New versions 2.4b are up!

#132

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…

#133

Hey Taron. I think this is just the result of a clogged communication suddenly run free. :thumbsup:
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.

Thank you

#134

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 . :wink:
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.

#135

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?

#136

I think: yep.

#137

I think: yep

This being one of those old requests too :wink:

Cheers, :bowdown:

#138

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… :slight_smile:

Cheers,

#139

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.

#140

I could donate space.

#141

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.

#142

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?

#143

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.

Just let me know.

#144

[QUOTE=ThomasHelzle]…

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… :slight_smile:

… [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!

#145

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:

Shit, now I can start again.

Thanks for listening. :bowdown:

#146

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… :slight_smile:

I kind of like the edit sphere in camera view…hmm.

#147

Ever tried to move around an object to find the perfect view?
Very tedious in messiah…

:bowdown:

#148

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?

Thank you! :thumbsup:

#149

How weired, I’ve just talked about that with David Maas!? Hmmm… :hmm:
Well, it’s an odd thing, because switching to the edit tab is unfortunately switching away from the render tab, which then automatically has another object selected. Sounds like we’d have to change a part of the foundation of it all, or find some nifty alternative. I could imagine a shortcut to activating the distort tool in the motiongraph, but that wouldn’t bring up the interface…argh…I dunno, yet. I guess we’ll have to talk about it. Sounds tricky to me right off the bet, but I 100% agree! :argh:

Do you remember why it crashed during save, by the way? I havn’t had that happen in many years…very strange stuff. Well, then again, I havn’t been running into them recently anyway…must be avoiding them involuntarily…hehe…subconsciously, or so. Still, what was the “most exotic” thing in that scene that did that? Might help tracking it down. Also the new autosave might make all of these things less dramatic!

I like the idea of getting more auto-center functions back into the mix. List and Viewport and DopeSheet! Anything Motiongraph related is still on the more intense side, but the rest…well…shouldn’t be too brutal. :scream:

Navigating with the upper right buttons for camera…hmm…could just be some armature thing. Must be super easy to write and I believe it wouldn’t have to be internal, what do you think? I like the idea, though! I actually don’t like the armatures in the upper left corner of the viewport…I’d gladly see those replaced, hehehe…but that’s just me. Everyone has preferences, but the good news is, that a lot of those can be customized already!

BUG TRACKER! YES, absolutely, when I came back to online-betalist-life (lesser of a resurrection than a rebirth, actually) it only took a few posts to get that thought back up and alive! Eventually we’ll have such a thing running ourselves, because it’s just too damn convenient, but if Brian wants to set something up already, it would definitely be something nice. We’d only have to find a way to keep it orderly and it most certainly needs additional functions to manage such a list. Often reports are doubled under different labels and such. But, yeah, it’s a known idea that we fully support! :thumbsup:

Hmmm…wonder why I didn’t get any notification about these new posts into my email…gotta check if new spam filters block them…I was already wondering about the long silence…hahaha…illusions! GREAT! :bounce:

Alright, I really like what’s going on here. Yes, priorities we have, don’t worry about that, but we have to organize them according to our path instead of bouncing around more than we’d need to. It’s a wild bouncing anyway, hehe, but some things lead to other things and so forth. Plus, every user certainly is having his own special priorities, so ultimatively it’s all based on both logic and public demand as a lead:
A - bug fixing
B - workflow streamlining
C - fancy feature requests, great ideas that are easy to implement
D - great ideas that are hard to implement, giantically complicated improvements, little but cool gimmiks
E - sleeping

There! :smiley:

Thanx you guys, what a roll! :thumbsup:

#150

I could imagine such a solution for the animation key editor as well. I’ve never liked switching over to the edit-ghetto…

Grooovy!

#151

Yes, Edit mode ghetto is a good name for it >LOL<

Key/Frame Editing -> Belongs under Customise, since it is preferences.

The other three belong on the animate Tab, but there is no tools…
Hm. For a long time I felt that for some tools, flying interfaces would be better than the static Tab idea.
Opening the Distort/Copy/Transform Key Range Tools with a shortcut from wherever you are would feel way more natural to me and would work for materials too.
The same goes for Search and Replace -> Open it in Animate Tab and S&R Objects, Open it in Command Tab and S&R Expression-Text.
Or the scene comments tool -> I would have loved to use it for my sample scenes, but it is buried too deep in Setup. I maybe could have used Armatures…

And then replace the Edit Tab with Develop :wink: Any news on that one?

The view-Armatures are the first thing I disable when I install a new version, just after I deleted the script-textures :wink:
Well, I don’t know how those camera-Armatures would react - The main thing is, that in XSI you can navigate around the centre of your view very naturally - equal if you are looking through a camera or a perspective view. You never even think about it :slight_smile:
Download a 30 Day demo here:
http://www.softimage.com/downloads/default.aspx?downloadid=1 :twisted: :wink:
Hold the S key down to navigate with the three mouse buttons…

The crash was very unexpected - I don’t have many crashes nowadays. Sorry if it sounded that way. But if you work through a series of scenes like I did with the content for TLHPro yesterday, do little corrections, save, open another, sooner or later messiah dies.
I still have the feeling that deleting many materials has to do with it, but I’m not sure.
The scene it writes just ends where the crash occurs in a rather random place.

BTW: That old bug with the focus jumping the the next material in the list if you are deleting certain nodes would be very nice to get rid of too… :bowdown:

Is the script editor working for anyone? Here it is completely broken…

Thank you very much! :bowdown: