New versions 2.4b are up!

[My_Fault]

Oh, wow! Those are a whole bunch of more reactions! GREAT! Thanx, very much! I’m happy to see it so well received! Yeah, I’m really having such a ball with the particles, or at least I had at the time…then we moved on to other things including one of my most favorite ones and that is that you can now finally ignore the UVmap issues and go ZBrush crazy without a worry in the world. Then you take your displacement maps and the exported obj out of Zbrush into Messiah and go wild…animate, play around, render away! That’s one of the biggest deals to me…besides the to me also rather thrilling standart material changes and additions!

Could you elaborate more on this? Does this mean you can use ZBrushes AUV and GUV tile UV mapping and not have to worry about cracking in messiah anymore? Wooo, that would be awesome. Any examples?

[Taron333]

Could you elaborate more on this? Does this mean you can use ZBrushes AUV and GUV tile UV mapping and not have to worry about cracking in messiah anymore? Wooo, that would be awesome. Any examples?

YES! Just do it! You will see! It’s handsdown perfect!

Taron
PS:Still awake! (Rockstar, you’re drinking that stuff Stooch? I’m hovering between coffee americano (espresso with hot water (and milk and lots of sugar)) and red bull. Although I havn’t had any redbulls for a few days now…bad for the teeth, really.)
I even roast my own coffee, which is what i did not too long ago (few hours again). Oh, so tasty!

[Wireframes]

Has anybody of you already tried it out?

Yep

Rendering is very fast

Just understood how to play with the density entry of particle shader --> that was the secret I missed to have good result with particle rendering :bounce:

Phil

P.S. : Hey Taron --> have a good night with all of your great work last days !!!

[rush123]

Thanks Taron,

for all the information in this thread and the great particles examples. I’ve got a couple of questions re particles. Can particles stick to geometry? Can an event be trigger by particle collisions? Can you add collection of objects to particles?

Again thanks for the info, and the new Grid & Metal shader, what enhancements are planned?

Thanks

R

[Taron333]

Thanks Taron,

for all the information in this thread and the great particles examples. I’ve got a couple of questions re particles. Can particles stick to geometry? Can an event be trigger by particle collisions? Can you add collection of objects to particles?

Again thanks for the info, and the new Grid & Metal shader, what enhancements are planned?

Thanks

R

With this foundation we were setting up the emitting behavior mostly, which allows the emitting from an object’s surface as well as actually keeping it on an object’s surface. Although the event info already exists and collision already works, I can’t tell you too much about the sticking behavior…should work, havn’t tried it much, though.
Assigning objects to particles should work fine, too…but all of that is subject to one of the more massive additions we have in stock for the next big round…whereby on that one I actually kind of think about a little inbetween patch already. I want to have us push the particles a lot, because we have such a nice accessibility to them in general and I’d just love to exploid that to really create many natural effects.
The Grid shader just went into a small beta phase for it’s latest addtions (I did a few hours ago half asleep, but they worked totally great as far as I could tell…it has added min/max values (individually texturable), which allows everything from inverting them (0.0 - -1.0) to flipping them around (1.0 - 0.0) and of course all the inbetweens, really full on min/max. Also new mode for polygon wires. It now has metanurb wires and polygon wires separate. New U/V independent subdivision levels (per request…it’s a bit freaky on wicked organic meshs, because you never know which way around the polygons are and I didn’t want to write a routine that tries figuring that out with the cost of additional rendertime…it’s a little too much on the gimmik side for me to risk performance, but if it becomes a need…hmm…I might try something)…what else…hmmm…no, that’s all…it’s really curious stuff! Let the beta boys take care of it for a moment and then tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we might already put the improved Grids&Wires shader online already.
Metal Shader…? Anisotropical Highlights you mean? Hmm, I actually should update those very soon, too, because of the new general light-size parameter that every light has. Since it already affects the highlight size in the current version, I should hook that into that shader, too!
Enhancements are happening on a constant basis and will get posted as soon as the betas are happy with it!

Thanx for asking!

[Taron333]

Yep

Rendering is very fast

Just understood how to play with the density entry of particle shader --> that was the secret I missed to have good result with particle rendering :bounce:

Phil

P.S. : Hey Taron --> have a good night with all of your great work last days !!!

HAHAHAHA, It’ll be a good day, I’m afraid…or even afternoon already, jeeez…
…I’m very happy you say that! (I mean the particle thingy…sleep’s way different!) I was worried that the simple and essential ideas have not yet been understood and was hoping that a demo scene could help to clear this up already!
There are such freaky things in the particleShader, that a tutorial could really be like a guidance into a whole other world of experiments and revelations. It’s a powerful little bugger, really. I mean, I wrote the whole damn thing and believe I havn’t scratched the surface of what it’s capable of doing, yet. That’s where I’m counting on you guys on, too! :bounce: :wip:

Thank you very much, Wire!

[Taron333]

GOod job!! Really its so amazing to see you really care so much about helping out other artists by sharing. I need tutorials to really understand this stuff, or you can show me when I come back.

I have one question, how far are we away from seeing your volume based 3D fire in messiah?

Let me know what settings you are using for compressing your tutorial movies. I have found some really good quicktime compression techniques I learned from lynda.com.

I really like quicktime because of the good scrubbing one can do, but I so far only find the Sorenson3 to be adequate in compression, performance and looks together. If you know something better, and I’m sure there are better ways, please, let me know!

Ah, yeah, the fire…fluid dynamics…the big guns! It’s almost insane, knowing that I know by heart how to do all of that, that I don’t just do it, but it’s all about implementation. This sort of stuff really, REALLY needs a great openGL implementation with great visual guidance and navigation/feedback. This is the major hold up on that part, because that system will need a few more intense examinations. I don’t know when it will happen, but I know for a fact that it will happen! Just don’t hold your breathe just yet.
I think in the first application of fluid dynamics I will try my hands on cooler particle forces. Maybe even something that makes it less necessary to go realflow for a lot of things. I can’t offer any ETA on that stuff, yet, either, but it’s extremely expectable that it will be there long before the full on volume based fds makes it in. :arteest:

Thanx for asking, though…it’s a good reminder!

[Wireframes]

Taron

Can you post the bubbles example ?

Just to avoid seeking how to affect an object to particle

Phil

Edit : Can’t wait for the particles tutorials :bounce:

[Taron333]

Taron

Can you post the bubbles example ?

Just to avoid seeking how to affect an object to particle

Phil

Edit : Can’t wait for the particles tutorials :bounce:

Okidoki…
Bubbles_large.fxs (right click save as)
Whereby I happen to remember why I didn’t want to just post that one, because I need to do at least some explaining.

First of all, those bubbles are not objects! They are sprites, too! But since I translate the sprite into a “simulated” volume I can apply shading to them. Most easily that can be made using spheres!
The wicked thing that is somewhat different from the usual way things work within the shaderflow is that the inputs of the particleShader actually actively retrieve and provide information to the attached shader nodes. As a result, if you hook in a basicShader for instance, the particleShader provides it with new information, like the pretended surface of an object. BasicShader then computes the shading as if the naughty sprite was just another object and gives the results back to the particleShader. This is also for why the gradient doesn’t need an input to know that it uses the particles age by default to give back the color values along the gradient. (god I’m really really tired now)…anyway, so there’s some explaining to do, although I believe in you and your understanding of it, if you went through it again by just looking at the shader nodes in the example scene.

[Wireframes]

twice thanks

Phil

[SearchingSoul]

ola,

just installed the 2.4b. As i m currently in Project i realized a strange behaviour in 2.4b.
Could someone please verify this as a user error or Bug?:
Armature which is rotating a bone always rotates in one direction (not one axis - after reloading the scene).
To recreate behaviour:
.Add Object
.Add Bone_Deform + a bone to that object.
.Add Armature with Handle and a Drag Controller - controlling that bone.
.Set LMB to rotate an Axis (no free rotate)
.Push that Armature with an Pixel offset away from that Object.
.go into Animate mode and Drag handle - everything runs fine.
.Save the messiah scene and reload it.
From now on it just rotates in one direction …

Anyone else got this ?

SearchingSoul

ps: Me likes the drive in this Thread
pss: I attached a simple scene which doesnt work http://www.simmation.de/messiah/Armature24b.mpj

[Taron333]

From now on it just rotates in one direction …

Anyone else got this ?

SearchingSoul

I can’t confirm it, when I do the steps and create and use an armature, but I’m also not sure if I did exactly what you’ve written. BUT I must tell you, I havn’t used Armatures in a while and I’m totally shocked again, how cool they can be. Funny how the closest person to the software can miss out some of it’s greates beauty. I just made an armature and layed out left mouse to translate, middle to rotate and right to scale. Fantastic…haha! Totally forgot how great that is.

But I just saw you have a link to a scene that shows the issue, didn’t see that before. I’m going to try it right now…AH FOUND YOUR PROBLEM! It’s the little marker for “motion” in the left operator bar (pipeline bar) that you havn’t activated. If you only have it without that active it will only use the channel that was selected (you had “heading” selected). If you active that little “R” next to it, you’ll activate full rotation.

It’s not a bug! Just weired! I’ve never seen that before and it took me a second. It makes sense and is a vital functionality thing, but yeah…it feels like it could be made more obvious.

Good job on getting me into armature again, though, thanx!

[numberEleven]

Thanks again for the update!

Looking forward to seeing the docs and any other tutorial videos that will help us understand this latest release. Thanks again.

-Garin

[SearchingSoul]

But I just saw you have a link to a scene that shows the issue, didn’t see that before. I’m going to try it right now…AH FOUND YOUR PROBLEM! It’s the little marker for “motion” in the left operator bar (pipeline bar) that you havn’t activated. If you only have it without that active it will only use the channel that was selected (you had “heading” selected). If you active that little “R” next to it, you’ll activate full rotation.

I am aware of that great function using the little marker for full Rotation. But I just wanted to have Heading tied to left mouse :).
If you load the attached Armature24b.mpj and drag the handle with the mouse to the LEFT and RIGHT it should rotate the Object on the positive (drag to left) and negative (drag to right) Heading Axis. At least 2.1 ,2.2 and 2.4 do that! But in 2.4b it just rotates in one Direction (positive Heading values) wether i drag mouse to the left or right.
This only happens if you reload the scene! and use it. Not when you create it. And it also doesnt happen when you activate the “full Rotation” marker (where i switch to now to continue animating ).

Good job on getting me into armature again, though, thanx!

I felt in love with these helpers too

SearchingSoul

[Taron333]

I am aware of that great function using the little marker for full Rotation. But I just wanted to have Heading tied to left mouse :).
If you load the attached Armature24b.mpj and drag the handle with the mouse to the LEFT and RIGHT it should rotate the Object on the positive (drag to left) and negative (drag to right) Heading Axis. At least 2.1 ,2.2 and 2.4 do that! But in 2.4b it just rotates in one Direction (positive Heading values) wether i drag mouse to the left or right.
This only happens if you reload the scene! and use it. Not when you create it. And it also doesnt happen when you activate the “full Rotation” marker (where i switch to now to continue animating ).

SearchingSoul

Man, I don’t get that to happen…I’m actually kinda sorry, it’s so weired how things like that can be different on different machine setups, I guess?!? I have two utterly different machines, while both have Nvidia cards, which is the only thing they have in common. I have an old pentium4 2.6 running Windows 2k and a dual Opteron 2.x with XP and both don’t show these troubles…strange.

Hey, if anyone else can report that, that would be gr…that would suck of course, but it would help!

Also, what kind of setup are you using, if I may ask?

Thanx for reporting, that’s for sure…hopefully we get to figure out what’s going on for you there. :shrug:

[timnhe]

Hi Searching Soul, i´m revised your scene, and i can see an error:

The target for this handle, isn´t the bone, is the Skeleton Modifier, then if you change this, the armature works ok!!

Great Update, many old bugs are fixed!!
Thanks PMG and Taron

[SearchingSoul]

ola,

@timnhe
Thanks - how odd from me … my speed finger just clicked to early
That isn t the source for the error but it explains why i didnt get keys on my Bone g

I just tried that scene on my second Computer and found the mistake. I got Edit->Key/Frame Editing->Edit Sphere->Mouse tracked Directions on (shame i really didnt know what that does ).
With this oprion on i got that Drag Handle Problem. When i switch that off it works.
In 2.4 this option runs fine together with drag handle (one axis).

Searching Soul

PS:I run an AMD x2 with Nvidia 6800GT (quadro drivers) and winxp64 SP1.

[timnhe]

Hola Searching Soul, Now I can see the problem. I dn´t know what is ‘Mouse tracked …’, but when its on, the rotations becomes crazy, except if you change the rotation value to zero. Do this and try again.

I feel not to be able to express to me better, but my english is too bad

[SearchingSoul]

ola,

sometimes you can fiddling around and its working together, but if you reload the scene with the Option (“mouse tracked …”) on, its weird again.

SearchingSoul

[Taron333]

Alright, now that that’s all cleared up, which makes me truely happy, we should get all these posts into their own thread or so…and call it the “panic resolved” thread. It’s kinda like that icecream flavor graveyard…eh… …that’s what happens after sleep-debrivation. :surprised

Eh, where was I…ah yeah, so, go to our website and see the glory: A NEWS FLASH! hahaha…we finally have the latest news updated, although you still have to manually click on the download button to get to the download site and then click on the link to the download to get to the page with the downloads (pant, pant, pant) and there you will see not only the update to the version 2.4b but also the little texture map patch, thanx to your great feedback! :bounce: