NEW messiah video: AutoRig

[Hexodam]

thats just stupidly easy :P

not sure it belongs in the max forum though

[SheepFactory]

Originally posted by Hexodam
thats just stupidly easy :P

not sure it belongs in the max forum though


it does , since messiah has a connection to max :)

[Hexodam]

aha, what sortof a connection?

[SheepFactory]

you can export your model to messiah animate in it than export back to max.


you can test it out with your own models by downloading the demo.


www.projectmessiah.com


if you need any help with it drop a line at the messiah forum :thumbsup:

[fwtep]

Originally posted by Sheep Factory
you can export your model to messiah animate in it than export back to max.


you can test it out with your own models by downloading the demo.


www.projectmessiah.com


I should clarify that it's not exactly "exporting" the model to messiah. It *can* be exported, and messiah can then be stand-alone, but most Max users use messiah with Max together. Very basically, you start Max, load a mesh, attach messiah to it, then it brings up messiah's interface. You do your rigging and animation of that mesh in messiah, then when you go back to Max you'll automatically see the animation there. You texture and render from Max (again, if you want-- messiah:studio has a renderer too). And if you want changes in the animation, just bring up messiah and make the changes, they'll automatically update what's in Max.

The demo will, of course, make it more clear.

Fred

[Hexodam]

wow, thats somethng :) (animating in max is a bitch)

how does it compare to motionbuilder?

[fwtep]

Originally posted by Hexodam
wow, thats somethng :) (animating in max is a bitch)

how does it compare to motionbuilder?
I should let someone with more MB experience give a better answer, but from what I can see, it does basically what MB does and much more, because the purpose is much more broad.

Messiah started sort of like MB, in that it was specifically geared toward character animation, but it's grown so much over the past four years.

Fred

[Hexodam]

I see, this is starting to look better by each post :)

does it do morph targets also or would I have to create them first in max and then import to messiah? and then another question, are the morph modifier and skin modifier and other modifiers compatible with messiah or will I have to end with one edit poly object before I import to messiah?

also, how is it with speed, what I love about motionbuilder is that its so amazingly fast when working with complex rigs

[RonGriswold]

I would say the best thing to do is to download the demo version and try it out with Max.

To answer your questions directly though:

does it do morph targets also or would I have to create them first in max and then import to messiah?

Its up to you, messiah is a full featured rigging and animation package so all of the standard types of deformers that you are used to are in there, morphs being one of them.

and then another question, are the morph modifier and skin modifier and other modifiers compatible with messiah or will I have to end with one edit poly object before I import to messiah?


You are free to apply other modifiers on top of the messiah modifier in Max if you wish.

One thing that is important to note, because this tends to throw Max users off a bit, is that the messiah deformer (modifier) brings the model into messiah in object space. Therefore you should offset your geometry in messiah, not in Max. For example, if you have a robot with segmented pieces of geometry, leave them with their pivot points at the origin in Max. Then in messiah, parent and position them appropriatly. Back in Max they will be moved/deformed to the correct position in world space.

If you or anyone else has any questions about this I'd be happy to clarify further.

[Hexodam]

ok, thanks :)

but lets say I create a character, do morph targets in max, then move to messiah, rig character there, animate a bit, then do I have to go back to max to do morph targets or can messiah work with the max morph modifier directly?
also how it would be the other way around, do morph targets in messiah and then move back to max and want to tweak a morph target just a tiny bit, do I have to start messiah to do that?

[RonGriswold]

but lets say I create a character, do morph targets in max, then move to messiah, rig character there, animate a bit, then do I have to go back to max to do morph targets or can messiah work with the max morph modifier directly?
also how it would be the other way around, do morph targets in messiah and then move back to max and want to tweak a morph target just a tiny bit, do I have to start messiah to do that?

No, the animation only goes in one direction, from messiah to Max. Also the information passed from messiah to Max is in the form of either transformations or displacement. So you can add as many deformers on top of the messiah deformer as you like, to add tweeks back in Max; for the most part however you will probably want to do the majority of the rigging and animation in messiah.

Incidentally, the reason messiah works like this is to maintain consistency between the different host apps. If we were to export bones for example, then the results would be quite different depending on the host app, but with messiah a scene will look the same in Max as it does in Maya.

[Hexodam]

interesting, I think I will look into this better when I have all my current projects finished, in about a month or so

thanks alot for all the info everyone :)

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