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

#21

Unfortunately, I’m not in a major production. I’m not a TD. I’m not a programmer.

I’m just a single artist/developer looking to use messiah as my character animation package.
I want to export out the animation it creates to use on models I’ve made in Silo to
ultimately use in a reasonably priced independent game engine (Beyond Virtual). I’m
having difficulty understanding why this is such an unusual expectation.

Is the majority of pmg’s user-base major production houses with dedicated TD’s/programmers
ready to dive in and code that which messiah lacks? I really have no idea. My main goal
was just to see what the options (if there were any) are in using messiah as my
animation package. :shrug:

From the responses, it would seem that messiah will not fill the basic need of exporting
it’s data to a common format. :sad:

#22

Put it this way.

Does Word export Word Perfect documents?

#23

Um yeah it can i save as word perfect. hehe but yeah yeah its always a pain when working with file fromats.

#24

Well, Wegg, no, actually, I’ve only found it only saves as:

.doc
.xml
.mht .mhtml
.htm .html
.dot
.rtf
.txt
.doc (RTF)
.wps

and here’s a quote from Corel’s blurb on what wordperfect opens:

“Standard Edition you can open over 150 different file formats!
This includes Microsoft file formats as well as many others, including PDF.”

So what?

I fail to see your logic in the comparison. Is there a competing product
here that messiah is trying to keep their motion data from being imported into?
Isn’t the point of an animation software to be able to use the animation data
on the models you animate, or should that not include getting that data out
of the animation software itself?

I can see that since this problem doesn’t directly impact you and your needs,
you can basically dismiss it with “code your own” advice, which is quite
frankly just empty air in it’s scope of feasibility.

I’m not going to waste any more of either of our respective time continuing on
with this, as you are not in a position to make any policy decisions for
pmg and I see no gain in attempting to change your perspective.

#25

I’m just trying to help you understand how things work with these different software packages. They try and accomidate as much as they can to make the product useful to as many people as they can and then hope that other developers help pick up the slack while they try and focus on making their product better.

Honestly if your looking for game engine support. . . I’d go buy a copy of MilkShape3D and use Marek’s really cool FXS -> BVH converter thingie.

There. Whole new pipeline for ya. Go go town.

#26

If you want to get the text information out ouf Word, you can save it as a .txt file or as .rtf and every word prosessing app. out there is able to read these formats.

We don’t ask for a super fancy file format. We ask for one of the standard exchange formats. Is this really to much? Would you by a modelling programm witch only supports its own format and not even the .obj format?

Other companies have the philosophy “to play well with others”.

It’s simply sad.

#27

Dude. . . I just posted the link to a converter.

BVH is like. . . the defacto motion format between all apps. Has been for a zillion years.

FXS is Messiah’s native format.

FXS to BVH. Done. Thats your “copy text from Word to Word Perfect” solution right there.

#28

Collada is awesome though, the day when you can just open up a messiah scene in any 3d app and vice versa would totally rock beyond all comprehension. Just open up a scene file, edit it and save it.

just look at this thread.

notice the programs already supporting it. I would love to see messiah on that list.

https://collada.org/public_forum/viewtopic.php?t=228&sid=914741596d6872aaa5ed0d3ecbe0bbc4

#29

Ok so here at work I use SolidWorks. and at home i have Modo Lighwave3d 3d max. ( been sitting on the idea of Messiah or XSi). Since i rather not install my stuff on work PC (Modo i have it installed ) . well lats month we needed to do Demo flight using X-plane ( flight sim program) well guess what nothing i have imports Solidworks files stuck . well Like Wegg said find a solution to your problem, I used Blender since it imports iges files and outputs X-plane -obj files , which the makers of x-plane give you to us with Blender. Probelm solved. Love your struff Wegg:thumbsup:

#30

@Wegg
The intention of my post was not to start a fight with you. I just think messiah would benefit from a collada exporter. I really do.

You posted the link to the converter as I was writing my post. As a (wannabe) good forum user, I have searched the forum for a game engine solution months ago. I have a copy of Milkshape (of course) and I already tried the converter (of course). The problem is, Marek’s converter and the Milkshape BVH importer are more or less incompatible. It simply don’t work, not even with the example scene that comes with the FXS->BVH converter. Maybe this is caused by the Milkshape importer? I don’t know. The point is it’s not that simple as you have posted.

What I don’t understand is why the collada request is a red rag to you? It will not hurt anyone but help many.

#31

Collada support would be great. So would FBX or even native <insert your game engine format here>. Go for it! BUT PLEASE DO NOT bring it down to the “Why can’t pmG see how important this is, they would sell so many more copies. . . How hard could it possibly be. . . I know because blah blah blah” level. If you want/need it bad enough you will figure out a way to make it happen without trying to blame your frustrations on anyone else. If you want my/others/pmG’s support. . . you should do it in a way that doesn’t constantly spin it back to pmG not somehow having the same vision for their product as you do.

Other things you can try.

Blender’s BVH importer.

Fragmosoft.

Maya importer.

qavimator

Amabilis

I could probably go on but. . . I’m sure your just as good at Google as I am.

#32

Oops, I sense some bad vibrations. I think it’s caused by my bad english, but you completely misunderstood my posts.

I never said so and more importand I don’t think so. I just say collada would be great. So do you.

I could probably go on but. . . I’m sure your just as good at Google as I am.

:thumbsup:

The bad thing is, that all this solutions exclude messiah. This is a great pitty, because I love to use messiah. That’s all.

Oh, and thanks for your effort.

#33

If, after exhausting as many avenues as you care to explore given your available resources, messiah still does not play nice (directly or indirectly), then use whatever else will play nice at this time.

It is a reality that budget may prevent someone from acquiring key tools and this may even frustrate the entire job entirely. I can easily understand this frustration aimed at messiah. Why get an entirely new tool just for conversion if messiah could just do it plain and simple. Jumping through hoops is not fun.

I wouldn’t knock messiah if it couldn’t do the conversion at this time. You can only wish, as we all do…

I would like to know what pmG’s stance on this is. Do they want messiah to play nice or is their plan that it remains an obscure tool? Any software developer who wants market share will want to play nice. However, pmG may have a different timing strategy. If your app suddenly plays nice and suddenly 10,000 users get excited instead of just the few around here, and 10,000 users buy it just to discover the app itself is not mature mainstream stuff, then pmG is in a whole lot of trouble with many many non-guru-type users on their case instead of just a handful as they have now. Perhaps pmG is not as strategic as this and they simply have not gotten around to it. Whatever.

Use the tool that does the job now. Can’t get the tool… drop the job.

#34

Actually I think they have something around at least several 1000 users, which I would not necessarily call a handful. I wonder sometimes why they don’t show themselves. :sad:

#35

Several thousand - That’s more than I expected - That’s good to hear. Hopefully it will grow.

#36

Well, I sometime ago picked up a quite large number of users from one of the insiders. Not sure about the exact number though and it probably is not a too good idea to give a too explicit number. If pmG wants to give an official statement they will give it.

#37

Knowing that human nature is to easily complain, why are there so few people here doing the complaining? If there were so many users, where are their voices? Or are they shy, just lurking? Don’t think so, else the reader counts in this forum would have been sky high. Or did they give up so totally they just didn’t bother voicing their concerns at all? Or are they all on the beta testing program tied down with pmG NDAs? Or are they in a parallel universe?

#38

I get a very creepy feeling … I think it’s us living in that parallel universe. Due to some strangeness in the time-space continuum we are stuck in a virtual world with messiah:studio 2.4d. But in the real word there a many tens of thousands happy messiah users, animating and rendering their blockbuster movies with a bugfree version of messiah and exporting their game data easily to any existing game engine … :eek:

#39

All of the tools I listed mention their ability to import the .BVH motion format. Marek’s tool converts Messiah’s .FXS to .BVH so in theory Messiah could be used in all of them.

#40

Originally Posted by Smedro
The bad thing is, that all this solutions exclude messiah. This is a great pitty, because I love to use messiah. That’s all.

Less whine more action. :-d I’ve received an email from my source and he is looking into it and I am sending out more emails to various contacts to see if there is interest. I requested a quote for their time and services. We’ll see where it goes from there. I figure if I can’t do it, then ask people who can for me.