How do you use messiah for rendering?

#33

I second that. I’d like to see a poll that compares usage of animation vs renderer. If the poll is cleverly thought out, then it could be really interesting. Any suggestions to the entries? Lets debate that a little before someone bangs up a poll. When we’re agreed, then we can start a poll and let the voting begin!..Unless you all think that’s a daft idea!!! :slight_smile:

I’ll give it a go…
Why did you buy Messiah?

  1. Purely for animating commercially and that is unlikely to change
  2. Purely for rendering commercially and that is unlikely to change
  3. Purely for animating commercially and I might look into the renderer
  4. Purely for rendering commercially and I might look into the animation
  5. For both animation and rendering commercially
    …and then the same again but for hobbyists instead of commercially.
#34

Hi Crossbones

Assuming you’re not under an NDA, please go ahead and post some of your renders. Thanks.

Alex

#35

I believe that is a frowny. :frowning:

#36

because you forgot to mention his badass renders :slight_smile: and they are badass, so ill vouch for them.

its ok wegg you arent forgotten lol :slight_smile:

#37

ha ha. . . no it wasn’t that.

Its just the fact that it hasn’t been embraced. That Cornell box was really cool but it seems like. . . with a few exceptions. . . everyone is scared to death of hitting F9 in Messiah. Yes I understand that you would like to see the animation tools improved but. . . <sigh> I don’t know what I’m saying.

Just. . .

:sad:

#38

your poll suggestion looks good to me dmack. you know my answer before we even start though.

and honestly, lets sit back and really look at what it is that can improve in messiah animation side. you know, its really not that bad.

-i can see armatures being 3d (check, from taron hints).
-improve the rotation coordinates to reduce gimal locks.
-give the expression editor search and replace function (relatively easy??)
-make more preset rigs for the setup box? (we can start a contest for making preset rigs and maybe include them with messiah releases? make the rigs in such a way taht you can drag around handles in setup mode to scale and reposition the rig elements while keeping it intact - WITH ARMATURES ALREADY ASSIGNED AND POSITIONED)
-better sbd?
-better connection to LW (more like point oven) i think in general, baking should be included and working nicely in messiah, its just too important for connecting to other apps!
-little changes to the way you interact with the widget, maybe make it optional to behave like LW for example…

not a big list if you ask me. that for me would already make messiah alot better for animation…

#39

lets do some more tests then! lets pick something interesting. or make something interesing.

#40

I’m busy trying to pay my bills.

#41

…while looking at CGTalk :wink:

#42

thats my commic relief. :slight_smile:

#43

Yes, I should have said, Wegg’s cactus render is very nice too. How did you do the spines?

Also, back on the renderer, I would love to see Fprime-like capability. It seems that something similar will be in Modo 201. After using Fprime, hitting F9 to test render seems tedious.

Alex

#44

I agree. I’m fairly certain that was what the render “lock” was supposed to do.

Whats really fun is the fact that you can actually change things about your model WHILE its rendering. So I know it can be done. . .

Try it. . .

Plop a sphere in your scene and while its rendering change its color. It will change in the render.

The foundation is there. . . they just have to make it work I guess.

#45

The foundation is there. . . they just have to make it work I guess.

Amen to that :wink:

#46

Thats my story.

The few times I’ve tried rendering demo scenes in Messiah I would generally get a crash or a lockup. Occassionally I would be rewarded with an incredibly slow render.

I put it down to my “feeble” machine (1.6Ghz P4, 1Gig of RAM) and Messiah’s renderer being a work in progress.

#47

My sentiments EXACTLY!
Nothing like building a rocket ship that no one can fly because there isn’t a sufficient user manual except in the minds of a few scientists…

#48

You know the funny thing is that messiah led in the video tutorial/manual WITH
your software package in 1999.
Before then, Maya, LW, Max and others all had static manuals and third party training DVDs.

Fred Tepper blew the doors off dull manuals with injokes, animated gifs and mini videos.
messiah wasn’t hard to lean and the learning curve was eased. Most everyone who learned messiah:animate was on the same page of proficency with the software.

But of late, the render has individual levels of learning. There is no set standard of learning when it comes to the render. A lot of happy accidents to a few godlings (Wegg, Thomas, Taron, Tony, etc)

It was said that Taron would have new tutorials on the render a few weeks after Siggraph.
its March 2006… not one training video.

#49

I have to say, Jules4001…
It’s because of your tutorials, along with Joe Cosman’s and Weggs that some of us can hang on this rocket ship at all.

Thanks!!! :thumbsup:

#50

I think that if you look back at the development of messiah it lead in the documentation war and revolutionized the industry. Fred I am afraid is obviously very busy, after all look at how he’s been using messiah in his own projects. I hope if its not him that does the next round of documentation then someone else does with the same effort and energy fred has.

My only wish with the time and effort that Messiah puts into its development is that they could quickly create a camtasia video as to how it works. Even if it means Taron opening up the Neckling project and walking people through it, I think it would go miles to not only sell the software but allow new users to quickly use it. Look at Luxology, they don’t even have to write down features, they show them in a video!!

In Taron’s defense, he’s one artist, and it would go miles that once you finish a project do a little walkthrough camtasia video and show us how you got there. The Zbrush Community does this and look how much it helps them.

Who’s with me!!

#51

Thanks for the compliment…

The funny thing is that at all the shows: Siggraph and Zbrush events.
Everyone is hanging on this TARON;s every word and clicks. You should see the audience.
Yet it seem that kind of fame is lost at PMG, they close this guy in a closet to make new RENDER stuff that only he can make and use.

Face it, he is known more for Zbrush than messiah and HE WORKS FOR PMG!

I know I have said time and time gain, that he needs to stop whatever he doing …
take 2 days and bang out a few video tutorials in the vein of Fred Teppers (Gary or mine).

The eyeball and Anisotrophic nodes are his babies and really only he knows how to get them
working 90% of the time, everyone else its a science experiment.

#52

godlings? Gimme a break :rolleyes:

Come on guys, don’t fool yourself too much: After you can use the tool, it has still to be worthwhile, no?
Most people who did great work with the renderer gave it up after finding more and more serious flaws, stopping their stride. If this wouldn’t have been the case, they would have created a much greater suction toward messiah and we would see tons of renders from starters to pros.
But the people who are able to use one renderer are as able to use another in most cases, so why bother with messiah which lacks so many features a renderer needs today, has so many flaws and which shows such slow development?

I only feel sorry for the developers who are trapped with a software with great potential and a team too small to really get it airborne. So far it has been a classical deadlock situation. :shrug:

Cheers :bowdown: