I hope you don’t mind me posting this then ? As much as I love to see all the rendering engine enhancements / ideas that have been talked about over the past few weeks, and the thought of being able to play with them in M : S one day is :bounce: , a lot of existing users would probably prefer that adding COLLADA support into Messiah / Studio was given some kind of priority :
I apologise in advance if this annoys yourself or anyone at pmG, as I guess you’ve probably seen the thread above and didn’t choose to reply in it, but I thought I’d bring it back to people’s attention before it slips into the forums archive to be lost as it seems like quite an oppertunity to fill a gaping hole left by Motion Builder…
Also real 3D armature shapes and not have them scale relative to screen. it becomes nearly impossible to select body parts when you zoom out and they all overlap each other. btw, to me armatures are 60% of what makes messiah great for CA. Lets not forget the old search and replace in script editor too. thats a long time annoyance but oh so useful.
also. im beta testing lw9 and i wont go into detail here because of NDA but simply looking a the publically available feature list, i can see potential integration issues with messiah. especially with the ngon support and weighted edges. Not sure if messiah already supports this but to me this is going to be crucial.
Yoh, well, that’s been one of my expectations for them right off the bet, back then. The bigger question is far more: Wouldn’t it be just as easy to use expressions as they are for linking 3d stand-in object to the bones and such, just put them into a group and turn them on and off as you feel like using them…hmmm… armatures require also some setting up, although certainly a little more convenient…hmmm…alright, now, don’t rip off my head, I know exactly what you mean, but still. I think 3d armature helpers really suggest even more some means of automatic rigging and that is a big topic again anyway. So, well, we shall see. Lot’s of things to take care of first, but it’s on the list!
As for the overlapping, yes, don’t forget that armatures are helpers that you get to design yourself. depending on what it is that you’re doing, you could design them in a way that this would not become a problem…I think…while scaling…hmmm…maybe scaling ain’t much of an issue either, not sure…we’ll have to talk about this internally again. It’s absolutely amazing to me how many things are currently not much of a problem…so maybe that’ll turn out just the same!? No promisses right now or right away, but yes, it’s in our heads now, too!
I don’t think I told you that on this thread, but I currently see that we’re getting overwhelmed with great feedback, reports, ideas and requests, but it’s growing to be impossible to keep up with all of it in a timely fashion. So right now I would ask from all of you to go ahead and do something with the stuff we were already putting into it, even if it’s just some neat little experiments. Again, I’d love to see more renders, or even some little rendered animations, displacement, particle stuff, anything… …that would be the perfect thing you could do right now. We’re going through all the current feedback and will be busy with them for a moment! Again, usually I would have said, keep’em coming, but I’m growing to be afraid that it could cause you to become impatient, if you drop it all on us right now. Great stuff nontheless! SO, THANK YOU ALL, and we’re doing everything to reward you for your fantastic colaboration! Brilliant and very, very uplifting! :bounce:
:wip: (commence working on next release!) :buttrock:
haha, ok i have a project im making specifically for messiah. so stay tuned for some screenshots. lets just say its a bit more complex then some balls in a square room…
Hey Taron. I think this is just the result of a clogged communication suddenly run free.
I’m sure everybody would prefer the next update taking some days longer instead of the com link dead once more. I’m sure a good medium level can be reached after a while.
Just ride the wave and every now and then clear the air if something goes out of whack but don’t retreat to deadly silence if possible. Clogging always leads to further, bigger damage.
As far as Ambient Occlusion goes: I have it working already, but I wonder if an speedwise optimised routine could be used (or made available to the SDK). If you need further detail, I will be happy to provide it.
And one last request for the SDK: Can we have a similar function to fxShaderConnectedInputs for outputs? FX_OUTPUT_REQUEST doesn’t work for that because of the internal buffering, so knowing which outputs are connected to something would help a lot more when optimising speed in certain situations.
My 2 cents:
collect the input on a priority list. For example, nichod’s node-based in-program compositing is a possibility - say: priority C. If it all, then down the road. Everyone can contribute opinions (pros/cons) and it may refelect approaches to things being implemented now.
Priority B would be additions like Thomas’ buffer nodes (correct me if I’m wrong) or COLLADA. Mid-term things that would be great enhancements and even USPs, but need to be discussed further and slotted for development. And users will feel more strongly about some things than others (I’d never heard of Collada). Take it as a compliment that this sort of discussion and dreaming has been provoked! It’s great to participate in musings about where messiah might be headed and what may be possible - but there’s no pressure to implement immediately. Just a road map of ideas and a testimony to the community interest in your software.
Priority A would be more pressing things like bugs on the one hand, and Marek’s edit sphere calculation requests. And - ahem - ShiftToggling channel activation .
I’d spread-sheet them and post it on the wall. Nothing more motivating than being able to check off an A-level request or bug. I’m elated to see how many annoying little things have been adressed in such a short time! Things that have been gnawing at the program for years!
Keep up the communication and keep an eye on the priorities… messiah has always been grass-roots. Thanks to your efforts this last month it’s getting back to that.
I would vote for a site (that might be only available to customers) where we have a bugtracker available. That way we can see if a bug is already known and what priority it is. And stuff doesn’t get buried in deep forum threads. Hard for anyone (especially the developers) to find again and even harder to see if you didn’t read the forum in a week and the thread is already a few pages on the back.
Oh and of course instead of having thousands of threads that go like “I want this and that” we have a nice clean overview of feature requests and could vote for them instead. That way it would also get more clear what we, the customers and users want most. And not only who might be the loudest (and probably most nagging).
Sorry, but just stumbled upon another of those old super-buggers that I miss 100 times a day when trying to work in messiah:
A shortcut to fit the view the mouse is over to the scene. (“A” in XSI)
A shortcut to fit the view the mouse is over to the selected object. (“F” in XSI)
I also miss the option to directly navigate the camera like a perspective view and having the camera adjust accordingly - so much faster and way more intuitive than fiddling with the editsphere in camera view…
I would vote for a site (that might be only available to customers) where we have a bugtracker available. That way we can see if a bug is already known and what priority it is. And stuff doesn’t get buried in deep forum threads. Hard for anyone (especially the developers) to find again and even harder to see if you didn’t read the forum in a week and the thread is already a few pages on the back.
Oh and of course instead of having thousands of threads that go like “I want this and that” we have a nice clean overview of feature requests and could vote for them instead. That way it would also get more clear what we, the customers and users want most. And not only who might be the loudest (and probably most nagging).
What do you think?
I could set this up. Providing someone gave a website/space. Would be fairly simple to do, since not much “design” would be required. It could be a big advantage, because we could post up the feature requests there and provide our own priority, then pmg could sort it out quickly…rather than browsing the threads and writing it down on the nearest stickie note. Though I’d hope that even if we did this that people would still post and share ideas here. Thats the only negative I see about that.
i like the bug/feature request tracker. i do remember this being mentioned before too. im all for it. i think that if PMG does create a user forum, maybe that should be one of the sections.
i like the bug/feature request tracker. i do remember this being mentioned before too. im all for it. i think that if PMG does create a user forum, maybe that should be one of the sections.
I don’t know that a user forum is a good idea or not. I’m kind of iffy. The community isn’t LARGE so two forums seems pointless at this point.
I could donate space.
That would be great, but what domain name would we use? And wouldn’t it be a good idea to have pmg support?
Zoogono and meesiah websites both seem more logical than mine. Also the yahoo list has been suggested - but I think a php site is kind of important here.
I also miss the option to directly navigate the camera like a perspective view and having the camera adjust accordingly - so much faster and way more intuitive than fiddling with the editsphere in camera view…
… [QUOTE]
Second that! Also second the point made earlier by Thomas on communication - keep it open, even on a lower level but don’t let it die away completely - makes me worry!
OK, this is my all time number one and I really beg for it:
I just had another case where messiah crashed while saving. Now a scene I worked on for a hour is broken…
CAN WE PLEASE FINALLY HAVE A SAVE SAVE!!!
Writing to a temporary file first, then rename the old one to .bak, and then rename the temporary one to the correct file name? This way, there is always a valid scene.
I have “crash while saving” with messiah quite regularly (not once with any other software I use) so please please please make this simple modification and save me some hair… :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
I also miss the option to directly navigate the camera like a perspective view and having the camera adjust accordingly - so much faster and way more intuitive than fiddling with the editsphere in camera view…
I kind of like the edit sphere in camera view…hmm.
Another one: I just realised while preparing content for TLHPro that there is not way to work on animated materials channels with the key edit functions. Am I missing something?
Can this be enabled?
and not have them scale relative to screen. it becomes nearly impossible to select body parts when you zoom out and they all overlap each other. btw, to me armatures are 60% of what makes messiah great for CA. Lets not forget the old search and replace in script editor too. thats a long time annoyance but oh so useful.
