New versions 2.4b are up!

[rush123]

Taron,

Can I suggest that add your Grid & Wire notes in the readme as there is no mention at all.

R

[Taron333]

Taron,

Can I suggest that add your Grid & Wire notes in the readme as there is no mention at all.

R

I salute you for this! :buttrock:

Great suggestion, but it's a little late to do that! Thing is, it came a little late and the notes appearantly didn't make it into the installer...tisk!

:wip:

Thanx!

Taron

[DaveW]

That was fast :) I like the way the camera reticle scales now, that always bugged me in the past.

[Geco]

what has been fixed?

[Taron333]

Right now you'll have to install it to get the notes, there are plenty of fixes and improvements!
I'm trying to push us to make a beautiful page with all the notes, documentation and inspriation. :wip:

We'll see how quickly we can get the PR rolling. It's a drag. We're programming like there's no tomorrow, but our PR is crawling somewhere behind yesterday...freaky. :banghead:

Anyway, we'll get into the groove eventually for notes and announcements! :wip:

:wavey:

[MoodyB]

Taken from the 2.4b readme :

The camera recticle now adjusts so that it doesn't get hidden behind the
edges of the world view when the graph is all the way down or when in
the F3 extended list area mode is active.

Added ability to fix the errors generated by Zbrush uv map
displacement image data, where the data from shared polygon edges
is written out with different values on the map, and ends up showing up
as a crack in displacements.

Fixed .Obj object UV reading where some map points wouldn't be
recognized.

Changed z_to_parent_length in bones so that when adjusting the bone
length, the children are moved with the parent bone, relative to their
position to the parent bone, instead of just snapping to the end of it.

Added "Frame Time" to the render display, which accounts for things
like subdivision time, that may not be associated with the renderer's
portion of the time.

Added better handling of mapping mouse move direction to bone
length and range hot spot's direction, to lengthen and shorten.

Added saving of UV data to LWO or OBJ files if the loaded LWO or
OBJ file contains UV data.

Added Maya 7.0 connection plugin

[MoodyB]

I think something's still broken with planar mapping in 2.4b :/ Unless I'm missing something obvious :p

Test this .mpj - it's the numberplate object from the car I'm working on.

Rendered in 2.2 :

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/7352/220007cv.th.jpg (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=220007cv.jpg)

Rendered in 2.4 :

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/4683/240005jg.th.jpg (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=240005jg.jpg)

Tested .obj and .lwo, and it's the same for both.

[stooch]

Taken from the 2.4b readme :

The camera recticle now adjusts so that it doesn't get hidden behind the
edges of the world view when the graph is all the way down or when in
the F3 extended list area mode is active.

Added ability to fix the errors generated by Zbrush uv map
displacement image data, where the data from shared polygon edges
is written out with different values on the map, and ends up showing up
as a crack in displacements.

Fixed .Obj object UV reading where some map points wouldn't be
recognized.

Changed z_to_parent_length in bones so that when adjusting the bone
length, the children are moved with the parent bone, relative to their
position to the parent bone, instead of just snapping to the end of it.

Added "Frame Time" to the render display, which accounts for things
like subdivision time, that may not be associated with the renderer's
portion of the time.

Added better handling of mapping mouse move direction to bone
length and range hot spot's direction, to lengthen and shorten.

Added saving of UV data to LWO or OBJ files if the loaded LWO or
OBJ file contains UV data.

Added Maya 7.0 connection plugin

GREAT STUFFF!!!

The bone scaling issue was a pita, very happy to see it go!

and im glad the render time is more accurate, awesome!

[Julez4001]

Let the games begin....

[Taron333]

I think something's still broken with planar mapping in 2.4b :/ Unless I'm missing something obvious :p

Test this .mpj - it's the numberplate object from the car I'm working on.

Rendered in 2.2 :

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/7352/220007cv.th.jpg (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=220007cv.jpg)

Rendered in 2.4 :

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/4683/240005jg.th.jpg (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=240005jg.jpg)

Tested .obj and .lwo, and it's the same for both.

Well hell, let us look at that, that's a weired one! Thanx for sharing already. We've been very focused on UVmaps and might have missed something in the good old fashioned mapping styles again...very strange at least! I will keep you definitely posted! Scary stuff. :wip:

[Bugpoo]

Thank you Taron and the rest of the Pmg bunch! You always show a lot of class and passion for your product.

[Taron333]

I think something's still broken with planar mapping in 2.4b :/ Unless I'm missing something obvious :p

Test this .mpj - it's the numberplate object from the car I'm working on.

Rendered in 2.2 :

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/7352/220007cv.th.jpg (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=220007cv.jpg)

Rendered in 2.4 :

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/4683/240005jg.th.jpg (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=240005jg.jpg)

Tested .obj and .lwo, and it's the same for both.

Problem solved! Was a silly one, too! Right after 2.2 it must have snuck in behind our backs, but it's all clear and fixed! We're debating right now whether to add a patch or to update the installer. I'll keep you posted! Just rest assured, it's taken care of already! :rolleyes:

:thumbsup: Thanx a lot! :buttrock:

[Taron333]

Thank you Taron and the rest of the Pmg bunch! You always show a lot of class and passion for your product.

Thank You, Bugpoo! :beer:
It's a ride and without passion, I think it would be impossible for anyone, or I'd be scared of the one, who'd succeed in it without it.( :twisted: ) :)

I'm so ready to have a beer, actually...but it's like..hmm...1:40am...nah, I'm even more scare of doing that right now!

Thanx again!

Taron

[Nichod]

Here is hoping for docs/videos/and a great new release page!

[Taron333]

...from my dusty little closet, haha...I'm sorry I never posted them, but initially I wanted the examples to be the result of some tutorials for particles. But I just happened to realize, man, I think nobody has any idea of what's really possible with them, yet. So here's just a little taste, nothing too fancy...quick experiments and tests...
Assorted Particle Clips(7mb ZIP) (http://www.projectmessiah.com/~taron/Clips/ParticleClips.zip)

Hmmm...it's very raw, of course, but it's just to give you a starting idea! The tutorial videos are going to be really fun, actually! I just wished they wouldn't have to be such huge files...but well. Because then I could give you such beautiful long sessions...playing with the shader is such a blast and so much to explore. I will just set up some scenes, so you can play around with it already. I havn't done too much tutorial work, yet, and never had time to fully think about how to prepare it best. So, now, I will try! :wip:

[Julez4001]

IMPRESSIVE!


Man I want the settings for the Comic fire and Explosive....Totally awesome!

What were the rendering times?
Also Comping particles are particles a post effect?


Its almost 7 am here ...whata re u doing up taron

[Wireframes]

just one word about it : FANTASTIC :thumbsup:

Jump into my Forum to show that

Phil

[Taron333]

IMPRESSIVE!


Man I want the settings for the Comic fire and Explosive....Totally awesome!

What were the rendering times?
Also Comping particles are particles a post effect?


Its almost 7 am here ...whata re u doing up taron

I'm nervous about how you all are reacting. Can't quite sleep for that matter. I'm excited and worried and energized and all of that...trying to prepare more material, too! I'm also kind of hawkeyeing, if any problems show up, after that planar mapping scare a few posts down. I'm just glad we managed to find it right away and get rid of that silly mistake. But yeah...even without even drinking any coffee...it may not seem that way for all of you, I don't know, but for me this is a big bunch of days right now, releasing something that is quite precious to us and well...really, really precious to me. Hard and good labor! :love:

[biliousfrog]

so have all the bugs from the original 2.4 been fixed?......I'm reluctant to download yet another update unless it actually works this time, I've got a folder full of updates on my desktop & they've all had something that doesn't work....the last one had some wierd mouse issues where I couldn't even load an item to test out the bugs.

I know that you're all working hard to get things working but I'd rather not need constant updates & just have a solid app from the get go....is this the one?

oh, & I don't suppose autorig's there yet is it?:twisted:

[Julez4001]

Well get some sleep man....
useless without some R&R. if bugs creeped YOU KNOW WE'LL LET U KNOW!
No sleep just means you won't catch em.

[crossbones]

GOod job!! Really its so amazing to see you really care so much about helping out other artists by sharing. I need tutorials to really understand this stuff, or you can show me when I come back.

I have one question, how far are we away from seeing your volume based 3D fire in messiah?


Let me know what settings you are using for compressing your tutorial movies. I have found some really good quicktime compression techniques I learned from lynda.com.

[Layer01]

holy moly that was cool!

i'd love to see a tute for doing the sparks and the fire (the one that rolls around a bit)
can't wait for the docs :D

[Nichod]

Nice. Now a project that would use particles! Taron has the randomizing been fixed with particles? So you can use objects and have them scale, twist and turn correctly?

[AAAron]

Darn now I want Realflow support even more :D but for particle import too.. Really cool!!!

[Taron333]

so have all the bugs from the original 2.4 been fixed?......I'm reluctant to download yet another update unless it actually works this time, I've got a folder full of updates on my desktop & they've all had something that doesn't work....the last one had some wierd mouse issues where I couldn't even load an item to test out the bugs.

I know that you're all working hard to get things working but I'd rather not need constant updates & just have a solid app from the get go....is this the one?

oh, & I don't suppose autorig's there yet is it?:twisted:

Well, get rid of 2.4 and download 2.4b and try. You're not using a cell phone for downloading, right? :D

Mouse issues should certainly be gone, so you can go ahead and test out the little critters. But I would recomment to you just go try to make something pretty first! Maybe no bugs will be in the way?!?

Here's a little particle demo scene for you to get started! :) smoke01 (right click save as) (http://www.projectmessiah.com/~taron/DemoScenes/smoke01.fxs)

[Nichod]

I just wanted to let everyone know I put up the clips (temporarily) here: http://www.cginsomniac.com/Clips/

So if you want to view them individually online go ahead.

[Taron333]

Oh, wow! Those are a whole bunch of more reactions! GREAT! Thanx, very much! I'm happy to see it so well received! Yeah, I'm really having such a ball with the particles, or at least I had at the time...then we moved on to other things including one of my most favorite ones and that is that you can now finally ignore the UVmap issues and go ZBrush crazy without a worry in the world. Then you take your displacement maps and the exported obj out of Zbrush into Messiah and go wild...animate, play around, render away! That's one of the biggest deals to me...besides the to me also rather thrilling standart material changes and additions!

Anyway, I made this little particle demo scene real quick, and I'm still thrilled about the particles. Even making such a little scene is just fun. When we went into developing those particle features we only went to a certain point to make it all grow a bit more evenly and with the wish for you out there to get to know it and get used to it a little. So eventually we would pick it back up and go even further with it. I've got countless ideas on where to take it to and we've got everything we need to make that happen, too, except we'll have to share the time wisely to keep it all growing, of course. But, jeeez, those things are a blast...I will make it a little past-time-pleasure to add wicked forces, too.

I'll first finish up that rendering tutorial I promissed, then I'll go into the particles. Then we'll check out individual shaders! Lot's to do and it's all a journey from which you'll be bringing home a lot of souvenirs, I'm sure you will! :scream:

[Julez4001]

From TLHPRO thread

Makes a valid point:


Thomas-->
Now this is great news: Taron did a wireframe shader!:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=340384
so I can spare the effort of finishing mine :-) :thumbsup:

Edit: the 2.4b update also contains a fresnel shader. Maybe I should retire TLHPro?
Taron, do you plan to implement all the stuff yourself?
That would be great news for messiah, but please let me know so I can stop my development.

BTW. My other job should be done now, so I can finally continue with the docs.

Cheers, :bowdown:
---->


Yeah no reason for the same work when the effort could be focused on other "messiah" areas.

[Taron333]

I just wanted to let everyone know I put up the clips (temporarily) here: http://www.cginsomniac.com/Clips/

So if you want to view them individually online go ahead.

Nichod, that's awesome! I'm kinda shocked! Very cool, THANK YOU SO MUCH! :bounce:

Makes me a little ashamed, too. That's so damn sweet. We will eventually really prepare nice clips in connection with the tutorials that lead to the according results. I think that would be nice.

[Nichod]

Yeah no reason for the same work when the effort could be focused on other "messiah" areas.



Not entirely true. Thomas also wrote:

I am sure Taron could write all my tools in a week. I'm a slow coder and have to fight with the sparsely documented SDK.


So writing up these quick shaders are nice. Plus its always nice to have different options that do the same thing. Thomas's shaders have a higher level of complexity then Taron's wire node does. I'm all for redundancy as long as things keep moving forward.

[Taron333]

From TLHPRO thread

Makes a valid point:


Thomas-->
Now this is great news: Taron did a wireframe shader!:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=340384
so I can spare the effort of finishing mine :-) :thumbsup:

Edit: the 2.4b update also contains a fresnel shader. Maybe I should retire TLHPro?
Taron, do you plan to implement all the stuff yourself?
That would be great news for messiah, but please let me know so I can stop my development.

BTW. My other job should be done now, so I can finally continue with the docs.

Cheers, :bowdown:
---->


Yeah no reason for the same work when the effort could be focused on other "messiah" areas.

Oh, what's that...yikes. That's really coincidence and I'm kinda sorry about that but if it's any consolation:
Fresnel shader happened, because I had a little internal discussion about how we're having an actual fresnel parameter in our standart material that I really hardly understand. To proof a point and as a result of our conversation I wrote that fresnel in about 8 minutes to demonstrate exactly how I thought a fresnel should be implemented as a node. It was nice and fun and so we kept it.

Grid was a request in the beta list, when it was mentioned that there was a grid shader in messiah, which had issues with multithreading. Turns out that was just a script-shader, so I wrote a plugin instead, realizing how cool that could be and couldn't stop for about 10 hours straight. After that, this one was born and I'm super happy with it.

I'm only a little sorry that this interfers with Thomas' stuff, because he made such a big point out of not caring about messiah anymore, anyway. Why would we cut our own development around his seized experimentations? We're going to implement everything we feel is important to have in there by default or what's been requested of us by artists. It's really nice that Thomas is providing his neat and handy little tools to the community and we only encourage him to continue with it and he shouldn't stop, just because it appears we have some overlapping elements. I have to confess that I didn't get to check out his stuff, except many years ago when he wrote little things like clamp tools or other simple math functions. I simply was too busy with other things. I'm still too busy and you can be sure that I won't stop doing what I do to check out if he's got it already, particularely when I know we need or should have it no matter what. So let's not even make this a discussion, please, because it's not the right place to do this. Wrong thread! But I also see no reason to continue this discussion in the first place.

Julez, thanx, but you really don't have to worry about that. If Thomas has any issues he would like to discuss with us, I'm sure he would do that, too! Please, again, don't continue this on this thread. :hmm:

[Julez4001]

Taron
Go to sleep and dreamof nothing but tutorial making:)

[MoodyB]

Problem solved! Was a silly one, too! Right after 2.2 it must have snuck in behind our backs, but it's all clear and fixed! We're debating right now whether to add a patch or to update the installer. I'll keep you posted! Just rest assured, it's taken care of already! :rolleyes:


Nice to know it's fixed. I was starting to think I was doing something weird :p

Btw did this fix sort spherical & cylindrical mapping also ? I notied they were off too, but didn't have time to post up until now.

[Taron333]

...I'm all for redundancy as long as things keep moving forward.

That's the spirit! :thumbsup:

:beer:

[Nichod]

Taron did you see this:


Nice. Now a project that would use particles! Taron has the randomizing been fixed with particles? So you can use objects and have them scale, twist and turn correctly?

[Taron333]

Nice to know it's fixed. I was starting to think I was doing something weird :p

Btw did this fix sort spherical & cylindrical mapping also ? I notied they were off too, but didn't have time to post up until now.

Yup, it was an issue in the initialization that we did not encounter before. Looks like that's all fine now. But keep a keen eye out, too, that's just fantastic! We're looking at so many thing that it can happen for some things to slip by. It's been a super valuable call! :lightbulb

[Nichod]

One last question. When can we expect the PMG site to be updated with info, examples, docs and videos?

And go to BED!

[Julez4001]

No problem, Taron.


Uh oh Looks like I have to update my tutorials. The enhanced properties are now the default shading list (Radiance, etc)

[JaQues^T]

great news, finally something is happening in PMG camp !

[stooch]

so have all the bugs from the original 2.4 been fixed?......I'm reluctant to download yet another update unless it actually works this time, I've got a folder full of updates on my desktop & they've all had something that doesn't work....the last one had some wierd mouse issues where I couldn't even load an item to test out the bugs.

I know that you're all working hard to get things working but I'd rather not need constant updates & just have a solid app from the get go....is this the one?

oh, & I don't suppose autorig's there yet is it?:twisted:

what exactly are you asking here? kinda makes me mad that you are bitching about updates when its obvious that nothing will get fixed without them. Im just happy they are working on the program and actually getting stuff done, if you dont like updates then mabe you should check out realflow? they havent updated the software in years and it doesnt seem like they ever will, sounds like the perfect program for you.

[Taron333]

One last question. When can we expect the PMG site to be updated with info, examples, docs and videos?

And go to BED!

HAHAHAHAHAHA.....shiii....ja, ja, ja, I'm gonna go sleep at some point... ...with all that action on this thread right now, I'm beginning to think I'm dreaming already! ;)

Anyway, this is going to be a progressive action. First we'll update the frontpage to get it up to par. I mean..."latest news / october 2005"...tisk, haha...that's borderline ...no I can't say what this is like! We're taking care of our face, again, you better believe it! :cry: :wip:

Then, soon after, hopefully by the end of this week, the first tutorial clips and other material will come into the mix. It's a lot of work and we should do that with a good amount of dedication. Besides the tutorial clips I'll see that I make the proper demo scenes, some docs and some eye-candies as examples as well. I thought about a type of feature gallery, hopefully even collecting some of your achievements. I was mentioning that a few weeks ago already. A user gallery that exposes your work would make everyone and especially me very happy and proud! Maybe we could even start a feature related submission call!

Particle images and clips
Grid shader Gallery
Displacement mapping Gallery (Zbrush used for example!)
Translucency shading Gallery
TextureDeform (so much crazy stuff you can do with that)
Noisette Gallery (...just the same as above!)
DollEyes Gallery (how wicked that one could LOOK...uhu..uhuhu...sorry about that!)

It would be a blast to get that going. :wip:

Anyway, it's still a dream, really...but I'd really love to hear you guys'n'gals (...are there any girls here? Hmmm...somebody roll the dice..) say:"yup, we're up for it!"

[stooch]

hey, maybe when you go to sleep, you could dream about a hair implementation? hint hint :)

[Taron333]

....Im just happy they are working on the program and actually getting stuff done...


Hahaha, settle down, Stooch, but.... BIG UP, STOOCH! ME, TOO! In a way, however, I was almost greatful for biliousfrog's mean response, because he was the one guy, who would express what I was most afraid of! To me and to us of course it's really unpleasant to having to release several updates in a row. It's a little embarressing, but then mistakes happen all the time and all we want is that you get the best we can get you. I won't be shocked if within the next few months there will have to be a few patches for things we've never even thought could be wrong (HAhaha), this is just how things go, but right now we're confident that it's working beautifully and what is more: The groundwork is layed out for the next level!

Again: THANX, STOOCH!!! :beer:

...and really? Realflow is doing that? I had no idea, I thought they did that crazy renderer recently. I can totally see how that could get some developers carried away a bit (giggle, blush, get teary eyed). Hmmm...anyway. Wrong thread...hehe...pfff.

[Taron333]

hey, maybe when you go to sleep, you could dream about a hair implementation? hint hint :)

Ah fer christ...and I was just toasting to you! :rolleyes:

Yes, yes...the stuff that dreams are made of. And wigs...and the whole shaving industry.
One of these days, the big one's gonna come, but to get you guys rolling on that latest stuff we've got and getting you to exploid it, that's our first big step!
Look at it this way, if you understand how to use the renderer and how to take advantage of the displacement stuff and the deformation and animation abilities with it, you will know how to make the skin move and look great. By the time you've got this all going, the hair and fur will become the perfect addition! Be the active part of evolution with us! :)

[AAAron]

what exactly are you asking here? kinda makes me mad that you are bitching about updates when its obvious that nothing will get fixed without them. Im just happy they are working on the program and actually getting stuff done, if you dont like updates then mabe you should check out realflow? they havent updated the software in years and it doesnt seem like they ever will, sounds like the perfect program for you.

HAHA, actually the had an update in october last year :D BTW. check this out:

Me:

Hi wanted to report a major bug in Realflow for OS X

Realflow version 3.1.18.0065

OS X version 10.3.9

If I use the open command and double click on a file, realflow will PERMANENTLY DELETE IT from the drive.
Same thing happens if I double click on a mesh when I try to load it.
If I click one time and press the open button it works as it should.
Luckily I had a backup of the file.

Them:

Hello,

Thank you very much for the report. Unfortunately can't be fixed for the
moment but it will be sorted out for RealFlow 4.0, coming out very soon.

Yeah right...

sorry for the OT, don´t let this stop you from implenting realflow support though..

[Nichod]

Anyway, this is going to be a progressive action. First we'll update the frontpage to get it up to par. I mean..."latest news / october 2005"...tisk, haha...that's borderline ...no I can't say what this is like! We're taking care of our face, again, you better believe it! :cry: :wip:



I contacted PMG about updating there website a week or so ago. I received an email in regards to it and was given permission to setup a preliminary test site for approval. It will be a bit before I can start, but what features do you guys want to see? My primary concern is making it so the site can be easily updated by the PMG crew, without writing up a whole page.

[Taron333]

I contacted PMG about updating there website a week or so ago. I received an email in regards to it and was given permission to setup a preliminary test site for approval. It will be a bit before I can start, but what features do you guys want to see? My primary concern is making it so the site can be easily updated by the PMG crew, without writing up a whole page.

OH, Brian! Yes, of course! Fori told me about your offer! That's very sweet! Sure, we should continue this one over our privat emails then. Fori and I are still, of course, kept really busy this week to get the current site updated. But we will talk about these ideas than privately, how about it!? Fantastic offer and we really already appreciate it a lot!

ROck oN! :buttrock:

[Taron333]

Here's a little particle demo scene for you to get started! :) smoke01 (right click save as) (http://www.projectmessiah.com/~taron/DemoScenes/smoke01.fxs)


Has anybody of you already tried it out? :cool:

[Nichod]

OH, Brian! Yes, of course! Fori told me about your offer! That's very sweet! Sure, we should continue this one over our privat emails then. Fori and I are still, of course, kept really busy this week to get the current site updated. But we will talk about these ideas than privately, how about it!? Fantastic offer and we really already appreciate it a lot!

ROck oN! :buttrock:



Sure. Just contact me: http://www.cginsomniac.com/contact

Brian

[biliousfrog]

sorry guys, not trying to stir things up..... just that the "b" update arrived really quickly. I wanted to know whether this was a fix for all the bugs in the 2.4 release (& prior) or just a bunch of new tools & improvements. New tools are always welcome but if, like me, you can't actually use the core program because of interface issues the new tools are wasted.

....sooo......has this release fixed the bugs from 2.4 or just added more stuff to the app?....haha "just".

That's not an offensive question is it? I hope not, it's not intended that way.....just asking.

[stooch]

so it arrived TOO quickly? is that a bad thing? would you prefer it arrived in a month or two?

[Nichod]

sorry guys, not trying to stir things up..... just that the "b" update arrived really quickly. I wanted to know whether this was a fix for all the bugs in the 2.4 release (& prior) or just a bunch of new tools & improvements. New tools are always welcome but if, like me, you can't actually use the core program because of interface issues the new tools are wasted.

....sooo......has this release fixed the bugs from 2.4 or just added more stuff to the app?....haha "just".

That's not an offensive question is it? I hope not, it's not intended that way.....just asking.



It appears many were fixed. We'll see over the next few days.


so it arrived TOO quickly? is that a bad thing? would you prefer it arrived in a month or two?


*Takes coffee away from stooch*:bounce:

[Julez4001]

You can dl it and read the whats new notes during installation but i think soemone posted in the forum already.

hey my transluceny batwings didn't crashed.
yeah this program is really solid than it use to be.
haven't crashed yet and just doing render test....

[stooch]

It appears many were fixed. We'll see over the next few days.



*Takes coffee away from stooch*:bounce:

I HATE coffee.

i prefer rockstar.

[Nichod]

I HATE coffee.

i prefer rockstar.


No wonder you are wired!:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[biliousfrog]

I'm downloading it now, I only have it at home which is why I was asking about it first (at work).

Julez4001 & ThomasHelzle (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=12708) both mentioned that they had similar interface problems which is why I asked about the bug fixes here, I couldn't see any mention of them in the post about the updates so didn't want to waste my time.....but it's nearly done, I'll post any problems asap......if there is any.

[stooch]

well i hope it works out. :)

btw what does "swollen member" refer to?

[biliousfrog]

haha......the menus still don't work on my machine......unless I use a standard mouse! For some reason it won't work with my Wacom Intuos3, neither with the mouse or pen. Shame cos I've got used to using the Wacom but I guess I can switch over when I use Messiah....still odd though.

Thanks fellas, time to start playing.........

[Nichod]

Odd. My Wacom works fine. I'm not sure how much influence the tablet drivers have on everything, but worth a look?

[My Fault]

Oh, wow! Those are a whole bunch of more reactions! GREAT! Thanx, very much! I'm happy to see it so well received! Yeah, I'm really having such a ball with the particles, or at least I had at the time...then we moved on to other things including one of my most favorite ones and that is that you can now finally ignore the UVmap issues and go ZBrush crazy without a worry in the world. Then you take your displacement maps and the exported obj out of Zbrush into Messiah and go wild...animate, play around, render away! That's one of the biggest deals to me...besides the to me also rather thrilling standart material changes and additions!

Could you elaborate more on this? Does this mean you can use ZBrushes AUV and GUV tile UV mapping and not have to worry about cracking in messiah anymore? Wooo, that would be awesome. Any examples?

[Taron333]

Could you elaborate more on this? Does this mean you can use ZBrushes AUV and GUV tile UV mapping and not have to worry about cracking in messiah anymore? Wooo, that would be awesome. Any examples?

YES! Just do it! You will see! It's handsdown perfect! :thumbsup:

Taron
PS:Still awake! (Rockstar, you're drinking that stuff Stooch? I'm hovering between coffee americano (espresso with hot water (and milk and lots of sugar)) and red bull. Although I havn't had any redbulls for a few days now...bad for the teeth, really.)
I even roast my own coffee, which is what i did not too long ago (few hours again). Oh, so tasty! :)

[Wireframes]

Has anybody of you already tried it out? :cool:

Yep

Rendering is very fast :)

Just understood how to play with the density entry of particle shader --> that was the secret I missed to have good result with particle rendering :bounce:

Phil

P.S. : Hey Taron --> have a good night with all of your great work last days !!!

[rush123]

Thanks Taron,

for all the information in this thread and the great particles examples. I’ve got a couple of questions re particles. Can particles stick to geometry? Can an event be trigger by particle collisions? Can you add collection of objects to particles?

Again thanks for the info, and the new Grid & Metal shader, what enhancements are planned?

Thanks

R

[Taron333]

Thanks Taron,

for all the information in this thread and the great particles examples. I’ve got a couple of questions re particles. Can particles stick to geometry? Can an event be trigger by particle collisions? Can you add collection of objects to particles?

Again thanks for the info, and the new Grid & Metal shader, what enhancements are planned?

Thanks

R

With this foundation we were setting up the emitting behavior mostly, which allows the emitting from an object's surface as well as actually keeping it on an object's surface. Although the event info already exists and collision already works, I can't tell you too much about the sticking behavior...should work, havn't tried it much, though.
Assigning objects to particles should work fine, too...but all of that is subject to one of the more massive additions we have in stock for the next big round...whereby on that one I actually kind of think about a little inbetween patch already. I want to have us push the particles a lot, because we have such a nice accessibility to them in general and I'd just love to exploid that to really create many natural effects.
The Grid shader just went into a small beta phase for it's latest addtions (I did a few hours ago half asleep, but they worked totally great as far as I could tell...it has added min/max values (individually texturable), which allows everything from inverting them (0.0 - -1.0) to flipping them around (1.0 - 0.0) and of course all the inbetweens, really full on min/max. Also new mode for polygon wires. It now has metanurb wires and polygon wires separate. New U/V independent subdivision levels (per request...it's a bit freaky on wicked organic meshs, because you never know which way around the polygons are and I didn't want to write a routine that tries figuring that out with the cost of additional rendertime...it's a little too much on the gimmik side for me to risk performance, but if it becomes a need...hmm...I might try something)...what else...hmmm...no, that's all...it's really curious stuff! Let the beta boys take care of it for a moment and then tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we might already put the improved Grids&Wires shader online already.
Metal Shader...? Anisotropical Highlights you mean? Hmm, I actually should update those very soon, too, because of the new general light-size parameter that every light has. Since it already affects the highlight size in the current version, I should hook that into that shader, too!
Enhancements are happening on a constant basis and will get posted as soon as the betas are happy with it! :)

Thanx for asking! :)

[Taron333]

Yep

Rendering is very fast :)

Just understood how to play with the density entry of particle shader --> that was the secret I missed to have good result with particle rendering :bounce:

Phil

P.S. : Hey Taron --> have a good night with all of your great work last days !!!

HAHAHAHA, It'll be a good day, I'm afraid...or even afternoon already, jeeez...
...I'm very happy you say that! (I mean the particle thingy...sleep's way different!) I was worried that the simple and essential ideas have not yet been understood and was hoping that a demo scene could help to clear this up already!
There are such freaky things in the particleShader, that a tutorial could really be like a guidance into a whole other world of experiments and revelations. It's a powerful little bugger, really. I mean, I wrote the whole damn thing and believe I havn't scratched the surface of what it's capable of doing, yet. That's where I'm counting on you guys on, too! :bounce: :wip:

Thank you very much, Wire!

[Taron333]

GOod job!! Really its so amazing to see you really care so much about helping out other artists by sharing. I need tutorials to really understand this stuff, or you can show me when I come back.

I have one question, how far are we away from seeing your volume based 3D fire in messiah?


Let me know what settings you are using for compressing your tutorial movies. I have found some really good quicktime compression techniques I learned from lynda.com.

I really like quicktime because of the good scrubbing one can do, but I so far only find the Sorenson3 to be adequate in compression, performance and looks together. If you know something better, and I'm sure there are better ways, please, let me know!

Ah, yeah, the fire...fluid dynamics...the big guns! It's almost insane, knowing that I know by heart how to do all of that, that I don't just do it, but it's all about implementation. This sort of stuff really, REALLY needs a great openGL implementation with great visual guidance and navigation/feedback. This is the major hold up on that part, because that system will need a few more intense examinations. I don't know when it will happen, but I know for a fact that it will happen! Just don't hold your breathe just yet.
I think in the first application of fluid dynamics I will try my hands on cooler particle forces. Maybe even something that makes it less necessary to go realflow for a lot of things. I can't offer any ETA on that stuff, yet, either, but it's extremely expectable that it will be there long before the full on volume based fds makes it in. :arteest:

Thanx for asking, though....it's a good reminder!

[Wireframes]

Taron

Can you post the bubbles example ?

Just to avoid seeking how to affect an object to particle ;)

Phil

Edit : Can't wait for the particles tutorials :bounce:

[Taron333]

Taron

Can you post the bubbles example ?

Just to avoid seeking how to affect an object to particle ;)

Phil

Edit : Can't wait for the particles tutorials :bounce:

Okidoki...
Bubbles_large.fxs (right click save as) (http://www.projectmessiah.com/~taron/DemoScenes/Bubbles_large.fxs)
Whereby I happen to remember why I didn't want to just post that one, because I need to do at least some explaining.

First of all, those bubbles are not objects! They are sprites, too! But since I translate the sprite into a "simulated" volume I can apply shading to them. Most easily that can be made using spheres!
The wicked thing that is somewhat different from the usual way things work within the shaderflow is that the inputs of the particleShader actually actively retrieve and provide information to the attached shader nodes. As a result, if you hook in a basicShader for instance, the particleShader provides it with new information, like the pretended surface of an object. BasicShader then computes the shading as if the naughty sprite was just another object and gives the results back to the particleShader. This is also for why the gradient doesn't need an input to know that it uses the particles age by default to give back the color values along the gradient. (god I'm really really tired now)...anyway, so there's some explaining to do, although I believe in you and your understanding of it, if you went through it again by just looking at the shader nodes in the example scene. :D

[Wireframes]

twice thanks :)

Phil

[SearchingSoul]

ola,

just installed the 2.4b. As i m currently in Project i realized a strange behaviour in 2.4b.
Could someone please verify this as a user error or Bug?:
Armature which is rotating a bone always rotates in one direction (not one axis :) - after reloading the scene).
To recreate behaviour:
.Add Object
.Add Bone_Deform + a bone to that object.
.Add Armature with Handle and a Drag Controller - controlling that bone.
.Set LMB to rotate an Axis (no free rotate)
.Push that Armature with an Pixel offset away from that Object.
.go into Animate mode and Drag handle - everything runs fine.
.Save the messiah scene and reload it.
From now on it just rotates in one direction ...

Anyone else got this ?

SearchingSoul

ps: Me likes the drive in this Thread
pss: I attached a simple scene which doesnt work http://www.simmation.de/messiah/Armature24b.mpj

[Taron333]

From now on it just rotates in one direction ...

Anyone else got this ?

SearchingSoul


I can't confirm it, when I do the steps and create and use an armature, but I'm also not sure if I did exactly what you've written. BUT I must tell you, I havn't used Armatures in a while and I'm totally shocked again, how cool they can be. Funny how the closest person to the software can miss out some of it's greates beauty. I just made an armature and layed out left mouse to translate, middle to rotate and right to scale. Fantastic...haha! Totally forgot how great that is.

But I just saw you have a link to a scene that shows the issue, didn't see that before. I'm going to try it right now....AH FOUND YOUR PROBLEM! It's the little marker for "motion" in the left operator bar (pipeline bar) that you havn't activated. If you only have it without that active it will only use the channel that was selected (you had "heading" selected). If you active that little "R" next to it, you'll activate full rotation.

It's not a bug! Just weired! I've never seen that before and it took me a second. It makes sense and is a vital functionality thing, but yeah...it feels like it could be made more obvious.

Good job on getting me into armature again, though, thanx! :)

[numberEleven]

Thanks again for the update!

Looking forward to seeing the docs and any other tutorial videos that will help us understand this latest release. Thanks again.

-Garin

[SearchingSoul]

But I just saw you have a link to a scene that shows the issue, didn't see that before. I'm going to try it right now....AH FOUND YOUR PROBLEM! It's the little marker for "motion" in the left operator bar (pipeline bar) that you havn't activated. If you only have it without that active it will only use the channel that was selected (you had "heading" selected). If you active that little "R" next to it, you'll activate full rotation.
I am aware of that great function using the little marker for full Rotation. But I just wanted to have Heading tied to left mouse :).
If you load the attached Armature24b.mpj and drag the handle with the mouse to the LEFT and RIGHT it should rotate the Object on the positive (drag to left) and negative (drag to right) Heading Axis. At least 2.1 ,2.2 and 2.4 do that! But in 2.4b it just rotates in one Direction (positive Heading values) wether i drag mouse to the left or right.
This only happens if you reload the scene! and use it. Not when you create it. And it also doesnt happen when you activate the "full Rotation" marker (where i switch to now to continue animating :) ).


Good job on getting me into armature again, though, thanx! :)

I felt in love with these helpers too :)


SearchingSoul

[Taron333]

I am aware of that great function using the little marker for full Rotation. But I just wanted to have Heading tied to left mouse :).
If you load the attached Armature24b.mpj and drag the handle with the mouse to the LEFT and RIGHT it should rotate the Object on the positive (drag to left) and negative (drag to right) Heading Axis. At least 2.1 ,2.2 and 2.4 do that! But in 2.4b it just rotates in one Direction (positive Heading values) wether i drag mouse to the left or right.
This only happens if you reload the scene! and use it. Not when you create it. And it also doesnt happen when you activate the "full Rotation" marker (where i switch to now to continue animating :) ).

SearchingSoul

Man, I don't get that to happen...I'm actually kinda sorry, it's so weired how things like that can be different on different machine setups, I guess?!? I have two utterly different machines, while both have Nvidia cards, which is the only thing they have in common. I have an old pentium4 2.6 running Windows 2k and a dual Opteron 2.x with XP and both don't show these troubles....strange.

Hey, if anyone else can report that, that would be gr...that would suck of course, but it would help!

Also, what kind of setup are you using, if I may ask?

Thanx for reporting, that's for sure...hopefully we get to figure out what's going on for you there. :shrug:

[timnhe]

Hi Searching Soul, i´m revised your scene, and i can see an error:

The target for this handle, isn´t the bone, is the Skeleton Modifier, then if you change this, the armature works ok!! :thumbsup:

Great Update, many old bugs are fixed!!
Thanks PMG and Taron

[SearchingSoul]

ola,

@timnhe (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=124007)
Thanks - how odd from me ... my speed finger just clicked to early :)
That isn t the source for the error :) but it explains why i didnt get keys on my Bone *g*


I just tried that scene on my second Computer and found the mistake. I got Edit->Key/Frame Editing->Edit Sphere->Mouse tracked Directions on (shame i really didnt know what that does :) ).
With this oprion on i got that Drag Handle Problem. When i switch that off it works.
In 2.4 this option runs fine together with drag handle (one axis).




Searching Soul


PS:I run an AMD x2 with Nvidia 6800GT (quadro drivers) and winxp64 SP1.

[timnhe]

Hola :) Searching Soul, Now I can see the problem. I dn´t know what is 'Mouse tracked ...', but when its on, the rotations becomes crazy, except if you change the rotation value to zero. Do this and try again.

I feel not to be able to express to me better, but my english is too bad :(

[SearchingSoul]

ola,

sometimes you can fiddling around and its working together, but if you reload the scene with the Option ("mouse tracked ...") on, its weird again.

SearchingSoul

[Taron333]

Alright, now that that's all cleared up, which makes me truely happy, we should get all these posts into their own thread or so...and call it the "panic resolved" thread. It's kinda like that icecream flavor graveyard....eh.... ...that's what happens after sleep-debrivation. :surprised

Eh, where was I..ah yeah, so, go to our website and see the glory: A NEWS FLASH! hahaha...we finally have the latest news updated, although you still have to manually click on the download button to get to the download site and then click on the link to the download to get to the page with the downloads (pant, pant, pant) and there you will see not only the update to the version 2.4b but also the little texture map patch, thanx to your great feedback! :bounce:

[SearchingSoul]

Alright, now that that's all cleared up, which makes me truely happy, we should get all these posts into their own thread or so...and call it the "panic resolved" thread.

Agreed on that :) will put this one to the Bug-Thread :)

SearchingSoul

[maks]

A NEWS FLASH! hahaha...we finally have the latest news updated, although you still have to manually click on the download button to get to the download site and then click on the link to the download to get to the page with the downloads (pant, pant, pant) and there you will see not only the update to the version 2.4b but also the little texture map patch, thanx to your great feedback! :bounce:

Errr, that patch, it says download it then run it, but what's that .zmb file format?? How are we supposed to run that? Am I missing something obvious here, or are we supposed to change the .zmb into .dll and put that into the ...modules\shader folder...?

EDIT: Just did that and it seems to do the trick ;)

[Nichod]

hmm. zonealarm: http://filext.com/detaillist.php?extdetail=ZMB

[Taron333]

hmm. zonealarm: http://filext.com/detaillist.php?extdetail=ZMB

Thanx for clearing that up! And yes, it goes into that folder:

...messiah\modules\shaders\...

Sorry about that, I didn't even know what a zmb file is myself. But it's very interesting and appearantly very secure! We'll have to make that a lot more clear! :wip: :blush:

[Nichod]

Might want to update it on the website;)

[Taron333]

Might want to update it on the website;)

When the powers to be are awake again, yes, certainly, I already did send the notes! I don't have much to do with the website myself, otherwise I would have done it already. :hmm:

Thanx, though!

[maks]

I can't seem to be able to load any image file into the new texture map node, I tried it with bmp as well as with jpg - they just don't show up... Is this just me?

Edit: Errr, maybe I was wrong, sorry - I got the same behaviour with the Image Manager, this actually happened when I tried to load image files from the messiah\modules\defaults\icons directory - other image files seem to work fine. Strange though...

[MoodyB]

never mind

[Taron333]

Would it be possible for someone to email me the fixed dll please at :

georgewatson@gbwatson.fsworld.co.uk

It's gone from pmg's download page, and I'm away from home today using Messiah on another pc :/ And as this one only has dialup access to the web, I don't want to download the 2.4b update again if the fix isn't included.

It's in the installer! It was just a convenience for those, who had downloaded the installer the first day. Sorry about that! If you're worried you wouldn't have it, just download the installer again...it's all there! :hmm:

[Joscci]

You know, I'm really glad that pmG is alive and kicking... I'm sure there are times many of us question the future of messiah and pmG, and if you've spend enough time in these forums, you'll know what I mean... when months and months continue to pass and pmG's website starts to collect dust, well, it's difficult to blame ourselves for 'wondering', you know...?

Reading through all the postings on this thread and all the little exciting things that are happening with messiah makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :) And especially reading Taron's postings... I don't know WTF he puts in his coffee drink, but I really enjoy all the enthusiasm he puts into the development of messiah -- the love really shows, and it assures me that, thanks to the dedicated people at pmG (even if they're a few lot) that messiah will be around for a long time.

So thanks, pmG! (and Taron!) :wavey:

Cheers.

Sorry for the random babbling! lol.

[MoodyB]

It's in the installer! It was just a convenience for those, who had downloaded the installer the first day. Sorry about that! If you're worried you wouldn't have it, just download the installer again...it's all there! :hmm:

Ahh, ok, thanks for the info :)

[ThomasHelzle]

Taron: Just two remarks on the tutorials:

I found the On2 VP3.2 Codec for Quicktime to be really good. While it isn't included by default, it is a free download, linked from here:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/resources/components.html
It was the only codec I have found that really leaves background elements alone that don't move, without flickering or blurring.
And it is very efficient too.
H264 is also not too bad, but rather slow encoding and decoding.

For the download size:

You could set up a .torrent for the movies, so the bandwidth used is much smaller on the long run, especially if there is a "frontpage hit". Sure you would have to be the main seeder though.

Cheers,

[Taron333]

Taron: Just two remarks on the tutorials:

You could set up a .torrent for the movies, so the bandwidth used is much smaller on the long run, especially if there is a "frontpage hit". Sure you would have to be the main seeder though.

Cheers,

Thanx that's awesome, I'm going to check into that codec for sure! And torrent is a good idea, too! We'll see how much bandwidth our server can handle without ruining our chance for any profit, haha...ha....but if worst comes to worst, and I mean bandwidth wise, I will definitely go torrent. Never have done that so far, but I'll figure it out!

Thanx a lot! :beer:

Taron

[Nichod]

Taron: Just two remarks on the tutorials:

I found the On2 VP3.2 Codec for Quicktime to be really good. While it isn't included by default, it is a free download, linked from here:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/reso...components.html (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/resources/components.html)
It was the only codec I have found that really leaves background elements alone that don't move, without flickering or blurring.
And it is very efficient too.
H264 is also not too bad, but rather slow encoding and decoding.

For the download size:

You could set up a .torrent for the movies, so the bandwidth used is much smaller on the long run, especially if there is a "frontpage hit". Sure you would have to be the main seeder though. Yeah. the On2 codec is very nice. My major issue with videos is getting a good audio compression. Wink at http://www.debugmode.com (http://www.debugmode.com/) is coming out with a new version (2.0) should be out soon that will have audio support. You might want to look into it.

Also, I'd be happy to mirror a few of the clips when the time comes. I will have my own server soon, so once thats up I'm more than willing to mirror if necessary.

[ThomasHelzle]

Go for Quicktime 7s AAC. Nothing better for Quicktime I know of.

Wink is nice but a standard format is preferable for most situations/people. And because of scrolling, Quicktime is the best so far.

Flash Video could also be cool - Flash 8 has On2 VP6 built in - even with realtime streaming alpha channel... So Taron can walk in front of the screen and work with a big mouse pointer LOL
But streaming requires major bandwidth...

Cheers

[biliousfrog]

just to add my 2 cents, I personally wouldn't bother streaming as I expect most people would download the movies so that they can view them as & when they please. I have folders for tutorials for different apps, Lightwave, Messiah, Zbrush etc....even if they are streaming I generally save target as....rather than worry about buffering every time I want to view it.

....& as for flash, the newer, streaming flash movies are great but unless you have the right software you can't save them to your PC.

[Taron333]

...And because of scrolling, Quicktime is the best so far.


Yup, that's the whole reason why I want to keep them quicktimes. Quality is not even so important as long as you can still read what's written and see the mouse pointer (hehe), but you should always be able to scrub. Especially when I make a tutorial. I often don't realize when I do certain things a little fast, even while I intentionally slow down as much as I can.
The only thing I'm worried about with different quicktime formats is, that poeple will have to get the codec themselves and quicktime doesn't tell me how or where or even what. I've had that happen several times with some wacky codecs.

[ThomasHelzle]

Yeah, it is very strange: up to Quicktime Version 6, you were able to load all those "additional" codecs automatically when you activated an option in the automatic updater.
But in Version 7, that updater does nothing useful, it doesn't even realise updates to the core quicktime. There were several updates already with major bugs resolved, but neither does apple document that much on their website, nor does the updater realise it...
I think I still prefer oranges over apples ;)

But at least On2 VP 3.2 is not "wacky" in any form. On2 is one of the most innovative codec companies - DivX is more "wacky" these days IMO.
Give it a try, and maybe you can get permission to offer the codec on the pmG site. Heck, they even give away the source...
Recompile it and call it Taronorat 1.0 :cool:

I personally don't like watching blurry stuff for too long - my eyes get sick trying to get it sharp ;)

:bowdown:

[Taron333]

Yeah, it is very strange: up to Quicktime Version 6, you were able to load all those "additional" codecs automatically when you activated an option in the automatic updater.
But in Version 7, that updater does nothing useful, it doesn't even realise updates to the core quicktime. There were several updates already with major bugs resolved, but neither does apple document that much on their website, nor does the updater realise it...
I think I still prefer oranges over apples ;)

But at least On2 VP 3.2 is not "wacky" in any form. On2 is one of the most innovative codec companies - DivX is more "wacky" these days IMO.
Give it a try, and maybe you can get permission to offer the codec on the pmG site. Heck, they even give away the source...
Recompile it and call it Taronorat 1.0 :cool:

I personally don't like watching blurry stuff for too long - my eyes get sick trying to get it sharp ;)

:bowdown:


Tisk...c'mon. Just because I call Philipp and mine after effects plugin series Taronite? Pfff...but it's the stuff that is super personal to me from the deepest place of my geek-heart, so to say... you buy that, you buy a piece of that spirit within me, hihi, but it's true.

Aeh, in case that was just some arbitrary little poking me, I'd rather call it "From Helzle 2.0" and with it I post a clip of a decaying Johnny Depp (it was him, wasn't it?)... :twisted:

Yeah, well, should never be too blurry of course, at least I hope it won't be. The other thing is the audio, this is most certainly what's going to hold me a little back at first, because I'm both a little shy, not liking to hear my own accent, but I'm also damn hard to understand as soon as I fall into my mumble phase. Now that all means, that I'd have to spend some time to figure out good outlines of what to say and therefore prepare in more ways. Something I truely don't like to do what so ever. I love the spontaneity and sincerity that comes with it...but yeah...I'll see what I can do. I might just practice a little improvising with the mic on! I just wanted to get all of you those tutorials as fast as possible.

Thanx, again, though, Thomas! Sounds all good, I'll go check out that codec in a few moments.

Taron

[ThomasHelzle]

ahem - well, it was neither poking nor any other way of ill doing.
I just thought that it may be possible to put the download directly on your page to make it easier for the user - and a little word game: Taron backwards and forwards.
One can't even make an innocent joke nowadays... :rolleyes:

I have no clue about AE plugins of yours and so I can't make a pun out of it...
What are they doing?

Cheers - and relax.
Sleep helps.

[Taron333]

I'm just kidding and sneaking in a little commercial :D

Yeah, I came up with a pretty crazy 2d plugin that does 3d rendering of depth images pretty much in realtime with direct and point lights with shadows (even soft shadows), environment illumination and reflection, full shading (where I figured out the ratio between glossiness, specularity and the light size), transparency with refraction and full on caustix projected in different ways (except on itself). Then Philipp (www.frischluft.com) joined in to take it to the next level in many ways...it's absolutely crazy and already caused some noise around. It does way more than just that and besides "photoreal" like rendering it is also totally stunning for wicked NPR style rendering, normal image treatment and wicked effects. I've rendered the image that's going to be in Expose 4 with it. The plugin is called "ZbornToy" and carefully tries to imply it's use in connection with Zbrush. The alpha depth factor is lined up exactly! So you just type it in and on goes the show...totally fun, but also a really curious outlook for the future.
We've already been talking about taking the concept into messiah as well to do some surprising things, but since it's right now priority to focus more on backtracking old issues and solving all of them to ramp up the animation section and fulfill some other age-old promisses (as you sure remember and gave up on..hehe...and we don't and won't as far as we can)...we have to put the ZbToy internalization a bit on the backburner.

No, man, I appreciated your joke...kinda cute. But it makes me seem that much more like a prima-donna...as if I could defend myself against that anyway. :p

No worries! :buttrock:

:beer:

Taron

[AAAron]

Show me something for fu*k sake! :bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce: I use Afx every day at work, and a lot of guys at my place ( www.filmtecknarna.se ) is doing major 3d comping in it.

[ThomasHelzle]

Cool, sounds interesting.

But well, yes, I am a strong supporter of implementing and fixing basics.
messiah can't shine with dirty boots.
Messy basics have shied more people away than new fascinating toys can attract.

And just to get this out of the way hopefully: Yes, I have given up waiting for messiah to become what I once had high hopes it would: my main tool.

It doesn't work for me and the stuff I'm doing for a living. I have XSI for that now, so I'm no longer under pressure. So yes, you lost me as a user.

But, I would be more than happy if you guys would get messiah into a state to make your users more satisfied - they earned that as well as you earned to get rid of all that beating and frustration.
I have a very clear picture what would be needed for me to reach that state. Most of it I repeated more often than anyone cared to hear it. Sorry for that.

We both know that we don't differ that much in our perception of those things.
I'm just way more pragmatic and down to earth.

Cheers,

[Taron333]

Show me something for fu*k sake! :bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce: I use Afx every day at work, and a lot of guys at my place ( www.filmtecknarna.se ) is doing major 3d comping in it.


HAHAHAHA, yeah, of course...I might post some links...gotta see, it's a little out of place here. I've got some early funny tests on my blog.... just go to my website and click on blog! :)

[Taron333]

But, I would be more than happy if you guys would get messiah into a state to make your users more satisfied - they earned that as well as you earned to get rid of all that beating and frustration.
I have a very clear picture what would be needed for me to reach that state. Most of it I repeated more often than anyone cared to hear it. Sorry for that.

We both know that we don't differ that much in our perception of those things.
I'm just way more pragmatic and down to earth.

Cheers,

Eery, but true, I almost always did understand and agree with your requests and they were mostly completely adequate, which is why we've always tried to keep up with them as much as we could. I don't know and don't want to make any assumptions as to why we had such a hard time to follow up, particularely when I see alone what we've done from yesterday to today. Just as a little example: sliders now have min/max activated and working, autosave is now iterative with a choice for number of files and automatic deletion of files beyond the user defined amount and the funny issues you've appearantly mentioned in your thread are gone, too (viewport weirdness due to autosave: solved!)...oh, and the funny material copy and paste slip is fixed, too. That's two days of our lives right now and we keep moving forward.
I still do like the idea of having you wait until we're through with it all, because with all this intense work we're really a little sensitive right now and the great feedback that we're getting on the things we've already done is a real positive boost for us! It sounds so silly, but motivation is strength and that's what we're gaining with every positive reaction!

Anyway, I'm kinda happy about a lot of the things you've said there and want almost didn't want to add anything to it...but this: :arteest:

Keep peeking into the threads and try it out every once in a while.

Taron

[ThomasHelzle]

Superb.
Solving those long time buggers may not be as fascinating but very rewarding in the end! :thumbsup:

I'm not negative by design, only if things stay static for too long I become annoyed and after that sarcastic - I'm sure you would react similar. 5 years for sliders min max are, well, long. ;)
If you are finally going through messiah with a fine comb, getting rid of the dozens of little things that in the end make for an unearned bad user experience, I am very happy for YOU.
You will do yourself a lot of good with getting this old mud from your shoes :-)

I know exactly what you mean with motivation. I suffer from the same - in the other direction. I'm all willing to get things more positive once more. Your latest comments are a great step into that road.

If we know that you are going through those "little" things, I am sure everybody has something positive to offer that makes his work harder than it should be and that may be solvable without too much trouble.

I'm all for it! :thumbsup: :bounce: :bowdown: :wavey:

[Taron333]

How weired, man, your avatar is kind of genius! Reading your post makes it look like a friendlier smile suddenly. Bizarre! :eek:

Thanx, Thomas! :beer:

[ThomasHelzle]

Hehehe - yes, I know - he is like Mona Lisa ;)

It is the only character I've ever done that is really worth it IMO. I have him on top of my invoices and people react extremely different to it - some find he looks very cruel, others think he is very feminine/androgyny (?) and sexy.
I find he looks very intense and sharply into the viewer...

Actually he helps getting paid LOL ;)

Cheers,

[DMack]

Great to see you guys moving in the right direction! I am personally VERY grateful for the help that Thomas has offered me in the past and so seeing part of PMG and him at odds has always made me feel uncomfortable! I still owe Thomas a large orange juice! ;)

I think Thomas has made some very valid points (with force :D ) AND I absolutely agree with the feeling that it is the smaller, less glamarous, things that can hold the software back....So, you can imagine my joy when I opened up 5.4 and saw that little yellow triangle changed! I do have a strong feeling that PMG are REALLY listening to us and removing the smaller blocks....

Guys - let's stay on this track - I like it!

[rush123]

I second that DMack, about Thomas and what he has done for the Messiah community. Now get back to work Thomas and finish TLHPro :)


R

[MoodyB]

Just as a little example: sliders now have min/max activated and working,


:bounce:

Nice. It's taken a while, but better late than never :P

[Taron333]

Hahaha...we're having a powwow! Beautiful! :wise: :cool:

[MoodyB]

Since you guys are on a roll :), how about adding a popup message that allows you to abort a render that is using displacements on a mesh, but the mesh isn't metanurbed ?

Either that, or have Messiah activate metanurbs at rendertime for any objects that have displacements activated. Saves sitting for ages ( unable to abort the render, wondering what's going on.... ) and hearing your hd trash the life out of itself, then M:S crashes.

[Taron333]

Hehehehe, that's a funny one, and this time you really have to grinch a little in case you're uncomfortable with really wicked things....but....too interrupt the precomputations (subdivision process)...double click a material sample so that it wants to render. This will trigger the interruption of the process and was currently the easiest way of implementing that (has something to do with thread and process access...a little wacky...everything else would slow down the render process as it seemed, so this is a temporary solution, nothing permanent). BECAUSE I've been upset about that same thing for a long time and a solution was at hand, depite it's lack of orthodoxy, so to say! :p

HahAAhh, see, how we take care of you! :D

[AlexK]

...double click a material sample so that it wants to render.
Now that is a super weird one. :wip:

But great to hear it is possible. LOL


On another topic:
Taron or Thomas, do you think it would be possible for one of you to write a shader (Thomas or pmG) or an output buffer (pmG) that outputs motion vectors like the La maison shader for Mental Ray (http://www.alamaison.fr/3d/lm_2DMV/lm_2DMV_ref.htm)?
That would be a super great addition, because that makes it possible to get a nice and easy MotionBlur solution in post instead of cranking up the AA settings in Messiah to an insane amount to get smooth MB directly in rendering.

[ThomasHelzle]

Taron, how much effort is it, to implement submenus for the shader list?
Or as a first step - make the shader menu scrolling. ;)

This will become a rather pressing problem for more people the minute I release TLHPro.

The Problem: Currently, if you have more shaders than fit on screen in one row, you simply can't access them. I always have to remove certain shaders to access others.
There is a workaround with creating node presets and accessing shaders via the F5 palette, but that isn't really fun...

The second problem with the current list is, that it becomes more and more confusing since the sorting isn't especially logical (loading order I assume).

If you want to test it, install Tommys little Helpers from my website and AoN:Studio (you and Lyle still have those never-activated licenses, don't you?) and your list should be full enough to see what I mean. :)

Thank you very much for considering it.

Thomas

[AlexK]

Taron, how much effort is it, to implement submenus for the shader list?
Or as a first step - make the shader menu scrolling. ;)

This will become a rather pressing problem for more people the minute I release TLHPro.

The Problem: Currently, if you have more shaders than fit on screen in one row, you simply can't access them. I always have to remove certain shaders to access others.
There is a workaround with creating node presets and accessing shaders via the F5 palette, but that isn't really fun...

The second problem with the current list is, that it becomes more and more confusing since the sorting isn't especially logical (loading order I assume).

If you want to test it, install Tommys little Helpers from my website and AoN:Studio (you and Lyle still have those never-activated licenses, don't you?) and your list should be full enough to see what I mean. :)

Thank you very much for considering it.

Thomas
I can confirm this one. As I am beta testing the TLHpro shaders right now and have the AON shaders and in addition to that even the old TLH shaders, it really becomes too crowded. The only way for me to add a TextureMap is if I click on a free channel in the attribute tab and assign it to an arbitrary channel and then reconnect it to the channel I'd like it to go to (because not all shader channels have these plus buttons to add more nodes).

That can get quickly annoying.

[Taron333]

Man, as I was reading these posts I was already getting ready to say: We've just talked about this one. Only to come to the next post that would trigger the exact same intro and yet another one...how funny.

First of all "gradient/light list funkiness" - solved

Second of all, the particle emitters have now better visual feedback (cone for cone, box for box, plane for plane, this sort of stuff).

Third, we're looking into the node-overlapping stuff, because it might be a similar issue that helped solving the "f5 bottom window text overlapping" (thanx for that post, was a perfect hint to get us started!)

And now this:
I was just last week talking about the submenu thing for the shaders, because I realized that it simply gets insanely cluttered. Not to mention that the order appears completely random on first glance...and second...and even third...and I don't even care what kind of order it is, it's silly. SO, not sure what's involved and how easy we can get it, but the issue of physically running out of screenspace makes it rather pressing! Perfect for bringing that up again! I wanted to get it all ordered in type of shader, but of course third party developers should have folders of their own going, which would be perfect! I'm just afraid it's not the easiest thing and therefore not the fastest thing to implement! I could foresee a sort of temporary compromise by at least starting several columes based on screen coverage or so...gotta be some decent way for a quicker solution first.

BUT here's may personal favorite request of the day (or week?):
Motionblur vector layer...hah! That's fantastic, what a great idea. We've been talking about developing an internal method that works just like it, except it would have curved...oh..hmmm...I shouldn't even really talk about that, but yeah... I love the simpicity of that one, should be fairly easy to write! I might even just make an AfterFX plugin that can use such layers then! Great, great, idea! I'm loving it! :love:
(yeah, yeah, but first things first, I know!) :blush:

[dobermunk]

And - somewhere down the line - a tension map. This would make those wrinkle DeformMaps even crazier!
(info: http://www.claus-figuren.de/addons/tensionmap.php)

[ThomasHelzle]

Superb :thumbsup:

Even if the shader list would simply scroll if you move your mouse to the top or bottom of the screen it would help - this functionality is broken for that one list while it works for some others (expressions f.i. But this one would also benefit A LOT from submenus!, well, some other lists too). I personally was never too fond of those secondary scrollable window lists.

Curved vector layers would be very nice!
Oh, sorry I don't tell anybody that you said Curved Vector Layers, OK? ;)

Cheers and thanks!

[Taron333]

And - somewhere down the line - a tension map. This would make those wrinkle DeformMaps even crazier!
(info: http://www.claus-figuren.de/addons/tensionmap.php)

I've already written something like that...hmmm....hmmm...I could go dig, but it's really an easy one to write...we'll see...but great! =)
I, however, do like using actual bones to design the stress directions exactly with the animation...it's just as easy and give great control AND ultimatively renders even faster, of course.
But I like it. Not as much as the motionvector layer, though, hahaha, that one's just beautiful! Man, I'm almost angry that I wasn't thinking of that one....argh....I keep wanting to remember I did...but no....just so damn similar in principle. Fantastic! :bounce:

[dobermunk]

I, however, do like using actual bones to design the stress directions exactly with the animation...it's just as easy and give great control AND ultimatively renders even faster, of course.

Hmmm... I'd need more insight into this. I see the bones as better for under-skin sliding areas such as neck tendons and shoulder blades, but a mask of tension areas would be simpler for locating the on-skin type tensions (ie wrinkles) right?

But I like it. Not as much as the motionvector layer, though

Haha! Its not an either/or - me wants 'em BOTH! :-P

[ThomasHelzle]

Hey, isn't that nice: Newtek made an example video for us about how this could be impemented ;-)
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/pub/LightWave/LW9/StressMaps.mov

Just kidding,

[Nichod]

Hey, isn't that nice: Newtek made an example video for us about how this could be impemented ;-)
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/pub/LightWave/LW9/StressMaps.mov

Just kidding,



You forgot to mention you have to go through 8 submenus to do this, and part of it has to be done in layout, then you switch over to....hey wait a minute wasn't this a plugin? :banghead:

[ThomasHelzle]

Hey Nichod, the joke was lost on you I fear. ;)
In messiah, it would simply be a node that you could use to mask areas out...
I don't know why they didn't put it into the new LW node editor - that looks not too bad IMO.

There even is a function in the messiah SDK to generate such stress maps, but it didn't work correctly when I last looked into it.

BTW. Taron, would you have the time to comment on this idea of mine?:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=3433961&postcount=251

Also, I have talked with Stooch about his need for a Real Flow importer. I see two options: either pmG builds one, or the SDK finally gets options for creating meshes, say Importers, custom object loaders, procedural meshes...
I personally prefer the second option, since it finally would open up messiah for custom pipelines.
But I don't know how far away the inclusion of this in the SDK may be?

And another one: Taron, I was asked about the Ambient Occlusion shader. Since this is a very important concept, I think it would be cool to have it included in the core. And maybe it is possible to make it more efficient with access to the internal ray functions?

Ok, over and out ;)

Cheers

[AlexK]

BUT here's may personal favorite request of the day (or week?):
Motionblur vector layer...hah! That's fantastic, what a great idea. We've been talking about developing an internal method that works just like it, except it would have curved...oh..hmmm...I shouldn't even really talk about that, but yeah... I love the simpicity of that one, should be fairly easy to write! I might even just make an AfterFX plugin that can use such layers then! Great, great, idea! I'm loving it! :love:
(yeah, yeah, but first things first, I know!) :blush:
I feel honored. :)
If you could make it so that it at least has a switch to conform to the settings for Reelsmart SmoothKit ( Red Channel: X [0,1] - Green Channel: Y [0,1] - Blue Channel: Intensity [0,1]) that would be nice, because I am already using a nice shake macro that uses this method (http://highend3d.com/shake/downloads/macros/filters_effects/2965.html).

Hmm, did anyone say Curved Motion Vectors? :twisted:
That would be nice too, however I have no idea how to use that in compositing at first glance. If someone has an interesting link, I am all ears.

[Taron333]

Hahahaha...man....I should stop writing like I'm speaking! But anyway, the motion vector curves would be an internal treatment to get "perfect" mostionblur without having to compute the otherwise necessary animation frames. But it's all just ideas at this point, so don't take this as a promiss of any kind, before we get our heads cut off for not having it done by the time our next release goes out! :surprised :D

BUT there are a few great things that will make it into the mix sooner than later. Yet, it's all about...well, you know what it's all about. Getting it right first, then making it go up! :bounce: :wip: (these two smilies are ment to show the procedure...not express the emotional aspect, hihi! So not "emoticons", but "demoticons") :cool:

[Taron333]

Hey Nichod, the joke was lost on you I fear. ;)
In messiah, it would simply be a node that you could use to mask areas out...
I don't know why they didn't put it into the new LW node editor - that looks not too bad IMO.

There even is a function in the messiah SDK to generate such stress maps, but it didn't work correctly when I last looked into it.

BTW. Taron, would you have the time to comment on this idea of mine?:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=3433961&postcount=251

Also, I have talked with Stooch about his need for a Real Flow importer. I see two options: either pmG builds one, or the SDK finally gets options for creating meshes, say Importers, custom object loaders, procedural meshes...
I personally prefer the second option, since it finally would open up messiah for custom pipelines.
But I don't know how far away the inclusion of this in the SDK may be?

And another one: Taron, I was asked about the Ambient Occlusion shader. Since this is a very important concept, I think it would be cool to have it included in the core. And maybe it is possible to make it more efficient with access to the internal ray functions?

Ok, over and out ;)

Cheers

Ooopsy, more to answer, sorry, I missed this one! Alright, let's see...

Ah, the shaderflow individual outputs concept...hmm....in the beginning, this was what I was expecting, but I've grown used to the way it is implemented now, which is really not to troublesome. BUT, (wait, wait, wait) we have already been talking about what will be called "custom buffers", which would allow the creation of output layers for compositing based on what it is you'd like to output exactly. This may end up being very much like you're describing.
A few days ago we've also been talking about locking the material node to the right side of the screen, so you really have a docked bar with all the inputs for the final node always at a known location and can arrange it actually more conveniently. I was asking for that for a long time already, just to optimize the workflow, so we're looking into that right now, too.

Again, please, everyone, don't drop it all on us at the same time, though. It so quickly leads to impatience and that would start a bad cycle again. I'm loving the feedback you all are giving right now and really get excited myself to have us implement pretty much all of it, but we really still need to take care of everything else and than each new thing also requires some time to do. It's all actual work and some of it actually hard work, so let us do that stuff and hang in there and do us the really kick-booty favor to not just check out what we've got going currently, but to simply do something cool with it! That would be the number one ticket for us to accell right now! With our momentum it then is becoming even more likely that all these new ideas get done within a time that wouldn't test your patience as much! :bounce:

Oh...there was something else from you, Thomas...uhmm...AHHHH, the ambient OCCLUSION, yes, yes, yesssa, that was one I've been bugging for, too...it's about the internal ability to switch between raytrace and raycast for radiosity ray emitting, plus the API availability of that choice! This would allow a very simple way of implementing ambient occlusion. Oddly enough, on a global level it has been implemented for a long time, if you simply choose the right type of radiosity in the render settings tab (environment only), but I'm sure that not what you've ment, I'm just mentioning it.
Thanx, that was a good reminder! :thumbsup:

Sorry that I missed this posts a bit...but yeah...very cool!

[MoodyB]

Again, please, everyone, don't drop it all on us at the same time, though. It so quickly leads to impatience and that would start a bad cycle again. I'm loving the feedback you all are giving right now and really get excited myself to have us implement pretty much all of it, but we really still need to take care of everything else and than each new thing also requires some time to do. It's all actual work and some of it actually hard work, so let us do that stuff and hang in there and do us the really kick-booty favor to not just check out what we've got going currently, but to simply do something cool with it! That would be the number one ticket for us to accell right now! With our momentum it then is becoming even more likely that all these new ideas get done within a time that wouldn't test your patience as much! :bounce:


I hope you don't mind me posting this then ? As much as I love to see all the rendering engine enhancements / ideas that have been talked about over the past few weeks, and the thought of being able to play with them in M : S one day is :bounce: , a lot of existing users would probably prefer that adding COLLADA support into Messiah / Studio was given some kind of priority :

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=334325

I apologise in advance if this annoys yourself or anyone at pmG, as I guess you've probably seen the thread above and didn't choose to reply in it, but I thought I'd bring it back to people's attention before it slips into the forums archive to be lost as it seems like quite an oppertunity to fill a gaping hole left by Motion Builder....

[stooch]

Also real 3D armature shapes :) and not have them scale relative to screen. it becomes nearly impossible to select body parts when you zoom out and they all overlap each other. btw, to me armatures are 60% of what makes messiah great for CA. Lets not forget the old search and replace in script editor too. thats a long time annoyance but oh so useful.

also. im beta testing lw9 and i wont go into detail here because of NDA but simply looking a the publically available feature list, i can see potential integration issues with messiah. especially with the ngon support and weighted edges. Not sure if messiah already supports this but to me this is going to be crucial.

[Taron333]

Also real 3D armature shapes :) and not have them scale relative to screen. it becomes nearly impossible to select body parts when you zoom out and they all overlap each other. btw, to me armatures are 60% of what makes messiah great for CA. Lets not forget the old search and replace in script editor too. thats a long time annoyance but oh so useful.

Yoh, well, that's been one of my expectations for them right off the bet, back then. The bigger question is far more: Wouldn't it be just as easy to use expressions as they are for linking 3d stand-in object to the bones and such, just put them into a group and turn them on and off as you feel like using them...hmmm.... armatures require also some setting up, although certainly a little more convenient.....hmmm.....alright, now, don't rip off my head, I know exactly what you mean, but still. I think 3d armature helpers really suggest even more some means of automatic rigging and that is a big topic again anyway. So, well, we shall see. Lot's of things to take care of first, but it's on the list!
As for the overlapping, yes, don't forget that armatures are helpers that you get to design yourself. depending on what it is that you're doing, you could design them in a way that this would not become a problem...I think...while scaling...hmmm...maybe scaling ain't much of an issue either, not sure....we'll have to talk about this internally again. It's absolutely amazing to me how many things are currently not much of a problem...so maybe that'll turn out just the same!? No promisses right now or right away, but yes, it's in our heads now, too!

I don't think I told you that on this thread, but I currently see that we're getting overwhelmed with great feedback, reports, ideas and requests, but it's growing to be impossible to keep up with all of it in a timely fashion. So right now I would ask from all of you to go ahead and do something with the stuff we were already putting into it, even if it's just some neat little experiments. Again, I'd love to see more renders, or even some little rendered animations, displacement, particle stuff, anything... ...that would be the perfect thing you could do right now. We're going through all the current feedback and will be busy with them for a moment! Again, usually I would have said, keep'em coming, but I'm growing to be afraid that it could cause you to become impatient, if you drop it all on us right now. Great stuff nontheless! SO, THANK YOU ALL, and we're doing everything to reward you for your fantastic colaboration! Brilliant and very, very uplifting! :bounce: :thumbsup:

:wip: (commence working on next release!) :buttrock:

[stooch]

haha, ok i have a project im making specifically for messiah. so stay tuned for some screenshots. lets just say its a bit more complex then some balls in a square room...

[ThomasHelzle]

Hey Taron. I think this is just the result of a clogged communication suddenly run free. :thumbsup:
I'm sure everybody would prefer the next update taking some days longer instead of the com link dead once more. I'm sure a good medium level can be reached after a while.

Just ride the wave and every now and then clear the air if something goes out of whack but don't retreat to deadly silence if possible. Clogging always leads to further, bigger damage.

As far as Ambient Occlusion goes: I have it working already, but I wonder if an speedwise optimised routine could be used (or made available to the SDK). If you need further detail, I will be happy to provide it.

And one last request for the SDK: Can we have a similar function to fxShaderConnectedInputs for outputs? FX_OUTPUT_REQUEST doesn't work for that because of the internal buffering, so knowing which outputs are connected to something would help a lot more when optimising speed in certain situations.

Thank you

[dobermunk]

My 2 cents:
collect the input on a priority list. For example, nichod's node-based in-program compositing is a possibility - say: priority C. If it all, then down the road. Everyone can contribute opinions (pros/cons) and it may refelect approaches to things being implemented now.

Priority B would be additions like Thomas' buffer nodes (correct me if I'm wrong) or COLLADA. Mid-term things that would be great enhancements and even USPs, but need to be discussed further and slotted for development. And users will feel more strongly about some things than others (I'd never heard of Collada). Take it as a compliment that this sort of discussion and dreaming has been provoked! It's great to participate in musings about where messiah might be headed and what may be possible - but there's no pressure to implement immediately. Just a road map of ideas and a testimony to the community interest in your software.

Priority A would be more pressing things like bugs on the one hand, and Marek's edit sphere calculation requests. And - ahem - ShiftToggling channel activation (http://www.stickman.de/content/temp/messiah_wishList/ShftToggleChannels.jpg) . ;-)
I'd spread-sheet them and post it on the wall. Nothing more motivating than being able to check off an A-level request or bug. I'm elated to see how many annoying little things have been adressed in such a short time! Things that have been gnawing at the program for years!

Keep up the communication and keep an eye on the priorities... messiah has always been grass-roots. Thanks to your efforts this last month it's getting back to that.

[AlexK]

I would vote for a site (that might be only available to customers) where we have a bugtracker available. That way we can see if a bug is already known and what priority it is. And stuff doesn't get buried in deep forum threads. Hard for anyone (especially the developers) to find again and even harder to see if you didn't read the forum in a week and the thread is already a few pages on the back.

Oh and of course instead of having thousands of threads that go like "I want this and that" we have a nice clean overview of feature requests and could vote for them instead. That way it would also get more clear what we, the customers and users want most. And not only who might be the loudest (and probably most nagging).

What do you think?

[dobermunk]

I think: yep.

[ThomasHelzle]

I think: yep

This being one of those old requests too ;)

Cheers, :bowdown:

[ThomasHelzle]

Sorry, but just stumbled upon another of those old super-buggers that I miss 100 times a day when trying to work in messiah:
- A shortcut to fit the view the mouse is over to the scene. ("A" in XSI)
- A shortcut to fit the view the mouse is over to the selected object. ("F" in XSI)

I also miss the option to directly navigate the camera like a perspective view and having the camera adjust accordingly - so much faster and way more intuitive than fiddling with the editsphere in camera view... :)

Cheers,

[Nichod]

I would vote for a site (that might be only available to customers) where we have a bugtracker available. That way we can see if a bug is already known and what priority it is. And stuff doesn't get buried in deep forum threads. Hard for anyone (especially the developers) to find again and even harder to see if you didn't read the forum in a week and the thread is already a few pages on the back.

Oh and of course instead of having thousands of threads that go like "I want this and that" we have a nice clean overview of feature requests and could vote for them instead. That way it would also get more clear what we, the customers and users want most. And not only who might be the loudest (and probably most nagging).

What do you think? I could set this up. Providing someone gave a website/space. Would be fairly simple to do, since not much "design" would be required. It could be a big advantage, because we could post up the feature requests there and provide our own priority, then pmg could sort it out quickly..rather than browsing the threads and writing it down on the nearest stickie note. Though I'd hope that even if we did this that people would still post and share ideas here. Thats the only negative I see about that.

[dobermunk]

I could donate space.

[stooch]

i like the bug/feature request tracker. i do remember this being mentioned before too. im all for it. i think that if PMG does create a user forum, maybe that should be one of the sections.

[Nichod]

i like the bug/feature request tracker. i do remember this being mentioned before too. im all for it. i think that if PMG does create a user forum, maybe that should be one of the sections.

I don't know that a user forum is a good idea or not. I'm kind of iffy. The community isn't LARGE so two forums seems pointless at this point.

I could donate space.

That would be great, but what domain name would we use? And wouldn't it be a good idea to have pmg support?

[dobermunk]

Zoogono and meesiah websites both seem more logical than mine. Also the yahoo list has been suggested - but I think a php site is kind of important here.

Just let me know.

[DMack]

[QUOTE=ThomasHelzle]...

I also miss the option to directly navigate the camera like a perspective view and having the camera adjust accordingly - so much faster and way more intuitive than fiddling with the editsphere in camera view... :)

...... [QUOTE]

Second that! Also second the point made earlier by Thomas on communication - keep it open, even on a lower level but don't let it die away completely - makes me worry!

[ThomasHelzle]

OK, this is my all time number one and I really beg for it:

I just had another case where messiah crashed while saving. Now a scene I worked on for a hour is broken...

CAN WE PLEASE FINALLY HAVE A SAVE SAVE!!!

Writing to a temporary file first, then rename the old one to .bak, and then rename the temporary one to the correct file name? This way, there is always a valid scene.

I have "crash while saving" with messiah quite regularly (not once with any other software I use) so please please please make this simple modification and save me some hair... :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Shit, now I can start again.

Thanks for listening. :bowdown:

[Nichod]

I also miss the option to directly navigate the camera like a perspective view and having the camera adjust accordingly - so much faster and way more intuitive than fiddling with the editsphere in camera view... :)

I kind of like the edit sphere in camera view....hmm.

[ThomasHelzle]

Ever tried to move around an object to find the perfect view?
Very tedious in messiah...

:bowdown:

[ThomasHelzle]

Another one: I just realised while preparing content for TLHPro that there is not way to work on animated materials channels with the key edit functions. Am I missing something?
Can this be enabled?

Thank you! :thumbsup:

[Taron333]

Another one: I just realised while preparing content for TLHPro that there is not way to work on animated materials channels with the key edit functions. Am I missing something?
Can this be enabled?

Thank you! :thumbsup:

How weired, I've just talked about that with David Maas!? Hmmm... :hmm:
Well, it's an odd thing, because switching to the edit tab is unfortunately switching away from the render tab, which then automatically has another object selected. Sounds like we'd have to change a part of the foundation of it all, or find some nifty alternative. I could imagine a shortcut to activating the distort tool in the motiongraph, but that wouldn't bring up the interface....argh....I dunno, yet. I guess we'll have to talk about it. Sounds tricky to me right off the bet, but I 100% agree! :argh:

Do you remember why it crashed during save, by the way? I havn't had that happen in many years...very strange stuff. Well, then again, I havn't been running into them recently anyway...must be avoiding them involuntarily...hehe...subconsciously, or so. Still, what was the "most exotic" thing in that scene that did that? Might help tracking it down. Also the new autosave might make all of these things less dramatic!

I like the idea of getting more auto-center functions back into the mix. List and Viewport and DopeSheet! Anything Motiongraph related is still on the more intense side, but the rest...well....shouldn't be too brutal. :scream:

Navigating with the upper right buttons for camera...hmm....could just be some armature thing. Must be super easy to write and I believe it wouldn't have to be internal, what do you think? I like the idea, though! I actually don't like the armatures in the upper left corner of the viewport...I'd gladly see those replaced, hehehe....but that's just me. Everyone has preferences, but the good news is, that a lot of those can be customized already!

BUG TRACKER! YES, absolutely, when I came back to online-betalist-life (lesser of a resurrection than a rebirth, actually) it only took a few posts to get that thought back up and alive! Eventually we'll have such a thing running ourselves, because it's just too damn convenient, but if Brian wants to set something up already, it would definitely be something nice. We'd only have to find a way to keep it orderly and it most certainly needs additional functions to manage such a list. Often reports are doubled under different labels and such. But, yeah, it's a known idea that we fully support! :thumbsup:

Hmmm...wonder why I didn't get any notification about these new posts into my email...gotta check if new spam filters block them....I was already wondering about the long silence...hahaha....illusions! GREAT! :bounce:

Alright, I really like what's going on here. Yes, priorities we have, don't worry about that, but we have to organize them according to our path instead of bouncing around more than we'd need to. It's a wild bouncing anyway, hehe, but some things lead to other things and so forth. Plus, every user certainly is having his own special priorities, so ultimatively it's all based on both logic and public demand as a lead:
A - bug fixing
B - workflow streamlining
C - fancy feature requests, great ideas that are easy to implement
D - great ideas that are hard to implement, giantically complicated improvements, little but cool gimmiks
E - sleeping

There! :D

Thanx you guys, what a roll! :thumbsup:

[dobermunk]

I could imagine a shortcut to activating the distort tool in the motiongraph
I could imagine such a solution for the animation key editor as well. I've never liked switching over to the edit-ghetto....

Thanx you guys, what a roll!

Grooovy!

[ThomasHelzle]

Yes, Edit mode ghetto is a good name for it >LOL<

Key/Frame Editing -> Belongs under Customise, since it is preferences.

The other three belong on the animate Tab, but there is no tools...
Hm. For a long time I felt that for some tools, flying interfaces would be better than the static Tab idea.
Opening the Distort/Copy/Transform Key Range Tools with a shortcut from wherever you are would feel way more natural to me and would work for materials too.
The same goes for Search and Replace -> Open it in Animate Tab and S&R Objects, Open it in Command Tab and S&R Expression-Text.
Or the scene comments tool -> I would have loved to use it for my sample scenes, but it is buried too deep in Setup. I maybe could have used Armatures....

And then replace the Edit Tab with Develop ;) Any news on that one?

The view-Armatures are the first thing I disable when I install a new version, just after I deleted the script-textures ;-)
Well, I don't know how those camera-Armatures would react - The main thing is, that in XSI you can navigate around the centre of your view very naturally - equal if you are looking through a camera or a perspective view. You never even think about it :-)
Download a 30 Day demo here:
http://www.softimage.com/downloads/default.aspx?downloadid=1 :twisted: ;)
Hold the S key down to navigate with the three mouse buttons...

The crash was very unexpected - I don't have many crashes nowadays. Sorry if it sounded that way. But if you work through a series of scenes like I did with the content for TLHPro yesterday, do little corrections, save, open another, sooner or later messiah dies.
I still have the feeling that deleting many materials has to do with it, but I'm not sure.
The scene it writes just ends where the crash occurs in a rather random place.

BTW: That old bug with the focus jumping the the next material in the list if you are deleting certain nodes would be very nice to get rid of too... :bowdown:

Is the script editor working for anyone? Here it is completely broken...

Thank you very much! :bowdown:

[Sil3]

In XSI we can position the camera freely (as the Lights also) because they have an "IK" Chain to them setup automatically, yes it an amazing and very natural way of position things, no select Z axis, move it, then Y axis, move it, just go to the Camera/Light view and Position it as we want using the same Controls we use to navigate in our 3d viewports :)

Regarding the UI, i kinda second Thomas, either being floating windows or at least a way for us to change the interface at our will.

Some time ago i made this mockup in Photoshop to show how i would like the Messiah Graph Editor to display, since right now i think everything is so far away that it´s not even fun to "hunt" for the stuff, it breaks concentration on Animation IMO, in case u havent seen it Taron, here it is:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=330539

[ThomasHelzle]

Another one of those "little" things:
Can we have command line loading of scenes?
Not only would it be great to be able to load messiah by doubleclicking on a .fxs or .mpj file in windows explorer, but also for the development of plugins, it would be cool to load messiah directly with a test scene from the IDE.
I already have created some workarounds, but wonder if this would be possible to implement.

Thank you very much! :thumbsup:

[Taron333]

Another one of those "little" things:
Can we have command line loading of scenes?
Not only would it be great to be able to load messiah by doubleclicking on a .fxs or .mpj file in windows explorer, but also for the development of plugins, it would be cool to load messiah directly with a test scene from the IDE.
I already have created some workarounds, but wonder if this would be possible to implement.

Thank you very much! :thumbsup:

We've been talking about that one for years now, too, and maybe now is the time to finally make this work, too. Looking at all the things we are making to work these days I wouldn't be surprised, if we finally got around doing it. You bet we're making it the topic now! :thumbsup:

And, no need to argue about it, because it's damn clear. I just don't know what's involved, yet. But, yeah, great, great reminder!

[Julez4001]

But you are not going to focus on that now because you are working on the tutorials, right?!!!




Right?

[Taron333]

But you are not going to focus on that now because you are working on the tutorials, right?!!!

Right?

Well, I wouldn't be able to do anything about the command line implementation myself anyway. This ain't exactly my field. But I do have to focus on all sorts of things, that's just the nature of the beast we have to tackle. :rolleyes: :shrug:

But it's all going to be done asap, that's a given! :wip:

[AlexK]

Torn apart into ten different directions. Let's hope you don't loose direction my friend. :thumbsup:

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