new versions or updates?

[THUR]

A very long time indeed!
only hope is that the waiting will be payed off big time!
THUR

[fwtep]

There is lots of work going on but there's no release schedule yet.

Fred

[My Fault]

Who unchained Fred from his desk? Someone hide the women and beer! :D

[pelos]

i hope we can get a little taste of what are the new things working on it

[alvin-cgi]

i hope we can get a little taste of what are the new things working on it

YES!! AGREE!! Some info would be nice... just like what Luxology does.:thumbsup:

[Julez4001]

PMG seem to follow Lightwave's direction with everything sprong on you at one time and out of nowhere.
Modo, Silo, Zbrush and XSI's direction that is, tease you, tease you...BAM! Come and get it.

[Nichod]

I'd say its a good idea that they wait until the final feature set is secure and complete. Rather than teasing everyone and not delivering everything.

[Wegg]

Lots of new things. Lots of new speed. Vroom.

[TylerAZambori]

I'd say its a good idea that they wait until the final feature set is secure and complete. Rather than teasing everyone and not delivering everything.

Even better would be announcing the features, then actually delivering,
and letting users in on the beta in the meantime.

[PaulNewman]

Even better would be announcing the features, then actually delivering,
and letting users in on the beta in the meantime.If pmG has a word from God that they will deliver their proposed features on schedule, they could make such an announcement with confidence, since only God knows the future.

If not, then announcing and delivering what they have when they feel it is mature for release is the wise thing to do. No false expectations. No broken promises. And you won't need to forgive them... again.

[dobermunk]

Or they could announce a release in 1 day - measured in God time. That would keep all us mortals geussing until they come out with their release in their own sweet time ;-)

[TylerAZambori]

If pmG has a word from God that they will deliver their proposed features on schedule, they could make such an announcement with confidence, since only God knows the future.

If not, then announcing and delivering what they have when they feel it is mature for release is the wise thing to do. No false expectations. No broken promises. And you won't need to forgive them... again.

Silo can do it. Why not them?

[Wegg]

The guys at pmG work very VERY hard at what they do. I have often stayed up with Fori till 3 in the morning working out the kinks of a new feature or bug. THEN. . . I get back to work the next day only to find out he stayed up even later than that and built a new version for me with simple instructions on how it works. His focus on the task at hand is seriously intense. He will not sleep till the bug is fixed, feature added or. . . whatever it is thats needed to be done at the time. That. . . in my mind is why they just don't have a "PR" arm. There is just no time for that crap.

This is AWESOME for someone like me who is using Messiah in a big production because I know the platform I'm using is getting better and better and my life is getting easier and easier. The things that are changing in Messiah are things that make it better, faster and easier to use. It is amazing how much has changed in the software in the last 6 months.

That being said. . . you guys also need to give them time to get the kinks worked out. . . get documentation written etc. Maybe I'll ask Fori if I can share some of the new things with you. Hang on. . .

[Wegg]

Talked to Fori and he said he was already planing on putting together something that allows you guys to know what they have been doing. Expect to see that "in the next day or two". He. . . isn't going to do it right away because he is working on yet another kick ass feature. :-)

Future is bright my friends. :cool:

[lanosrep1]

Talked to Fori and he said he was already planing on putting together something that allows you guys to know what they have been doing. Expect to see that "in the next day or two". He. . . isn't going to do it right away because he is working on yet another kick ass feature. :-)

Future is bright my friends. :cool:

Thanks Weggs for chiming in.. I know you and your group are swamped on your production.. but I was hoping you would take a moment since you have the goods :)

Great news..

[TylerAZambori]

Talked to Fori and he said he was already planing on putting together something that allows you guys to know what they have been doing. Expect to see that "in the next day or two". He. . . isn't going to do it right away because he is working on yet another kick ass feature. :-)

Future is bright my friends. :cool:

That would be great, thanks Wegg.

This is an ambivalent thing....I don't approve of people sacrificing their health
either....but the reason I used Silo as an example is because they have even
less to work work with. They have only two guys, and yes they have been taking
a very very long time, and version 2 still isn't out. But they give frequent updates,
and access to the beta.

But it would be great to at least get an idea of what is coming.

[Wegg]

I think this is kind of a new thing that is happening with the "industry". Its happening with CPU makers as well. It used to be they could just say "trust us" and everyone would. But now everyone wants to know what and when and how. And if they don't hear all the nitty gritty details they get worried and jump ship. I guess I can understand that. . . but it does kind of feel like things would go faster if we just let them do their thing.

[TylerAZambori]

I think this is kind of a new thing that is happening with the "industry". Its happening with CPU makers as well. It used to be they could just say "trust us" and everyone would. But now everyone wants to know what and when and how. And if they don't hear all the nitty gritty details they get worried and jump ship. I guess I can understand that. . . but it does kind of feel like things would go faster if we just let them do their thing.

I don't think I agree about the cpu situation. I think people always wanted info about what's going on. It's easy for you to say that Wegg,because you know what's going on.
I can't comment on how things used to be in this field, but I do think that PR is not just crap, it's one of the legs on the stool. Without all the legs being there, and being pretty solid, the stool gets unstable. Just my 2 cents.

[Wegg]

Well of course we all wanted to know. . . but companies didn't always divulge. Look at Apple now. They have a very strict policy about not talking about future hardware/software plans till they are almost released. Thats why those keynote addresses are so big and exciting for Apple fans.

Some of the new stuff in Messiah is very powerful and also unique to pmG. Other 3D packages have struggled to find an elegant solution for these issues but the pmG guys found it and when they release it. . . they will have the competitive edge for a little while as the others try and figure it out and implement it themselves.

If pmG were to rattle off a list now before releasing the product then all they have done is played their cards too early and allowed others to begin working on their own solution based off of the description.

People don't really care about HOW something is implemented. Just that it has it. :-(

[lanosrep1]

People don't really care about HOW something is implemented. Just that it has it. :-(

True that.. once again.. i really appreciate you commenting.. as I am sure others are too.. and thanks for your loyalty to the developers for not spilling the beans.. so as not to steal their thunder!!

Gary

PS. Fred, get your typing fingers warmed up and write those details..lol

[fwtep]

I'll give one example. This is not an exciting feature but it's a useful workflow type thing (at least _I_ find it very useful, which is why I asked for it): You can set a keyboard shortcut to open and close the motion graph instead of having to drag it up and down with the mouse. Plus, it remembers how high you had it and it restores to that position. Like I said, it's not a sexy glamorous feature, but it's a good example of how we're addressing "the little things" too.

I have this mapped to my mouse, so when I push the mouse wheel to the right it toggles the graph open and closed. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I highly recommend the Logitech MX Revolution mouse. Best mouse I ever had. Besides the standard left, middle and right mouse buttons, I have SIX other buttons assigned: Undo, Redo, Graph Toggle, Item List Toggle (toggles between F1 and F2), Independent Channels, and All Channels. There's room for two other assignments on the mouse but they're on the wheels and I'd accidentally activate them, so I leave them blank.

(Wegg, the command is in Interface on the Key Command setup. It's called Graph Toggle Open/Close. It doesn't remember the graph position setting between sessions though, so when you start messiah you have to open the graph by dragging on it. I'll see if I can get that changed. :))

Fred

[IRONIC3D]

hey Fred

got a little question off topic here, I've been struggling with this for sometime now and I always forget to ask about it. when I map my keypad keys to the Front, Top, Left, camera...etc views, it stays active till I restart messiah, the next session I ahe to reasign these again. I tried saving the config file, didn't work, any work around? Thanks in advance

regards
I3D

[Wegg]

Oh yea!?! Cool.

I'll do you one better for "little features that aren't going to change the world but are damn nice". (Hope Fori doesn't mind).

When you have a zillion objects in your scene and you need to go in and alter a material on one surface. . . with 2.5 we had to just scroll through the list till we found the object when you get into the Render/Surface tab. NOW. . . with the beta of 3, once you have the object selected in Animate, you pop over to Render/Surface and press a button on the keyboard and it selects the object you selected in the animate list. . . in the surface list.

Thats in the KeyCommand Manager in the Customize tab. "Item List To Surface List Select"

Mine is set to "s". Very cool.

[TylerAZambori]

Well of course we all wanted to know. . . but companies didn't always divulge. Look at Apple now. They have a very strict policy about not talking about future hardware/software plans till they are almost released. Thats why those keynote addresses are so big and exciting for Apple fans.

Some of the new stuff in Messiah is very powerful and also unique to pmG. Other 3D packages have struggled to find an elegant solution for these issues but the pmG guys found it and when they release it. . . they will have the competitive edge for a little while as the others try and figure it out and implement it themselves.

If pmG were to rattle off a list now before releasing the product then all they have done is played their cards too early and allowed others to begin working on their own solution based off of the description. :-(


well....that's different then.....

[THUR]

all sounds great!

Did they by any change restore that -ancient messiah-pluggin (pre-mesiahstudio) keyframe option- from way back .. but missing it evensince, a pop-up that appears when hitting enter and geves you the option to choose what is needed to be keyframed ( selected items or groups or all, ect .. )
please say they did :)

THUR

[dobermunk]

In case you've missed this, this is already in there.
Though its not in the key-frame requester once you hit 'enter', the requester takes the setting from the graph editor settings. I find this very intuitive, as you key what you are working with generally.
At any rate, you can use this method until they add the requester to the 'make-key' pop-up window.

[THUR]

Though its not in the key-frame requester once you hit 'enter', the requester takes the setting from the graph editor settings. I find this very intuitive, as you key what you are working with generally.

uhu .. i know
pop-up would be great though, speeds up my animating workflow a lot

[Ejecta]

To be quite honest there a few things to be improved in the graph editor for me.

For example dragging keys in the dope sheet that have been set to bezier handles instead of tcb STILL get FUBAR. Its been this way for a LONG time. Why this hasnt been addressed is beyond me. Also would be nice if I could select several handles and with a click of a button make them flat. But since they'll jsut get messed up by te dop sheet why even bother I guess. :rolleyes:

To be quite honest I dont get why bezier is stilll even an option since they dont even work well at all.

And for me having animzted in LW for years and years and now using XSI and Maya, I cant for the life of me understand why tcb is still even used. Beziers are much much more intuitive, visually easier to see imediately what you'll get and are quickly edited.

[Wegg]

To be quite honest there a few things to be improved in the graph editor for me.

For example dragging keys in the dope sheet that have been set to bezier handles instead of tcb STILL get FUBAR. Its been this way for a LONG time. Why this hasnt been addressed is beyond me.

Its probably because they don't know about it. The very best way to get things like this fixed is to provide a sample scene with clear written steps illustrationg the behavior that is not correct and then be respectful and patient.

[Ejecta]

Its probably because they don't know about it. The very best way to get things like this fixed is to provide a sample scene with clear written steps illustrationg the behavior that is not correct and then be respectful and patient.

I know they know about because I have told them several times in very "repectful" emails and examples and was told they would look in to it. So Im guesing from your answer this still hasnt been addressed. Very sad. Since its been an issue since messiah's early realeases and I havent said anything in over 3 releases in hopes it would get addressed Id say Im being very "patient".

[alvin-cgi]

anything... yet?:shrug:

[DMack]

Back from hols....

Great to hear little things are being addressed - Just remember us pen users when you implement new ergonomic features!

Looking forward to what you have in stall for us......

[liquidik]

any news for us ?

:D

[RK-art]

Hello everybody,

I own Messiah workstation now since 2005 and intended to use it as animation-plugin for my main app, Cinema 4D V10.
I would really love to use it, but PMG is still not able for now over more than one year to fix a crucial bug in their C4D-Plugin that makes working with it under C4D V10 simply impossible.

The fault is under C4DV10 that whenever you save your messiah-taged & connected C4D-scene and reopen it later in C4D again, you don't see anymore your meshes that have the messiah-tag. The only way to reveal them is to delete the messiah-tag, but then of coarse all what I did in messiah is lost.
I had informed PMG about that for nearly over one year, but nothing happened so far in the meantime-updates to fix it.
I saw only fixes for lightwave and other apps, but nothing for C4DV10, although the plugin had an update, but did'nt fix the bug.

So I really hope that PMG could finally enable after all that long time us C4DV10-user to work with messiah again.
I really hope.

[Stiderotte]

Yup! would be nice to hear something...

[Tama]

Talked to Fori and he said he was already planing on putting together something that allows you guys to know what they have been doing. Expect to see that "in the next day or two". He. . . isn't going to do it right away because he is working on yet another kick ass feature. :-)

Future is bright my friends. :cool:

And on the third day Fori created...

I'm just guessing those "in the next day or two" days were meant as "Biblical" style days as in when God created the earth.:)

[dobermunk]

I would really love to use it, but PMG is still not able for now over more than one year to fix a crucial bug in their C4D-Plugin

Embedded scenes? <shiver>

Double your trouble. Grab the mdd plugins for Cinema that Suricate wrote and animate away!
It's by far the superior pipeline. You hook up the mesh once and then its like a referenced item: re-write the mdd, refresh the scene. Done.
No stability issues, memory issues or global warming.

(Well, at least I don't think these plug-ins contribute to global warming.)

[MadBox]

just tryed messiah and dont understand one thing, whats wrong with its viewport navigation? its complete rubish. In my opinion with that navigation system they failed. "bike" is inveted already so doesnt need to be reinvented.

[Suricate]

No stability issues, memory issues or global warming.

(Well, at least I don't think these plug-ins contribute to global warming.)
I must admit I haven't checked whether my plugins affect the global warming... let me think ... well maybe the plugins lead to people spending more time in front of their computer, thus wasting more energy... so maybe there is an effect on global warming ...

But I can gurantee that no animals were harmed during the production of these plugins ... OK, maybe one or two cartoon animals, but not more, really ...

[notlongago]

You need to adjust it to your liking (use key command manager). Noone should use default behaviours in any programs, they generally suck big time.

just tryed messiah and dont understand one thing, whats wrong with its viewport navigation? its complete rubish. In my opinion with that navigation system they failed. "bike" is inveted already so doesnt need to be reinvented.

[dobermunk]

no animals were harmed during the production of these plugins ... OK, maybe one or two cartoon animals, but not more, really ...

LoL! And they just bounced right back!

@notlongago: err, what bike do you prefer? Last I checked, there wasn't a set standard. Do you prefer the xsi set? the Maya set?

[RK-art]

Dobermunk, Suricate:

Thanks for the tip.
I will try it.
I saw I already had an older version of your mdd-Reader in my plugin-collection, but I didn't use it so far.
So I will take a closer look on how to use it in my C4D-messiah-workflow.
Are there any more-detailed tutorials for using this plugin in a C4d-messiah-pipeline available ?

Thanks,

Ralf

[StOuen]

PMG site is offline..! My SeaWeed is wet... it's coming JC.

[Gitch]

PMG site is offline..! My SeaWeed is wet... it's coming JC.

PMG is not offline where did you get that from?

[StOuen]

[EDIT] It's back up!

[alvin-cgi]

"This Site Is Under Construction and Coming Soon."

This is what I got since last nite??:rolleyes:



PMG is not offline where did you get that from?

[Gitch]

Yeah I see they have it offline now hopefully some good news..

[stooch]

just tryed messiah and dont understand one thing, whats wrong with its viewport navigation? its complete rubish. In my opinion with that navigation system they failed. "bike" is inveted already so doesnt need to be reinvented.
yeah i met with the pmg guys and bitched about the very same issue. i think they are going to fix it with the next release but i have no idea when that will be.

[liquidik]

mmm..nope still the old site for me here!

[tomtm]

Hi,
I really doubt that there will be a next release.
I think, to a good support would also count proper informing and give
paying users a plan for their investments.

[Suricate]

Dobermunk, Suricate:

Thanks for the tip.
I will try it.
I saw I already had an older version of your mdd-Reader in my plugin-collection, but I didn't use it so far.
So I will take a closer look on how to use it in my C4D-messiah-workflow.
Are there any more-detailed tutorials for using this plugin in a C4d-messiah-pipeline available ?

Thanks,

Ralf
Apart from those things that come in the ZIP file, there is no further documentation or tutorials. But feel free to to post any questions here.

The basic workflow is relatively simple:
1. Model your mesh in C4D.
2. Use the Riptide plugin to export your mesh to an .obj file. Use an appropriate scale in the Riptide settings. If you are using standard C4D units, a scale of 100 works well.
3. Shutdown C4D (you don't have to shutdown, but it makes sense not to have two hungry apps runnning at the same time).
4. Open messiah and load the .obj file.
5. Rig and animate.
6. Export the MDD seqeunce with the 'SaveMorphSequence' feature.
7. Shutdown messiah.
8. Open C4D, load your mesh and apply the MDD Reader to it, setting the appropriate scale.
9. Render out your scene.

[catizone]

"Hi,
I really doubt that there will be a next release."

Luckily for all us messiah users, doubts don't make truth.

Best,
Rick

[KAMAKAZZI]

First off, Messiah rocks, no doubt. I understand that pmg is very busy and I am all up for keeping things secret and only mentioning such secrets when it serves them best. So Weggs aspect is coincided with my input.

I do like the idea of how to integrate motion into other applications through the API, .mdd files or even point oven.

However, I still think Messiah should have a function to also save out FBX extension file formats for Maya, Max and Motion Builder users to help things become more automated/fluent and sync together with minimum faults and errors.

Plus, why not take a stab in the dark and some how export your bone setups into other apps? Now-a-days, we are baking everything from motion baking to material baking and so on, why not do bone or skeletal baking? I know materials work close with an application's renderer so you cant export materials. In addition, we can now bake materials and at least mimic what was created through materials from one app to another, isnt time to attempt to do the same thing with the bones? So if anyone smells what I am stepping in, let pmg know!

Migrating your motion is a great idea but I think its time where some programming guru somehow made a system where your bones are converted to Maya, Lightwave, Max and C4D languages (yeah, I know thats asking programmers to know everything about Maya, Lightwave, Max and C4D and how it was constructed--oh well but achieving this would make Messiah a must have like ZBrush and provide a breakthrough in the CG industry).

Plus implementing a game engine hosting ability like XSI would also do us game developers justice.

Understand the X-file converter offered in Messiah but I want to actually see my work be hosted into our game engine and have my scenes be integrated in my viewport in real time!

One of the big fallouts is that its hard to find a job in the game industry due to regulations and standardized approaches studios have, Messiah is almost there breaking that stereotype behavior game studios have towards an artist's software tool or preference.

ZBrush did a fascinating break through on having every asset you create or model is universal, Messiah should do the same thing except with rigging and animation procedures.

So far the only freelance work I get out of using Lightwave and Messiah is film. My game development days already seems far beyond my reach unless I learn Maya and Max.

ZBrush 3 so far has been keeping me in the ball game, having Messiah act the same way would be what Master Card always says, "Priceless."

For every animation and rigging job out there, there is Messiah, for everything else, your screwed....j/k hehehehe

Just wanted to add in my input. Take it easy and wish all the best of luck!

Cypher
www.CypherMesh.com (http://www.cyphermesh.com/)

[Sil3]

However, I still think Messiah should have a function to also save out FBX extension file formats for Maya, Max and Motion Builder users to help things become more automated/fluent and sync together with minimum faults and errors.

Plus, why not take a stab in the dark and some how export your bone setups into other apps?


Cypher
www.CypherMesh.com (http://www.CypherMesh.com)


I havent tried this with Messiah, but it worked from XSi to LW.


With Point Oven you can export Nulls and their Motions, its a case of placing Nulls at the Bones pivots and in case needed use those Nulls in MAX to drive Bones rotations...

Not elegant I know but if you really need it...

There was also in the past a nice tool that would allowed us to bake a BHV motion file into a pre defined Skeleton that mimic the C. Studio Biped Rig, so you could animate in Messiah and then Export the BHV file and opend it with CS in MAX.

[catizone]

" Plus, why not take a stab in the dark and some how export your bone setups into other apps?"

One of the things that makes messiah a great tool is THEIR bones and the complete flexibilty in setting a rig ANY way you want to. Bone systems are not all equal. While you can translate a deformation, I'm not sure you can (or would want to) directly translate to another programs bones.....might be similar to going from 150dpi to 72 dpi...if you know what I mean. You might NOT get the translation you do in messiah.

Beyond that, the more important reason I use messiah is its utter flexibilty in terms of the integration of bones, other effects, expressions, etc...without the old conflicts I encountered in other apps.

So, if you want messiah to translate everything into another app...it would mean that the other app was capable of giving you the same thing without messiah. So why bother to use it? I use it because it lets me do whatever I want, with the flexibilty to change that and not lose any animation, add effects and expressions at any point and keep on going.

Just my thoughts..maybe Fori has a more correct idea on translating bones to other apps...

Best,
Rick

[liquidik]

The problem is that the cinematic part of a rigging can almost easily be translated to other programs. I'm applying a lot of concepts I have in my maya rig to messiah, with little to no problem. The real difficult part is the deformation.

Keep in mind that is standard nowadays to have a rig for control/kinematic, and a rig for deformations (driven by the first one). With messiah bones are really your deformer weapon, and that's one thing I'm most fascinated with.

The difficulty here relies on how every software make deformations. In maya you use bone and weights for a first layer, but then you had to go with other deformers, clusters, blend shapes to correct the things that are not working.

I really love to have PMG concentrate to the complete pipeline of animation/character animation: rigging, dynamics (rigid body/soft body/cloth) and eventually hair/fur.

Gian

[RK-art]

Thanks a lot, Suricate, for your step-by-step.
I will try it soon.

Ralf

[KAMAKAZZI]

liquidIK and catizone,

That makes total sense. Bones in Messiah are way more efficient and does deform the geometry to your liking. Transferring the way a bone has influence on the geometry does sound extremely difficult. Although if anyone steps up to the plate and actually does find a way to export your skeletal form, I am sure they would find a way to alter that percentage of influence to your initial program to match what Messiah can produce. Kind of like images, in vector form, you can up-scale and down-scale the vector image and still maintain a high-res quality (but of course you have to make your image vector). Only when the image is exported is when it becomes pixelated or when working with photoshop is when you start to worry about DPI and resolution settings. So I think there should be a totally new feature that would somehow make the bones be similar to a vector image where a high amount of influence is stored for degrading purposes upon exporting. Then exporting specifically to your package only then would there be a percentage change of influence to the specific extension files. Thus concludes making your bones work just like Messiah in your inital package (totally making it sound easier that what it is).

If somehow that was to work, setting up in Messiah would be better than setting up in Maya because of how Messiah would export your bones to have even better influencial measurements than Maya's default bone setups.

This me just re-using catizone's example and comparing bones to imaging.

Nevertheless, I have to try what Sil3 mentioned. Sounds interesting.

All I am really saying, sure it would seem impossible but that is what would make it a breakthrough, someone made it work when everyone thought it couldnt be done.

I can understand if what I am suggesting is like asking a hebrew man to write out the orginal bible in English...a lot can go wrong as well as mis-interpretations.

Still think its not impossible though-just takes time and getting the right person for the job.

Good talk- keep it up and maybe pmg will get ideas.

Thanks to all who respond,

Cypher

[catizone]

I guess I'm missing the point, or maybe others are missing the obvious. Messiah IS an animation program. A group of guys got together to give animators what they wanted.
They SELL that package. To make it USABLE to people who have other programs, they wrote new apps so it can work inside of just about all the top programs.

Now that they've managed to do all that, you want them to translate everything they specialized in to separate them from the others, and somehow (why should they even want to) translate that directly to programs that can't do what messiah does so well.
I guess I'm lost as to what sense that makes. If you like or need what messiah gives you, USE IT. For years, people made the argument to move to other programs for certain features. PMG comes along and creates a GREAT animation tool, and you think they should basically make it transparent?

Animate and rig in messiah. There is the link to transfer that into the various programs. I think it would be silly for PMG to do otherwise. But maybe that's just me.

Best,
Rick

[KAMAKAZZI]

Sorry dude,

I think I went way over your head. I was just saying that EVERYTHING should be universal, even the rigs and skeletal forms.

Dont get me wrong, Messiah is a great tool for film. For game development, it is hard to convince all those game studios out there to buy more licensed software with a pipeline they already standardized on for the game engine.

I mean, if I am a rigger trying to get a rigging job in game development, most would prefer 3D Max and Maya because there are more Max and Maya animators than Messiah animators. So how am I suppose to have animators animate my rigs thats in Messiah when they only know how to work with Maya and Max. I am all gunho on using Messiah for I use it all the time. I am not making it transparent, just simply wanting another awesome feature for the rigging and animating process. Making your Messiah rigs able to migrate to other packages is a good way to eliminate this problem. We are humans, all we know how to do is want more...

Other than that PMG is great, these are simple ideas, I wouldnt marry them or feel you have to defend Messiah's good name.

Nice debate or misunderstanding I should say.

So the key words are Bones and universal/transferable. I totally understand exporting the motion, thats not my problem, my problem is getting harshly judged if my rigging skills are not with Maya and Max. Not enough game developers that mass produce use Messiah. If there are, then fill me in on the details. I am all ears comrade....

But I do see your valid point and I do agree to some degree.

Other than that, my place is with film production.

Any other comments?

Cypher

[isobarxx]

I can see wanting to export hierarchical motion for games, like the DirectX exporter does. ...AFAIK one company ever actually used that. But let's be real about the game production market. Autodesk flat out bought that market segment. They never had a superior product. They had superior bank accounts to fund massive advertising, and the sheeple went along with it.

As far as being judged on your rigging skills, if you're extremely good at what you do, they won't care what program you know. But if it's a MAX house, chances are they're gonna look for somebody who knows MAX, including scripting, etc. The same goes for Maya and XSI. FBX support is not going to help you there.

TBO I just can't think of a real world situation where Point Oven wouldn't get you where you need to go for animation... cloth sim? Hair? Pinning something to a character? It's perfect for all of that. Maybe to export really basic bones-only animation.... but if that's all you're using it for, why buy messiah in the first place? Any old software can create basic XYZHPB animation. Messiah's strength lies in doing strong, nuanced character animation quickly with minimal setup time. FBX is not going to get you soft bodies, IK/FK switching, armature controls, muscle bones, or anything else that would compel me to use messiah in the first place.


Having said all that, AFAIK there's no way to import/export lights in messiah. That would be useful to me when wanting to match lighting between messiah/LW for compositing. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a good starting point for lights. ...In fact I could use that this week.... :) Other than that, Point Oven is available now and does 99% of what I need.

[stooch]

people here might have noticed that i silenced my wishful thinking as of late. this is because the realization finally sunk in taht we are dealing with a 3 man team. Being such a small team, only they can decide what is the best direction for this software. They can only be steered a limited amount from the path they ultimately define themselves. The only complaint that I have is that we do not know where this path leads.

[Sil3]

The only complaint that I have is that we do not know where this path leads.

As far as I remember it has been something like this since almost the start... lets wait ( a tad more) and see if we also will say "ahhhh..." and "oohhhhh..." like those who already have their hands on the new version are saying.

[catizone]

kamakazzi wrote:"I think I went way over your head. I was just saying that EVERYTHING should be universal, even the rigs and skeletal forms."

No, you didn't go way over my head, or even partially. I completely understood your premise. But apparently you missed mine. People purchase and use a program for many reasons. For example, there is a REASON that nearly everybroadcast show over the last 15 yrs. using animation used Lightwave. But as great as LW was/is, it did not have complete array of character animation tools we wanted. Some of the bright minds that gave us many LW specialties decided to answer that call. They created messiah. I made the decision to move to messiah to allow me the flexibility and tools for character animation and rigging. (messiah is also proving to be an amazing renderer)

Frankly (and I'm NOT saying this is you), I am tired of all the LW bashing and mockery that went on for years from the "higher" and other programs. Yet studios just kept using it and turning out great work. LW was the "little kid on the block" in their eyes. Now we have messiah. Maybe another little kid at the moment....but the smartest one on the block, for my money, for character animation. I just don't see why they should do anything (more than they already have) to make other programs work better.

Now to your argument about everything being universal. As a LW and messiah guy, Max was formerly not open to me. If I wanted to work with a house that had Max, I had to learn and use that. Now PMG makes messiah's extremely powerful program available within Max. If the house chooses not to use that, I have no choice but to do it in Max. But the point here, is that PMG actually DID make the universality you want...by allowing all major packages to rig and animate from messiah within their programs. The argument that they don't want to learn messiah to use it has no weight, as if they don't use messiah, you (and others) are forced to learn THEIR program. Somebody is going to have to learn a new package to add to their arsenal. Are they going to add and learn the better and more powerful (in my opinion) program, or ask a company to take all their specialized work and build a translator so THEIR program can be as good as messiah? See...that just doesn't make logical sense.

It just seems to me to be rather naive to say, we really want to use all the great things messiah has but we don't want to switch to or learn new software. I did that when I moved from LW to messiah, because I wanted the better animation tools. While in the "wouldn't it be nice" thinking mode, yes, it would be nice if I could work within every package from some package I knew. But that isn't reality. On the other hand, why don't all the other programs make this universality and interchangability that you desire? Because they want to be known indepedently for their OWN product and its feature set....just like PMG.

Best,
Rick

[catizone]

Stooch wrote:" The only complaint that I have is that we do not know where this path leads."

You will shortly. Fori is unbelieveably busy solving issues and creating a better product. As soon as he can post, which should be fairly soon based on his last reply on this forum, I think you'll be happy. Hopefully he will also be able to post photos from a particular project using messiah, that will show some of messiah's latest features.

Best,
Rick

[KAMAKAZZI]

Rick, Stooch and Isobar,

I agree on all what you guys said. I just get frustrated on how much people like us have to cater to other companies workflow and they have no idea what a wonderful package Messiah is. And yes, I suppose I misunderstood you Rick, sorry dear friend. I mean there is a reason why new technology comes out, to make our life eaiser, Messiah does just that, cant see why we are the only ones that see that.

Seems to me, point oven can do a lot more than what I thought, I have to check into it (only made use of .mdd files). I cant wait till Messiah can work with hair (as mentioned before). I love how XSI can paint hair and the clusters already have spline IK. That would be another cool feature to have in Messiah.

I spent all night till 5 in the morning playing with morphs! Which by the way, brings up a question...

How come when I create a ZTool and export it as an OBJ, when I bring the model in Messiah, the model looks as if its flipped inside out?

Plus when I move my camera around the head, the head gets distorted immensely and somehow targets my camera in perspective mode in the worldview (camera is not targetted on model head)?

Everything that I brought in Lightwave worked fine...I wonder why exported geometry from ZBrush would act that way. Any hints?

So far I just turned off perspective in my camera but that stiill didnt work (pressed either the bracket keys or plus or minus keys, cant remember but know I did both).

Anyone have any suggestions?

Models created through ZBrush3.

Sorry for this being off the topic.

Thanks a million,

Cypher

[catizone]

I hear your frustration. I have chosen to stay with messiah or LW and try and find work with it. I know enough MAX to be able to use it. However, I chose to hold the position that everyone who's amazed at what messiah can do should incorporate it, not ask PMG to funnel their hard work to aid some other program.

I haven't used zbrush. However, one thing you might want to think about is that it is generally a good idea to separate out your effects into it's own hierarchy, independent of the actual bone rig. I think that can cause problems similare to what you suggest.

As far as the faces being flipped, I'm not sure if you have to flip the normals before exporting, if that's a toggle in messiah, as I am not very versed on their materials.

Best,
Rick

[KAMAKAZZI]

That might be it, I totally forgot that I tested something out earlier in ZBrush3 in preferences on flipping normals. Thought I was only messing with the normal mapping settings-oh well.

I will try that out when I get home after dinner tonight.

Just been so utterly busy its not even funny. Anyhow, thanks for the input Rick.

Any other comments on what to do with ZBrush generated OBJ's in Messiah and the flipped normals (not talking of normal maps at all--the actual geometry is flipped-for the record)?

I bet Wegg is having a blast with the new features in Messiah.

I wanna play too hey!


Cypher

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