New Updates Available!!! (2.5 & 5.5 + Demo)

#61

A big respect to all of that. You, thomas, wegg, stooch etc. (you guys know who I mean). are amongs the few here that actualy know how messiah works for real life production with tight dead lines etc. (My only serious work with it streches only to stills and animatics in 3d that ended in XSI.) That said I will extend my license to pro because I like the renderer so much (and the animation tools of course).

#62

In the Keycommand Interface editor window area, if you try and set the new edit sphere manipulators to the setting that enables “scale” transformations, it doesnt seem to work. The other new edit sphere stuff worked fine though, complete with the “ctrl” key to toggle between rotation and translation. Nice! Would really like to know if the “scale” part is broken . . . I set the “scale” to “ctrl H” (like lw’s scale), “use seperate” to “ctrl K”, and “use combined” as “ctrl l”.

Again, “combining the sphere” and “separating it” worked fine, but attempting to use “scale” just enables more rotation or translation, no scaling. A small empty yellow cirlce opened up near the edit sphere though, and the rotate and translate edit sphere things went away.

I like the new rotater stuff though. Thanks!

#63

The keycommand setting for “toggle” didnt seem to “toggle” either, I have to assign two keys, both “combine” and “separate” to get the sphere to function like expected. It would be nice to just have one key to toggle that on and off, although, in practice Ill probubly just turn it on and leave it on. Yay! “ctrl” all by itself now has a function!

#64

I would like to comment on Thomas’ frequent need to pat himself on the back about how bug free his shaders are. Excuse me, but as far as programming for 3D goes, procedural shaders are about as easy as it comes. And it’s not like the messiah procedurals are buggy, despite being things that, unlike for Thomas, weren’t the absolute focus of a dedicated programmer (they had the rest of the software to write too). Another thing to keep in mind is that those wonderful shaders that work so flawlessly… work flawlessly on pmG’s software. In other words, a) a large portion of the credit for the stability of your software should go to pmG, and b) while I’m sure there are/were some things in the API that frustrated you, you were still able to do some pretty damn cool shaders with it. Could you have written the renderer from scratch, then written your shaders and STILL have no need for updates? I highly doubt it, but you’re welcome to write your own renderer and prove me wrong.

EW

#65

There’s nothing really I can say. It’s not possible to make everyone happy (in anything, not just software). We are continuing along, doing the best we can, making improvements, trying to listen to the users while at the same time not get too far off the track. For example, there was a lot of noise about the Edit Sphere so we did some work on it. Is it the most wonderful perfect masterpiece? No, I guess not, though it’s not a useless piece of garbage either. On a scale of 1 to 10 I’d place it at about a 7. No software is perfect; last time I checked, there were still new versions of Maya, SoftImage, Max, LightWave and C4D coming out. And those new versions weren’t only for new features.

This is not to say that the complainers never have a point, but to hear some of them talk you’d think that the software is totally unusable and we’re just laughing all the way to the bank. Well, that’s just not true. The bank is so far away that we’re usually tired of laughing by the time we get there. (Just kidding.)

We’ll continue to work on the software because there’s a lot we still want to do and we know that the majority of people are happy with the progress (yes, I know people want things to come faster-- so do we).

Fred

#66

I personally don’t think that its too unreasonable for the following:

  1. Weekly, semiweekly, or monthly progress reports. (Just a little INFO on a semiregular basis)

  2. A rough timetable for things like:
    a) Updated docs
    b) Tutorials
    c) Sample scenes

Not meaning to sound negative, but I’ve lost count on how many times this has been discussed. Feels like the movie “Groundhog Day”

#67

heh, thomas maybe a bit blunt but in his process of testing he did uncover a few bugs - which were promptly fixed. I experienced some funky stuff as well. But yeah alot of respect for the pmg render engine, its a huge accomplishment, even if the animation missed out on some of the love.

The new navigation improvements really brought some of the magic back too.

and thomas xsi isnt perfect either :wink: Im learning it now, but I think ill stick to maya.

#68

All I want to say is edit sphere fix: :thumbsup: Good. I was getting a little annoyed with that thing but tried telling myself I’d get used to it. Better now fershure. Good that you kept it so that the ones who prefer it the old way can keep their wabbely ball as well.

#69

Thanks for saying something Fred. :thumbsup: Thanks also for the update. :thumbsup:

I must say that reading the list of fixes on this update shows that many issues which popped up on my sports stopwatch project were really listened to and addressed - and one of them before I hit render (the AA issue - thanks pmG). That may not be the stuff some of the others here wanted, but I got most of my wishlist :slight_smile:

There’s nothing really I can say.
Hey Fred, don’t be so modest. :slight_smile: Nice to hear from you personally.

#70

well,
after all this time,
only that was on the update?
i hope they have a extremly cool features coming a long,
some of the features on the update, are, well or non important, or they are so easy to change on the code, that wait several months to get them is bad,
i like they ask you to model a ultra high res model for a proyect, and after 6 months you get a crapy model, “all that time for that?”
i know that sound anti messiah, but i do rig in messiah and i know the softaware, also know that the messiah team is small, but not been able to redo the manuals?
how can it be?

#71

well,
after all this time,
only that was on the update?
i hope they have a extremly cool features coming a long,
some of the features on the update, are, well or non important, or they are so easy to change on the code, that wait several months to get them is bad,
i like they ask you to model a ultra high res model for a proyect, and after 6 months you get a crapy model, “all that time for that?”
i know that sound anti messiah, but i do rig in messiah and i know the softaware, also know that the messiah team is small, but not been able to redo the manuals?
how can it be?

People don’t seem to know the real world. Many of those bugs can take weeks too track down. Then it might be an easy fix, but a single bug can take a lot of time to track down. Sure the manipulator code was probally fairly non-stressful to setup in comparision, but thats not all they did, and not knowing how the code is yourself, you can’t really comment on how “simple” the fixes and enhancements were to code.

And redoing the manual is a LOT of work as well, Thomas knows how long it took him just to write a manual entailing using his shaders, and shaders are a lot more simple than a whole 3D program. Plus we need to realize that yes not only is the team small, but they don’t just work on messiah all day. They do have a real life and likely another work life.

A lot of people seem to need a reality check.

#72

[i]“after all this time, only that was on the update?”

[/i]First of all, it’s only been a few months since the last update. I know it’s just a matter of opinion, but I don’t consider that very long. Second, it’s not like we’re making a big deal out of this update. I could see how someone could be down on the update if it’s been a year and we made some huge announcement about it (advertising, etc.).

Now, as to whether anything in the update was worthwhile, well, there were bug fixes, which are important, and the new features/changes which were virtually all done at the requests of users, so they’re obviously important to someone. The Edit Sphere changes, for example, are not only important to a large number of people, but there’s still a call for more changes. All of these things take time and manpower.

And I can absolutely guarantee you that when we add a feature that you like there will be someone else posting about how that update doesn’t have anything great in it. There’s a word for that: Life.

Fred

#73

Fred, Thank you so much for responding to this thread. Just dropping in occasionally and speaking out is very appreciated. Most of us appreciate your time and effort towards improving messiah, even the simple things.

#74

Kudos for the new “Translu Depth” setting…now my complex objects render with that tasty m:Render buttery SSS smoothness. :thumbsup: Imo…beats C4D’s sss implementation because now I get the results I expect and it’s so much more faster to set up.

#75

My only questions now are:

How small is the team, and because of this, when well messiah:studio get finished? Didn’t this thing start some 6 years ago? Given this time frame it might be another 5 years before it’s finished.

Personally, I’m still waiting for a way to move only the active keys in the dope sheet for all selected objects without destroying the animation. It’s so strange, I can modify keys easier in lightwave, while rigging in messiah and playback are just awesome. I know that there will always be compromises between packages, but to me, this kind of thing, for an animation package shouldn’t be there. I’m also waiting until ‘develop’ happens. Are these the only things that matter, no. I’m not saying they should come first, but these are things that have been on the list for a while and haven’t been accomplished either, thus making my point above by asking when will it [messiah] be done.

In short, thanks for the update and the response, but the group just doesn’t seem fast enough from when this was started. Is funding what these guys need? Modo made the scene in less time than messiah. I know, I’m comparing modeling to animation and yet rendering to rendering, but I keep feeling that messiah is the bastard child of pmG or there just isn’t enough to get it where it’s needs to be. So I guess messiah goes back on the shelf to collect more dust until the next point release happens. It’s definatly getting better, but it’s not there yet.

Someday,

Kelly
hoping for a better future for messiah

#76

How small is the team, and because of this, when well messiah:studio get finished? Didn’t this thing start some 6 years ago? Given this time frame it might be another 5 years before it’s finished.

AGGGGGH!:banghead:

How is it not finished? Please tell me what program is finished? If so I expect no updates for it ever.

#77

lol man. Why do you always feel the need to defend messiah?

I dont think anyone here wants anything but the best for messiah with all the valid and useful points. Afterall, most here bought the program with great intentions, not just blindly hating on it out of spite…

with time you might sing to the same tune. who knows.

I think the over-riding concern is: whats in store? PMG pretty please? dont customers/fans deserve to have an idea on the future outlook and plans? One might jump to the terrifying conclusion that there is none…

#78

hehe :D, I tend too agree…

#79

I still have to scratch my head and wonder why someone who admits to not even owning a license is spending the time to defend every remark that might be even a little bit critical of the pMG product. Is this forum teetering on the brink of becoming more and more like the AM Hash forum where only happy talk is allowed?:eek:

#80

For us using messiah in production, pmG has come through. I think Wegg has also testified to this before. I imagine pmG responds in priority something like this:
[ol]
[li]if you are Taron in a powered-by-messiah feature effects sequence (couldn’t resist) :)[/li][li]messiah users currently in production[/li][li]messiah users between productions[/li][li]messiah users actively testing the app for possible future production[/li][li]messiah owners hoping to one day use it in production[/li][li]messiah owners who have given up hope[/li][li]non-messiah users[/li][/ol]The higher you are on this list the more likely your feature requests and bug fixes will feature in the next update. For some this may be a catch-22.