guess I'll have to make this an explicit thread ...

#1

Why is Point Oven so heavily relied upon as a means to actually
export motion data, rather than native support within messiah
for .fbx or collada? I am not able to use .mdd, so that leaves it
out of my loop. :frowning:

Iā€™d love to have messiah as my CA tool for the indie game engine
Beyond Virtual , but I see no way to achieve this (without writing
my own importer, which is out of the question for my non-programmer
brain and indie-developer wallet) ā€¦

Is there some other secret to getting either bone data or mesh
transformations into a game engine, or is Point Oven the only
solution?

thanks for any insight. :slight_smile:

#2

Point Oven wonā€™t help. That only deals with vertex points.

What you need to do is export the motion data for the rig of your character out of Messiah and into your host application. People have done it. But your right in that it isnā€™t nearly as easy as it should be.

#3

Messiah has an DirectX-exporter, I think it may help you?

/ Svante

#4

i believe that this is the biggest and most important hurdle for messiah to overcome.

#5

The Direct X exporter does not export texturesā€¦ if it did then it would be serious tool for folks like me who make interactive programs ie: games/simulations,ā€¦ untill then it just collects dust.

David

#6

Do your textures in your modeler/host application.

#7

Is this being considered and looked at by pmg? Iā€™ve seen this ā€œrequestā€ on these boards
to have the capacity of motion export (via .fbx or collada) from posts as old as 2004ā€¦ :eek:

With the new potential converts to messiah from Motionbuilder, it would seem financially
advantageous (new customers) to invest in the ability to actually export out motion data
to a common format. Am I smoking crack to be hoping this is on some ā€œto doā€ list that
pmg is working on?

And Weggā€¦when you say to just use oneā€™s modeling package for the textures, are you
saying itā€™s as easy as importing a fully UV-d and textured model into messiah, animating,
and then exporting out as .x ? (cause Iā€™ve read in another post that in order to successfully
make this happen one has to hack the fileā€¦I think :blush: )

Lastly, should I just be emailing these types of questions to pmg itself or is this the best
place to get ā€œofficialā€ answers (since the pmg site seems to have overlooked the importance
of a an official company-hosted forum)?

Iā€™m not trying to be an ass-clown, but itā€™s kinda weird thinking about plunking down $300
for an animation package that wonā€™t actually allow me to export out the motions I create for
the models Iā€™m building for use in my gameā€¦

Thanks again for any feedback. :slight_smile:

#8

There is an SDK and your welcome to write your own exporter. Thats how the .x exporter was written.

Lightwave allows you to do UVs and textures in its modeler. Import that textured model into Messiah. Rig it. . . animate it. . . and THEN start to tackle how to get that MOTION (not model with UVs etc.) out of Messiah and back into lightwave. Your choices are .mot, .bvh, the plugin etc. Lots of ways you could try it. Then when its in LW you export it out to whatever game engine you want with all your LIGHTWAVE textures and LIGHTWAVE bone weights etc.

Thats how Motion Builder does it.

#9

Like I said, Iā€™m not trying to be an ass-clown, but how is:

ā€œThere is an SDK and your welcome to write your own exporter.ā€ a viable solution for
the average artist who would be purchasing the software for character ANIMATION
work, not programming practice/education?

I donā€™t have a problem importing in a pre-UV-d .obj file into Messiah and working with
it from there. My confusion was to whether or not this alone would solve the ā€œexports
without texturesā€ problem. From these two posts:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=356793
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=228985

it would seem like ā€œDo your textures in your modeler/host application.ā€ is not going to
be enough to solve the problem.

Since Lightwave is not an option (another 580+ clams, plus the time to learn how to
use it) for me, Iā€™m left wondering whether pmg is considering/addressing what seems to
be a fairly straightforward need in exporting out motion data created by messiah in a
common format. If direct-x is the vehicle to do this, and pmg has already committed
to that, then perhaps they are fixing the texture export problem? Without any idea of
just what they are doing besides bug-fixing the latest version (no roadmap, minimal
direct communication on these boards), I am left wondering whether I should
continue hoping to use messiah for what seems to be itā€™s enormous benefit (by using
messiahā€™s animation toolset), or try to look elsewhere for my character animation needs.

I was hoping some users might be able to say ā€œyeah, I use it for my game engine, and
I just use blah as my converterā€, or something like that.

Still hoping. :slight_smile:

#10

No, I also hope PMG will write a FBX exporter, that would benefit us all!:thumbsup:
But if you are frustrated today donā€™t expect that PMG will make you happy tomorrow, because PMG has a big list! And that list was big even before the FBX format got famus, so I guess we all have to waitā€¦

Afterall PMG havenā€™t promised a FBX exporter and when I think more of itā€¦ isnā€™t it Autodesks task to write such an exporter!?? Go and get a little angry at them for not supporting Messiah, it may be a good idea?
You might learn to program c and write your own exporter :buttrock:before PMG have the time to take care of it, seriously! It could take yearsā€¦

/ Svante

#11

No, I also hope PMG will write a FBX exporter, that would benefit us all!:thumbsup:
But if you are frustrated today donā€™t expect that PMG will make you happy tomorrow, because PMG has a big list! And that list was big even before the FBX format got famus, so I guess we all have to waitā€¦

Afterall PMG havenā€™t promised a FBX exporter and when I think more of itā€¦ isnā€™t it Autodesks task to write such an exporter!?? Go and get a little angry at them for not supporting Messiah, it may be a good idea?
You might learn to program c and write your own exporter :buttrock:before PMG have the time to take care of it, seriously! It could take yearsā€¦

Personally I think a COLLADA exporter would be better as its becoming more of a universal standard.

#12

Perhaps itā€™s time for small studios and individual artists to do it like the big boysā€¦ do your own in-house proprietary software development as the project requires.

Another plus is that you diversify and if CG jobs are sparse, you can always fall back on your software engineering portfolio.

Yet another plus is that if you develop something others also want, you can sell plugins.

If your conversion plugins are good enough, perhaps you could go down in history as the one who brought messiah to the masses way back in 2006.

#13

Iā€™m not even sure the SDK gives you enough access to actually create an export to Collada or FBX formats.

#14

I do, but I use the final animated model in a 3d engine application, Quest3d. Right now my workflow is model in Hexagon and Sketchup texture in Bodypaint and animate in CD4 export as a directX with textures and animated bones, check and tweak in Deep Exploration and import into Quest 3d. I would love to be able to use Messiah in my workflow.

David

#15

Look guys. . . I HIGHLY doubt you will be able to just whip something up that will fully support Collada or FBX. I also doubt that pmG will focus on supporting either format in the near or even far future. They just donā€™t mesh with how Messiah does things. Messiah doesnā€™t paint its weights. etc. The .x exporter is there to show you that it CAN BE DONE but is not the focus of pmG.

You have to look at this in a more abstract level. If you REALLY want to use Messiah with your game engine then you have to get that motion out of messiah and into your host app. NOT THE MESH. NOT THE TEXTURING. Just the motion.

Again. . . JUST LIKE MOTION BUILDER DOES!!!

I have personally been in major productions where the TD has figured out how to do just that. The motion went from Messiah -> 3DSMax at the bone level.

I donā€™t get why you expect Messiah to do it all for you.

People donā€™t expect Alias/Autodesk to write exporters for them. They are handed Mel and are given a pat on the back.

#16

Iā€™ve contacted a programmer about creating a Collada exporter/importer for Messiah. Iā€™ll let you know what response I get. I canā€™t make any promises, but its worth a try. Would people be willing to contribute donations to the individual for his time?

#17

People donā€™t expect Alias/Autodesk to write exporters for them. They are handed Mel and are given a pat on the back.

hehe. great quote.

#18

Great and true.

#19

Actually it is there to show that it can be done HALFWAYā€¦ :wink:
Like opening a door and then having it close as you step through.

No worries though I am happy with my present workflow, I just thought it would be nice to use my Messiah since it is such a great program. :frowning:

David

#20

Hi David,

you can do the following steps:

  1. Export your model (with textures and UVs) from C4D to .X format
  2. Animate in messiah and export in .X format
  3. Use a text editor to put both .X files together in the way that I proposed in those earlier threads about using LW and messiah.
  4. Give yourself a pat on the back.:slight_smile:

As far as I can see, combining those two .X files gives you all the data that you need.

I donā€™t say itā€™s very elegant, but it should work.