i wonder what will happen when modo release his Animation tools

[khurrum_j]

Hi.

I believe its subjective (this is where you are advised to get some coffee):

We have seen a huge display of power from all sides in the recent years. Most of the packages which were only considered 'high-end' because of their price tags, have recently seen stiff competition from the 'low-end' developers. Not so much as in terms of the actual cost of the program, but in the number of features and most importantly, the workflow.

If you see applications like 3ds max, maya, xsi, modo, lw, etc etc etc. competing today, you will notice a very common ground of battle: Number of features vs. the amount of time it takes to access those features. Workflow is probably the biggest issue in todays software market than anything else. All those shiny bells and whistles slowly begin to fade away once you actually start to use a given program. As a user (and we all have different likes and dislikes), you will either end up falling in love with the workflow or you will hate it.

I think the next 1 to 3 years is going to be very interesting. All the underdogs catching up with the senior super-apps in terms of price:performance, and definitely outclassing each other in terms of workflow. Its already begun I believe: Silo 2.0, mudbox 3d (possibly competetive on workflow, and not the price...we'll see).

As far as the top 3 'high-end' companies, you should understand that they are at that spot for a very good reason: marketing, marketing & marketing!

How many ads of Messiah:Studio have you seen on the top or side banners on cgsociety.org? But thats not to say Messiah is behind in terms of features and its definitely not behind in terms of raw power :buttrock:Some of the things we take for granted in Messiah are dreamed of in other appz, even though they are being constantly refined and released with more frequency. Even so, I dont miss anything major in Messiah as compared to Lightwave or 3ds max, when its comes to animation and setups.

A lot of the competition in the future will be defined by how well an application can play with others in the field: again, WORKFLOW!

Messiah needs to be concentrating in this department even more than ever. Its not a perfect world, we all have flaws in us. Its the little things, and the same for software and hardware. But its healthy to see competition. MODO certainly has it made for it: genius programmers behind it AND they market their product. We have seen the impact already.

Sorry for the speech, maybe its the morning coffee talking, with a touch of Ginseng for good measure ;) :eek:

Please note these are just my opinions. Anything can happen in the future. We are all waiting to see what happens next with our favourite appz. All the best to...erm...all!

Take care and peace :wise:

Khurrum J

[DMack]

It sure will be an interesting time when Modo301 comes out with animation! I personally believe that Modo is going to be a huge success. They've got their modeler bang on, IMO. The renderer is producing some top rate images, albeit with a limited feature set. The thing that has impressed me the most though, is their dedication and enthusiasm. They seem to live and breath 3d application development and they are regularly communicate with their user base - something PMG could really do more of. At the end of the day, only time will tell. They may produce a great CA feature set that is too complex for smaller studios....or one that just lacks the necessary tools....l. I mentioned on the luxology website the other day that the thing I think PMG has got bang on is the raw power versus ease of set-up. It is a VERY good balance that they have achieved. The part that worries me, and I've said it before, is their ability to develop fast enough in this rapidly changing environment.

[PaulNewman]

Isn't messiah being incorporated into modo as we speak, with pmG silenced by reams of NDAs?

[khurrum_j]

Yes, and that too :twisted:

Khurrum J

[Nemoid]

Not a Messiah user, but Lw for now and testing Modo 202.

Modo is a good app, that hasa great inheritance from Lw in its workflow. in some case, it inherited some issue (simmetry) but it clearly has good advantages, both over Lw and other apps, like Maya and XSI in terms of modelling :
fast subdivision surfaces and related tools, good edge management, instances, layer based management of objects,good UV tools, paint tools, and good rendering and preview(not superior to Lw + Fprime yet, tho) good customization lof UI allowed visually and through editor.

what will happen whe adding animation ?

well, first of all, i think Modo should get a bit more mature from what it is now. it has good advantages, but its mordelling tools could be a bit refined as surely will be in time : good simmetry is needed for simmetry modelling, better curve tools, text tools, simmetrical painting. good snaps for CAD like morelling /archiviz purposes. (these are partially covered now) a nodal shading system, coinstruction history.maybe also sculpting, like Silo has now, could be needed.

secondly, well, about animation toolset. some good inspiration to packages like Messiah cannot be bad. so far, the most challenging thing, would be to build up a really clever rig system, possibly with bones that allow no weight maps, and armatures, like Messiah.
even bone creation and management tools are very important as well as deformers.

good FK/IK solver is surely needed, and this could go beyond if we refer even to other packages like XAT tools, or Motion Builder.
then , surely Modo will take advantage of its endomorphs, for deformations/facial animation


BUt, animation tools aren't an easy thing to code and project,as Messiah team should know for sure i think Luxology will need at least a couple of years to completely nail very well all the toolset, that i hope they'll introduce as a start with 301.

[DMack]

Isn't messiah being incorporated into modo as we speak, with pmG silenced by reams of NDAs?

I would be EXTREMELY surprised if that was happening! Unfortunately I don't think there is ANY connection between the two companies.....

[Tama]

Isn't messiah being incorporated into modo as we speak, with pmG silenced by reams of NDAs?

Sure I get the joke but pmG's glacial rate of delelopment will become even more apparent when Modo's animation tools are released. I still suspect that whoever is left over at pmG is there only sporadically as I can't imagine their sales being able to sustain any full time staff.

[Nichod]

What they need is some financial backing and then added staffing. In a few they'd start bring in money and pull themselves up. But I don't see that happening.

[Wegg]

I screwed up. . . sorry guys.

Carry on.

[chikega]

Well, pmG was listed on Luxology's site at one point as a technology partner ... so, it's not inconceivable. The two main engineers of LW, modo, weren't really big on animation as they were into modeling, texturing and rendering. So, it seems that they would benefit from others who have lived and breathed animation.

[DMack]

I'm assuming wegg that you stopped the thread and then changed your mind?

If that is the case then a big thumbs up from me and even more so for the straight forward honest approach. I had one of my threads in the LW area changed and the mod simply couldn't bring himself to admit that it was a mistake - got a bit daft in the end and just alienated a lot of people.

I have always found that the moderation on this forum is absolutely first class. It should be an example to other areas. It is so vitally important that people can pursue changes in sw by open criticism. There is no doubt in my mind that this section is THE best on CGTalk, in part, I think this is down to the moderation.

Thank you Wegg.

[DMack]

So, it seems that they would benefit from others who have lived and breathed animation.

I completely agree that it would be a HUGE benefit to Lux. I just think that if something was going to happen, it would have happened right near the start of Lux's history. They must have talked with each other and come to the conclusion that it was a non-starter.

[stooch]

I for one only hope for a connection with modo that is more solid then the one with LW. I dont see modo animation as a replacement until i use it for myself and come to that conclusion. Until then its pure speculation, besides, luxology has set the bar pretty high so far. So they have a big task ahead of them in my eyes. And yes, i pray and hope that pmg is working with lux. if they havent yet, i see much good from them starting to.

In the end, if lux has nothing to do with pmg, the competition might boost progress for both parties.

I would love to hear thoughts from pmg on this issue as well.... but thats a pipe dream at best eh?

Not a Messiah user, but Lw for now and testing Modo 202.

how about you give messiah a shot ? who knows, maybe you will find why the people in this community use it. Like khurrum said its all about workflow right? who says that modo will have the best workflow? there is a chance they screw it up completely, you never know. not everyone loves EVERYTHING about modo either, i know i have some complaints...

another thing, workflow is a very very subjective rating. Everyone has a program that they click in, even if the program is inferior to competition in some or many ways - look at lightwave for example.

ah yes almost forgot. The creators of MoDo are also creators of Lightwave, judging by the character animation track record lightwave has so far, would it be safe to expect a kickass CA workflow from modo 301???

[chikega]

A pipe dream? Nah... ;)

http://www.zestyjokes.com/pictures/pothead_dream_pipe.jpg

[gsuttor]

Makes perfect sense to me, modo needs animation tools, messiah needs everthing else.

This is just speculation right?

Hmmm.. as long as all messiah:studio users get a free upgrade to modiah. :D

[PaulNewman]

Stooch is right - mere speculation. Here's some possibilities...

Luxology has been secretly developing animation capabilities on a messiah platform with pmG just servicing messiah clients out of obligation as part of a secrecy agreement, using Taron as a PR smokescreen (and when he was needed as a coder they got Gary to fill in)
Luxology is doing their own animation coding from scratch to show us all how it should be done.
pmG is very busy with sideline projects and only now and then advance messiah's code.
pmG is very busy with advancing messiah in order to release m:studio 3.0 mega upgrade to make an eye-popping whiplash-inducing comeback.
pmG is seriously considering a take-over bid by a messiah user community consortium who offer to further the software development of messiah according to user wishes (truly by animators for animators) in exchange for keeping the founding member's names in the messiah about box credit roll and for indefinite free software updates as they become available and for free dongle replacements if the need should arise.
Media software giant Autodesk, in a strategic move, wants to prevent Luxology from entering the animation field too soon by buying out messiah and shelving it.

[chikega]

Man ... lol .. how do you come up with this stuff, Paul. :scream:

[PaulNewman]

Man ... lol .. how do you come up with this stuff, Paul. :scream:I mentioned somewhere once that I'm an IT industry news editor, right? Well, I am. Keeps the lights on.

Mix real life IT news with the inspiration from the colourful bunch here on this cool forum, spice it with some conspiracy speculation, and hit render.... I'm sure you guys can also come up with some interesting theories! How about it? Keeps us entertained and in the end we get to see who guessed right. So what if you have to wait another 3 years to find out. :)

[chikega]

:)

I would probably add to the above list:

Lyle Milton got an offer he couldn't refuse to join Luxology.

[pelos]

one of the first demostration that modo did, (you canget it from the lux page, think still online) where he shows at the end of the presentation a little bit of the animation tools, i am not sure if nexxus is the plataform, or the name for the animation package

[gsuttor]

I would probably add to the above list:

Lyle Milton got an offer he couldn't refuse to join Luxology.

You're going to get this thread locked!!!
Is there actually any truth in this rumour, why do people keep saying that?

There was mention of a major 3D movie/TV project a while back (a few years indeed) involving pMG. I'd love to see them burst back into the public eye with an amazing 3D film/TV project and the publicity that comes with it.

Whatever is happening with pMG (sure I'd like to hear something official rather than unsubstantiated rumours!) I wish them the best.

One other thing while I'm on this soap box, I read a comment the other day about pMG needing to be more involved with their community like modo. My blood boiled at this, I remember getting fixes and updates THE NEXT DAY when I was having problems whilst using messiah in production. We have had a serious voice in the production of this piece of software since day one, and every time there has been silence from the pMG guy’s rumours and ugly comments start up only to be answered with a major update that has our jaws dropping on the floor.



Gimime' a P, gimmie a M, gimmie a G.. what does it spell.... well nothing actually because it's an acronym, but it does still give me a warm fuzzy when I think about how inspirational these guys have been in my 3D life, and even in my real life.

Just call me a pMG fanboy.

[PaulNewman]

One other thing while I'm on this soap box, I read a comment the other day about pMG needing to be more involved with their community like modo. My blood boiled at this, I remember getting fixes and updates THE NEXT DAY when I was having problems whilst using messiah in production. We have had a serious voice in the production of this piece of software since day one, and every time there has been silence from the pMG guy’s rumours and ugly comments start up only to be answered with a major update that has our jaws dropping on the floor.Nice of you to remind us of this, Geoff. For me I think pmG is way too erratic and I myself am keen to see more consistent interaction with users, regardless of where they are with development, regardless if they have something to show or not. If they were around consistently, we would have little need to start these opion and conspiracy threads. The users have a general need to be informed, to feel connected to the source, so to speak. Consistent communication feeds from pmG is the umbilical that keeps the children happy. Someone here recently said that this is as much a development of a user base (community) as it is a 3D software app.

Anyway, this is getting off-topic. Thanks for your inspiring pmG-fanboy RARARA :thumbsup:

[DMack]

I agree with gsuttor regards the user base's ability to enhance the sw. I argued for several features to be added a while back (bigger frame marker, mass key deletionetc) and wham - it was done! I was so impressed!

However.....

I agree with Paul regards communication. There are periods where it goes quiet for waaaaay tooo long and given that the PMG crew seem to do other projects, this makes people start to wonder exactly how much development is going on.... It just can't be good for business. Luxology has been excellent at keeping in touch with it's user base - it just gives you so much confidence that things are progressing as fast as they can.

So, I'd strongly recommend that the PMG guys just pop their heads in here once a fortnight just to say 'hello, we're busy coding the regonculator at present, it's going well - more news next fortnight....'

[PaulNewman]

So, I'd strongly recommend that the PMG guys just pop their heads in here once a fortnight just to say 'hello, we're busy coding the regonculator at present, it's going well - more news next fortnight....'Hey, that's a cool idea... giving features really obscure names so the competition doesn't know what pmG's working on but we get progress feedback.

[Zithen]

Stooch is right - mere speculation. Here's some possibilities...




Luxology has been secretly developing animation capabilities on a messiah platform with pmG just servicing messiah clients out of obligation as part of a secrecy agreement, using Taron as a PR smokescreen (and when he was needed as a coder they got Gary to fill in)
Luxology is doing their own animation coding from scratch to show us all how it should be done.
pmG is very busy with sideline projects and only now and then advance messiah's code.
pmG is very busy with advancing messiah in order to release m:studio 3.0 mega upgrade to make an eye-popping whiplash-inducing comeback.
pmG is seriously considering a take-over bid by a messiah user community consortium who offer to further the software development of messiah according to user wishes (truly by animators for animators) in exchange for keeping the founding member's names in the messiah about box credit roll and for indefinite free software updates as they become available and for free dongle replacements if the need should arise.
Media software giant Autodesk, in a strategic move, wants to prevent Luxology from entering the animation field too soon by buying out messiah and shelving it.

I think points #2 and #3 are the most realistic to me. I always thought messiah was great, and hoped they had focused on animation and not moved to rendering as it just fractionalized their work that much more. I'm not sure if it was entirely their fault, though. It was originally supposed to be the guy who developed the Arnold renderer, but I guess he left early on.

I'm very much looking forward to Lux's Modo 3.0...
Oh, and I don't care what anybody says...when Lyle as around we got more features in those updates. I'd love to be proven wrong with a stellar 3.0 upgrade.

[Nemoid]

how about you give messiah a shot ? who knows, maybe you will find why the people in this community use it. Like khurrum said its all about workflow right? who says that modo will have the best workflow? there is a chance they screw it up completely, you never know. not everyone loves EVERYTHING about modo either, i know i have some complaints...

another thing, workflow is a very very subjective rating. Everyone has a program that they click in, even if the program is inferior to competition in some or many ways - look at lightwave for example.

ah yes almost forgot. The creators of MoDo are also creators of Lightwave, judging by the character animation track record lightwave has so far, would it be safe to expect a kickass CA workflow from modo 301???

I never tried Messiah so far. Maybe one day i will. :)

I know from other friends that its a good app, some of them made me see it, and I know about the features enough to be sure its worth using it, but i personally don't do lots of animations to justify adopting it.

About Modo and animation i'll give my opinion :

Luxology had PMG team as a technology partner listed on their old web.
but, they also had something like Worley labs and others.
Now, rendering in Modo is not Worley at all, but completely from Allen Hastings and i view too. No F prime, nor any plugin was made from Worley for Modo.
This tells me something.

I do personally believe that Lux attemped to make those people, PMG and Worley and others to jump in Modo bandwagon,and work together. but that simply didn't happen for whatever reason.

If this is true, this mean that PMG will never work with Luxology, nor Worley labs .
I don't expect that at all. No way.

Lux will code their animation tools, and i dunno if they will be better than Lw
(i highly hope it ) or Messiah or Maya, but this could be evaluated when they'll be released.

So far, Modo is progressing well, but i've decided 202 is not completely worth its price.
It should be better.
But, It probably will be worth at 301 time with enhanced features , more solidity and , may be, even animation tools.

And in the meantime i stick with Lw.

[stooch]

ha, you know your original topic could have been created in the LW section, because honestly, LW has alot more to fear from modo then messiah ever will. lux isnt targeting messiah like they are targeting LW and so far it seems that the lux horse has the lead.

PMG are you even reading these forums?

[numberEleven]

What I keep thinking about, is the fact that forums like these grow constantly, and sort of dwarf the "appearance" of the update releases. There have been updates, and they have proven to ultimately increase the application's usefullness, and featureset.

I could understand where a development team could easily get sidetracked fielding lots and lots of feature requests, questions, and get stuck blabbing in a forum like this, and then never be able to complete something due to "feature creep."

Hopefully the next release will include the completed "develop" environment, and documentation. The website imagery, seems to indicate that it isnt too far off.

[Nichod]

Hopefully the next release will include the completed "develop" environment, and documentation. The website imagery, seems to indicate that it isnt too far off.

If they released "Develop" I'd snatch up the pro version in a heartbeat. I was disappointed when time kept going by with no release in sight. Perhaps that will be part of the big 3.0. And maybe hair, collada/fbx and lots of bug fixes. If they'd get that ATI issue fixed I'd probally buy workstation now. Thats my biggest issue. I hear lots of solutions to the problem (ie. get a new computer, download OLDER drivers) but none are a good answer to the problem. Realistically who is going to buy a new computer to run a single program when all the rest of the programs they use function smoothly. Or who uses older drivers that potentially make the other programs less functional. I've worked with a few developers during beta testing and when an issue like this would crop up they'd find a workaround of some sort, blaming the video card developer is not good enough, there is always a way to fix the problem within program, even if its just a limited solution and still has glitches it would be better then not approaching the problem at all.

All of that aside the more I think about it, the more pmg does seem to be active within the development of the program, just not so much within the marketing aspect. I mean how many updates has messiah received this year? Quite a few.

They just need to hire wegg. I expect a 150% increase in profits if Wegg is hired to market :thumbsup:. Hell they could even hire him part-time and that would be enough. The lack of marketing is absurd to me, the point releases they recently did could have potentially been big sellers with the right visuals and presentation. Its not that difficult to get reviews in cg magazines, its just a matter of sending out an email or two. (a bit more than that, but very little overhead, a friend of mine does reviews for various magazines so I know how that side of things works) That right there is simple marketing thats relatively productive. Not to mention just posting in various forums about new releases, features, etc. Start a development blog showing some of the simple things they are working on. Lots of simple things that wouldn't require a lot of time and could be productive marketing tools.

Anyway, despite not being a owner of messiah myself, I have demoed it and enjoyed the simple tools that are flexible and powerful. I've recommended the program to many and even succeeded in helping a friend fill in his credit card information to purchase messiah. If the program works as it is, and people are productive with it now, then its a good program. And no one should think otherwise. Those few with issues with it (like myself) can sit by, test it occasionally, watch it develop and choose to purchase when we are satisfied with it within our personal preferences. Thats my say as a potential customer.

[svintaj]

Yes when will Develop come...!? And when will the API docs be updated!??
I have tryed to learn the current API but the docs are to old, over three years! But much have been changed in the API since then! You can't even do the basic API tutorials with out "problems"!

The fact that Thomas and Mark have learned the API is kind of impressive!

/ Svante

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