Latest news from pmG!

#61

Well for one that it be on the front page of PMG’s website, more details on th new features. Not your SCI top secret stuff that competitors could steal and implement but for example hair and particle solutions were mentioned. So screenshots and video’s to show progress so I can understand how PMG’s implementation of it works, how strong(flexible) is it ? Will the particles also include voxel(volumetric) like functionality ? Will the the particle effects be flexible enough for water simulation ? Questions like that the same could be said for the hair implementation, again I completely understand withholding info on features that would be a 1st for the market, or a genuis implementation of things. They could start with showing basic functionality(what would be considered industry standard) and move on into advaced functionality. Constant updates of progress of features being added would be good leading up to siggraph where they could have a even bigger showing of what’s to come. Also do you plan on doing anything for crowd simulations, cloth, true skin and muscle systems ? What’s the goal with messiah what gap is aimed at being filled with it, and where is it going ?

edit: And aslo a feedback forum

#62

That I don’t know. pmG’s website isn’t exaclty the sexiest thing. . . so I tend to agree.

I know that is being worked on.

Yes. That and more.

As it is right now in the beta. No. There is a “blob” effect where the particles can glob together. . . It is about as advanced as Lightwave’s Hypervoxels in that reguard. So whatever you can do with that. . . you can do with Messiah. It is no realflow replacement.

I don’t know at all whats going on here beyond what Taron has hinted at.

<shrug> We can hope. I can tell Taron is all fired up to show us some great stuff but “constant updates of progress” only takes time away from them MAKING that progress. . . so I think we just have to suck in what has been said and leave them alone as much as possible.

That has not been mentioned but I think if you read between the lines in with instancing. . . there could be some creative solutions made.

I just did a very in-depth instructional video on how to create cloth in Messiah. <link>

I would pit Messiah’s muscle implementation as it is now against any other package on the market. Especially when you consider how amazingly simple it is to tie in displacement maps mapped to bones. (Think skin sliding over ribs or muscles). Adding a little bloat into the formula would nail it.

When you buy Messiah. . . and post good work. . . people from pmG ususally contanct you and thank you for using their product and ask you where you want them to take it. So thats a question you should probably ask yourself. :thumbsup: I for one have been pushing for fur, render layers and Darktree support. I know that all of my wishes have been granted. Yay!

How would your idea of a feedback forum work any differently to this area of CGTalk?

#63

heheheh yeah i know…but you have to understand that any ranting i have is simply due to my love of this app and my frustration (at times) at how its not “up there with the big boys”
I just want to see it do well not only for myself but also for pmG’s sake and i think that long silent gaps are not the solution to this, wether intentional or not.
but i hope you’re right.

i agree that every release seems to be packed with amazing goodies making it, as you say “jaw dropping”. but the very fact that you notice that there is a common occurance of users getting concerned at some stage or annother of the dev cycle is proof in itself that something is wrong with the way pmG are handeling things atm. if i were pmG i wouldn’t want my existing users to start getting all worried and upset about the state of the program’s development at regular intervals, its just common sense.

sure the app is wonderful, what the guys are doing (what we dont see) is amazing, i know they work thier asses off, but all that is worthless if poeple can never feel secure when using the app. because the “ooh’s” and “ahh’s” at launch eventually fade and whats left after that? cold silence, and a bunch of users wondering what happened. and if they get fed up and leave (or stop using the app)…well thats annother round of potential users gone, and like it or not people talk, and if they leave feeling dissatisfied then they will tell others so and none of this is good for messiah or its users.

i just want to also make it clear that i love using messiah, i just wish to point out what i think is a serious problem, i could be wrong, just dont shoot the messenger :smiley:

#64

hi Weeg,

I was going to register … (I contacted Paula)…but …

I sure you can understand that you are a beta tester (you have access to all the news good features and bug fixes).
I am beta tester too of an other package and honestly there is a difference with a “simple” customer. Even it’s a beta version, you see the progress made, you can interact to adjust features,etc…

“We” (me or futur users) only see an “old” version avaible. We can’t buy a product only with “teasing sentence” of a futur version.

Anyway , PMG had a bad communication… but I am sure with front page, with a feature list and a release date.
ie:

  • this version have …
  • it will be done and READY to send the xx/xx/06 ( “ready to send” is very important;))

but please nothing aka Luxo or Newtk (pre-order, it wil be “available soon” … 8 months after you got nothing and you don’t know when you will get it)

As a beta tester you see the progress, I imagine people who bought the Messiah version (2.2) (I don’t the release date) but had “minor” updates during a long period could be a “bit nervous” about the next release.

Personnaly, I am waiting for an official release date.

if the marketing can contact me (in private;)) to give me a date (I will be pleased to register). of course if it still in beta and devlpt, I will wait … the Siggraph could be a good marketing date… then if it’s the case, few months (6) to wait again.

#65

Opera

- 2.2 is not 8 months old
- Last addition to all users was January 6, 2006(the improved, Edit Sphere)
- You can't have a release date with software , that is totally unreal, zbrush is delayed silo is delayed modo is delayed LW is delayed, and you cad add to that list a lot more, As far as I have seen in the past once they drop a few hints something is about to come but you can never know also Taron said before 2008,2007, or maybe closer for all he states and I am ok with that. coz he also talks about segments working and that can only be good but  finishing details always seem to take more that huge developing blocks... so if you want to wait it is ok, if you really think you can't do a thing without the things to come then wait, but if you think what is there is what you need to start and the coming features(not fixes) suit you then... I see no reason to wait. again as silent as the developers might seem this soft is alive, this forum is alive and developing has not been stoped and it is not going to stop.
#66 
Sorry to be off topic, but:

1) The ark was built to God's specs.  Is it surprising that it would be pretty good?

2) The ark was built buy someone hand-picked by God.  I don't know if I'd call Noah "ordinary."

  1. In order to float the ark, all other human, animal and plant life had to die. Titanic just rolled down the gantry.

  2. The Titanic sinking was an act of God. That’s not playing fair. He was jealous of the success of the specialists.

  3. Sure, the Titainc sank, but the ark ran aground.

  4. Only about 1500 people died on Titanic, but when the ark ran aground millions of dinosaurs died.

Fred
#67

Lol :smiley: great one!..

#68

It would of been better to send me this in a PM, talks like this no matter how fun to me or you tend to blow up in forums :slight_smile:

#69

No need to worry; this forum is different than the other forums. Heck, with a software package called “messiah” you have to be tolerant to be here. :slight_smile:

We don’t even have Mac vs. PC arguments here, and that’s a religious argument that gets people’s emotions up more than any other.

Fred

#70

MACs?? what are those? :wink: , ( hehe …sorry )

#71

Those things with Intel chips inside them.

#72

Well I tend to think the pro’s out weigth the con’s in that respect, I don’t think it would take away any meaningful time from development.

:thumbsup:, will wait and see what they cook up :slight_smile:

Not really what I meant but nice to know

Well I’d have to take your word on that I just figured more specialized tools to get the job done wouldnt hurt. Like this plugin http://www.cometdigital.com/cMuscleSystem.php

That’s what the whole discussion is about, what’s keeping me from buying. But every developer has a specific purpose they develop their software to fill. I’m simply asking what that is. Is messiah working to become a full app or a specialized animation solution ?

I havent any doubt I’d create good work, but that seems a little wrong shouldnt the entire userbase have input in these matters ? At anyrate congrats.

For obvious reasons, it’s not like news wouldnt filter back here as well.

#73

Take my word for it. Messiah is fully capable of re-producing everything that plugin can do and more.

It is working towards becoming a full production app. Which. . . BTW. . . it is already. Its all I use now. Its all Taron uses. Its all a lot of people use. <shrug> Sure there are things that are missing but thats what makes it so amazing! What is missing. . . can be augmented by the many plugin developers out there. Companies like Alias and Newtek make amazing plugins for Messiah. You may have heard of them. Maya, Lightwave etc. :twisted:

Everything anyone says in this forum is watched. I literally see Fred’s name down on the list of people reading threads almost every day. Everyone gets there say. But sometimes. . . things like “Make it work like Maya” from someone who hasn’t even purchased it. . . are understandebly filtered out. I’m ok with that. . .

#74

…leave them alone as much as possible.

Well, that may be the best advice anyway and I will fall back onto it once more.
Discussions like these have come up so often I can’t count them.
It has never changed anything.

I personally don’t believe in the fairy tale about “after each release people were happy”. I wasn’t the least impressed by the last one and I can’t see myself getting too excited by the next one from what I have read here. Finally usable Particles are fine and Develop looks nice from the images too, and some years ago I might have given an arm for those. Heck, I bought the messiah:studio update from the plugin because of Develop.

I don’t think I will live long enough to see messiah become the tool I once dreamt of. So I better stick with the reality.

Have a nice kingdom come, guys :wink:

Best Regards,

#75

Hey Fred, Lyle…Have you noticed how much the forum is now buzzing since Taron popped some info up…That has just got to be good for business!

Wegg - “Those things with Intel chips inside them” - Thanks - You made me laugh out loud!

You know…maybe it’s best that messiah isn’t available on the Mac…it does eliminate all the mac vs pc or should I say intel vs intel debates!

Edit: Is the webste down for other people? I can’t get to it?

#76

Nice thread here! Peaceful. The ark is all loaded: pragmatists, ideallists, avid users and procrastinators. Once these turbulent waters subside and the ark settles gently (no running aground) and we are all let out into the new world, we should find it good that those dinosaurs are dead. New possibilities will shine on us like the pleasant sun after a storm, the rainbow of floating point colours (HDRI also supported) remind us that the past trauma will not happen again and we can look forward with joy to the coming messiah. Then our hopes and dreams will finally be fulfilled, even though the wait was testing and for some a trial. Then those who did not believe will be known by the gnashing of teeth while the believers enjoy paradise in all its subdivision detail, nuances of radiosity and buzz of finely animated activity.

A big difference will be that for pmG’s messiah software, salvation can be bought.

#77

Nichod: The scale issue your fighting is something I faced years ago when I transitioned to Lightwave. The Lightwave/Messiah world space is so insainly small compared to the package I was using. But as I dug deeper I found multiple solutions to the problem. Multipliers of .1 and even .01 on export did the trick. I managed to get your tea post into Messiah through Wings. You shouldn’t HAVE to do that. . . But you would be faced with the same issue in Lightwave. . . and it’s install base is MASSIVE. Seems odd that the modeler your using hasn’t seen that and come up with a solution. . .

I know. But in programs with scale issues, generally you can scale it down in program and all will be fine. I would think that I could simply type in a number and scale it down to the necessary size in Messiah. Can this not be done? It seemed like it didn’t work when I tried.

And the other company you mentioned that tried to contact pmG. . . I tried to help out with that but they never returned MY e-mails! :argh: The irony. . .

Yeah. Not sure what is going on there. I think I have a feeling though…I did/do appreciate the effort.

The Solution

I think that there is a very simple solution to the communication problem. It goes in two parts.

  1. Start up a simple forum alongside the pMg website. Have an announcement section in the forum and have monthly announcements and sneakpeeks. The 30 minutes or so to have these announcements would be worth it, as we can tell by the responses in this thread. Also, include various other sections according to what is desired (shader, render, animation) to help create a community site.

  2. Change how purchasing Messiah works. Have the current price and then a subscription based system. A $99 a year fee sounds reasonable. (payable yearly or at any time) And members with this fee would have access to the beta versions as they are released.

Doing this would give pMg a steady flow of income and would give further communication to the user community. It would also provide pMg with a larger amount of testers to help fix the problems that could be missed by the core group of alpha testers.

Further discussion

I’m not sure what partnerships or deals exist with Messiah and other companies, but a big amount of marketing needs to be done to bring Messiah to its true place (that it deserves) in the CG community. And one thing that would help is bundles with other software. Lightwave for instance. Or Softimage. (etc. etc.) Especially bundles with Silo, Hexagon, Modo…dedicated modeling applications should be considered. I would think this is as simple as contacting the company and forming up a contract to offer bundles and deals.

I think what pMg is missing is a marketing person to handle issues like this, like providing updates on what is going on and pushing for distribution.

Feature wish

I know what Wegg said about the scaling issue, but it would be nice if there was a solution that existed. Perhaps it does. If anyone knows of a way of doing it (in Messiah and preferably quickly on a collection of objects).

#78

Perhaps they are negotiating / thinking of deals like this. If I was pmG, I would not rush into partnerships and heavy marketing until the appropriate time. This could translate into biting off more than you can chew on the one side and risking taking a partially complete product into the mainstream and all the criticism and fallout they could face from that. No matter how testing it is, patience from all involved will result in a feature rich and mature product. No good seeing the horse collapse out of the gate. We want to see a long distance runner, a winner. And that takes preparation, wisdom and good timing.

#79

Definitely looks like exciting things on the horizon. Hopefully Fred and the guys will be able to release some interim updates with some of the new stuff, and then just update those with the other features, or even better implementation…not that we don’t get great implementation to start with).

Of course, I am just getting back to messiah after about 2 years, and its amazing how much I have forgotten. SO I have plenty to keep busy with…but can’t wait for new features.

Best,

Rick

#80

One more thing that haven’t been mention is having a WIKI :slight_smile: