messiah Video Tutorial!

[pelos]

i am glad to see it first and be able to set the first reply!
thanks! chikega

[AlexK]

Hehe, pelos, you beat me to it.

Great work Gary! :applause:

EDIT:
I just watched it and you have doen a great job. Man, SSS seems so easy now. :D

[dobermunk]

Wow! I love the presentation. Sexy opening. I immediately want to DO IT!
But! But I have to do a gig by Monday! And OF COURSE you release this gem today! ARGHghGH!

[svintaj]

Thanks for a very good and clear tutorial!
:thumbsup:
/ Svante

[Suricate]

Thanks a lot! :thumbsup: Now the Black Art of SSS should become accessible even for a noob like me ...

[dobermunk]

Chikega: I've watched it a few times now - fantastic. I love the way you clearly breakdown your search into the variables. I have to internalize this in my own work. The only thing that bothers me after repeated viewing (and this is a testiment to a very successful tutorial) is the title - one word after the other instead of maybe two blocks.

Thanks for a great overview and I'm looking forward to the next segment with textures.
Hopefully Taron will be inspired to contribute his tutorials as well!

[rdstudio]

:) Just wanted to add my appreciation!

rdstudio

[PaulNewman]

Really pearly!

Thanks Gary for sharing generously. The intro is so inspiring and the tut so clear.

Hard to believe it took you a month to learn only that! :) Just kidding. You make it look really simple!!

:thumbsup:

[stooch]

very good tut! thanks alot for your effort.

[Labuzz]

Tks a lot Gary:thumbsup:

[catizone]

Thanks so much! Awesome community that shares. I can't look at it right now, but I'm sure it will help me in numerous ways to understand the shading thing in messiah.


Best,
Rick

[My Fault]

Fantastic work Gary, really clears up a few things for me.

[AAAron]

Amazing! Big thanks for sharing.

[Leebre]

Very useful nugget of messiah sss info. Thanks very much. Did you acheive the multi-layered look on the "dollop" in your pic using sss alone?

[chikega]

Thanks everyone. I'm full of warm fuzzies ... makes me want to do more vids. :)

Leebert: The image above is a straight render and was created with several layers of procedurals affecting the SSS shader in various ways. It renders very quickly since it's not volume based, but it does hint rather nicely at being volumetric. I'll do a tutorial on it and plan to include the project file in the next messiah update - so, everyone can dissect it.

[Leebre]

Gary, that would be very, very nice. Thanks!

[crossbones]

I really liked this tutorial. Keep them coming.

[ctguitars]

Hi Lads and Gary,

Me a complete newb to Messiah. Where is the SSS Shader located, OR does one have to build it?

Go easy on me, learner driver.

Outside of this Gary Nice Vid, though I have said this in other 3D app boards. Do not assume when creating tutes. I have done it myself, gone back and added complete newb steps / filled in any holes where necessary. Even text explanation!

Hope this is OK to say,
Cheers
Aidan

[crossbones]

http://www.projectmessiah.com/x4/vids/Global_Illumination.wmv

http://www.projectmessiah.com/x4/vids/RenderGroups.wmv

http://www.projectmessiah.com/x4/vids/Light_Emitting_Objects.wmv
Check out these videos on how to use the render. Transluncey is part of any basic material you set up as an option.

[shadowfork]

THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!! :buttrock::applause::thumbsup::bowdown:

Thanks for demystefying the art of SSS in messiah for us noobs!

[Julez4001]

Damn, Taron and crew announced day after siggraph 2005 about new tutorials and you still beat them to it. :twisted: Just kidding guys. I know you have elevated the software to version 2.4d and above.

Gary great piece of work, seems like the good ol' days. Proves you shouldn't be a dentist but a render god.

[helluvapixel]

Very cool Gary. Perhaps in your next video you could take your cover image as an example and do a full on tutorial. Definitely makes me interested in giving Messiah a run. What I'm trying to do is do these sorts of experiments with the nodal renderers I have to gain some idea of consistency between them (xsi, finalrender, lw, messiah).

[Bugpoo]

I haven't gotten to watch it yet, but I really appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge.

[gsuttor]

Awsome video, precise, easy to follow, explanation why you use it this way or that, this is exactly what messiah needs as documentation throughout the whole program. Gives you enough of the basics of SSS to start your own experiments.

Much appreciated.

[THUR]

great stuff Gary, many thanks for sharing

joeri

[timnhe]

Great work Gary,

It´s easy to follow and very clear, many thanks for your time

Greets

[biliousfrog]

thanks for that excellent tutorial...I can't believe that it's really that easy, I don't know what the hell I've been trying to do all this time but until now I haven't managed to get any decent results. I think that I could see all the great shader potential & began to over-complicate things before getting the basics sorted first.

Can't wait for the next installment.

[staticRelativeMotion]

Congrats, with contributions such as this Messiah has a grand future.

[Gene Williams]

Thanks Gary, really well done and very informative. Looking forward to
more pearls of wisdom!

Gene

[My Fault]

Damn, Taron and crew announced day after siggraph 2005 about new tutorials and you still beat them to it. :twisted: Just kidding guys.

Haha, yeah those official pmg videos are due shortly after Duke Nukem Forever hits store shelves. :D

Thanks again to Gary!

[chikega]

OMG ... Duke Nukem! :cry: Those 3dRealms b*stards ... I had so much fun with that game back in 95, has it been eleven years already?

[pnoland]

"It's time to kickass and chew bubble gum...and I'm all outta gum..."

I miss that game. I have duke nukem 'the bikini project' on my cel phone to tide me over though. :P Nothing compares to Duke3d though...

[Andreseloy]

The music, the introduction and of course, the explanation are superb!
Andreseloy

[crossbones]

He said he won't release it until its fun playing multiplayer. I told him as a designer, from a design standpoint, people will eventually stumble upon any new and fresh ideas he has now and implement them into their games before Duke Nukem Forever even sees the light of the day. He was very nice about it and told me that graphics, music, sound and levels can always be replaced but design simply cannot.

[helluvapixel]

He said he won't release it until its fun playing multiplayer. I told him as a designer, from a design standpoint, people will eventually stumble upon any new and fresh ideas he has now and implement them into their games before Duke Nukem Forever even sees the light of the day. He was very nice about it and told me that graphics, music, sound and levels can always be replaced but design simply cannot.

In other words, it's been shelved indefinitely.

[chikega]

Some additional information concerning the video tutorial:

1) It appears that there several channels (Translucency, Translu Color and Light Penetration) that are activated as can be seen by the colored buttons to the right of the variables. They are indeed inactive and have no effect on the scene. Please disregard them.

2) There's no GI - just one Point Light Source behind object, placed slightly higher than the object.

3) The Ground object is turned off. You do that by going under Surfaces and clicking on the Green bypass switch to the left of Ground. Red indicates that it is being bypassed or inactive.

4) The Background color has been set to black or you can also lower the Diffusion value to 0 effecively getting the same result.

[ctguitars]

Thanks for this Gary.

Just some retorical stuff : -) By the Way I assume I am right in saying that Foreground, Atmosphere and Image Filter Materials Under Render Tab, Camera - are and should be off by default? Is the environment material off too or does it matter?

"The Background color has been set to black or you can also lower the Diffusion value to 0 effectively getting the same result."

Tried setting the background by "lower[ing] the Diffusion value to 0". No joy. Only thing that worked was to set the Background colour to Black. Could be just my vid card and ogl.

Cheers
Aidan

[chikega]

Hi Adrian,
Yes, Foreground, Atmosphere and Image Filter should be off by default. Environment only comes into play if you have Global Illumination GI on in your scene.

Sorry about the Diffusion thingy. The Preview sphere shows black, but when rendered it's still the default Light Blue. Use Black color instead like you've done. :)

[Leebre]

Inspired by chikega's great video tutorial, here's something I did in just a matter of minutes...looks kinda' like old-lady-skin imo:

http://www.awesomestateofblind.com/res/messiah_sss_test.jpg

Compared to C4D's SSS I find Messiah's MUCH easier to use.

[chikega]

Cool Lee,
Yes, I agree. It's one of the easiest to use SSS, once you know ... the ... <echo on> Black... Magic .. Magic... of ... messiah .. messiah ... SSS... SSS ... <echo off>. Well, actually modo is easier but has less control (as of now).

I'm glad to see you and others are benefiting - why this isn't in the manual is beyond me. And like I said, I found this all out by spending a LOT of time with it. You guys have it so easy .. ;)

[chikega]

What would you guys like to see in the next tutorials? I'm definitely covering some artifact issues especially with Falloff and Surf Thickness. But maybe a tutorial on making marble/ jade? Or the cover piece with the the Curvy thing with volumetric-like clouds?

http://www.3ddmd.com/images/Messiah/SSSAthenaJade1.jpghttp://www.3ddmd.com/images/Messiah/SSSAthenaJade2.jpg

[Leebre]

The curvey thingy gets my vote...it's gorgeous. Discussing artifact issues would be a plus...in my test I was initially using a complex object but I was running into too many rendering artifacts so I just dropped down to the simple sphere.

[Andreseloy]

Inspired by chikega's great video tutorial, here's something I did in just a matter of minutes...looks kinda' like old-lady-skin imo:

http://www.awesomestateofblind.com/res/messiah_sss_test.jpg

Compared to C4D's SSS I find Messiah's MUCH easier to use.
What were the setting you use in this,and also the light position?
Thanks
Andreseloy

[catizone]

Clouds might be really interesting! There probably is a way to also get a moving edge characteristic on it...curling/rolling and wisps breaking off?

Best,
Rick

[Andreseloy]

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/1401/sss1jr7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

For sure im missing some important tip!
Andreseloy

[stooch]

yep. your model is probably too small for your settings.

[staticRelativeMotion]

Id try less surface thickness, say 0.001? or scale your object up to 10 or so.

well prob 3-5 more than 10....

[Leebre]

I'm using AoN shaders, so I didn't post the scene file. I will re-work it without AoN and post the file.

[Leebre]

As promised...
A Simple Setup (http://www.awesomestateofblind.com/res/sss_test_1.fxs)
http://www.awesomestateofblind.com/res/sss_test_1.jpg

A more complex setup (http://www.awesomestateofblind.com/res/sss_test_2.mpj) (project file is 16mb because it includes HDRI & mesh)
http://www.awesomestateofblind.com/res/sss_test_2.jpg

[Nichod]

Gary. It appears the tutorial is gone. Any chance you could reupload it? I was trying to show it to a friend and now its gone:(

[AlexK]

Try it on the messiah collective (http://messiahcollective.blogspot.com/) next time. I have it hosted for them, so we don't loose our messiah wisdom. :)

Of course you can download it directly from my server, too. http://www.babylondreams.de/transferstuff/messiah/SSSTutorial1a.wmv

[Nichod]

Try it on the messiah collective (http://messiahcollective.blogspot.com/) next time. I have it hosted for them, so we don't loose our messiah wisdom. :)

Of course you can download it directly from my server, too. http://www.babylondreams.de/transferstuff/messiah/SSSTutorial1a.wmv

Cool. Trying to convert another poor soul to the wonders that is messiah.

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