messiah:Animate 3.0 is it a must?

[Jaspar]

It's certainly considered the best tool for the job. It seems to still have a few bugs, but is developing rapidly. I bought it a few months back, unfortunately I can't comment as I still haven't got around to using it (I was making sure I caught the same offer, originally just a sigg special).

[rock]

What is the main difference between Messiah:animate 3.x and project:messiah 1.5.7 that makes it a worthwhile upgrade?

[Julez4001]

1.5.7 is a plugin in which you need Lightwave.
No NLA, No scripts, Muscle Bone button, Weight Tool, and New deformers.

You do have all the sliders, setupmode, fast expressions


Animate 3.3 is standalone app. Current version allows you to just hit F12 and it ports the animation to Lightwave (No loading it in Lwo and match up). Plus you have other apps to "try" to tie in to. Maya, C4d, and Max are still in development. they work but they are still buggy, each having their own problems but Maya being the best and C4d the worst. Lw is pretty rock solid for any development.

[rock]

Thanks Julez.

Rock.

[SplineGod]

Hey SMH,
What do you define as a SERIOUS character animation tool?
The reason I ask is because I see some people who feel that they have to have messiah and yet have little or no REAL experience using Lightwave for character animating. Im not saying you fall into that category since I have no idea what your background is. Also, a lot of people seem to lump rigging in with animating and of course theyre totally separate. ANY 3D package is a great character animtion package so long as you have a character that is PROPERLY rigged.
Ive found that the best riggers are those who have SOME animaton experience or have worked with a good animator.
There is a definate philosophy that goes into rigging...things a good rig must be able to do. I think that any 3d app that makes it possible to follow that rigging philosophy is an app that is a good one for rigging AND animating characters. Messiah is very powerful but do you need it? IMO you do if you just cannot do certain things in Lightwave that you absolutely need to do. If you dont have a great deal of rigging and animating experience I would take the time to learn how to do it in lightwave PROPERLY. Any principles you learn will certainly carry over into ANY application.

[Kaiser_Sose]

Originally posted by SplineGod
ANY 3D package is a great character animtion package so long as you have a character that is PROPERLY rigged.
Ive found that the best riggers are those who have SOME animaton experience or have worked with a good animator.
There is a definate philosophy that goes into rigging...things a good rig must be able to do. I think that any 3d app that makes it possible to follow that rigging philosophy is an app that is a good one for rigging AND animating characters.

After taking your rigging course do you feel we will know are to properly rig a character

How confident are you in that



Messiah is very powerful but do you need it? IMO you do if you just cannot do certain things in Lightwave that you absolutely need to do. If you dont have a great deal of rigging and animating experience I would take the time to learn how to do it in lightwave PROPERLY. Any principles you learn will certainly carry over into ANY application.

And where can one learn this, your course

[SplineGod]

Im very confident actually. Theres not some special gene that makes anyone a good rigger...its just knowledge and experience. Ive done it for quite awhile under some stressful conditions. What I teach is what Ive learned from doing it on real productions. When I teach it I dont just say "heres how its done" I talk about the whole philosophy behind rigging... in other words WHAT must a good rig be capable of doing. Then I show various ways to make that happen. The great thing is once you understand the philosopy behind rigging you can do it in any package. I hate following cook book recipes...I dont learn a thing except prove that I can follow directions. I want to know WHY Im doing something. I show that. :)
The great thing about learning from someone whos done it is that it saves you from having to bang your head on it for weeks or months. :)

[wgreenlee1]

you could always get maya, I hear thats a pretty decent Lightwave Plugin.




hehehehe....................yeah but actually its just a waste of HD space..........:wip: :wip: :wip: :wip: :wip:

[manfriday]

>After taking your rigging course do you feel we will know are to properly rig a character<


I'm just now going thru Larrys rigging CD..
IT really is great. I have only just started them and I have already learned a great deal.

I had Messiah 1.57 because somehow I thought it was like the holy Grail of character animation or something.
Having had it and played with it I would have to say it is just another tool.
It didn't really seem better or worse than Lightwaves charfacter animation tools.. it was just a little different.

in the end it wasnt the Holy Grail my mind had made it out to be, and it was just another excuse to indulge my spending habit.
;)
I sold it and used the money to buy more training CD's from larry.

Jason

[3DDave]

I use Messiah Animate for my character rigging and animation and would never go back to LW.

1. Animate has a seperate setup mode and animate mode. The advantages of this is the ability to tweak the rig without loosing any animation work. Also the same rig can be re-used and re-tweaked on many different characters. so sharing animation is easy. No more frame 0 screwups that make you start over.

2. The expression system is top notch and easy to use. No need to learn a special language to write expressions.

3. Sliders are easy to use and customize.

4. You can set a slider to turn on or off IK.

5. Rig 1/2 your character and mirror the other side, copy expressions and re-name them for the other side as well.

6. The NLA system is fantastic.

After all that it's the same when animating your character.

David

[ThomasHelzle]

One thing I think is sometimes underrated is the display speed of Messiah.
What is the most critical thing in animation? Timing.
Messiah is most of the time able to play animations with 70 bones and 50 Expressions etc. with 25 to 75 fps - no need to render a preview(but you can:). So you can allways SEE what you are doing, like a pencil-animator when he is flipping pages.
Lighwave has also grown much faster, but is still far from that.

Just my two cents - I'm very happy with the Advance release...

Thomas Helzle

[Ejecta]

I have rigged in both LW and messiah. What Larry said about the theory is very true. If you have that down it will translate well to other packages.

That said. IMHO messiah is a FAR FAR better tool for rigging and animating. Especially rigging. The set up mode in messiah is very powerful and worth the price of admission, plus the feedback rocks! Rigging in LW can be done but can be more frustrating. Even if you have the theory down, in the middle of rigging there are times when need to say... move a joint or split a bone. I find it MUCH easier to make these adjustments in messiah then LW. FK/IK blending in messiah is really good but the LW plugin is pretty useless. Expressions in LW have given us many fits but really work smooth in messiah. Im no math guy at all and even I understand them because of the way you make expressions in mesiah.

I say go for messiah. Its well worth it. Once I started using messiah I decided I would NEVER go back to rigging in LW.

The philosophy of building a good house is the same but would you rather use a nail gun or a hammer? Sure they'll both do the job well but one will be easier to use and help you get results faster.

The choice is a no brainer for me.

[JohnD]

Larry I'm just curious ( I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I really am just curious ). Everytime I see the topic of Messiah brought up, you post similiar responses to it. I do say I agree with you that learning proper rigging in Lightwave would be beneficial to anyone ( I don't own the new version of Messiah, and probably won't because of Tim Albee's book on rigging in Lightwave saved me from having to buy the new Messiah. Sorry, haven't had a chance to check out your cd's ), but it seems like you almost have a personal grudge against Messiah. Is this true?

[takkun]

I'm sure that he doesn't have a grudge. He's just trying to sell his classes to the Wavers here and messiah isn't part of his curriculum.

[Labuzz]

i have only try Messiah a little and i don't like the fact that in Messiah you can't weight vrtx by hands ( but now there's weight map support but i havn't try yet).
I think you should consider Maya. Maya is great for all the rigging process, actually this is far away from LW in this area. If you just begin with rig, Maya is more easy in my opinion because the tools are very powerful ( very fast and well design ) and all is in the same place...

One more opinion : TARON Interview at www.Renderosity.com:


what are some of the features that you like in Messiah that enhances some things that LW may be lacking.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A by Taron (Taron) on March 29, 2002 02:47

Man, this makes me bite my tongue...I mean, I really love modeling in Lightwave, but regarding the animation section...well...let's put it this way, I don't even know where to start to discribe, why I use Messiah instead! I will pick a generic expression to go into it. Every feature has a more direct effect on the deformation, the way things like bones are written allows a much more natural and intuitve implementation of them into a model. The general accessablity of every feature is enormously higher. Not to mention the speed in general. Combining deformations of all kind results in only a fraction of the speed decrease than it does in Lightwave. The expressions are truely an intergrated element to anything You do in Messiah. No confusion, no convolution, no frustration, instead discription of functions, debug mode, groupings, navigation, KEYFRAMING, MOTIONGRAPH, speed, speed, speed, and have I mentioned productivity or does that simply come after the "equal" of that equasion. It's completely undestructive, adjustablity of setups at any stage of the development and even after You thought You were done. Tweak the setups right into the core even while Your animation is running. Combine Morphs, Motions, Effectblending, FK to IK instantly without any effort with the expressions. You can come up with the wildest constructions on the fly and will see them running in realtime, exploring things that You had never dared to try... ...this is all just a fraction of what Messiah has made me experience so far, but let me tell You this: It's heaven for an animator, who wants to know what he's doing.
Lightwave basically became driven behind a blanked of windows that arbitrarily fill up Your sight of the screen and hide or minimize Your work screen. It was courageous enough to split between Modeler and Layouter, but splitting out of Your animation to do setup elements is outrageous. The kind of science that is required to figure out what else is not working within the expressions of LW is also a little frustrating. The lack of intergration of many of the promissing features is also a sad testimonial to why something like Messiah had to be born, but hence I am glad about it! =)
Don't missunderstand the above, I truely love Lightwave for what I use it for. I owe a lot to this package and don't plan on patronizing it because of that, but I have to be honest in order to provide You with the best advice I can give. We are faced with so many challenges, as is any software package. If there is a strength, though, there is nothing that could make this strength obsolete and it's very advicable to take advantage of it. There is no modeler like Lightwave out there right now. There is nothing for me, that rattles the throne of Messiah for animation, particularely character animation. So I tell You about my experiences, those include 3 years of working on movies, cinematics, music videos and commercials and I used these packages for all of them. We always finished our productions in record time and I never ran into any desperate situation regarding the tools. Hence, I tell You the reality as I know it. I just want to make sure that this doesn't read like an ad. It does, though, doesn't it!?

[SplineGod]

Originally posted by JohnD
Larry I'm just curious ( I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I really am just curious ). Everytime I see the topic of Messiah brought up, you post similiar responses to it. I do say I agree with you that learning proper rigging in Lightwave would be beneficial to anyone ( I don't own the new version of Messiah, and probably won't because of Tim Albee's book on rigging in Lightwave saved me from having to buy the new Messiah. Sorry, haven't had a chance to check out your cd's ), but it seems like you almost have a personal grudge against Messiah. Is this true?

I own messiah but dont bother to use it anymore. People complain about Modeler and Layout not being integrated and messiah is not integrated at all. My only grudge would be this: I bought messiah with the understanding it would be integrated. This never happened. So yes I felt mislead. I found that they were slow to getting things out and I still know people who paid for a Mac version 3 yrs ago and havent seen anything yet. I think when DNA started using it on JimmyNeutron way back that all their resources went into servicing them and everyone else was left in the cold. This has come back to bite them.
Back in LW5.6 days Messiah was almost a necessity, and I say almost because Voltron, Troopers, Max Steel, Dan Dare and a slew of all CGI shows were done in Lightwave alone. Netter or Foundation didnt use Messiah simply because it was a HUGE pain to integrate into a production pipeline. Retraining everone would have been very difficult. Also, when jumping between Lightwaev and Messiah it was completely different. Messiah is powerful yes, but its not as easy as some claim. It definately has its learning curve too.
My opinion on Messiah hasnt changed and has nothing to do with my wanting to sell curriculum. As John D pointed out, Ive had this opinion long before I created my courses. Most people I know who use it (and I agree with this) say that Messiah is great when you are working IN messiah but it becomes a big pain moving scenes back and forth. DNA and Threshold had to have a special team of TDs to be able to move scenes back and forth between Messiah and Lightwave. This complete lack of integration makes its powerful toolset less attractive for me. Im not alone in my opinion.
Why do I STRESS Lightwave over Messiah? Simple: MOST people by into the hype and THINK they HAVE To have Messiah in order to character animate. That is completely false. My opinion is that a person should strive to learn and understand Lightwave BEFORE deciding if Messiah, Maya, Max or whatever is a better choice or absolutely needed. I have no problem if someone has gone through that process and has decided thats what they need to do?
Why do I bother? These forums exist for people to share information about Lightwave. If someone asks I will give my opinion based on my experience. Ive worked with Lightwave for a long time and used it on several all CGI TV shows, some movies and other character related projects. Am I the best out there? No.
I do know what Im doing. Ive been paid to do what I do at several studios and freelance projects. That does count for something. :)
Is Messiahs Opengl playback faster? Yes. That doesnt mean much when it wont play back at the exact frame rate you need it to. Seeing something play back at somewhere between 25-75 fps is a huge spread. I still had to end up rendering out to see it at the proper frame rate or see characters interact with a lightwave scene - something which can be a huge pain just to see a preview. To see you character at 30fps or 24fps you must render.
Even messiah will bog down and you have to end up rendering.
Are Messiahs expressions easier or more powerful? Yes and No.
Some are and some arent and its as simple as that. I used Relativity to do expressions for a long time...long before Lightwave had then or Messiah existed. I had a tough time figuring out how messiahs worked and in which order to place and where to put them so my rigs didnt explode. I know that when DNA started using messiah it was so easy that PMG had to send someone out to teach everyone. Lightwaves expressions are very powerful and many are easy to setup or quicker to setup.
I have found that most Lightwave users dont know what expressions really are or know when to really use them. Again, they HEAR stuff about messiah or Maya etc and think the grass is greener elsewhere...but not true.
Setting up bones (skelegons) is easier for me then in Messiah.
Adjusting bones after theyve been setup is easier in Messiah.
Thats changed somewhat though. I use a free plugin called Stickybone that allows me to easily readust bones in layout even if they have IK and motion on them.
I find Lightwaves implementation of weight maps far more powerful then messiahs or mayas. Lightwaves weightmaps do much much more then simply tie points to bones. You can use them in modeler to help set up endomorphs, you can use them to texture with or effect textures, they can effect how and where things displace, they can effect how and where things morph and on and on. Weight maps work with gradients and thus can be tied with expressions to other things in ways that boggle the mind. Sadly since messiah doesnt integrate into lightwave they dont support Lightwaves advanced features. Check out this simple test that I put together in a few minutes : http://www.3dtrainingonline.com/examples/armtest2.mov
I used weight maps to improve the bone deformations, weight maps and gradients to make the muscle become a little pinker as it flexes. I also used another to effect the spec in the muscle as it flexes. The muscles swelling uses NO endomorphs. The swelling again, is using weightmaps. Every single thing I described is being controlled by ONE simple expression.
I find it easy to get lightwave to perform for me....its simply a matter of knowing how. This is why I have my online courses. To teach people how to learn and use the software they already own before spending the extra cash and time on something that may not be needed.

[DaveW]

I agree with Larry here. I find messiah useful for some things but I usually just use LW because the integration between the two blows. If I worked at a big studio and did just character animation, I'd probably rather use messiah. But I wear many hats and don't need the hassle of getting data back and forth between LW and messiah. Some people think the extra hassle is worth it, but I don't. I'll give messiah another look when the full studio is out, modeling in LW and animating/rendering in messiah might be a good combo. However at the current rate of messiah development I think LW 9 will be out before messiah studio is finished.

[ThomasHelzle]

Larry,

sorry, I have to comment that.
When I say 25-75 fps (I've seen even 120), I don't meant the framerate of the animation playback. That would be total bullshit.
It is screen-refreshrate I'm talking about.

Relax ;-)

Thomas Helzle

[Richard]

Everything with pMG seems as a never ending WIP--the software promised a few yeahrs back has not beebn delivered..and what's this REVISION thing anyway...? I know I know...complain complain, but I ordered this software when these guys were pitching thier ideas with messiah and that the future software will do this and that...and guess what---theres another "GET IT WHILE is HOT SALE"
...how much longer before "revision" 9 is ready? :annoyed: :rolleyes:

Still waiting for the "release" of Studio people. Man, I must not mean much to these developers...not even an email as a sign of courtesy saying.".sorry, it is taking us so long, we are doing our best..."guess thats too much to ask. I the mean time, I keep on waiting...

Its a business thing...I guess

[SplineGod]

Originally posted by Thomas_Helzle
Larry,

sorry, I have to comment that.
When I say 25-75 fps (I've seen even 120), I don't meant the framerate of the animation playback. That would be total bullshit.
It is screen-refreshrate I'm talking about.

Relax ;-)

Thomas Helzle
No problemo Tom...Im not even stressed about this.
Im just trying to be very careful about explaining my point of view. Some people think Im totally anti messiah (which Im not).
I dont like the way theyve handled their business and the promises they made. I think messiah rocks and is powerful and all that. I see WAY too many ppl buying it simply because they "heard" it was better for character animation without even REALLY putting in the effort to try things out in Lightwave.

[Mike RB]

Ditto with Larry. Check out my LW animation demo thread for some stuff done in LW... modeled, rigged and animated. The only thing I recommend as an addition is Keytrak by Mark Brown. Its a super cheap fantastic animation timing/copy/creation/edit tool.

Mike

Demo thread:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28922

[SplineGod]

Ditto on Mikes Ditto. Theres Keytrak and a couple of other similar tools on their way. :)

[MK2]

It looks complicated first (many complicate looking things), ... but it is very easy to learn. (first you think its a woman, then you realize its a man...hahaha...get it? Complicated things n stuff? ah, well... iam not funny today.)
Get the demo and look for yourself. Its maybe more worth than some ppls refering over it. There are allways pro and contra. If it fits your workflow why brothering with tools that dont fit?

mk

[Julez4001]

Again. I know I mention back to PMG a whole back that they should focus on getting Animate out of the door and then continue to get Studio out later..... and guess what they did. Now I won't be the first or last person to say that business practice is not warranted for complaints but its not like they haven't tried to recoup. Messiah: Animate has NEW features that was not advertise when it was offered. The intergration in LW is way much better than its 1.5.7. predecessor. but it is strictly character animation tool at the forefront. At my job, we had a project that required a lot of character animation and multiple character on screen and PMG delivered on Riva TNT and 450 mhz..... Now I am doing more render type work so I use LW core tools. LW won't leave you hanging when it comes to character tools but its still not on par as a "production enity" when it comes to Character animating.


All those nice LW demos and videos either has mocap (Troopers, Max Steel) or was animated with messiah. Its not like PMG goes and force messiah down the throats, the program is really structured very sweetly for character animating and rigging.


So if you haven't checked messiah:animate out because of integration problems..pick up the demo, a lot has changed. They animation is saved into Lightwave's .lws file. They have some ready made charcter rigs scripts that include IK.

[SplineGod]

One thing I would like to be clear about. While Troopers, Max Steel and Dan Dare did use mocap there was still a huge amount of work that was hand keyed. More and more people use mocap...Final Fantasy, much of star wars and so on. On a TV production schedule with shows that are very character heavy its impossible with ANY 3d application to hand key that much stuff on the schedules we had. Figure it this way. Dan Dare was 26 half hour episodes. Each animation team had 10 people and we had 6 teams. Each team had 6 weeks per episode. At one point we were producing a show a week. Lets say each episode is really about 22 minutes of animation. That comes out to 9.5 HOURS of animation in less then a year and a half. I did the vast majority of the IK Rigging for both Max Steel and Dan Dare. When it comes to Character setup and Animation it DOES hold its own against the so called Big Boys. The bottom line is that if Lightwave sucked so bad for doing characters it would NEVER have been used. The first ALL CGI TV series in the U.S. was done with Lightwave.
Another piece of clarification is that Rigging and Animating are NOT the same thing. If a character is properly rigged ANY decent animator will do great in Lightwave or any package. I dont know of many people whove had to use Lightwave for doing character work on such a hardcore schedule. We would never have been able to get things setup and working as quickly as we did in anything else. When we were finishing up Max Steel we were just starting to switch over to Lightwave 6.0 (LW7 for us because we were beta testing). Normally we had 2 -3 months to gear up for another show (Dan Dare). Instead we had 3 WEEKS. In that time the character team at FI had to learn the new software AND get characters modeled, textured AND RIGGED in that time. Every Character not only had to be setup for Mocap but for IK as well. Many characters had up to 6 or so different Rigs. Many times we had to improvise things on the fly. Lightwave was more then up to the task. Im sorry but despite what some may think Lightwave IS an awesome character animation package.
As a postscript to this... I worked at a place that was using Maya, Lightwave and Max. We ended up using Lightwave because we COULD just DO things with it without the setup times in Max or Maya. I had an interesting discussion one night with one of the last Maya guys there . He was a great character animator and one of the few ppl I knew that could do several different things in maya well. He was asking about Dan Dare because he had seen a bit of work from the show. He asked me how much time we had to model characters. I told him that we had to model, texture AND Rig them. When I told him we had 3 - 5 days per character his jaw hit the floor and he said that there was NO way that could be done in Maya. Again he asked me about the production schedule and he knew that we had used a lot of mocap. When I told him the time, again, he couldnt believe it and repeated again that a schedule like that couldnt be done with Maya. He was working on animating a realistic snake in a branch and he would watch as I had to animate a bunch of realistic frogs on Lightwave. He asked how long I think it would have taken to do the snake in LW and I commented that I would have been done already...he said "yea I know". He was blown away by lightwave as well as the studio I was working for. We did a ton of character work for a stereoscopic IMAX film and Lightwave kicked ass. When someone says that Lightwave isnt as good for character work as brand x is missing the point that in many circumstances Lightwave is as good or better. In others it may not be. The same goes for Messiah and Maya. Its not that Im repeating what someone else said but I have, as I said, used it under the most harsh circumstances and it rocks. :)

[My Fault]

Originally posted by SplineGod
When I told him we had 3 - 5 days per character his jaw hit the floor and he said that there was NO way that could be done in Maya.

No offense, but that should be changed to "there was NO way that HE could do that in Maya." Just because he didn't think it could be done, doesn't mean that it is so. It's just his opinion.

While there are a lot of things I don't like about rigging characters in Lightwave (this is one area Animation Master has waaay over Lightwave), it's obvious to me that Lightwave is much more capable then a lot of people give it credit. We can argue the quality of animation that came out of shows like Roughnecks, Dan Dare, etc., but if Lightwave were as bad as everyone said, there is no way so many tv shows would've used it. Hats off to anyone that can get out a 22 minute show in only 6 weeks!

[JohnD]

LARRY WROTE: Why do I bother? These forums exist for people to share information about Lightwave. If someone asks I will give my opinion based on my experience. Ive worked with Lightwave for a long time and used it on several all CGI TV shows, some movies and other character related projects. Am I the best out there? No.
I do know what Im doing. Ive been paid to do what I do at several studios and freelance projects. That does count for something.


Whoaaa there big fella...whoaaa. I think you think I'm attacking your professionalism Larry, which isn't the case at all. I agree with everything you said. I just happened to make the observation that you seem to repeat yourself whenever Messiah comes up and I was just curious if maybe there was something else to it other then offering some friendly advice in learning proper rigging in Lightwave. I'm with you though, and I use Lightwave exclusively for all my animation needs. I have to agree that weight maps are a godsend. And with all the stuff added to 7.5, well, I couldn't be happier. So relax and lets have a cold one

:beer:

[SplineGod]

Nori (The maya guy) is definately a Maya expert (owns his own company done 3d character animation for years) and definately knows what hes talking about. I give a lot of weight to his opinion because he has a lot of TV and Film experience behind him. If you look at the sheer numbers of characters those shows had in them (were not talking about donkey kong country here either) and how complex they were for TV shows I still dont think it could have been done in Maya. Many others I work with and have worked with share the same opinion. :) The point is (as you stated) that if Lightwave were as bad for characters as some people have stated so many TV shows wouldnt have used it.
Hash is a pretty amazing package esp for the bucks. I used it years and years ago. :) The biggest problem I hear about it are issues of stability. I think one of the biggest problems about people rigging in lightwave is they tend to make their rigs overly complex because they "heard" that this way or that way is the "professional" way to do things.

[MK2]

I dont understand why this discussion goes on...
i mean the only thing that really matters (and nothing else) is, how the prog fits in your workflow.

Ive made quite a few chars in the past years... they where all for games, low-poly and sprite-chars. I used LW for all these chars.
I was never satisfied with LW Layout...

mk

[SplineGod]

I think the reason the discussion goes on is:
A. It can
B. Thats what these forums are for
c. Everyone has an opinion and wants to share it. :)
D. I think it does actually inform people.

John,
No offense taken at all. I didnt interpret your remarks as an attack on my professionalism. Ive just learned from being on several forums that nobody REALLY knows each other, our backgrounds, level of experience, what we do etc etc.
Some may wonder where some people get off saying what they say. I never assume that anyone knows anything about Lightwave or my background. Its easier that way. Its also very easy in a text based forum to misinterpret or misunderstand unless someone is blatant. Im just establishing my credentials and some of my experiences. When the dust settles I think we agree more then disagree. :)

[Labuzz]

Definitely, the more opinions the better! And this is the most important:)

[Julez4001]

All I am saying is that messiah:animate is a great alternative to Lightwave for character animation. From experience, i kow it is and from studios doing the bulk of the CA ... using messiah or maya. I've used both for chaarcter animation. Hell, I have to when it comes to Freelance and the TD wants to work with no add-ons which includes Worley plugins.


Can LW do rigging/animation? Yes
Is it easy? yes
Is the best all round solution? No.
Is there a better way? yes
What? Usually messiah or Maya


Newtek knows what they need to put on their plate for the next version? refined and smoother and undestructable character work flow (FASTER motion designer too) . You can squeeze juice from a orange but why when you can pick up orange juice at the store?

[SplineGod]

I would agree that maya is used more for character animation but mostly film work. I havent seen too many places that were able to succesfully use Maya for TV character projects. As far as Messiah being used more then Lightwave I dont agree at all especially out in LA.
I think Lightwave is a far better all around tool.
Lightwave has very good modeling, texturing, rigging and animation tools and a great renderer and its cheap compared to other things. Its easy to get things done without having to go thru elaborate setups or rigging.
Are there better solutions? That depends entirely on the problem.
In some cases Lightwave is a better solution or Max or Maya or Messiah or Hash or.....whatever...there are so many variables.
Lightwave like ALL 3d software has its strengths and weaknesses.
Very few people are able to buy every 3d app out there let alone master them. Jumping to another app simply because someone doesnt understand their current app isnt a good thing. Id say that most Lightwave users use less then 30% of the features. Ive done a lot of seminars and classes around the USA. Most of the people have been using Lightwave for awhile. Most people that attend the seminars are either making money with Lightwave or trying to. I make it a point to ask at every seminar or class how long people have been using Lightwave, what theyre doing with it and how many know about or use the features that we plan to cover. Im amazed at how few know anything about features that have been there for quite a awhile.
My advice is to spend the time REALLY getting to know lightwave before deciding to purchase something else. :)

[rock]

Most discussions in this thread are black and white - Messiah is great for animation and Lightwave is not or Messiah is not needed at all. There has to be gray areas. What if they co-exist? Does Messiah:animate (or project messiah 1.5.7) coexist well with Lightwave animation abilities? That is, we take the different strengths of each tool and use it under different situations? Or do we simply have to use Messiah or Lightwave, as black or white? Please give descriptions of the features and usage? Thanks.

For example, messiah claims to have its muscle bones great for adjusting facial animations and claims to have advantages over Lightwave morph or endomorphs or bones. Project messiah has no non-linear animations; but can we use project messiah where its strength lies and then bring the subject to Layout and seamlessly use the non-linear animation of Lightwave.

Thanks.
Rock

[Julez4001]

Actually I use them both in tandem.
I keep ready skelegons (in case its lw only project) for adjustments for characters and take advantage of Parent in place (which ports into messiah) and I love LW renaming scheme for starting organization.
I port this all into messiah and go expression happy. And use mirror and cloning tools. I really like Messiah IK (button or expressions). Endomorphs are a blessing and a minor curse. Organization can kill endomorphs and corrupt your .lws files. One should always complete thie list of morphs as changing the morphmixer list can crop of minor (editing a lws) problems. I prefer endomporphs even when I am animating in messiah. iset messiah to last in deformation list and take advantage of endomorphs. I also use messiah morphing tied to bones and IK via expressions. YOU CAN USE BOTH. messiah is just a deformation to lw so you can use sas, shave or wanything else on top of lw. Thats why I love lw. You get the setup mode from messiah and the rendering of lw.


What happen is that I started using PM 1.5.7 in 1999 when LW character tools were just developing. So maybe I am just use to it. But there are times (and that SOMETIMES not all the time) where I am in lw only projects and there are performance hits (IK slow and deformations) or very long way of repairing things.

I agree with SplineGod on most of everything and its really a grey area. You can do everything in LW.


All of the the big things that maya can do you can do in messiah except self collision soft body dynamics (in realtime) and its swanky jiggle tool (which you can only really use on nurbs as sub-ds drags the system). messiah is not end-all solution, no app is. Use them to gether if you are use to it. I am trying to come up with one app solutions but it really never gets there. But I only keeping within lw and messiah. Maya cloth is not setup great as Syflex blows it out of the water (please port to lw).

[SplineGod]

Messiah becomes a deformation plugin for lightwave but you end up having to go back and forth and it is NOT seamless.
Messiah doesnt have a modeler so if you need to adjust things that can become a big pain. Lightwave can allow you to easily tie textures, endomorphs and a variety of other things directly to bones. Once you have messiah objects in LW as a deformation its not easy to tie that into lightwaves expression engine. Lightwave allows you to easily control displacments, texture layers, local texture effects via gradients and weight maps directly to other events like bone rotations so that muscles can not only swell but change surface attributes on the fly. Lightwave will do muscle bones and its not that hard. I dont think bones for facial animation is necessarily the way to go and lightwave is quite capable of doing that as well. One thing that lightwave does that is quite powerful is that you can control how and where things morph based on weight maps and expressions. You can also do the eqivalent of smooth scaling, again, based on weight maps and simple expressions. This gives extreme control over how things deform. I have a quick example I threw together at:
http://www.3dtrainingonline.com/examples/armtest2.mov
and armtest3.mov
This took a few minutes to put together. The muscle swelling in the arm uses NO morphs, no displacment maps. The bicep also changes color slightly and specularity. AND, its all controlled thru one simple expression tied to the rotation of the forearm bone.
Where and how the muscles expand is determined in part by weight maps.

[Julez4001]

OOOOOOOkay.
Messiah is not seamless. But its not a stone throw away like Maya. Matter of fact, its pretty much up there with layout-modeler swap. You can also bake a lot of motion to be use for lights and expression things..so its not incapable or drawn out.


Botton line: There is a 100 ways to skin a kat.
What may be quick for you, may be a 3 hrs for someone else and vice versa. If you got a one man studio or 100 ppl studio...find out whats great for you.


My only point is ..if you have time to see how something else works..try it. R & D time.

[3DDave]

I'm taking advantage of each programs strengths. I have limited resources so I can't create more than one rig per character and I need to re-use the rig for the other characters. Messiah does this very easily.

I use Lightwave to model, texture, endomorphs (lip sync) and to output final renders.

I use Messiah Studio to rig and animate in.

The workflow is similiar to the guys at DNA that are using Maya for the Jimmy Neutron TV shows, except I am using Messiah.

David

[SplineGod]

There are several ways to easily reuse rigs in Lightwave. Lightwave has enough internal stuff, free plugins and inexpensive commericial plugins that I dont have to worry about spending a lot of money just to reuse rigs. I just need to be able to quickly and easily jump back and forth to modeler sometimes since modeling is a huge part of rigging.

[Labuzz]

Hey Larry,
Don't tell us you don't want enhancement for the next LW...I will never believe you:p .

[SplineGod]

When did I ever say that I didnt want enhancements?
My point is simple: Lightwave is great for character animation.
Its better in some cases then Messiah or Maya and worse in some cases. Overall Lightwave is great for Character work in most instances where character work is needed. It does more and has more capability then most LW users know about. Can it use some enhancements or tweaks? Certainly. :)

[Labuzz]

Go on Now!
Tell us where you want enhancements, I am sure that most of the wavers here would like to know your opinion about this.
:bounce:

[Julez4001]

SplineGod,

Instead of mouthing it is an all inclusive package ( I am not saying that any app is, but you are) what are the first thing you would like to be added in teh next rev.

Is there is nothing in messiah and maya ..you wouldn't like inherit in LW.


Me: a setup mode or nondestructive rigging to the animation process. An expression panel that displays its connection everything is is using. Faster IK (never can be too slow for me).

[SplineGod]

When did I say that Lightwave is the end all be all package?
I never said it didnt have flaws. This started out as someone asking if Messiah was a MUST have if youre character animating and I said no. The only reason I said that is because MOST people who ask that question (not all but MOST) have never really given LW a chance to see if it will do what they need.
The fact is that there are very few people who know enough about rigging or character animation to make an intelligent decision. Im simply saying that for most character animation needs LW does very well. I didnt say ALL character animation needs. Ive stated before that Lightwave will do well for Character animation in some circumstances and not in others. I said the same about Maya and Messiah. I think Lightwave DOES come pretty close to an all inclusive package especially for the price.
Thats not to say (and I didnt ever say) that it cant stand some fixing up or some new features. Its important to understand that "could use fixing up" and "could use new features" is not the same as being worse then anything else or unusable.
If Billy Bob-never-done-character-rigging-or-animating wants to know if they MUST have Messiah or Maya to character animate at a professional level or to learn how to do it the answer is no.
I know plenty of Lightwave people and others who have been hired to animate in Maya and other packages due from their excellent character animation on their reels done in Lightwave.

[JohnD]

Here's just an observation: The threadstarter posted the statement "I'm interested in a serious character animation tool, to complement Lightwave7.5 in upcoming projects."

Now he said "complement", which I'm assuming he means to add to the character animation capabilities he already uses in Layout.

I don't think I would jump to the conclusion that most people who asks if Messiah is a good purchase, have never given LW a chance. Seems to me like they're just asking around for people's opinions, who have actually used the software, how well it can add to the already great arsenal of animation tools in LW. I guess the best way would be to get a demo version and just try it out for yourself. Hey, no money spent...right?:applause:

[SplineGod]

I have a version I would give away...oh well :)

[Kaiser_Sose]

Originally posted by SplineGod
I have a version I would give away...oh well :)

You do:bounce:

[SplineGod]

Except that Its tied to a dongle and they wont let you tranfer the license so its just going to waste. :)

[Jaspar]

Cop out!
They'll let you transfer a licence, no problem. You just contact the nice lady at support.;)

[Kaiser_Sose]

Originally posted by Canofworms

They'll let you transfer a licence, no problem. You just contact the nice lady at support.;)

I read here all the time LW transfers dongles for people selling their version

I would assume pmg does the same

[SplineGod]

Been there tried that...
I am using the dongle that messiah is tied to. I tried to sell this several times but it was a huge pain because PMG didnt want to let me untie it from this dongle to retie it to another dongle.
The alternative was to switch dongles which was a huge pain since I have other plugins tied to my dongle.

[Julez4001]

Well if you don't want your copy, I will take if off your hands and pay for S & H and you can let me worry about getting the dongle transfer over. Just email me from my info here.


I repeatly stated that LW have excellent tools.
I also said its a personal choice.
Also said "Download the demo" and give it a try.
Get a feel for it. Its definitely that. A Feel. An alternative or compliment.

[Mike RB]

I spent a good 3 seconds trying to figure out where Shave and a Haircut had come into this discussion.... Damn you and you're shipping and handeling.

Mike

[Kaiser_Sose]

Originally posted by Julez4001
Well if you don't want your copy, I will take if off your hands and pay for S & H and you can let me worry about getting the dongle transfer over. Just email me from my info here.


I repeatly stated that LW have excellent tools.
I also said its a personal choice.
Also said "Download the demo" and give it a try.
Get a feel for it. Its definitely that. A Feel. An alternative or compliment.

I got first dibs :shame: :)

[3DDave]

This was posted on the Messiah (Yahoo) group.


You cannot beat the flexibility maya provides in setting up and integrating into a custom pipeline. Referencing is an especially useful function for pipeline management, and mel makes extending the package to heroic lengths a breeze. And now that they are shipping with mental ray, you have a good
renderer to boot. Maya has really taken the best from its predecesors and integrated them into a great package. My biggest problem with it for character animation is that it their weighting scheme for skeletal deformations dont have much intelligence during the initial asignment phase.

Maya also lacks any sort of pose space system (unless you write one. They have a modern c++ api that is pretty well documented, at least compared to Houdini's). Xsi 3.0 has some great features that seem to leapfrog maya in the setup catagory. I have heard from friends in production, that when push comes to shove, they still prefer maya, but with 3.0 that may change.
Personally, I still feel that maya gives the best access to the
underpinnings through mel, as well as through their inovative up and downstream graph (graph of construction/history node connections). If I were forced to pick one program to use, undoubtedly it would be maya. And for hastle free character animation, I think looking at messiah as a complement
is worth it. Of course, if you cant afford maya or xsi and maybe a seat or
two of Houdini -- which I love for a certain class of problems--
lightwave-messiah is a good choice.....

Jonathan Gerber
Cinesite

[SplineGod]

The keywords there are "custom pipeline". A pipeline is a way of setting in a production process geared around types of software and the type of work being done. It also involves setting things up through a large dose of politics. Much of the time software decisions are not made based on what will do that job but personal preference. Regardless of software choices, eventually a production pipeline is created and theyre never the same between studios. What works in one place can fail miserably in another place. A pipeline geared for movie production typically wont work for doing TV work. Places like Digital Domain have a Maya group and a Lightwave group. Lightwave gets used a lot for TV spots because you can typically just do things in lightwave without lots of setup time. Pretty much anysoftware can be integrated into a pipeline. Its easier to do it early on rather then later in the game though. PMG tried many times to get Messiah into Foundation but we never used it. There are just so many issues that come up and which is "better" at a particular task is only one of many issues.

[Julez4001]

Hey Splinegod

The bigger dilemma is " Your decision on Messiah"!

[Ejecta]

I work day in and day out with LW for TV production. I like it for many reasons and hate it for other reasons. One big reason is that it is lack of abilty to be customized and forced to do what you need it to sometimes. I have used Maya in TV production too. I loved it for its customablity and really havent found that it is much more complicated to get things done compared to LW. Example, the initial weighting in Maya isnt as good as it could be and takes some tweaking but the setting up and tweaking of the rig is so much more powerful and simple. Compare that to LW's character? Dont get me started on that. If you want to do serious character work in LW get messiah.

Larry, you make some very good points above and I respect your abilities but I have to be honest about what I have seen of your character set ups. I preface this as just MY OPINION based on my experience and thats all its worth. We have done close to 30 character spots for TV to give you an idea of our experience. We arent just babes in this we have some good bit of real world experience.

I have seen your CDs and I really dont care your method of rigging. That method can lead to serious problems down the line. They may work for you but we really cant use a rig like that. Sorry but I had to be honest with my opinion and dont take it as an attack just constrctive crit. Rigging is so subjective and relative to each production enviroment, so take it for what its worth. You may love LW alone for character work but it I cant jump on that wagon because it limits your possibilties too much and bit us in th ass many times.

Just giving another perspective.

[SplineGod]

Hey Ejecta,
I respect your respect and all that.. :)
I think I said before that what you use and how you use it depends entirely on what you are doing and your studios pipeline. I know plenty of people and places who would disagree with you about using Maya or Messiah or Lightwave. It depends on so many things. In the circumstances Ive mentioned Lightwave was a better choice. I never said anyone here was a babe in the woods since, unless you personally know someone on this forum, its impossible to know anyones skill level. I can only speak from my personal experience just as you speak from yours.
My CDs.... What I show and demonstrate on those CDs is not targetted at people who know what theyre doing. Theyre designed to get someone enough basic knowledge to be able to create a generic useable rig and apply the principles to any 3d package. There is just no way to put enough information into any book, video or CD to be able to instill years of experience into someones head. Since there is no such things as a universal rig, ANY rig can potentially have problems down the line if thats the only rig you rely on. I dont think Ive seen any rig in any package that I couldnt pick apart in some way. The bottom line is that you rig a character based on several constraints: Time, experience, 3D software and so on. You do what works for that shot at that time as quickly as you can. As far as the information contained on the CDs you have to look at it from two points of view: From the POV of someone whos already been doing it for a long time and from the POV of someone who has little to no experience. I dont think your assessment is fair or accurate. Every single person who is taking my course disagrees with you in terms of the information. The rigging CD is roughly 10 hrs long. Rather then cover every possible way to rig I went through a list of a dozen or so principles that make up a good rig. I then go through and show examples of a couple of ways to meet each of those principles. There is a huge difference between teaching principles and creating rigs. You are missing the point between teaching those principles and doing things on a real world project. Someone with a good, solid understanding of basic principles and a good idea of how to apply them will be able to be successful with practice and experience. BTW, where did you see the CD?

[Ejecta]

Larry,
What situations have run into that have to have a complete seperate rig?? We havent found that many. I definately think a pretty universal rig is possible. We have rigs that are pretty much do alot scenarios very well. Sure there are extreme cases but thats where the right tools come in. LW is a decent tool for character work but not a great tool.

Again I say you can build a house with a hammer but you will do it faster with a nail gun. LW is definatley a hammer in reagrds to character animation.

A buddy of mine who is better character guy than I had them and let me borrow your CDs. We both didnt learn a whole lot but maybe its because been there done that.

Anyway, no hard feelings I hope. Just speaking from my experience.

[SplineGod]

No offense taken. I dont think Ive sold the course to anyone that considers themselves in the category of "been there done that". I dont know of many people who do consider themselves experienced to buy many tutorials, videos and the like for that reason.
I dont think I know of many animators out here who would agree that one rig fits all. Animators vary in terms of how they like things to be rigged for them...thats probably the most common issue Ive run into. Some like IK on the upper body for example and some dont. Rigging characters for a TV commercial isnt the same as having to do it for a movie, or for a TV series and vice versa. The constraints are simply different in each circumstance. What do you do if you arent given the time to rig the way you would like to rig? Ive had characters that had mechanical parts mixed with non mechanical parts and they had to be rigged different. There are certain basic things that all rigs have to be able to do except that in many cases HOW that is achieved is different. Some character deform differently then other or have other issues that requires a different approach .We ran into that all the time on Max Steel and Dan Dare.
I dont agree that Lightwave in every circumstance is the hammer. It completely depends on the situation. I have seen many many instances where maya is the hammer and lightwave is the nail gun. Lightwave is a great tool for character work. Ive been there and done it enough to know for myself. This is NOT to say that it is ALWAYS the best choice in every situation. The same can be said of Maya, Messiah or whatever.
I think we can agree to simply disagree on this issue. As I said before, no offense was taken. :)

[proton]

I feel that I'm somewhat experienced with LightWave and I feel I learned many valuable tips and tricks from Larry's CD's....

I still refer back to them from time to time...especially on the rigging and animating portions....

Although I model differently then Larry, I picked up some great tips that changed some ways I work.....The most valuable part of the CD's is the thought process that is explained on why he's doing what he's doing....when he's doing it....

[Julez4001]

Yeah But larry.... The messiah software...You going to do away it or what!

[Tudor]

I havent used Messiah, but I can say some for Maya..
I create a skeleton and then skin it (for games this, so no expressions, constraints, influence objects or such.. straight ahead weights)
If I placed a bone so that it bends in the wrong place, it is a pain to relocate it. In LW it is a breeze!
The initial skinning in Maya is bad.. Not in LW..
Get an unfinished model to start rigging.. No problem. Easy enough to replace it later in LW. Not in Maya.
Let someone mess with the deformation of joints while someone is animating and then combine them. No problem in LW as weightmaps are included in the object. Not so easy in Maya.
And best of all.. No slowdowns due to history and such in LW. In Maya I tend to loose the skinning as soon as I need to clear the history. There are scripts, but then I loose the blendshapes instead.

Ok.. maybe not the best post ever, but these are the key issues that I spend most my time at. The time it takes me to create a skeleton and skin it in LW compared to Maya is by far in LWs favour.

If someone has any solutions for some of the Maya problems I mentioned above, please let me know! I have only been working with Maya for 2 years.

When it comes to animating it, I really don't care.. It just dont matter.. Move the arm. Keyframe. Move the foot. Keyframe. That is just a matter of habit. Almost the same in both programs.

[SplineGod]

Originally posted by Tudor
I havent used Messiah, but I can say some for Maya..
I create a skeleton and then skin it (for games this, so no expressions, constraints, influence objects or such.. straight ahead weights)
If I placed a bone so that it bends in the wrong place, it is a pain to relocate it. In LW it is a breeze!
The initial skinning in Maya is bad.. Not in LW..
Get an unfinished model to start rigging.. No problem. Easy enough to replace it later in LW. Not in Maya.
Let someone mess with the deformation of joints while someone is animating and then combine them. No problem in LW as weightmaps are included in the object. Not so easy in Maya.
And best of all.. No slowdowns due to history and such in LW. In Maya I tend to loose the skinning as soon as I need to clear the history. There are scripts, but then I loose the blendshapes instead.

Ok.. maybe not the best post ever, but these are the key issues that I spend most my time at. The time it takes me to create a skeleton and skin it in LW compared to Maya is by far in LWs favour.

If someone has any solutions for some of the Maya problems I mentioned above, please let me know! I have only been working with Maya for 2 years.

When it comes to animating it, I really don't care.. It just dont matter.. Move the arm. Keyframe. Move the foot. Keyframe. That is just a matter of habit. Almost the same in both programs.

Tudor you hit upon exactly what Ive been saying. That under some situtations Maya may be better and in others Lightwave.
Maya seems a good choice if you have a large studio with lots of support staff to write plugins, shaders and the like. Lightwave works pretty well in that environment as well except that I would agree that Mel goes deeper then Lscript when it comes to writing custom plugins. Lightwave, in my experience, does very well when you have a smaller studio (or youre working on your own) and you have to get things done quickly. I also completely agree that AFTER you have a character rigged PROPERLY...animating is animating. I know several people, classically trained animators...worked for disney and/or bluth who prefer to animate in Lightwave over Messiah and Maya and as we have seen, others who prefer Maya or Messiah over Lightwave. The bottom line is that each package in the right situation is more right then the other. Lightwave is more then up to handling small to large character animation jobs...and has proven that time and time again. :)

Julez,
I definately dont want my copy of messiah any more. Let me find it and figure out a way to determine who gets it and how or why they get it. :)

[thedaemon]

Larry, I have been reading this thread, and learned now that u are the guy at fxacademy! :) I just stumbled upon your site, and had a few questions. Should I email you or post some questions on this forum? :eek:

[Ejecta]

Larry,

"I dont know of many people who do consider themselves experienced to buy many tutorials, videos and the like for that reason."

Um because you might know alot about set up but that shouldnt stop you from checking out other peoples methods. They may do something better. That was why I think he checked them out. If most animators you know wont check out other tutorials that pretty sad, Most I know are always on the look out for info.


Dont get me wrong. Im not a Maya guy by any stretch. If I was I would own a copy and I dont for a several of the reasons the guy above posted and others. I own LW and Messiah and Im happy with that setup. but Im looking into getting into either XSI or C4D for added flexability. This is actually my point. Why limit yourself with one package?

Now why dont I like set up in LW and prefer messiah? Say for example why rebuild the whole rig everytime in LW for a biped character when in Messiah you can have a generic almost universal rig that is already set up that you can heavily modify very very easily if needed in Setup Mode? Same thing in XSI where modification is a breeze without having to nearly start over. Im sorry but to say LW's way of doing set up is just as good as other packages is just not true in my mind

Bottom line. IMHO LW bones suck. Get in the middle of rigging and want to add say an extra spine bone. Talk about a pain in the ass. Skelegons are a joke. If they updated in Layout then we might be getting cooler. The IK could be much better. Expressions in LW have given us more fits than they have helped. We have to use Relativitiy which is no problem but sad a third party wrote a better expression engine than NT.

Endomorphs, intial weighting, and weight maps rock the house in LW. Im sure it has alot to do with my experience with other packages and seeing how much easier things can be done.

The package I would choose to animate characters in is XSI or Messiah. C4D's soft IK is looking sweet too.

I understand Proton's alegence to LW. Heck he works NT. But Im not going to say that LW is the best tool for character work because in my experience it is not.

[Julez4001]

Kool...Larry
I'll buy one of your Cds and you can pack the messiah CD (since its only 1.5.7, there is no dongle) with it. Shouldn't change your weight as much and no extra for S & H. I just want previous registeration (block out your lw dongle info) and a copy of original purchase (block out CC info) so I have something to haggle Carla about.

Now Let me see which one i gonna get.........


:)

[SplineGod]

"Um because you might know alot about set up but that shouldnt stop you from checking out other peoples methods. They may do something better. That was why I think he checked them out. If most animators you know wont check out other tutorials that pretty sad, Most I know are always on the look out for info. "

When did I say that I personally dont check out other methods? I constantly do that. I would never have been hired to do what I do unless I knew what I was doing. I also didnt say that other animators I know arent on the lookout for other tutorials or info. I said most of them I know dont buy many of the videos or books out there because they dont have much advanced material. Most of them WILL take classes of some kind, attend user groups or shows AND simply call someone and ask. One fo the big advantages of living and working near Hollywood is that you always know somone who is an expert in some area in Lightwave, Maya, Messiah etc etc. There is just no way that I can demonstrate every possible rigging permutation. Im not interested in teaching someone how to copy what I do or "cookbooking". That can be picked up anywhere. Im more interested in teaching what a basic rig should be able to do. I cover about 12 basic things a rig should be able to do starting with the feet and working my way up to the head. I also show several different ways to rig. I also show several things that are pretty advanced IMO and I dont tihink you watched the whole rigging CD unless you had 10 or so hours to just sit there.

"Dont get me wrong. Im not a Maya guy by any stretch. If I was I would own a copy and I dont for a several of the reasons the guy above posted and others. I own LW and Messiah and Im happy with that setup. but Im looking into getting into either XSI or C4D for added flexability. This is actually my point. Why limit yourself with one package? "

I find that out here if you know any 3D AND a compositing package you have far more chance of being hired then if you know multiple 3d packages. Your point is well taken except that what you find limiting others may not. I can tell you one thing...C4D is not the package I would look at in terms of getting work out here. Its got some good stuff but nobody out here uses it in production that Im aware of.

"Now why dont I like set up in LW and prefer messiah? Say for example why rebuild the whole rig everytime in LW for a biped character when in Messiah you can have a generic almost universal rig that is already set up that you can heavily modify very very easily if needed in Setup Mode? Same thing in XSI where modification is a breeze without having to nearly start over. Im sorry but to say LW's way of doing set up is just as good as other packages is just not true in my mind

Bottom line. IMHO LW bones suck. Get in the middle of rigging and want to add say an extra spine bone. Talk about a pain in the ass. Skelegons are a joke. If they updated in Layout then we might be getting cooler. The IK could be much better. Expressions in LW have given us more fits than they have helped. We have to use Relativitiy which is no problem but sad a third party wrote a better expression engine than NT."


If dont rebuild my bone setups from scratch everytime in Lightwave. There are ways to rig and there are some free plugins that allow rigs to be easily reused in Lightwave which I covered in the Rigging CD. I didnt say Lightwaves way of setup was better or worse then anyone elses way. Lightwave is like anything else...its easy if you know how. I know how to easily reuse bones in Lightwave. Skelegons are great. Adding additional bones in the middle fo a rig in layout is pretty simple and when I do the world doesnt end. IK works great for me in Lightwave, is predictable and is easy to setup. Having IK on a per channel basis makes setting things up easier to control. Even simple things like Match Goal make things so much simpler. Every package has its strengths asd weakness. All you have to do is go to any other 3D forum and people there will be bitching about them just like here. Relativity has been around a long time and theyre great. Why does ANY 3D app support 3rd party plugins? Does that mean that every app sucks because you may have to use plugins or resort to coding your own? Lightwaves expressions work fine and when they dont do what I need I use something else.....thats no different in ANY 3D package. I like relativity but in production there were times when IT got in our face.

"Endomorphs, intial weighting, and weight maps rock the house in LW. Im sure it has alot to do with my experience with other packages and seeing how much easier things can be done. "

To use your logic then, if these "rock" in lightwave I assume that means that in some way they are better...does that infer then that Messiah, Maya, XSI, C4D suck for character work because these features arent implemented as well as Lightwave does?

"The package I would choose to animate characters in is XSI or Messiah. C4D's soft IK is looking sweet too"
If I were looking at JUST character animating, didnt care if anyone was using it in production, didnt care if I could make a living with it and didnt care about anything else Id probably go with HASH. :)

"I understand Proton's alegence to LW. Heck he works NT. But Im not going to say that LW is the best tool for character work because in my experience it is not."
Umm I think that Protons "allegence" to LW has nothing to do with being hired by Newtek...and I can understand it too. The key point is "In my experience". Thats the only part that has any validity. In MY experience Lightwave WAS the best application for Character work. I never said it was the best PERIOD because that can change with many many factors. Lightwave is very good for character work and for the most part CAN and DOES hold its own.

[proton]

"I understand Proton's alegence to LW. Heck he works NT. "

I've used LW for several years and have preached about it ever since I started using it. I've only just started working for NewTek since a month before SIGGRAPH.....my views and opinions have not changed....

I consider myself a LightWave user on the inside......nothing more..........:shrug:

[Ejecta]

"To use your logic then, if these "rock" in lightwave I assume that means that in some way they are better...does that infer then that Messiah, Maya, XSI, C4D suck for character work because these features arent implemented as well as Lightwave does? "

OK, please dont put words in my mouth. I'll explain this one last time for you so please read carefully. I like LW for many reasons and dont like it for other reasons. Im not stop using LW or any package for that matter just because it doesnt do EVERYTHING I want. How stupid is that? That is actually an insult to me that you are saying I said that. Im saying dont limit yourself with just one package. If you think LW is great for character. Fine. I greatly disagree.


Actually, C4D and XSI have things just like endomorphs, great weight maps, and intial weighting and all the expressions work fine.

Second, as far as C4D goes I could care less what Phonywood is using. I will NEVER let what Phonywood uses dictate what packageS I choose to use. At one point Hollywood wasnt using a package called Maya either. It was all SI. Not that way now. Things change.

I will never kiss the ring finger of any ONE 3D package. Now that is illogical. The more tools you know well and have at your disposal the easier it will be to get things done.

"If I were looking at JUST character animating, didnt care if anyone was using it in production, didnt care if I could make a living with it and didnt care about anything else Id probably go with HASH."

Yeah, it would be great if it stayed up and running for more than 2 seconds.:rolleyes:

[proton]

I say use what works for you.....I look at it this way....when I use to paint I used different types of paint until I found the one that was the right price and quality that I liked to work with.....I didn't care what the brand name was...I only wanted something that would get the job done....


For me that's LightWave...for some it's Maya, and others something else....if you can use more then one tool......go for it...

The days of program bashing will hopefully one day come to an end.....I think it's great that people love their package (sorry) and like to talk about it...I hope they will continue to...I guess what I'm trying to say is.....

Can't we all just get along :)

[SplineGod]

I think the conclusion here is that you dont find Lighwave to be as good a character animation tool as brand x from your own circumstances. I DO find that Lightwave is a great character animation tool based on my experience. As I said, we agree to disagree. :)

On one level I dont care what hollywood thinks either except that for the time being thats where most of the animation jobs are. What happens here for better or worse does effect other places. I noticed that Mill studios shut down their Film division saying that they depended on work from Hollywood to keep that division open. Both Lightwave and Maya are heavily used out here. If C4D ever gets used enough here and I MUST learn it for a job I will. :)

[Kaiser_Sose]

Julez, dood, you got to stop hounding and begging for Larry's messiah. If I read Larry's post correctly, he said, he is going to give it away and I was the first to respond. Besides, Larry already knows I am buying his course but I even daubt Larry is the type of person that can be influenced like that

All of your hounding should be in a PM or e - mail

Secondly, you own messiah, atleast that is what you said in a response to one of the threads on Messiah

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26068

[SplineGod]

You guys are hilarious....dont worry. :)

[Kaiser_Sose]

Believe me Larry, I am not worried .. I will tell you something I am worried about though ... the Bruins better win tomorrow

Too bad I got great tickets and I can not go and I think you know why Larry

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