This offer looks great at $399 with a free Hair fur modual worth $249, question is how do you rate this software for the finnal render of a animation using its own engine? I cant find much on this render engine, anyone have any better insite to this software, of course its to use with Zbrush 3.
Check out the demo on their site and see what it does for you. I was intrigued by Taron’s experiments and almost bought it right away in an impulse, but was ticked off then by the molasses like development speed and constant negativity on the forum. But hey, for that price…
Rainer
It looks and feels like its not quite a finnished product, im not sure what it is but dont seem very commercial and out there. It mite be because there is lack of info on their site and shows what it can do but no techincal info on the render engine or anything. There dont seem to be a large following which I think may reflect on how easy it wuld be to learn.
You should really look at the program itself and only accept advice from someone who actually uses it. I have only worked with the demo which ran very well and showed a smart animation package. But it fell short for me on the community aspect, the support of the makers, and the availability of readily available resources like materials etc. That’s all I can say. I use C4D and could tell you exactly why I use that. But the problem is that it is plenty more expensive than messiah…
Maybe you should check out the apprentice version from http://www.sidefx.com/ either free or for 99$ without the water mark. I am just not sure if they have a hair module or if they are bald 8).
Good luck and expect to get what you pay for!
Cheers
Rainer
Messiah goes particularly well with ZBrush. Essentially, what it is is an animation program made by animators, which puts it in a very unique little position indeed. I am a third party developer for it, and I am also an animator and rigger. What’s so good about that is that it’s tools are created for a reason, with thought for and knowledge of the process by the people who make it. It doesn’t have any form of modelling, but rather it is designed to work singly as an animation program and a rendering platform. Because of that, it can enjoy the kind of focus like Zbrush has with sculpting, or wings and silo has with modelling. The development team is small, but is extremely competent, most of them with 15-20 years in the industry.
Among it’s strongest points is the fact that as you animate, you can usually just hit play to preview an animation in realtime, without having to make time consuming playblasts throughout. It’s deformation speed and quality is extraordinary within the animation industry. Also the expression engine is extremely powerful and easy to learn so you can make really very complicated rigs, without getting too geeky about it. Speed of creation is really what it’s all about.
You can export the animation you create in it to render in any other program through the built in mdd format, or plug it into other larger packages as a plugin. Or you can render directly in messiah. This is where the strong tie in to ZBrush lies, because with it, you have the opportunity to make some freakishly exciting and dynamic looking animations with animated displacement maps. The link is also very strong because of Taron, who is one of the main programmers of Messiah is also an avid user of Zbrush.
If you haven’t already checked it out, this film by him might be worth watching as an example of what can be achieved with a ZBrush, Messiah combination:
http://www.projectmessiah.com/x4/vids/gallery/taron_people.avi
Messiah goes particularly well with ZBrush. Essentially, what it is is an animation program made by animators, which puts it in a very unique little position indeed. I am a third party developer for it, and I am also an animator and rigger. What’s so good about that is that it’s tools are created for a reason, with thought for and knowledge of the process by the people who make it. It doesn’t have any form of modelling, but rather it is designed to work singly as an animation program and a rendering platform. Because of that, it can enjoy the kind of focus like Zbrush has with sculpting, or wings and silo has with modelling. The development team is small, but is extremely competent, most of them with 15-20 years in the industry.
Among it’s strongest points is the fact that as you animate, you can usually just hit play to preview an animation in realtime, without having to make time consuming playblasts throughout. It’s deformation speed and quality is extraordinary within the animation industry. Also the expression engine is extremely powerful and easy to learn so you can make really very complicated rigs, without getting too geeky about it. Speed of creation is really what it’s all about.
You can export the animation you create in it to render in any other program through the built in mdd format, or plug it into other larger packages as a plugin. Or you can render directly in messiah. This is where the strong tie in to ZBrush lies, because with it, you have the opportunity to make some freakishly exciting and dynamic looking animations with animated displacement maps. The link is also very strong because of Taron, who is one of the main programmers of Messiah is also an avid user of Zbrush.
If you haven’t already checked it out, this film by him might be worth watching as an example of what can be achieved with a ZBrush, Messiah combination:
http://www.projectmessiah.com/x4/vids/gallery/taron_people.avi
Messiah is one of the tools in my toolbox beside Modo-ZBrush-Wings3d. It is a great piece of program that lets you rig, render, animate at the same time. Unlike other animation packages Messiah uses volume based bone weights and weight objects. This means that your polygon-vertex order has nothing todo with your rig pretty much. It allow you to constantly improve and modiy your workflow. Messiah is very good with ZBrush Auv tiles and this byitself makes life very easy because most of the time you wont need to worry about uving.
There are more features and uses. If you write down your questions I can try answering them one by one.
Hello.
Thanks for your offer, I do have a few questions that would help me out a great deal. Il list them and you can choose which ones to answer in your own time, thankyou.
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What training recorces are avalible and where is the comminity for Massiah? (Most important question) I only perchase software that has a large user base and traiing support, like Zbrush and Modo have.
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What resuslts can I expect from its own renderer without spending too long setting things up. When I demo Lightwave I got next to nowhere.
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Have you used the hair modual and if so how good is it to other hair alternitives?
4)Does the Hair have physics?
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Does the render have a realtime preview.
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If I wanted to rig my own Zbrush character, how long is this likly to take and how many processes are there to getting it full riged, IK e.c.t. I have the Demo but havent a clue what to do, is there any quick run through videos from start to finnish rigging setting up and animating somthink simple?
I cant think of any more at the moment but these are enought questions. Any of these questions answered are apreciated.
1-There are not many training resources to be honest. But Joe Cosman made some tutorials and he is selling them 25$ per course I think he has total 6 that cover hours of videos and various topics in Messiah (mainly rigging and animation). And they are very good and indepth. You can grab them from lulu.com . I did not use videos to learn but sure they are helpful.
2-I personally love its render engine. It offers Gi and photon mapping. It has node based shader system with nifty shaders and some shaders are innovative if you know how to use them.
3-I have not used the hair system really. I know the guys who wrote them. They are pretty good at what they do and long time developers(Fori wrote metanurbs for lightwave) so I believe that they got it right. You understand that it is the first version of hair module so do not expect to make King kong at your first try.
4- As I said I have not tried but there are various methods you can simulate physics with Fur. Messiah has easy to use dynamics which you can incorporate into bones or other effect systems inside Messiah. But I am not sure about hair module so You need to wait and see if hair is important for you.
5-No realtime render preview.
6- Rigging and expressions are Messiah`s power. You need to understand that it is a different kind of software, ideas work differently. Althou things like, ik fk etc are similar inside Messiah. Just setting things up works in different fashion. It may be overwhelming in the beginning but once you get it you may be able to rig 3 4 times faster compared to other softwares.
Great Info.
Thanks!
Rainer
Thanks for the info, very helpfull and honnest. I think if I had alot of experience with animation and rigging already, I would most likly be ok with Messiah. For me id need Laymans step by step of a fully professional Digital tutors or Gnomon based video where nothink is asumed.
I did check out these videos but there where no demo clips or info about how long the video ran for and about the tutor. Its one of thoes times where a offer comes along at a time where im learning other software, and adding another package can interupt in my progress should it not have a large enougth user base and support. When I first saw Zbrush I was initialy put off by its interface but when I saw how large and helpfull its community is, it gave me confidence that id get through the learning curve. Hair is of the greatest importance to me as both Modo and Zbrush has non. I have Carrara pro 6 and while this has hair, its render quality is way lower than my requirments for skin and quality micro displacments.
Thanks again.
Hi. I’ve been a messiah user from its inception, so maybe I can add a bit as well. I have similar issues, as an animator, on the value of various modeling packages such as ZBrush, Mudbox, Silo, etc. I bought SIlo after seeing their demo, as it was also what I could afford at that moment. I have barely had time to even touch it, and therefore, it remains a bit of a mystery when I poke around in the interface. And I know ZBrush is extremely powerful and yet a bit complex to learn.
The same would be true of messiah. It’s very powerful, and without actually working with the program, it would probably seem confusing, as does any app at first. You need to understand that messiah was developed to answer the specific needs of animation and rigging. It now has an amazing renderer as well with very fast GI solutions. Most of us are character animators who desparately wanted more tools to help us create what we wanted/needed in making our characters live.
The beauty of messiah is that you can rig as simply as you want, or as complex as you desire/need to. Go to:http://projectmessiah.com/
And scroll down to the lower demos, and play the Bones demo. That will show you how FAST you can rig and begin to animate. Most of us obviously go far, far beyond that, but you can rig and begin animating in minutes, if that is a concern. This method allows you to progress at your own speed, and later build more complex rigs as you learn more.
You can certainly get up to working speed very quickly with the demos on the site (both sets, especially the earlier ones). Then there are other free ones, and I too have bought a few tutotial cds.
Last, we are generally a very friendly and sharing community. At times, as anywhere, some who have different views chose to present them negatively. That is life. I have seen many instances where pros offer the person having a problem to email them there scene and help them solve it. So, as we are a group of specialists, we also have picked a specialized app that we think is amazing. Big isn’t always better. The Shaolin monastery was not that big compared to the population of china, but they sure had some guys who knew about martial arts.
Best,
Rick
To me I do not need to buy alot of dvds or tuts. I prefer to study one good one that explains the basics and ideas. And Joe`s tuts are extremely good. But he does not cover every aspect of Messiah, for example rendering and hair. There are good stuff in it. I bought some of them and saved countless hours.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=92&t=581175&page=1&pp=15
if you want to know more about them check out this topic under cgtalk. You may want to ask for preview clips. Because at some point he was talking about putting some preview on youtube.
I think at this point best thing you can do buy one of his tuts first. If you like the software you can invest your money later.
ALso before all check out what is available on Pmg web site. There some nice simple tuts and videos that show what is possible already.
tez,
you wrote: What resuslts can I expect from its own renderer without spending too long setting things up. When I demo Lightwave I got next to nowhere.
I don’t know your experience, in the field so please forgive me if this doesn’t apply to you. Frankly, Lightwave has always been one of the best and most efficient and easy to learn 3D apps out there. I used it since the old Amiga Toaster days. But because my focus is character work, I migrated to messiah mainly.
Perhaps you got nowhere because you are geared towards modeling and ZBrush, and did not spend the time in Lightwave that you did in learning ZBrush so fully. Also, remember that when comparing a program like messiah or Lightwave to an app like ZBrush it truly is apples and oranges.
While ZBrush and similar programs are basically modeling programs, the others are full animation programs PLUS full rendering and compositing programs PLUS rigging program PLUS effects programs PLUS (in the case of Lightwave) modeling programs. SO there is necessarily going to be much more to “learn”, and we all want to jump in and work immediately…I’m no different than anyone in that respect.
I used Lightwave over a period of maybe 20 years, messiah since its inception, and I also teach basic courses in 3D MAX. I can honestly say that each necessitates getting the lay of the land, just to negotiate using the basics. And yes, that can be frustrating. (Starting ZBrush from scrap would no doubt give me the same frustrations, even tho’ I can model cg characters and can sculpt in natural materials.) I can’t see any program even beginning to touch what messiah does, especially at that price. And if you are mainly a modeler, and you want to get going quickly setting up bones and animating, I think messiah is the way to go. To my knowledge, only messiah and Lightwave have bone systems that allow you to add bones, and the begin to animate. The other require a lot of work skinning or weighting everything…something which may need to be redone if you change a model even slightly. Not so in messiah.
Best of luck with your pursuits,
Rick
Iv taken in all or your posts and they are all very helpfull.
catizone, as far as experience go with Modling, yes im mainly a modler and am learning the depths of rendering as I speak. I learnt how to rig in 3dsmax and yes the weighting was a right pain in the neck. Me jumping the gun somehow thought max was alot cheaper than I first thought, so I brought a rigging tutorial, learnt it while using the demo then thought, right il buy that now, my Max days where over when I saw the real price, I took to max very well.
When looking for a seriouse application I looked at XSI foundation and found it over complicated to setup a basic shader, I think them node based shader setups require the user knows the ins and outs of rendering, lighting as it just went over my head, I then found that there was no upgrade soloution for hair. Lightwave I gave much greater attention to, as I realy , badly wanted hair. I decided what ever finnal render application I settle down with, it has to have hair.
With lightwave I hit a brick wall with everything I tryed, athough I did get each area working ,it was so far from the results I was after. First thing was Zbrush displacments, hours of messing with it to find out I had to Subpatch every model to see a displacment, no tutorial mentioned this. Being that this has to be done in Modler and the application that switches between the modler and render part of the program failed all the time, this made the procees seem far to long winded for such a simple thing. I search for days on net for tutorials on how to apply SSS, and read the manual and I got nowhere.
When I did see others attemps SSS with the complex render node setup they had to make to get it, I just stoped using Lightwave. I did go back to lightwave a few more times and had the same problems. I noticed that the slightest wrong setting made in the render settings made a render that should take 5 min lasted over 48min. When I thought I was actualy getting somwhere I had huge problems with normal maps. I went and brought Poser didnt I! thinking il get my results in that, ohh boy rigging in that app was a nightmare in every way. Renders took ages and I had to spend days to get any reasonable render, it was still not good enougth.
I then came across Carrara just before the release of v6 which had hair. The renders apeared to be fair and the demo was so nice to use. I brought this program to find out that I couldnt apply displacments to shader domains, and that the SSS system was prety poor. To top this off Carrara crashed often when trying micro displacments. When I got sick of this I brought Modo. Modo like Zbrush it seemed a very odd program to use but man Im getting some very very good results and im learning this application no problem now.
I brought both courseware dvds and im off on a good start. Two drawbacks with Modo are no hair and no charcter animation, this is where Messiah catches my eye, it exports MDD and so far shows that the hair system and rendering looks to be good. I asume I can style the hair, I havent seen much about the hair modual they are giving away and this concerns me alot.
If I could afford it, id just go 3dsmax and have done with it, athough I havent given up on the idear of Messiah. My goals are to get a near photo realistic character made and rendered with hair. I brought both Ballistics books, one is Essence the face and the other is Character modling, im delving into this while learning Modo, learning sculpt and anatomy form while attending two courses, this is why I may seem to want a easyer a ride with Messiah, time is againts me and knwoing Messiah offer can end any time makes me feel rush, as I did for the promotion of Poser 7 and Carrara pro 6 which where both mistakes.
tez,
I feel your pain. I’ve been there many times since the inception of cg.
I don’t recall if it was in my general post or to you, but go to messiah’s website and play the Bones video. It will show you how bones are so easy to setup. Now, while that works, most of us advanced users would no doubt add more, now that we have SO many ways beyond simple morphs to add detail. There’s Flex, MetaEffectors, expressions, and so much more.
As to the ZBrush use in messiah, the Neckling shows Taron has it down and it works. Others can probably help there.
Eggington Productions just did a half hour kids show, ALL in messiah (except for modeling). So hair, GI, and all rigging and character animation work, and rendering. There is also an impressive film being done in Austrailia using messiah. SO it does work, and very well. Will we all want something specific that may not be there yet, probably, because we all have very specific wants. But I would say you can probably do nearly anything in messiah. You may need to approach it in a different way, but it is very powerful, and elegantly simple once you get the hang of it. I have always preferred powerful and simple (in application and use) to complex and obtuse…even if others choose them.
I, personally, would not buy and use MAX. If messiah didn’t exist, I’d be using Lightwave. It, to me, is just so much more intuitive in design. You may be too young to know, but all the broadcast shows from Babylon 5 all the way thru Xena and Hercules used Lightwave…and somewhat primitive versions by today’s comparisons. It comes down to the artistry and ingenuity one applies to ANY package.
Good luck in the hunt,
Rick
They’ve never really been bald, though in previous years things were always more difficult to set up… so maybe you could argue they were a little thin. :lol:
However, Houdini 9.1 now comes with a fur procedural, and as of the current build (9.1.169) there are some nice “ease the pain” type setup tools while the documentation also includes example files and tutorials for using them.
Would the $99 version have hair? There seems to be a few version of Houdini from costing more than I could afford even with 10 years of saving up, to $99 which cant be used for commercial application.
I want to sell my Poser 7se to get some money together, I mite beable to get Messiah if its not too late.
Yes, the Apprentice (free) / Apprentice HD ($99) are the same as the Master version - so include a hair (well fur, really) toolset. Features aren’t restricted for the PLEs, only things such as render resolution / watermarks etc. See here for the specific details - http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=589&Itemid=221
You can only use Apprentice HD for non-commercial purposes (demo-reels, festivals, personal projects etc), but, should say, an entry to a festival gain you any money, SideFX will sanction that as long as you provide them with some press on how Houdini was used. Essentially, I think they’re fairly flexible but you’d have to get the low-down as to the specifics first hand from them - they’re still a small company so easy to talk with.
Also, if you decide to buy either Master or Escape, they’ll do a one-time file conversion of all of your non-com Apprentice files to commercial ones. So, theoretically you could develop non-com work which you use to tout for business with, and upon buying the app then have your files there waiting for you ready to use. Not bad really if you’re just starting out and need all the breaks you can get…
Hi,
I purchased the Joe Cosman Rigging 2 dvd. It has in depth tutorials on rigging A human, a quad and a face. So far that and the tutes on the net have been all I’ve needed to get up and running.
I hope I was helpfull. I figured you might want the opinion of someone new to Messiah as well as those more experienced with it.