Get Messiah now or upgrade to LW9, get Messiah later

#2

you’ll get more value getting Messiah
Cost Vs Feature You won’t get much if you get Lw 9

Best to get Point Over too.

#3

Really depends on what you want to do. If it’s character animation, then messiah is a clear winner, hands down. LW is not even in the same league here. If not, then go the LW route - more general features.

Edit: Upgrading from 7.5d to 9 - are there features you really need in the upgrade?

#4

I know that this is the messiah forum but I’ve gotta say “get Lightwave”.

There’s been so many fantastic new tools & improvements since 7.5 plus, if you’re quick, you’ll get Vue 5 infinite for free…which is superb. I can’t afford the 9 upgrade so I’m not even checking out the features but 8.5 is a dream to work with, I believe that 9 is being built from the ground up & is supposed to be vastly improved. On a Messiah related note, LW9 is to have a node based shader system (like Messiah:Studio) so it might help you to learn how to use this system in a familiar environment first as Messiah’s shader system is VERY different from LW’s.

#5

Get both. We use LW for modeling and rendering and Messiah for animation. I think you can’t get something better from a production pipeline…fast&furious.

#6

Agrre with Lino. If you can afford it - get both.

#7

hi slatr,

At the end of the day you have to make your own choice and I would advise trying the demo if you haven’t. I do believe the demo has been updated to 2.2 , but doesn’t include the new particles, new nodes, and improvements to the render.

My pennyworths would be in weight of Messiah, owing to its character animation tools, its fantastic and easy to use expression system, armatures, great node based render (which includes sub-surface scattering, caustics, etc), new particles system (have you see the examples from Taron ), displacements, etc.

In terms of the biliousfrog comment ‘Messiah’s shader system is VERY different from LW’s.’ Check out Julez’s link http://flarenova.com/Msx/

ps; I’ve got 7.5b and haven’t upgraded at this point, because my thinking is to get Zbrush or something that I can use to paint displacements.

That’s my opinion

R

#8

As a hobbyist, I can’t get both right now. I plan on one now, and the other in about a month or 2.

My point of view is

Messiah Demo

Appears to me to have great potential
Very fast on the demo characters compared to LW char. animation
New learning curve

Lightwave

I don’t have multiple undoes in layout being on 7.5
Version 9 promises render speed improvments
Very familiar with it, but char animation is unwieldy to me. seems to slow down very quickly.

Messiah seems very strong. The one thing that bugs me is that with the demo, I can’t see how I can export or get it to work with LW (or I am doing something wrong)

I’ll keep looking. Thanks again for the feedback.

#9

that link is geat rush123, I wish that I’d seen that earlier.:thumbsup:

…as has been mentioned, ZBrush works great with LW & Messiah & costs about the same as the upgrade to LW9…maybe get Messiah:Studio now & ZBrush later? vbmenu_register(“postmenu_3430500”, true);

#10

I use Lightwave all the time. But. . . honestly not all that much has changed since I furst got it in its 6.5 era. Lots of plugins have been mashed into the base install in the name of “upgrades” but . . . they were always available at flay.com so . . . its just odd. The beta of 9 has some nice things but Messiah hands down blows it away in terms of speed and power. I just wish Messiah had all those plugins. :frowning:

#11

If you want to get into character animation you should defiantly get Messiah, If you need a program like Vue get the Lightwave 9 upgrade.
I just bought Messiah Workstation and I am not getting the Lightwave 9 upgrade for now, I don’t need Vue and don’t like to pre-order software.

Thanks for the link rush123, will defiantly have a look after I finish all five Joe Cosman DVDs
:thumbsup:

#12

Hummm to be honest LW8.5 is LW 7 with Ikeda FREE plugins bundled (not even integrated),and the Layout UNDO only works on rotations and translates, there was a FREE plug that did this already, cant recall the name of it and it worked on LW 7.

I cant really speak about LW 9 because i didnt order it and dont even plan to until i see it and test it…LW 8 was a letdown so NT lost my confidence…besides i couldn´t care less for Vue or LWcad tools, if i ever need those i would had bough them already.

I would say go for Messiah at this point, u will get superb character animation tools that are not years but LIGHT years ahead of LW ones, and i doubt LW will ever have such powerfull tools in a near future, probably in LW 20 or something, but for now only LW 9 is near :smiley:

#13

Thanks guys, any links showing me how Messiah integrates with Lw for rendering?

I am not a home right now, if this is in the demo docs, I will look at later.

I loaded up the demo and started playing with demo scenes/rigs. EDIT (I didn’t notice, are there any demo docs?)

I was in a hurry to try out the program.

EDIT: I need to slow down, getting too excited about new software! Top left of tutorials page, using Messiah as a plugin DOH!

#14

You may have already made up your mind, but without a modeler Messiah won’t be any good to you. I.E. you need something to animate.

I would get a copy of Wings 3D which is free and open source and buy the copy of Messiah Workstation so you can render and Animate.

#15

I am leaning towards Messiah:Workstation right now.

EDIT: Bought Messiah Workstation :slight_smile:

#16

lol, very wise decision, my copy just arrived two days ago…:applause:

#17

If CA is what you want to do then you will be very pleased with that decision! Welcome aboard!

#18

Originally Posted by slatr
EDIT: Bought Messiah Workstation :slight_smile:

lol, very wise decision, my copy just arrived two days ago…:applause:

Great! Welcome!

#19

Thanks guys, I know I have a lot to learn, but looks like there is a friendly and active community here!

:slight_smile:

#20

Yup I just picked up PM workstation today. Thanks to everyone for all the info. :beer:
Next up modo… and I think that will just about do it. - G

#21

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