Latest news from pmG!

#21

Thanks for the the update Taron

R

#22

Taron your a f***ing teaser now you won´t be the only one that doesn´t sleep :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

#23

Taron:
If you guys need “torture” to be reminded of the outside world - don’t blame it on the messenger… :wink:

I will continue to stop by this forum every now and then, looking for AoN:studio related questions (even if only loosely connected) and trying to help there.
But I will not participate in hyping messiah or not telling users about some of the realities…

As far as the thread where all this started (why is it moved without a trace anyway?) is concerned: I still think that a clear “No” (with optional workarounds if available) helps more in real world scenarios than endless defensive discussions about how much someone else thinks that a specific feature is needed or not. That is just a waste of time.

I am NOT a Betatester so I don’t know more than any other user.

Finally, I fear I have seen too many such blurbs to be impressed. I would need very pragmatic things to be able to use messiah for my current work: Subdivs with support for Ngons and Edgeweighting, Render Passes and better memory handling for high poly scenes. Being able to write importers would be a plus. The list is much longer but that would be a start.
That isn’t in messiah but it is in XSI 5.
Simple as that.

I didn’t leave messiah by free will but was forced by works demand.
I actually prefer working in messiah over XSI in some areas like the shadertree.

So in conclusion I continue to hope that all this “redefining what CG is all about” has some real world use too. :wink:

…And pmG is as free to keep their users informed and happy on their own as any other software company… Torture is only applied otherwise :stuck_out_tongue: :thumbsup:

Carpe Diem

#24

You are not a reminder of the outside world, don’t flatter yourself. I’ve looked at the material thread because it was yet another good point we should follow up on. And so we do!
It’s getting taken care of right now. :wip:

A lot of us still know about the times, when a lot fewer things were finished within messiah and when the demand was rightfully higher than our ability to catch up right away. Everytime I think about all the good things you’ve done, Thomas, and all the idiotic things you’ve said and are still saying, I’m faced with this amazingly difficult task to comprehend your exact motivation!? Quite obviously it is not about selling your product, judging by your stunningly energetic approach to chase away future messiah artists. A bunch of our existing artists know and appreciate your contributions, as we all know, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if a good percentage of them would have not become users, if they read your absurd anti-propaganda before. I’m not asking your for any furher response, really. I’m disappointed in what I hear you say, because I really figured of all the people you should be able to really appreciate the development we’re displaying these days.

But ultimatively and fortunately the only thing that really matters to us is that we do the right thing and we do it with just the same pleasure, focus and success. And if amongst the great feedback here a trollish line puts a nasty taste into it, it won’t change the great value we draw from great requests and good constructive reminders! :lightbulb

As for the torture aspect, Thomas, I really was kidding, even if the idea sounded appealing to you. :eek:

Taron

#25

OH, damn, and about that thread thing, we actually had no part in that. I just want to make this clear, because that would scare the hell out of me, too! :argh:

Taron

#26

Ahm…damn, actually again. Because it all seems a little out of context…ah great.

Well, let me regard the good things of your last post again, Thomas…tisk…

Yeah, I’ve just talked about the N-gon situation, which is a really beasty one, because it goes extraordinarily deep into the code. It’s something we are going to take care of, but we’ve currently put all our focus on the front end and immediate interaction issues. We’re overhauling the edit-sphere, addressing awkwardness in some accessability situations, when the edit-sphere is above other vital handles, we are taking care of the editing procedures, including the material handling (replace, copy&past and the old copy is now actually dublicate), we are optimizing the internal handling of everything (haha, sounds rather huge and it actually is, but it’s also a perfect help for all sorts of improvements in every area of the program!) and as our own little bonbons we take care of shading improvements and have already taken care of almost “all” of them, actually…which is almost a bummer…I gotta figure out what I want to do next for that section, but I already have a few curious ideas…

Do you remember strangely labeled buttons and other ambiguous places in there? Well, we’ve been going through them and repaired, relabeled and refunctioned (is that a word?) a few of them already! So anytime anyone finds anything that truely appears funky or doesn’t do anything, don’t hesitate to mention it! We’re looking for them, too!

You know, Thomas, I actually know very much that you mean well. Make it a bit more appreciatable, that’s all. You’ve got a unique humor, I’d like to think. Only very few people can actually realize that. I feel privileged there, really! :hmm:

So, yeah, there are still a bunch of older things open and they are still in the back of our head. Let us progress with the things that are in the works and our list to enrich it sufficiently as well. We’re making things in a way that fixe existing and immediate issues as well as add new levels of productivity as well (and fun…just had’a’say it)!

So, well, I guess…thanx for making an effort, actually. I appreciate it.

Taron

#27

Hi,

I am very curiouse about the new stuff comming up!

Ï hope there will be something like a FPrime render Preview…
Since this is available in LW, I won’t miss it anymore because
it speeds up production dramatically.

With a feature like that, Messiah would be the “realtime application”
in every aspect!

And please, add the mainstream features like “volumetric lights, volumetrics, glow,
lens flare etc…” to be able animate and render most work in messiah!

what about instancing geometry?

Greets Tom

#28

Hey Tom,

yup, all these things are bouncing around in our heads right now, too. After I have started looking into compositing tools, I’ve realized that we’ve got a rather underused image filter section. This section would be predestined for a whole bunch of nice little spoilers from blooming (glow) to lensflares and other neat, useful and completely nonsense fun type of effects…haha! I’m kinda excited to get into there soon, too! :thumbsup:

For the realtime additions we do have a bunch of plans, as I might have mentioned already. And after having dealt with the particles and their shading a few very interesting revelations came to us in terms of instancing, but on both of these topics I want to put a big “We Shall See” in terms of when these things will slide in, but I would actually want to promiss that we’ll eventually take care of that, too! With almost everything else I had mentioned earlier it is a lot easier, because we already have all of that running (I think). That’s the way I really like it, because you can simply rely on it. But yeah…step by step! :wip:

Taron

#29

PmG seems to concentrate on the Render part. Don´t forget the animation features, since it´s still the most used section of Messiah and still my favorite.
Are there any plans:
- docking off the tabs, so that I´m not forced to switch the main tabs? Going away from the hard coded interface ?
- an easier and more natural way to align the child coordinates without using tons of nulls or align objects
- native weight painting
- dynamic parent in place or ‘transform child compensation mode’
- Bone merge funtion. Counterpart to Bone Split option
- native IK chain building . There are some scripts that allow for that functionality, but building a chain while drawing the bones (XSI) wouldn´t hurt :wink:
- Support for real 3D Armatures items

  • extended armatures function. Access to everything.
  • new Armature items: Sliders, numerical inputs etc.
    • fixing the strange display behaviour of Armatures items. Example: Zooming in, clicking a button inverts it, but clicking again doesn´t reset it to its former state (only graphically)
#30

Wow, that’s a very nice list! It mirrors nearly exactly the kind of things I had listed myself:
bone merge, real 3d armatures, weight painting(so,so), setup alignment methods as well as animated! Yup, sounds all great! I have a few more to top it, too, actually!
Hmmm…ok, it’s not forgotten!
I think the worst one is going to be the 3d armature thing, because of a number of reasons, involving a new access to the whole section. This then should also open up the possibilities to what they can access themselves. I think there shouldn’t be many restrictions as to what they can address…funny. I think the moment they turn 3d I will most likely make really use of them again…it’s been one of the things that kept me a bit more from playing with them.

Anyway, THANX A LOT! Very good stuff! It’s all received and received very well! :thumbsup:

Taron

#31

Ah - someone remembers the image filter area! Wow :thumbsup:

Some years ago I thought that this area could easily become the counterpart of Digital Fusion, using basically the current shaderflow:

  • One (or multiple) Input-Node(s) where all internally rendered channels are accessible as output connections (Alpha, Depth, UVs, Normals, Shadow(!), Highlight, Specular, Reflection, Transparency, Background, GI, ObjectID, SurfaceID, MaterialID and so on)

  • Input-Nodes to import files from disk for pure compositing purposes (including formats like RPF and Layered PSD). This could basically use the current Image Sequence code.

  • A library of nodes for compositing and effects, extendable over time. Almost all current texture nodes should work with that system too, depending on what they do.

  • One or multiple Output nodes that are either connected to the output panels passes or have all necessary things like image format, path to save to etc. included. Having it connected to the output area would have to allow for creating as many passes as one wants and make them appear on the respective output node (dynamic nodes - something currently unavailable…).

Messiah still has the best nodes I’ve seen so far. The above would allow to use the potential more fully.

As for me being idiotic: Well, I can live with that. Since I regard Humankind as an early beta, bugs may occur…
Or to cite my favourite author, Douglas Adams: “In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

Au revoir

#32

Big :thumbsup: !
That one goes for more than just the great revelation that we’re a beta at best! :scream:

Yeah, the compositing idea is a well grown one for sure! Secretly we’ve been tossing around the image sequence management already…tracks and so forth, but I must be drunk to even mention anything like that. However, it’s a solid thought to have and it would be one heck of a blast doing comps with the nodes for sure! Particularely after my newest little AfterFX excursion into the world of 2d plugins! Yeah…it’ll all go right back into messiah and it’ll take great advantage of all the channels, which “HEY” we’ve got finally also as output buffers! :smiley:
Even more than you’ve listed I think! And I thought about two different principles on how to deal with coverage (antialiasing solution for use of depth buffers in compositing!). Now that I can easily write AfterFX plugins, we can simply come up with our own principle and I’d have the compositing end under control, which would run under several packages, which all run AfterFX plugins.

BUT, what’s far more interesting is, that all the buffers are long available for image filters, I believe…except for the new ones of course, which are just now available…and if not, we’ll make’em available. I just need to get into image filters soon. It’s quite something! I’m so damn curious. :drool:

Thanx, Thomas, I’m pretty happy to find you like this again! :buttrock:
…hmmm…gotta make a list of friendly profanities I can prepare for emergency situations! :love:

Rock on! As do we…oh…material editing is done! Works beautifully! Replace currently brings up a file requester to load a replacement material, undo works (whereby it’s just one step for these actions and sort of toogles undo/redo so to say for now!), copy and paste work fine and dublicate…well…you knew dublicate already (as former “copy” ). :wip:
Next time you guys see Fori, say “thanx”! :slight_smile:

Alrighty…time to sleep a little…

Taron

#33

If it is needed to be drunk to reveal some parts of the roadmap or share mere ideas and thoughts with the users, I vote for some heavy, continuous intravenous booze supply! :thumbsup:

If it is made clear what is an idea or discussion about possible future things and what is a real feature announcement, not much harm can be done. If someone misunderstands something, it can be explained.
The problem in the past were advertised and sold features that didn’t work or exist, or weren’t delivered in reasonable time, not some future plans or speculations. Since we all know what I am talking about, I don’t reiterate that here in more detail. :wink:

I personally found the messiah community one of the most understanding and reasonable tribes I’ve ever met, so I don’t get what that secrecy is all about.
I accept it partly for groundbreaking new inventions (although the publicity and suspense some teasing can create would help more IMO than keeping it all under the hood), but if messiah has compositing included or not doesn’t mean anything to the competition. If some buttons look different or some bugs are solved means even less to them.
But it means a lot to actual users.

Referring to the announcement of a public beta regarding Develop (on the pmG homepage September 15, 2005) - that sounds like the way to go for me.
Rhino does it that way: as soon as you buy version 3, you can participate in the beta for version 4. The betas expire after some time, so no old versions hang around too long.

Or have a look at the XSIblog. Developers like Luc-Éric Rousseau from Softimage give insight to the inner workings of the software: http://www.xsi-blog.com/?p=57 or http://www.xsi-blog.com/?p=77 (just two examples from many)
I would never have thought that such deep views into the (sometimes funny) development and inner workings of such a huge software would be possible. I as a user feel very cosy and warm since I understand more and more about how things tick under the surface, I see the humans behind the app and I become more competent and can solve problems better.

Even if the overall development of messiah is slowed down a bit by the time it takes to better inform people, it should be compensated by happier users and a better reception of the software as a whole. Which will help motivation in the end…

Well, in regard to information and openness, pmG has even become worse over the years IMO. Without some “Taronish-booze-outbreaks”, nobody would learn anything for months…

Sayonara

#34

TARON!
Its so awesome to see you really interacting with the users!! I only have a few things on my dandy list that i would like to see in messiah since using it wonderfully in production. I post things here so they are written down and PMG can refer to them if ever wanted to.

 1) A bin system similar to what digital fusion has. I you have Digital Fusion 5, they redefined the bin system where artists can share projects and leave notes for each other on the notes or in the scene itself to explain how that scene particularly works. 

 I envision something similar to a Zscript that might run take control of the program and show the user how certain things in a particular scene work. I.e Ron rigs a character for me or multiple animators. It would be great for him to create something like a Zscript that would show the cursor interacting with all the different controls of the rig.

2) A way for an artist to create a specialized pass. I.e If my character has a gapping cut on his face ozzing with blood and I want to take a pass of it alone (Radioisty, Translucency, Spec, refraction etc). The way we did it on our last project was by writing a script that went through and turned on and off certain materials, but it we couldn't get render layers of exactly everything we wanted.

3) i would love to see you make a tutorial in whatever time you have that would go on the messiah site and show how to make an animated displacement maps for your character Chuck or Anything you've done. This would drive people to looking at PMG as its very difficult to do it in Max, Maya and just about anything else. I've seen some people (not naming names) who claim that its easily done in other software, when what they are really doing is a painful morph target without displacement.

4) I would like to see Messiah create a forum on their website like ZbrushCentral and encourge people to post their work. Zbrush Central has done more for PixolLogic then anyone realizes.
#35

hi,

I will be a new user of messiah soon :wink: (thanks Taron). (I hope next week).
I am playing now with the demo.

I am convinced that Messiah is very promising. Yes ! Some tools are missing, some tools are not perfect and the render part need more (a lot, and more… :slight_smile: ) improvements.
note to Taron: I have done several tests with radiosity and non-organic shape ( I am waiting my package to be able to save scenes and send it to you : to show you what’s wrong …)

I still want to rbuy it because I am looking for the “animation” capcities first, but I keep an eye at the render engine (the render engine can’t fit for my professional work now).

What I like in messiah , is the idea “around” the code: I mean the coders are very tricky (they have genious ideas and are users too (not only coders) of their software… (it’s not always the case;)…) that’s why I am sure it will grow ( maybe slowly) , but with very promising features.

It’s not the end of the world (for me of course) to pay 300$ for M:W. I consider the render engine as a bonus ( similar to Zbrush ). For people looking for a “complete” render engine must pass their way : With more code and features, the render engine can be very powerfull ( maybe with particle, Uv, hair support, cloth, instances, etc… ).

I had to choose between Messiah and XSIfound. … I choosed Messiah (it’s a personnal choise) but I can understand that some users are very frustrated ( I feel the same with other packages :wink: waiting …waiting … and getting nothing …same bugs, no features … only appologies :wink: ). Then before to choose a package take the time to see what you can do with it, does it fit for your needs, etc… but don’t “imagine” what the soft can do , nothing is better than testing.

I was using the demo ( there are things I don’t like, some are perfect), but I am ok with that, I will use it “as is”. But I am sure that the messiah coders are 200% involved in their product and messiah has a great community (I spend a bit of time to read all (almost) the posts here). Then I am not scared, Messiah can stay in the competition. I just wish that the coders will work faster and hurry up to bring us new tools and features :slight_smile: Because it’s very exciting what you can do with it.

Just my 2cents for all new users… or futur users.

cheers.

I have a lot of feature requests !! be preparded to code ! :slight_smile: By buying the product, I want to show you my support, because your product is very orginal ! And believe in it

#36

The demo doesn’t reflect the current status, especially in regards to particles! I’m going to release a few demo clips and scenes very soon…maybe even tonight. It’s very powerful stuff, actually. Whether the old demo shows it already or not, it is complete render engine, even while some things are still missing, but they’re bascially only missing in order to make it the perfect render engine. It currently is a beautiful kick booty renderer, that truely supports particularely organic objects best, smooth subdivision geometry!
As far as I’m concerned there are only two major points missing and that’s hair (which won’t be missing for long now) and some more complex support of all types of geometry (n-gons and directable displacement. Currently it’s only along normals, which in general is just fine and most desirable, but certain mechanical/rigid type of models would benefit from directed displacement as well as some additional ways of animating them!).
A few baking features will also come in handy, of course, but other than that I’ve done 3 feature film effects with the render engine already, ranging from photoreal human extensions (“Reeker”) to photoreal aliens (“The Hunt”) and …can you believe it… photoreal visual effects of a full CG broken pool light (Oscar nominated, I think, “Syriana”). All of them where technically a flyby and pure fun, especially Reeker and the Aliens… For the latter one I had to deal with many different tasks from 2d/3d tracking translations over expressions to rendering out layers for masking (my optimization of rotoscoping, actually) and matching and animating the aliens into the real footage, which was really just a joy. I remember the days, when this kind of work was really hard…now it’s literally playful. So it’s virtually a mistake to assume that messiah’s renderer would not suffice for production. It’s a brilliant companion. Not to mention that I was able to pull all of these shows off at home on my two machines!
And, no, it’s not just “taron”-magic or so…it’s really the simplicity and quality you find in messiah’s renderer just as much as it is in the animation…well…the animation had a few more years already…but anyway!

My 2 cents! :shrug:

But thanx a lot, I really appreciate it and I’m happy you’re looking into it! I’m sure with the new release you’ll find a lot more reasons to enjoy even the rendering section, Opera!

Taron

#37

This is ABSOLUTLY correct!!
The biggest problem i have with pmG is the lack of info and developer/user participation. moments like this are great but they are rare atm.
when i compare the public relations of pmg to say those of Silo or modo its almost shamefull.
All that would be needed would be a weekly/bi weekly/monthly anouncment on the forums, it doesnt really matter how often as long as it more or less regular. these should if possible include some screenshots and maybe even some vids (closer to the release date)
if its new members you are looking to bring to messiah this IS what you need to do, and i dont mean that Taron has to do it, but someone from pmG has to do this, even if it means setting back production for half a day. the added benefits would FAR outweigh the set back.

by doing this not only would you keep existing users happy, you would get HEAPS of productive feedback and lots of cool ideas, it would be a bit like on the Silo forums, everyone would be a “beta tester” but not acctually have the beta software, instead they would all just be discussing the pro’s and con’s of the most recently announced feature (you would be surprised at how many changes and improvment have come about this way)
But probably most importantly you would have a happy user base. and when new users come into this forum and see a happy and active community they are MUCH more likely to adopt the software.

and i wouldn’t worry about backing your selves into a corner when you announce stuff, just talk about what you are thinking of adding (just explain how likely it is etc), what you have added, dont hype things that are unsure yet…just use common sense and in general just engage in conversation with the users. really…being secretive only hurts yourselves, it has no possible gain. (though i understand for some things it is necessary)

#38

lol beat me to it :wink:

wow THREE! you should add them to the messiah site at some stage (if possible) it’d be great to see what messiah was used for. (well i know reeker is there but the other two sound cool)

#39

Yeah, darned, the others I can’t show, yet…policy stuff…it’s not so easy to publish motion picture elements, particularely while they are still fresh. I’ll have to find out about Syriana, but I think The Hunt might be available sooner for some little blurps.

Yup, really, I apologize for our long periods of silents, but it’s simply because we are actually focusing on our work, as there’s still stuff that requires enough attention to rather avoid distraction for ourselves. Ahm…I mean, I mean that in the most positive of ways, really! But we usually find two or three major things we’ll focus on very hard and then along the way we fix the little things that brush those topics. When something pressing or inspiring pops up in the threads, we gather it as well and see how it squeezes in. But you must imagine, after having a rather shaky past in regards to promisses, we’ve decided to make sure we’ve got our act together when it comes to revealing new features! It won’t be anymore about wild assumptions about what we feel we can do, but much rather about what we know we have going already! At the very least when it comes to promisses! It’s absolutely vital that we can deliver what we announce. Sounds obvious, but man…if I look at about 2 years back… :blush: … and I wasn’t even directly involved back then…hehe (tisk, shame on me, actually!). However, so that’s why we’re a little shy in discussing things we’re not through with, yet.
There are a bunch of more things I could say to that, particularely looking at my style of posts in this thread (dear god).
But more to that later… :smiley:

Taron

#40

I understand that policy from what happened in the past.

But it is not a solution to replace a bad or faulty communication with non at all!!!

pmG started out with making huge promises they couldn’t keep. They did it over and over again. Now that has almost come to an end thankfully.
I assume that someone felt the need to keep the suspense alive back then with those announcements. But the problem wasn’t speculation or roadmaps but things like the Siggraph 2000 sale where unbelievable massive promises were actually sold.
With that, pmG painted itself into an extremely small corner. No user did that or demanded that.
The smaller outbreaks that came later (autorig etc.) were received as bad as they were since everybody was still hurting from the main original wound.

But all this was useless if it doesn’t lead to a mature, clear and grown-up communication but to a panic to say anything at all!

Communication is 75% of the game.

At least.

:bowdown: