LW's displacement hair

[crossbones]

We just need the right procedural with the correct amount of displacement based on the normals. You could probably do fur in messiah, but I am not so sure we can displace hair like that.

[Wegg]

It looks like Lightwave can control the vector from the normal that the displacement travels along. Messiah could probably create quite a nice collection of spike balls. . . but without that vector function. . . Messiah can't do it.

I'd love to be proven wrong though.

Taron?

[catizone]

Come on PMG...prove'em wrong!

Rick

[chikega]

Yeah ... I double dog dare 'em! :D

[stooch]

im not terribly impressed by those vids. I would prefer a deeper simulation of hair that is actually useable in CA with full dynamics and better styling tools, since messiah is for CA the displacement hair is a nice hack but definitelly not a replacement for hair.

[ThomasHelzle]

I did similar tricks some years ago to create cellshaded fur for kids stuff in LW.
It needs lots of motion blur (I used the available max) and can become quite slow therefore.
In messiah you can do it with a per frame pumped bloat on an object that has a pointy map on opacity. Combined with per frame pumped morphs you can do the directional part.
Add lots of motion blur and render one such object on top of a normal, non distorted object.

BTW. You can't repeat single frame animations in messiahs graph editor like you can in LW.
But you can do it with expressions:

(NOW % 1) * 0.5 will give you a per frame pulse (% is the modulo operator some may know from coding). Use it on your Bloat and/or Morph amount... Be sure to set antialiasing and Motion Blur quite high...

Edit: the " * 0.5 " Part is just to reduce the value - addapt it to your needs or delete it.

Have fun :)

Cheers,

[biliousfrog]

im not terribly impressed by those vids. I would prefer a deeper simulation of hair that is actually useable in CA with full dynamics and better styling tools, since messiah is for CA the displacement hair is a nice hack but definitelly not a replacement for hair.

you don't want much do ya!:D

[catizone]

Are you kidding? We want it all...

Besides, messiah is unbelievably great in so many areas, a good hair renderer might be just the thing that swings more over to messiah. All I hear is how everyone uses Maya for its cloth and hair. We have, IMO, the sweetest, most user friendly, powerful character animation tool. Why should messiah take a back seat if dangling something most pros want/need would have them sit up and take more srious notice?

(All said with my usual complete innocence as to how practical and dificult it might be to impliment.)

Best,
Rick

[biliousfrog]

for those that haven't/can't/don't want to, read through the Spinquad thread I'll post some pics from Weepul which shows the potential far more than in the Proton vid IMO. It's obviously quite a convoluted process but the results are approaching that of some dedicated hair plugins.....I understand that LW & Messiah are very different in their methods but I thought that this might inspire users to think outside of the box a bit more.

[Julez4001]

Come on PMG...prove'em wrong!

Rick

How about the training M:S quicktimes that Taron promised back in March, first.

[Doug Macary]

Ditto Julez

[crossbones]

Julez,

It really seems akward that the fate of Messiah's software would hang with taron, I certainly think it doesn't. It resides in the users sharing stuff. Anyone who is really competent with the understanding of the particles or any other aspect of messiah could make a video for the users.

[stooch]

for those that haven't/can't/don't want to, read through the Spinquad thread I'll post some pics from Weepul which shows the potential far more than in the Proton vid IMO. It's obviously quite a convoluted process but the results are approaching that of some dedicated hair plugins.....I understand that LW & Messiah are very different in their methods but I thought that this might inspire users to think outside of the box a bit more.

meh, i can make a hairy ball with displacements... but who wants just hairy balls?

How about a fully rigged character with dynamic hair and collisions skipping along to some quality herbalizer beats? Now THAT i would consider even approaching a dedicated solution...

[Julez4001]

Julez,

It really seems akward that the fate of Messiah's software would hang with taron, I certainly think it doesn't. It resides in the users sharing stuff. Anyone who is really competent with the understanding of the particles or any other aspect of messiah could make a video for the users.

Well the way I figure, taron is a huge household name inthe cg community and those QT movies (especially a series) would have been great pr and adverts for the software and may garnish more bought seats of m:s.

LW9 i salmost hear and is touting the fast-a$$ displacement renders that use to be messiah's mark in their software render department. Then you also got the other apps (cough Modo cough) touting thier "sss" that few users have been able to get a hold of but Taron knows like the back of his hand.

Outside of the rev updates this should have been priority, to help build new customers.
Zbrush certainly doesn't hestiate to get him to do stuff.

[biliousfrog]

Sure, Taron is a great influence on messiah users both current & future, his work certainly influenced my choice to buy it. I think the point is that he's not the only person that can say what can & can't be done with the software. I'm over a year down the line with Messiah now & I can't remember seeing any inspirational work from anyone other than Taron....just tests & experiments & talk of ways to do this & that....that's what's NOT going to encourage new users.

The Messiah community at the moment is just a bunch of people waiting to hear what they can try next.....come on Julez, how long have you been using M:S? Are you really unable to use the software until Taron shows you how? What sort of message does that send to prospective new users? Rather than moaning about the lack of this & that lets actually create some stuff, post it up & get the gallery of the ground, otherwise there'll be no new community, no funding for pMG & you'l never get the training, doc's or features that everyone keeps asking for.

[ThomasHelzle]

Don't even touch the topic of the gallery. :banghead:

Wegg is waiting for people to beat the seahorse image, so you can as well call the gallery closed.

Come on Wegg, just show some current images to show there is life, not everything has to be a picasso... ;)

[Wegg]

Don't even touch the topic of the gallery. :banghead:

Wegg is waiting for people to beat the seahorse image, so you can as well call the gallery closed.

Come on Wegg, just show some current images to show there is life, not everything has to be a picasso... ;)

I'm waiting for ANYTHING that doesn't look like a test render to be honest. . .

Got some images in mind Thomas? Maybe we should start a new thread and gather in some of the ones I may have missed? No one has bugged me about it. . .

[stooch]

you know that half the pics are broken in the gallery anyway right?

[Wegg]

THEY ARE NOt. . . .

huh

sheesh. When did that happen!?!

Ok we really need to re-vamp that.

[ThomasHelzle]

I'm waiting for ANYTHING that doesn't look like a test render to be honest. . .

Got some images in mind Thomas? Maybe we should start a new thread and gather in some of the ones I may have missed? No one has bugged me about it. . .

I did already, you found the stuff not good enough...
Remember that metal-water-kettle? Showed a different side of messiah quite nicely. You didn't like it.
The latest Glass stuff? You didn't like it.

Who cares if it is a test if it looks good? Tarons Lava Test doesn't seem to offend you...

Well, in this point I think you lost the distance to the subject you are moderating...

:p

EDIT: If there are images in the gallery that lost their URL on my server, tell me about it and I can provide you with the new one - I reworked my site heavily last year.
The gallery looks like this for a long time BTW. THAT is why I bugged you...

[Wegg]

Sheesh Thomas. No need to get testy. Dig all those renders up and lets have a look at em.
<link> (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=370913)

[ThomasHelzle]

Oh man, now I have to dig it all out again?
Argh... :banghead:

You were part of most of the interesting threads anyway ;)

[Wegg]

Well as you have pointed out. . . my level of interest is a little different than yours. But ANYTHING is better than what the gallery looks like now.

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