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

#41

Update on Collada format for Messiah.

Quote from email:

"I downloaded the demo and I saw that plugins must be written in C++. Is this
correct?

We should keep in touch, because when I’m ready with the plug-in for
Blender, we should talk about the possibilities for Messiah."

I’ve emailed him back and he seems very interested. I’ll keep everyone updated. Great news, since Collada is becoming a true 3D standard file format.

Programs that support Collada: Google Earth, Maya, Sketch up, XSI, Blender, Max, Lightwave, Daz Studio, Feeling Viewer, FX Composer, Houdini, a FBX to Collada converter is available as well. I’m not sure if there is a Collada to FBX converter or if Cinema 4D supports the format, does anyone know?

Core features of Collada: mesh geometry, skinning, morphing, animation and data validation as well as COLLADA FX for defining visual effects and COLLADA Physics for physics effects including rigid body dynamics, rag dolls, constraints and collision volumes.

Whats funny about my whole initiative is that I don’t even own Messiah. hehe. But I’d love for it to be more flexible and I like chatting with the group on IRC. Maybe someday I’ll buy a copy, but for now I’ll help out where I can.

#42

I really can express how much the (already big) respect has grow with this action. You are a great part of this community (kind of, well, I guess you are a part of this community but without one of these sexy red glowing badges every licensed use receives from pmG :smiley: )

#43

I really can express how much the (already big) respect has grow with this action. You are a great part of this community (kind of, well, I guess you are a part of this community but without one of these sexy red glowing badges every licensed use receives from pmG :smiley: )

Thanks. I should just get Messiah and use it. I bought XSI and its a powerful application. But rigging in XSI is MUCH more complex in comparision to Messiah. I also would have to agree with Rush on the node system being better designed in Messiah as well. Anyway, I have the Messiah demo installed and work through things from time to time.

#44

Hello Nichod, these are awesome news. Thank you so much!

#45

bvh is NOT fun to work with, especially if you don’t have any rigging experience. Even then, it’s a big enough pain in the ass that I just opted to go with Motion Builder in the end for game work because it really was a 1 button solution. If it was any good, I would think there’d be many more people posting in here about their success stories with it.

The FBX plugins were provided by kaydara and distributed for free for use in all the major animation packages. If pmG wants messiah to be useful for game work or just play nicer with other apps they should be providing this solution, just like kaydara did. That single feature got motion builder into more pipelines and freelance artists hands than any of the tools inside the program itself. Fbx also supports mesh data, which makes it perfect for when you have to send a whole character from say… XSI, over to Maya. Huge incompatibilities between those two, but with Motion Builder I had a character converted to a valid fbx transfer in minutes with all skinning intact.

Collada is the perfect opportunity for pmG to play catch up without having to do all the work creating separate plugins like fbx required for each application. Write one exporter/importer and be done with it. FBX would be nice, but I’d prefer to work with a more open format that isn’t owned and maintained by a major 3d application company.

#46

so i think that everyone here agrees of importance of collada for the future of messiah.

what does pmg think of this? are pmg guys alive? HELLLOOOOO!!!

#47

so i think that everyone here agrees of importance of collada for the future of messiah.

what does pmg think of this? are pmg guys alive? HELLLOOOOO!!!

Stooch. I have someone who is looking into it right now. I have actually been communicating back and forth with him all day. He is check the various abilities of Messiah and the feasibility of it right now.

I firmly believe that complaining repeatedly does nothing. You can’t expect a company to just do something because you ask. Wish that was the case on many things. My ATI issue for instance :thumbsup: .

#48

if you cant expect the company who makes your software to do what you ask, then why would you buy their softwarE?

I know for a fact that pmg listens to their users, i just dont know what they are doing now, or if they are even alive…

#49

if you cant expect the company who makes your software to do what you ask, then why would you buy their softwarE?

I know for a fact that pmg listens to their users, i just dont know what they are doing now, or if they are even alive…
Considering I got a PM from Taron today stating his encouragement on pursuing Collada support, then I’d say they are listening. And if you know for a fact that they listen to their users, then don’t worry. Also, consider that a fix for Messiah was released on August 16 to support LW9. Relax.:beer:

#50

right. now all that you have left to do is actually buy messiah :slight_smile:

#51

It comes down to using the right tool for the job. Messiah has a very slow development cycle… in fact if it were any slower is would be going backwards. If you want something to use for game development, great character animation and ability to import/exportx various formats, including collada and fbx I would recommend looking into XSI. Foundation is $500 and does all this and has a great modeler included. I would also argue that XSI is much more flexible than messiah.

#52

if you want to learn a program that will actually get you a job and has industry standard animation, go with maya… xsi isnt taken seriously by many companies yet. I honestly dont know if it ever will be after the whole reinvention thing.

right now xsi has some of the most badass workflow and organization on the market, but if you look around, VERY few studios use it. kinda scary when you consider that messiah might be in the same boat and xsi seems to have their act together (if you are willing to ignore the horrible lapse of updates during softimage times).

#53

With places like Valve, ILM, Mainframe, Studio Ghibli, Blur etc using it I think it’s safe to say it’s taken seriously by pretty much everyone, it’s just not as widely adopted as Maya. Nearly everyone I talk to about messiah has no idea what it is and are very skeptical about it’s abilities. Even when I demonstrate it’s power, at best it becomes a mere curiosity to them, not something that could be used in the pipeline. There seems to be much more respect for XSI.

That said, I agree that there’s more animation opportunites for Maya animators than any other software. I still see a fair amount of XSI job posts though, more than Lightwave or messiah.

#54

absolutely. xsi has more interest then either lw or messiah, of course. too bad the total places that use maya / max outnumber xsi 10 : 1

im curious how modo will fit into in all of this. it seems to compete with them all.

#55

I think Modo is going to compete head on with all the big apps AND at the same time look to less traditional markets - for example trying to get more print based artists to start doing some stuff in 3D. They mentioned interfaces for specific industries a while back - as far as I can remember. What’s been delivered so far is very good. They do need to add way way more features and obviously animation before it will be clear how they will do…

#56

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