TLHPro - WIP Thread

#201

Hehe I´m closer than you than you think, just a bit up north, Sweden. So I think your english is sharper than mine due to life experience, I learnt english the same way as you :smiley: Agree that the later sounds better though. :smiley:

#202

" towards an object " is the correct one :slight_smile:

#203

Thank you Alan! :wavey:

#204

or " t’wards an object’ in mobile talk :slight_smile:

R

#205

Now this is great news: Taron did a wireframe shader!:


so I can spare the effort of finishing mine :slight_smile: :thumbsup:

Edit: the 2.4b update also contains a fresnel shader. Maybe I should retire TLHPro?
Taron, do you plan to implement all the stuff yourself?
That would be great news for messiah, but please let me know so I can stop my development.

BTW. My other job should be done now, so I can finally continue with the docs.

Cheers, :bowdown:

#206

Thomas,

pmg implemented or not, I will still buy TLHPro. Keep it!!! :-).

regards
Ikem

#207

okafor: thanks. :bounce:

It would be nice to have a roadmap from pmG though, about what they plan to implement in the next patches as far as shaders are concerned.

I am sure Taron could write all my tools in a week. I’m a slow coder and have to fight with the sparsely documented SDK.

I wouldn’t even have started with writing shaders if messiah had come with the solid default kit of tools that is needed in a node based system IMO.
Now I am rather late in the game, after that long, needed break from messiah.
I still think it would be the best to have all of this in the core, since most of it is rather basic. But I will finish the docs anyway and you guys can decide yourself if you want it or not.

Cheers :bowdown:

#208

Same here!

#209

Well - as nice as a returning customer can be, it takes away time from other things :slight_smile:

I thought the docs on RayType to be finished, but added two more examples to it, for the use with environments and with GI. Really a cool tool.
Then I finished ShowValues, a measurement node to see what values flow through it.

And now I’m so tired that I will call it a day - the weekend was quite exhausting with work until 4 in the morning…

Hopefull tomorrow will be more productive once more.

Best regards, :bowdown:

#210

It is really “interesting” being back to working in messiah for a bit…
Psychic developers on caffeine deprivation induced paranoia, interesting update challenges like: “Only if you downloaded the previous 2.4b install from 04/02/2006 Click here to download the patch fix for texturemap transform control (SH_TextureMap.zmb), then run it.”
Ahem - what is a .zmb file and how does one “run” it?
… and other goodies that are really missing when you work with “normal” 3D software. :thumbsup:

While I still haven’t got what I thought to be buying back in 2002 when I updated from the Lightwave plugin, I instead got things I never bought. :stuck_out_tongue:

The main reasons for me to upgrade were Develop and - believe it or not - the QuadView. For Develop, we still don’t know when it will be up, and it certainly is too late for my tools anyway. The Quad View never worked on my machine (the several I’ve gone through since 2002 that is) and after my numerous bug reports I only got told that I may have “gremlins” in my computer. So I had given up long ago, but now I tried to use it again and it is still broken.
So my question is: does anyone else have this problem:

In QuadView, only one of the four windows has the focus and shows an edit sphere. That alone is bad enough for working fast, but even more bad is, that you have to click into a window to activate it, which easily makes you move an object by accident. This is not bugs but very “across the grain” design.
The bug is, that the focus of the active window jumps back to the upper left window all the time when I try to move the editsphere in one of the other windows. If I then click again on the window to refocus it and then click on the - now again visible - editsphere, it works, but if I select another object in the item list or otherwise do something else and come back to the still visually active window in the quad view and click on the editsphere, zoink - focus jumps back to the upper left window.

This makes QuadView unusable in any practical sense.
Am I really the only one seeing this or are there others?

Thank you for any hints or tips how to solve this.

Thomas Helzle

#211

I have had some lengthy talks with Lyle about this - or as lengthy as was possible.

This is a “feature” not a bug. I know you’ll smirk at that - and I fought it a while too, but after accepting it I have the following view: It brings an increase in feedback. I even found myself annoyed in xsi, having to de-activate window feedback to get the fluid feedback I was used to.
Of course - I am still convinced that this should be an option that the user can select as needed. That’s always the best choice and there are certainly situations where you want two windows active simultaneously.

Another thing:
If you are expereincing annoying delays when switching windows, check the frequency of auto-save. We encountered this in production - much to the delight of a mya animator after all our bragging about messiah’s speed :wink:

As to the other stuff - develop and auto-rig would be nice. But things are getting solid and that’s even nicer. Soon, we’ll be at nicest, and that will include cool shaders from Thomas!

#212

Well, even without the focus jumps I see - which is hopefully not intended that way - this “Feature” is defeating the purpose of working in a QuadView. I had those discussions with Lyle myself and I would even accept the windows not updating while I drag, but being forced to click once into the window to activate it with the danger of moving things and then having to click on the - now visible - editsphere again to move it… What is that supposed to be good for?
Well, I just want to see the sphere in all views and be able do directly interact with it? I don’t see how this should decrease the performance?

So you don’t have those focus jumps David?

No, I don’t have problems with switching windows, but I only use messiah for writing the docs for TLHPro, so I have no production experience for more than a year now.
messiah isn’t usable for my kind of work.

Cheers,

#213

I know of 3 people who are thinking of making or are working on creating an autorig tool for messiah.

#214

No that works for me, so it’s not a bug, maybe you have “gremlins” in your computer after all??? :slight_smile:

/ Svante

#215

I like that idea. I agree this is should be adressed. I’m relaying Lyle’s argumentation, which also has its points.

I don’t think so. From your description at any rate, all I have is the 'window activation" thing.

Not the solution you’re looking for, but I’ve come to automatically hold “alt” when clicking the viewport to activate it. This way, the view might slide a bit (if its not the camera view) but my object won’t get unwanted keys and shifts…

#216

heheheh - sure, on 6 different machines, five different graphics cards with uncounted driver revisions and at least two different OS’s? Seems to be a pretty stable gremlin!

Well, not a real problem for just writing docs with it… Just thought I ask.

Edit: nice tip with the alt key David, Thanks!
But I think I can not get used to the intended workflow.

BTW. It would be nice to be able to directly navigate the camera in the camera viewport like in XSI - that would improve the workflow a lot for me. And I love the separate “View-Undo” there (Alt-Z)…

#217

Can you describe the focus thing again? I’m not following. The orientation of the view (or camera) shifts?

#218

Well a friend of mine reinstalled Windows just to find out that his problem was caused by an PC/amiga switch under his mouse! :wink: Ha!

/ Svante

#219

No.

In Quad View, there is always one window “active”, it has the “focus”. It is the only window that has the edit sphere visible. This activation/focus jumps back to the upper left window very often.
For Instance: I have the lower right window active (I’m seeing the edit sphere there), I try to move the edit sphere but as soon as I click on it, the upper left window becomes active (ES visible there) and my click on the lower right window is ignored otherwise. I then have to click on it again to reactivate it and see the ES and then, with another click, I finally can move something around.

If I ever get annoyed enough, I will make a movie.

#220

Thomas i have this problem too on my laptop and my workstation with different OS, different graphic cards and different messiah releases.
probably everyone have these gremlins…