if you dont mind, I have a few questions about Messiah animate.

1. How easy is it to get up and going? I know CA is by nature pretty difficult but one thing about Hash was the ability to do simple walk cycles pretty quickly. Among a few other things.Is Messiah user friendly? Is it fairly easy to rig a simple character and doa simple walk cycle? Or do I have to throw in alot of complicated expresions,etc?
2. How is Messiahs lip synching capabilities? Easy? Tough?
3. Docs. Is the manual any good? Lotta tutorials to get you up and going?
4.Hows the support from the company?

I'm just a hobbiest for now but who knows, maybe later more. A friend and I just wanna do some short CA stuff for the fun of it and seeing that Animate is only $299 it wouldnt hurt my wallet too much.

The idea of being able to use LW for everything but animating makes me happy : )

If Hash A:M had decent modeling capabilities or an import for .lwo i'd be in heaven. Hash has great potential but after reading in their forums about future import situations or better modeling I dont think Hash has any plan on these things so...

Thanks for any insight. And the more info I can get the better.
vrkaya
07-16-2005, 08:38 PM
I may be able to help with a couple of your questions. I'm a longtime LW user also, and I also used Hash Animation Master some years ago. Hash has a good spline modeler but your up a creek if you don't model every single thing with their program - which is the problem I ran into.

My very first thought when I bought messiah (then as Project Messiah, the LW plugin) was that this is Animation Master, but for polygons. Well, not exactly - it was better - but you get the idea.

Anything you can do with A:M you can do with Messiah, and then some. It has - by far - the easiest rigging implementation I have found. You bounce back and forth between Animate and Setup mode and it is a dream to use.

I have about 10 years with LW, but gave up animating with it when Messiah came out. Recently, I have also been using Maya. I think now that messiah is closer to Maya then it is to A:M - but not in price :)

So, any new software is going to have a bit of a learning curve, but the shortest one will be with messiah. I will tell you that it should match your needs perfectly, especially since you want to model with LW.

And, don't worry - expressions are really easy with messiah, but you don't have to use very many of them.

Regards, Ron
batzilla
07-16-2005, 09:10 PM
Thanks so much for the info Ron.


I've been messing with the demo for a few hours and will continue to.

I'll be ordering it today : )

I'm nervous about taking on CA but i've been wanting to learn for a long time.

It seems real daunting...but I think i'm up to it : )
Nonproductive
07-16-2005, 09:40 PM
If Hash A:M had decent modeling capabilities or an import for .lwo i'd be in heaven. Hash has great potential but after reading in their forums about future import situations or better modeling I dont think Hash has any plan on these things so...

Thanks for any insight. And the more info I can get the better.


There was a post somewhere on the AM forums that you COULD in fact import Lightwave files (as DXF) into A:M. If I recall correctly - you export as a Sub-D with subdivisions set to ZERO and it imports pretty clean.

That said, I own Messiah and A:M. Messiah is the closest I have seen to A:M's animation tools/speed in any polygon based animation package. Messiah has power to spare over A:M as well...(in my opinion)

My biggest gripe with A:M has always been the stability...As long as you do things the way the programmers intended you to - you're fine. Start clicking "out of order" and a crash is bound to happen.
SpikeWorx
07-17-2005, 09:08 AM
Batzilla, before youŽre palcing your order, take the advice of Thomas Helzle into account and get Mesiah:Studio workstation and point oven. The point oven way is better IMO than the plugin connection that comes with Messiah:Animate and youŽll get an additional renderer which has features LW doesnŽt offer :)
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