The non official Messiah 2.4 BUG tracker

#261

Hi Wegg,

Thanks. I’ve used that but it’s limited for day to day use. You discover that when you have all moving items, so for example, a throwing hand (moving), a moving ball (obviously!) and a moving catching hand. With true DPIP you can do this without the parents motions affecting the childs (ball).

I’ve banged on about this enough. I don’t want to sound stale! For day to day CA it would be a tremendously useful function to add. I just don’t know how difficult it would be for them though.

:slight_smile:
First the dopemaster, then DPIP, then I’ll be quiet as a mouse for…minutes! Ha ha ha!

#262

Taron: I don’t know if you watch this thread:

The good, the bad and the ugly:

  • Something IS wrong with refraction.
  • There is still bad shadow noise through transparency.
  • Two of the shadowmap flavours produce completely broken results with transparency.
  • Doublesided objects with SSS throw no shadows.
  • You already know about the black spots from transparent objects - may be related to the refraction problem.
  • Antialiasing still isn’t there. See my red glass tori rendering.
  • I still get focus jumping when deleting nodes. Very very rare now, but it is still there.
  • If Antialiasing is set to “None”, soft shadows are rendered in High Quality, so you can’t create a fast preview with this.

I’m sure I missed some, but this should be enough for one day anyway.

“The queen wasn’t amused”

Cheers,

#263

I’ve found a bug related to Soft Body Dynamics…if you have two objects with SBD effect applyed, only the first in the effects list reacts to collisions. Can someone please confirm this?

Even “Rigid” option for collision objects appears to be broken.

#264

I can confirm and add some weird observations:

  • your objects are named 'layer 1", “layer2” etc. If you are working with a multi-layered object, try seperating it into two objects. (Just geussing with this one - its often a source of weirdness.)

  • When I switch from animate to set-up, the second soft-body wasn’t colliding. Oddly, when I switch back, the second soft-body object is frozen on that frame, in the midst of collided distortion. And when I then scrub the timeline, the ball still goes through the object (incorrect), but there is a visible effect that isn’t there when the scene is playing.

#265

I’ve tried, and looks like multy layered objects work the same as single layered objects. The real problem seems to relay in the fact that different soft objects can’t use the same collision object/objects. A little odd beavhior…but at least there’s a workaround. I hope PMG is going to fix that.

#266

aaaah, soft bodies… dont get me started hahaha.

#267

I simply love them.

If I could figure out how to use self-collision and if in Messiah there were tools such as Lightwave’s Metalink and Hardlink, they would be perfect.

I’m starting a big project and I have to choose between Lightwave and Messiah for cloth/soft dynamic simulation.

What I really miss in Messiah is the chance to use pre-built math collision spheres. In Lightwave they work very well and are long way faster than polygonal objects.

#268

Hi PMG!

I have collected some more WorkFlow-issues during the last days at work.
This is just “tiny things” that in some way leads to frustration, BUT after a long day at work can make you feel: “I have had enough of this!” :banghead:
If you like, you can wash them away, to everybodys pleasant! :wip: :drool:

  1. Lights from imported LW-scenes is converted into Null objects, when Messiah should convert them to a Light, with the basic info intact.

  2. Please enable “Escape” to abort renderings insted of “F9”, this is just confusing and annoying.

  3. I can’t move the pivot interactively with the mouse, neither in animate or in setup.
    (I like to use the editspare for it)

  4. When creating a new null it should become a “child” to “the current selected object”.
    In the current version it become a “child” to the “current-selected-objects parent”, and for me it seems like a mistake?
    Also, please add a checkbox for creating nulls unlinked(parent to world).

  5. I like to be able to refresh/reload “all selected objects”, this is needed when models have been modifyed. In current Messiah I use to reload the whole scene(wich often leads to a crash). Or at least: when chooseing Replace, Messiah should have the searchpath to the current object allready set, so you just need to click OK!

  6. When renaming objects you can’t place the cursor in a ordinary way, by a click someware in the middle of the string! And I have the habbit to highlight the part of the text I want to change, and then just write in some new text, but that can’t be done, so this feels annoying and slows me down!

  7. Sometimes the view is centered to the selected object despite the “Center view to current object”-button is deactivated, so the user must first activate it and then deactivate it, to have it deactivated.

  8. You can’t undo if you delete an object!

  9. When multiple items is selected you can’t select only one of them by click on it. You must first click on an unselected item and then select the object you want to select! ( Think: Work-flow! )

  10. Filtering for the surface-list! So we can look at just “surfaces belonging to the selected material”, and only view “the sufaces who not yet have a material applyed to them”, and “show only surfaces belonging to current-selected-obects”, etc. This would speed up the process of applying materials to several surfaces, in current Messiah the surface-list fast gets way to big to be comfortable!

  11. I found 2,53 GB of Chunk-files left in Messiahs temp-dir, is this normal?
    Does Messiah re-use theis Chunk-files? Otherwise Messiah seems to fail to remove them.

  12. The Messiah temp directory are not saved with the config IF I set a temp dir like:“E:” ( Just a drive and no specific folder ) Hmm, this may have something to do with the problem above(Nr34)?

  13. It would be good to be able to right-click on a material and choose: SelectAllTargetSurfaces, so you fast can delete the material from all surfaces and fast add another material to them.

  14. When importing a LWO with multiple-layers the layers do not always line up in order in the item list.
    I was given this order right now: ( 10,2,1,3,9,4,5,6,7,8 )??? Confusing!( this seems to have something to do with imported obj objects, or maybe parts or point selection sets? )( I can send over the particular LWO causeing this little problem )

  15. When I model in LW, I often use MetaNUBS/“Tab” on some pieces but keep other pices “hard”(In the same layer), a layer like this is not possible to apply MetaNURBS on in Messiah, because Messiah will “Smooth” the whole object. When the most of us comes from LW, I think it would be best if this could work as in LW.

  16. (A pure feature-request) I sometimes wish I had “Enhanced control of shadow casting/recieving in the whole scene”: In some way I like to decide: This object should cast shadows on this object but not on this object, etc.( So not just: Cast shadows On/Off )

Thanks for listening!
Good Luck!
/ Svante

#269

yes - please!

#270

svintaj:

I like all of your suggestions a lot, only some seem more like a habit/taste thing.

35: I think it makes more sense to use a specific folder for the temp files anyway instead of just the plain harddrive. And yes, I think this may be related to 34. My chunks are always reused.

38: I would go for changing your modeling habits here, since this kind of stuff can be a real pain in the behind if you work with others. It is much better and clearer to have non-metanurbsed stuff on a different layer. XSI and most other apps don’t even allow half-subdivided meshes…

39: There could be a lot more of such stuff like object visibility for GI/Caustics/Reflections/Refractions etc, but what objects casts shadows on which other would become rather massive. You would need a huge interface for each and every object to implement that and it may be slowing down rendering in the end. I would prefer being able to render a REAL shadow pass, then you could do most of what you ask for in post easily in combination with an Object ID pass.
Having shadows as a shader would also allow for interesting stuff, but the SDK doesn’t give us control over that, if you’re not writing a complete material…

Just some thoughts, though.

Cheers, :wavey:

#271

I’m getting a lot of instability (crashing all the time) when I try and render out an AVI from the Play/Animation Preview/Record Preview - AVI interface.

I hit “Record Preview”. . . it locks up for a second. . . and crashes.

Its never been super stable but I was always able to get SOMETHING to work by messing with the color depth and resolution. . .

I need to get some client approval on some things and rendering isn’t an option.

Grr. :frowning:

#272

Bill,

I just tried it and had no problems. The only scene I had was a single character rig, with a few expressions…but it worked.I’m going to guess you have a much more complex scene.

Could be the scene, or maybe a codec or compression problem? Maybe try something that works like MicrosoftVideo1 at 75% and see if that still crashes.

Another thing to try, just to see if it’s the avi, is to render a few frames and see if that crashes it as well. That might help point to a scene problem?

Best,
Rick

#273

Its just one character. Not even an environment. I used AVI Uncompressed. I’m able to render it just fine and. . . thats what I have done in order for my client to see what I have been up too. Just notched down all the AA etc.

When I get time I might try playing with it to figure out what is REALLY going on.

Its been a long time since I re-did this machine. XP kind of gets clunky and gummed up after a year or two. :frowning:

Wish there were a linux port.

#274

Since it’s a test render of sorts, why can’t you use compression?

Try some compression…even if its at 90 (or 99) percent…just to see if it works.

Best,
Rick

#275

Yes it makes more sense, but it should work anyway.:thumbsup:

Yes you’re absolutely right, I should change my old habit, we and PMG should think more in “3D-standards” instead of “LW-standards”!
Thanks for your input!
/ Svante

#276

Regarding my last list and issue nr 34:
Now I know that Messiah does not delete or reuse temporary chunkfiles! (And, yes I using a folder now) I just had a 25h render turn into trash, just because my temp dir was full of chunkfiles from the last weeks renderings!

/ Svante

#277

A list I made while working in a recent project. I extracted from a post regarding bugs and workflow http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=377617

I used 2.4b, I haven’t install 2.4d yet.

  • A strange bug. dragging a keyframe value in motion graph changed the value of another keyframe far away, outside the in and out range. So you think you are changing the value you dragged, but you’re really changing another, one that wasn’t even selected. You can notice that because the value you dragged in is not yellow marked, and the in or out frame field has changed to include the frame you have changed. Also the current frame field is showing the frame it’s been changed. Usually the frame marker moves immediately to the keyframe you select in the curve, so it looks like a bad bug. By selecting another key and then selecting the one you want to change again make it works fine again, otherwise you can keep dragging the value and changing the wrong frame forever. And you still have to fix the one that has been accidentally changed. This happened a couple of times only.

    • Previews: frame counter jumps after 100 frames to 1100, 200 to 2000 etc… I’m interpreting this counter in the wrong way?

  • Previews: for short previews all works fine,but when I created a final preview for 900 frames, the result was not synch with the audio. I rendered a raw sequence of frames and the result was synch, but I could not trust the preview ?The avi file showed a 24,390 fps instead of 24 I set, could it be that the reason? if so, why 24,390?

  • Audio: offset is lost in the play tab after saving the scene, the audio plays in the correct position but the field is reset to 0, so you’d better to to write this offset down before you close. The audio wave is not drawn properly when offset is used, it is partially cleared (precisely around the frame marker, what a happy coincidence)

    • the frame marker delete the wave when it pass through (that’s could be a graphics issue I don’t know)

  • sometimes selecting a value (yellow dot) and dragging with LMB don’t work, the point does not move. This also happen when multiselecting several values (blue dots) or curves. Also RMB draging. I think it always happen when you have several channels selected in the item list.

    • the item list does not refresh, you have to click on it, maybe a graphics problem

  • Spherize has a major bug with the radious percent field, he values in the field don’t follow the keyframes created in motion graph, nor the resulting animation does. Using the field minislider to set the keframes breaks it, but also creating keyframes in motion graph by MMB clicking usually don’t work (not always, I have 1 success, 3 fails). Strange.

  • “all channels” mode dont’ work with sliders . You move one slider and not all channels get a keyframe (sometimes). Maybe it’s intended that way, but again, it’s confusing when your setting is all channels.

  • pan button in worldview sometimes is not active and dragging on is interpreted as dragging in the viewport, changing a channel value. This happens while the “center current object” button, the one in the left, is off, of course. By clicking a couple of times in the “center current object” button to switch it on/off makes the other one accesible again.

  • Many times Distort key range does not works for all the selected channels (curves) I tried all combinations (visible channels, all chan, etc… but it’s the same). Sometimes it changes 2 curves, sometimes just the active channel,…

  • Distort key range: if there are negative keyframe values in the curve, although the value axis center is 0 in the panel, it’s drawn below 0 in motion graph , and the distortion process move zero values in the curve to the drawn center. I think if the value axis center is set to zero in the panel, it should be drawn as zero, and it should use zero to center the distortion.

    • unchecking an object to appear in color buffer does not work.
    • nor does the shadow or depth buffers (2.4b)
    • render, animation range of 1 frame (200 to 200) does not work.
    • Objects with several uv maps can lose their assigment in the texture image node after reloading the scene

  • show render progress in window cannot open a window render and you have to restart messiah. This happens if you set preview to window and forget to check progress. After rendering the image the window pops up for a milisecond when the render is finished and won’t appear again, no matter you check progress or not.

#278

Is anyone else having this problem? In 2.4d I can’t insert the text cursor anywhere…
Say, for example, I want to rename a bone “Man_ForeheadSupport1_R” to “Man_ForeheadSupport2_R”. I am currently having to double click the entry, hit the “end”
key on the keyboard, backspace to delete the 1_R entry and retype, instead of simply hi-
liting the number and replacing with “2”. This is the most annoying aspect, but it shows
up everywhere except the blocks. Same behavior for Armatures, editing expressions, you name it. It’s drivin’ me nuts!
Can anyone tell me what I’m doing wrong? :shrug:

#279

Yes, that’s the way it’s working. Hopefully, with the next revision, double clicking will place a cursor rather than highlight.Anyone else heard anything?

Best,
Rick

#280

Well, in messiah 2.4d I can use the arrow keys to get my cursor somewhere and then edit. I don’t need to backspace and retype. And the problem is not everywhere. For instance in the materials list it works as expected. For me at least.

As for future updates, well, I’m versionally challenged, so there’s no knowing if the fact that I can’t find such a text cursor problem in the future is due to messiah steadily improving or me being uncertain about the future version I may be using in the past. :curious: