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View Full Version : Maya to Messiah - GE help

heynewt
11-26-2007, 11:58 AM
Hi,

I bought Messiah years ago before I became an AnimationMentor student and got trained there in Maya for character animation. Really love Maya for CA, but then everyone is fond of their first love.

I just rigged a character (thanks Joe Cosman for great rigging videos), and I like the "feel" of Messiah. But I'm struggling with the GE. In Maya the GE is all simple, all the curves instantly right there and it's really easy to know which curve you're working on, where there are keyframes etc. In Messiah's GE, not so much. The rest of Messiah is so detail oriented to CA that I know they didn't just forget to put an easy powerful GE in it. I figured I just haven't gotten my head around Messiah's GE.

Would someone (preferably a former Maya animator) tell me how they got used to the GE in Messiah? What's your workflow like?

Robert N.
StOuen
11-26-2007, 12:34 PM
Scuse my ignorance but I take it that the GE you refer to is the graph editor? If it is relative selection for armatures such as seeing the motions channels relative to the item you have selected, check out: http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-166119.html
heynewt
11-26-2007, 02:10 PM
Yeah, sorry Chris. Graph editor definitely. Thanks for the link. It's not relative channels showing up from armature selection that I'm trying to get my head around. It's just trying to get splines to show up and be as clear in Messiah as they were in Maya.

I realize this is another case of "why won't my new software act exactly like my old familiar software?" I think probably former Maya animators will understand what I'm talking about. I'm just trying to get Messiah's graph editor to quickly display channels in an easy to see format (see attached Maya pic). Messiah is so well thought out, that I know it's probably possible. It's MY problem that I just haven't figured it out yet.

Robert
Ulven
11-26-2007, 02:51 PM
In messiah, the graph editor only shows the selected channel(s) of the selected object(s).

So, first, select an object(s) in the object list to the left.
Then you can hit 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc to select the channel you want to see, or ctrl+1,2,3,4,5,6 to add channels to your selection (Viewing multiple channels.)

Or you can click the little + next to the object name in the list on the left and see a list of the channels of that object to select from, (shift+click to select "All from here to here" or ctrl+click to add certain channels to your selection.)

You can expand and collapse the graph editor by dragging it.

The channel you're working on is highlighted in the graph editor.

The keyframe you're working on is yellow.

You can choose the curve type for each keyframe individually in the spline tab.

Did that answer your question?
heynewt
11-26-2007, 03:06 PM
Ahh, using 1,2,3,4,5,6 to get the channels quickly into the graph editor. Very clever. That's the part I was missing. That's really fast. That answered the question. Thanks Ulven!

I know that technique is in the manual along with all the other ways, I just wanted to see what people used for the fastest workflow.

Incidentally, hats off to PMG, they really seem to have improved the manual since the early versions of Messiah.

The video I would really like to see (the kind that helped us so much at AnimationMentor) is just to watch someone experienced work on a character scene in Messiah. Just watching how other people use Messiah in a day to day setting really helps me learn.

Robert
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11-26-2007, 03:06 PM
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