Stooch, continued

#26

At first I found the edit sphere a little confusing, partly because I thought you had to hit the letters to get the XYZ positioning :banghead: Once that was sussed and I used it a while I got quite used to it.

Then Christopher Lutz came up with the elegant and brilliant plugin for the bonetargetcontroller. Together with other armature actions you can now make a rig that reacts immidately to your click’n’drag in a slightly unusual, but extremely powerful and intuitive way (apparently akin to animation master’s FK). I’m confident that such a setup can increase animation speeds by a lottle, even if you’re used to the traditional CG way of working with the manipulators. I’ll release an example rig shortly which uses this together with some of Marek Schneider’s principles, together they are dynamite.

View navigation is easy enough. The only times I really ever get ‘lost’ is when I move what you might call the pivot point of the perspective to somewhere it shouldn’t be to look at for instance a close up of the hand of a character, then rotating around that pivot point. A better way of doing this is selecting the object and hitting ‘a’ or the lil button top right.

Go make animations! :wip:

#27

Wow, thanks for the plugin recommendation! I’ll make sure to get that. Kewl.

I’ll release an example rig shortly which uses this together with some of Marek Schneider’s principles, together they are dynamite.

Thanks! Look forward to it!

View navigation is easy enough. The only times I really ever get ‘lost’ is when I move what you might call the pivot point of the perspective to somewhere it shouldn’t be to look at for instance a close up of the hand of a character, then rotating around that pivot point. A better way of doing this is selecting the object and hitting ‘a’ or the lil button top right.

Go make animations! :wip:

I’m very glad to have yoru input about it!

#28

I can see that there are alot of people who find using messiah a dream… Hence its market dominance…

and if you find making videos easier, be my guest. I dont share that sentiment. this is getting a bit ridiculous. Im actually defending myself after clearly making an effort to improve the program, more of an effort then you as a matter of fact. how about usingthat software you are pimping and making some tuts, since you seem to be all geared up for it?

#29

if you cant follow them, i suggest you give up now and take up knitting. By the way, what steps did i leave out? Obviously you think im missing something, so you must know what it is right? how about contributing instead of arguing pointlessly?

I hear people complain a lot about the zbrush interface. Why doesn’t Pixologic change the interface to make it just like maya too?

If zbrush was so great, people wouldnt be so extatic about silo and mudbox. Which by the way behave like maya. Hmm… how about suggesting that to pixologic. The logic here is rather simple, maya is the most used program on the market next to 3Dsmax, so it seems logical to make messiah cooperate… Afterall, its already made to cooperate with LW so whats the big deal?

I guess you’re saying that you’re not so sure the maya way is better? Or are you also
saying that all these different packages are …different, and the user has to be the flexible one?
Now thats not what he is saying. he clearly stated that he doesnt use maya so therefore he cannot have an opinion on this particular topic.

#30

Do me a favor… go into object view mode or camera view mode and look around. turn around 360 degrees and aim at something.

anyway you guys asked for my input as to what other programs have over messiah. I gave it to you, and guess what, more people agreed with me then disagreed. so hmm, seems to me i just might have a point. But anyways, this is getting nowhere, im posting with suggestions on improving messiah, other people are just arguing and demanding videos??? How about this, ill make a dvd and you guys pay me for it, if simple words arent enough to do the trick. although once again, its rather pointless to make videos for you guys since you arent coding anything and wont make any effort or difference other then engage in a silly debate.

#31

Right after Taron posts his rendering tutes.:scream:

#32

So you’re saying you’re not gonna make some videos?

hehe.

I guess we can move on from that idea then. So now on to some more constructive chatter… hmm… i got nothing at the moment.

-George

#33

Since you like written tutorials. . .

Make a new camera.

Make sure it is selected.

Click on “s” on the bottom right hand corner.

Click on the “H” icon in the Gizo to engage the rotation mode.

Left-click drag on the “R” in the middle of the gizmo.

Now you can look around your scene through the camera.

I TOTALLY agree that that is way too many steps. Which I think is what comes of it being over designed in an attempt to please too many people. But it is there. And maybe if your cleaver you could do some armature goodness in your own camera “rig”.

You could then throw something together that would have that multi-parent plugin target all sorts of different things in the scene and you could just have sliders change what the camera is looking at through your animation. I might even try that myself. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the inspiration. :slight_smile:

#34

Excuse me, you’re the one that interrupted a thread about rendering with your complaint,
something that you apparently announced already on the bug tracking site.

Don’t worry about the video; after that plugin recommendation it doesn’t matter. Problem
is solved!

#35

problem is still there. And yes i am the one that interrupted a thread with my complaint, whats your point? does that somehow negate the problems?

wegg, if you have to make a custom rig just to be able to have a workable camera interaction, there is something VERY VERY wrong here…

p.s. I know about that half ass way to use the camera, its odd how you can use the camera by going through all those steps but if you just try to use it normally it starts to bank and rotate in random directions… I guess they over engineered it… (or UNDER engineered more like it). Oh btw, shouldnt you be making a video instead of writing me instructions? :wink:

#36

Although I agree with Stooch the camera tools in Messiah are not great they are workable. Every program has a few quirks that you have to deal with. Modeling wise I got so used to Wings that every time I look at the seams and the way other programs mirror tools work I have to laugh. But those other programs have other strengths. I think the camera tools are workable as they are but I would like to see some improvements.

I find the toolset excellent for the money and I am able to do things that before I could not before. Rigging and rendering wise Messiah is great. The SSS setup is pretty easy and painless. The frensel shaders are cool. Bones setup is quick and easy lots of good stuff. Renderer is very quick too.

Anther thing I woudl like to see is an improvment in the smoothing(metanurbs). Soemthing that will let the odd triangle slip through like most modern poly sub programs. I learned to live with that, I am a real all quad zealot now.

So if they do have a upgrade a change in the camera tools would be somethign meny woudl like to have. An improved smoothing woudl be cool too. Anyways I really like messiah and I can find things to like and dislike about every program out there.

#37

Please do not feed the trolls.

#38

Deep breath, everyone. We’re arguing about arguing more than we are about aspects of the software.

Stooch, I don’t see anyone defending the bug you rightly point out in the camera view navigation. Its in your bugtracker, and I’ve confirmed it, I think others have, too. I’m sure the pmG team have it at the top of their lists - its the same with looking through the light. You have to switch to object view. Bug. They happen. The others aren’t saying the bug is okay when they offer alternatives or state that they can live with the software despite its shortcomings.
I also don’t think Stooch is being a troll - just a bit adamant. Stooch: sounds like you love the software! We should all avoid reading intentions into the texts of others.
And respect a thread’s initial topic.

#39

this is your only post in a while. and happens to be completely useless and offtopic. check yourself.

#40

I have to agree with Stooch’s request about making the navigation more like maya. I think he’s going about it the wrong way though. And it’s turning ppl off in my opinion. I believe there’s better ways at getting what you want than the route you’re taking.

I think if you add the option of a “maya” navigation, you’ll have the potential to increase the user base 10fold. And that will bring around more revenue and help get messiah moving forward at a brisker pace. Not saying that’s gonna actually happen, just my theory.

I don’t think it improves messiah, cause it would be saying maya navigation is the “best” , but that’s just user preference.

It’s like zbrush. The UI is vastly different than any other 3d app out there, yet great work has been produced by those that were not phased by having to learn a new way of working. But not everyone is keen to that. We’re more used a certain way of working in 3d apps and almost any other apps in general. So then apps like modo, silo, and mudbox come out with UI’s that we’re more used to (the wider audience). I feel like mudbox will come ahead of zbrush easily for the masses on this option alone.

Messiah has so much potential. It could really do itself a favor adding this option. Not replacing it so those that have been able to adapt to it’s way of working can continue to use it that way.

It’s a win win situation i think. What do you guys think?

-George

#41

I personally do not have any problem with camera system, if did, i would have made a video of it myself.

I use shortcuts to go back and forth between combined and seperate(edit sphere) modes, also i can change(toggle) the behaviour of rotation or transformation with shortcuts which makes it easier to deal with objects including camera.

If i want the camera to target an object, i create an object , use expression to target it, then i create a key with “use computed values” and i disable the expression.

There are snapping expressions, also on the fly contraints creation expressions on www.zoogono.com. I have not tried the snapping exps, but constraints work fine (it has on screen armatures to create expressions on the fly) .

best i can wish is that someone would have come up with a plugin that can synch camera view to perspective view, so one could use to perspective window and camera would read perspective view on demand.

Lastly i do not need to deal or answer your grumpy voice, noone needs to prove themselves to eachother to have a civilized conversation. It is not that i would not agree with your argument or support your argument, but the way you are handling this whole thing is not very productive and friendly to be honest.

#42

the feeling is mutual.

#43

Ok i made a small avi showing how the basic XSI navigation works while placing/adjusting Lights and Cameras and viewport navigation also, since it uses the same shortcuts:

“S” + LMB: Rotate/Orbit

“S” + MMB: Pan/Up/Down

“S” + RMB: Zoom In/Out

By default XSI uses the “S” Key, but it can be maped to the ALT key, users asked for it Softimage made it available :slight_smile:

Its Xvid encoded, 2 min +/- 6.17 Mb

http://www.mediafire.com/?eyjdhwumy0j

Some might think its strange that Light and Cameras have Hierarchys, XSI does this by default when we create them, basically it creates a Root Null and a Target Null (Interest), but as you can see on the avi, i cuted the Camera from the hierarchy so that the Camera becomes “free” like a regular messiah Camera, the placing and ajusting of it is the same, Lights (Spots and Areas) behave the same way.

Hope it helps making it clear why it’s a more efficient way of dealing with the navigation/placing issues, at least to me it is…

#44

I see now. . .

Its more like a modeling camera where it always rotates around what is selected instead of each object/light being its own thing with no “goal” like Messiah.

But this would be dead easy to emulate. You have control over what each object is looking at with target expressions. . . I think you’d laugh at how easy they are to set up once you see it done. Or you could manually create your own camera/light rigs that could be controlled by animating the root null of the rig.

Also. . . (please don’t take this the wrong way. . . ) how much time do you actually spend setting up lights and cameras?

For me that is a tiny tiny fraction of the time I spend working on a scene. Most of my time is spent animating the little buggers or nailing the perfect shader for my needs. Worrying about a slightly better way of positioning objects in relation to each other seems rather. . . I don’t know. . . odd.

But probably no more odd than my obsession with procedural shaders instead of just “paint the damn thing!” he he

Thank you for making the video. I’ll have to think about it and maybe make my own to see if we can emulate the same thing with Messiah as it is now.

#45

When ALexK did his camera competition, I tried to emulat the xsi camera set-up and someone jumped in and scripted it - if I’m not mistaken, theres a setup script at zoogono. I had one in my bar before, I’ll check later.

What’s nice about the xsi camera is that you can aim it either by rotating it like any camera or by moving its target - a looped dependency. That orbit also works like that, it swivels around that focus point. I had rotate on alt-lmb and orbit on alt-shift-lmb.

Was nice.