If you don't yet have enough 3D software...

[James G. Jones]

Interesting "viral" marketing experiment... messiah pro for $40:

 

http://www.projectmessiah.com/x6/shop.html

 

[Christopher Tedin]

Yes, it's true. I don't have enough 3d programs. One more won't hurt...
My brain... Can't fit anything else in!

That having been said, I'm going to check it out. I've been fascinated
with this program since it came on the scene many years ago. Can't go
wrong for $10 (personal).

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

This is brilliant..!

[Joe Laffey]

I agree completely. This has been on my list for a while. Now I picked up
a couple of licenses of the pro version for a whole $80 for both!

Really can't go wrong here.

--
Joe Laffey | Visual Effects for Film and Video
LAFFEY Computer Imaging | -------------------------------------
St. Louis, MO | Show Reel http://LAFFEY.tv/?e22033
USA | -------------------------------------
. Since 1991 | -*- Digital Fusion Plugins -*-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Ben Beckett]

I worked at an animation studio in London that uses it, because Lightwave animation tools are not up to the job. The chap who was there rigger/TD is know as the 'king of the fob off'.

 

We would always have problems. We could always get the job done quicker in XSI or Maya because more people know them.

 

Using Mdds is a pain in the bum, motion vectors allways fail, motion blur never seems to work.

 

Jobs become MDD heavy in project folders.

 

and the programes explorer is a nightmare to read.

 

The price said it all, you can gert better plugins.

[Christopher Tedin]

That's what I figured. I should stick to XSI and not waste my time too much with it. There's enough to do learning 3Delight, in fact. Not to mention the upcoming Arnold.

[Raffaele Fragapane]

So you have to frontload some money, agreeably a measly amount, and then start spamming friends and colleagues with it to move a progress bar that, currently, people say isn't moving much even after dozens to hundres of submissions...

After the damn Mass Effect 2 planetary probes, much achievement whoring in many games, countless hours of farming in MMOs, now 3D people have to grind for their freaken licenses?

How long before we see ads on cgtalk for cheap license grinding done for you? (for less than the license would cost of course)

Shelfware much?

--
Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!

[Daniel H]

messiahStudio just made a huge mistake. They are now devaluing their software down to a public perception of $40.

[Raffaele Fragapane]

The cynic in me wants to say they simply priced it right, but more seriously: it's more likely that they are desperate for adoption and popularity, and maybe even feel they have a product that if popularized somehow could make ripples again.

When was the last time you heard of anything done in M:S that wasn't some C grade commercial by some (ex) hard core waver?
Seriously, for all the noise it was making years ago, it's practically disappeared.

On one hand it's a shame, as the apps that focus on rigging, animation and finalling, with a bridge to rendering, instead of some other specialities, are... one, M:S.
Maybe you can count one more in beta that looks more like vaporware by the day, and a third (MB) that is highly specialized and only fits if you shave off the finalling/bridge part.

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 11:33 AM, Daniel H <vfx...@gmail.com> wrote:

messiahStudio just made a huge mistake. They are now devaluing their software down to a public perception of $40.

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

I don't think that it really de-values the software for the long term.
>From my experience at Softimage, I think these guys are probably at a
place where no one is even trying the software and they're only
selling to the same set of loyal users. So this is a great way to
make people try the software when they would not have paid any
attention otherwise. (you're more likely to seriously try the
software if you paid for it) It's always been Softimage's problem
that people did not even care to take a look at it even if they heard
"it's good". Free trials do not work.

[Marco Peixoto]

Luc has a point, yes PMG is only selling Messiah to the almost same few people for years now, and even with some new features under the belt they still cant get out there, i see similarities with Softimage to be honest although we cant really compare the two feature for feature or price wise.

I still have my Messiah Studio Pro dongle collecting dust and even though i even might pay the 40 bucks i really doubt i will ever use it, go so used to Softimage (and getting used to Maya right now) that there are workflows that i cant live without anymore, but hey for 40 bucks one cannot go wrong right?

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Plenty ways of going wrong with 40 bucks... just saying :)
And yes, there is a parallel between this and foundation (even if the lines might be fairly distant). This has more of a gimmicky feeling and air of desperation to it though. But hey, I wish any small developer who doesn't routinely mess their own userbase up good luck, this includes them "PMS" guys :)

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Marco Peixoto <mpe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Luc has a point, yes PMG is only selling Messiah to the almost same few people for years now, and even with some new features under the belt they still cant get out there, i see similarities with Softimage to be honest although we cant really compare the two feature for feature or price wise.

I still have my Messiah Studio Pro dongle collecting dust and even though i even might pay the 40 bucks i really doubt i will ever use it, go so used to Softimage (and getting used to Maya right now) that there are workflows that i cant live without anymore, but hey for 40 bucks one cannot go wrong right?

[Graham Bell]

I like the small print at the bottom of the product page, lol

*Not yet a subsidiary of Autodesk.

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Raffaele Fragapane
Sent: 08 February 2011 09:35
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: If you don't yet have enough 3D software...

Plenty ways of going wrong with 40 bucks... just saying :)
And yes, there is a parallel between this and foundation (even if the lines might be fairly distant). This has more of a gimmicky feeling and air of desperation to it though. But hey, I wish any small developer who doesn't routinely mess their own userbase up good luck, this includes them "PMS" guys :)

[Paul Griswold]

Funny - I thought of 3Democracy too when I heard about this.  I use Softimage today because of XSI Foundation.

I've been wanting to try out Messiah for years  - I originally started on Lightwave 3.5 (first non-Toaster Amiga version).  It's inexpensive, but gambling $500-600 isn't that inexpensive.  For $40, it's a no-brainer.

I figure at the absolute worst case, I've got a piece of software my 13 year old can learn on. 

Paul

 

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

The Autodesk people called it "3Desperation"

[Daniel H]

Blender is better and it's free.

[Stefan Andersson]

your son would be better off with Blender as it's opensource and also has a bigger userbase :)

regards

stefan

--
Stefan Andersson
Creative Director

Mad Crew
Roddargatan 8
116 20  Stockholm
SWEDEN

mail: ste...@madcrew.se 
phone: +46 (0)8 668 27 13
cell: +46 (0)73 626  8850
skype: madcrewstefan
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CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message is intended only for the
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action based thereon. Thank you.

[Steven Caron]

your kid is gonna wanna use what you use, at least until the rebellious years.

s

[Jennifer Goldfinch]

Just to pipe in from the Education side of things, your son can download a free, 36-month student version from the Autodesk Education Community as well:

www.autodesk.com/edcommunity<http://www.autodesk.com/edcommunity>

Ah.. 3Democracy... when I first saw that we were going to offer the SW for 495$ I almost had a heart attack. I also remember briefing Raf and Ed on the price for an article on xsibase.com and I'll never forget the look on their faces.. I think they thought we were lying! :)

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 1:54 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: If you don't yet have enough 3D software...

your kid is gonna wanna use what you use, at least until the rebellious years.

s

[Sam J. Bowling]

Most people who get this product will be relieved they didn't pay full price while it sits and gathers dust on their shelves (hard drives). I bought a copy many years ago when I was a lightwave user and it was better than lightwave, but it still wasn't very impressive and the plugin never worked correctly with 99% of the programs it was supposed to support. After I bought Modo, I upgraded Messiah in hopes of using it instead of using lightwave at all and still wasn't too impressed. It was missing many features that it  advertised having. Basically, where Modo is the Lightwave Pro modeller, this is the lightwave Pro animation system. Neither on is really anything special unless you are comparing them to LightWave.

After Buying XSI I never felt the need to touch either one again.

--
Sam J. Bowling

[Thomas Helzle]

That's all very relative IMHO.

messiah:studio has a lot of things I would have given an eye for some
years ago to have in XSI.
The renderer is an early version of Arnold which developed into a very
different direction but is still able to do things I wouldn't want to
do in Mental Ray.
The functionality of the nodes in the messiah rendertree still beats
every other implementation I've used so far (followed by the node
system in Lightwave which is still ahead of XSIs rather dumb node
system - conversion nodes? WTF!).
In 1999/2000 when messiah came out (and I bought it first), the sheer
speed of the realtime animation preview was breathtaking compared to
everything else I'd seen at that time, including multimillion Silicon
Graphics systems. And it worked on what? A Pentium 90?
The ease of use of the Setup tab where you can always interactively
place your bones and then just switch back to the Animate tab to see
how your animation looks with the changes applied is still one of the
fastest systems for this I know.
The speed and quality of the available expressions is amazing, and you
even know (and can control) at what point in time stuff is done
instead of hoping that XSI will do it right.

If Lightwaves renderer would be available for XSI I personally would
buy it over all the other available solutions.

But as most others here, I no longer am able to enjoy neither
Lightwave nor messiah simply because of their static GUI and static
usage model.

At the same time: I'm no longer able to enjoy Mental Ray (basically
since BSP2 was introduced it's fucked), modelling in XSI which was
amazing at the time of version 4 feels antique today, NURBS are broken
and useless, even a simple IGES import fails every time, I've never
seen a worse expression system than the one in XSI, most of the
examples that come with the software are so primitive that you can't
really learn much from them nor - beware - impress anybody, the
example materials - instead of being a good basic library to start
from - stagnate on a pretty embarrassing 1990 level, Phong is still
the default shader, there isn't even a color palette in the software
to keep color use consistent in a project, nor is there a direct way
to know the real size of your object without jumping through hoops...

So while I could come up easily with 4 full pages of things I hate in
Lightwave or messiah, I could fill 10 for XSI.

The last version I enjoyed was XSI 7.
Since then it's oscillating between pointless and broken.
Autodesks way of dealing with customers kills the remaining joy to below zero.

Honestly, right at this moment I wouldn't be able to come up with
_any_ major 3D software that is really good.
Only with ones that suck less than others in certain aspects.

Which isn't all that impressive for 2011.

I don't think there is a single major 3D-Software (-company) on this
planet with reasons to feel superior. Not one.
Therefore, laughing at pmG which is down to one developer feels a bit
cheap to me.
They tried, they didn't succeed on all fronts, shit happens.

But the only reason I still have XSI installed is, because I'm out of
alternatives.
Nothing to be proud of, really.

Just my 2 cent though.
Your mileage may differ.

Cheers,

Thomas Helzle

[Joe Laffey]

On Wed, 9 Feb 2011, Thomas Helzle wrote:

> If Lightwaves renderer would be available for XSI I personally would
> buy it over all the other available solutions.

I agree here 100%. I find Mental Ray far less stable, and the results to
be inferior (especially in the smae render time). Lightwave renderer has
crashed or produced bad output on maybe two or three FRAMES in the past
5-7 years.... (Things that weren't user error anyway ;-)

This is such a big issue that most of our stuff animated in XSI gets
rendered in LightWave. (It's node editor for shading is far superior to
XSI's nodes.) Is it a pain to get the stuff back to LW? Somewhat, but it
sure beats little black dots or flickering GI garbage that comes out of
Mental Ray.

--
Joe Laffey | Visual Effects for Film and Video
LAFFEY Computer Imaging | -------------------------------------

St. Louis, MO | Show Reel http://LAFFEY.tv/?e22048

[Paul Griswold]

Interesting!

My main interest in picking up cheap Messiah was to see what could be done to get XSI stuff over for rendering.  Unlimited render nodes is pretty appealing.

Paul

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

I've never tried Messiah hands-on, but things like Armatures and
separate Animate/Setup mode is something I wanted to explore in XSI.
Not likely to happen under Autodesk, where that animation design is
made by a cross-product design team, but the continued work on
expanding the SDK and ICE will allow brilliant people like StudioNEST
to build innovative new workflows and tools. I see a lot of resistance
from users to new and different things in general, however. A bit
discouraging. It's like everything in animation stopped 10 years ago.

[oktawu]

amen to that luc-eric.

i remember working with mirai a long time ago,

and also looking over at sega's animanium,

both truly revolutionary and innovative products, that slowly died off.

mirai more than any other, was an amazing piece of software,

and it's animation and rigging tools were far above anything at the time

in terms of innovation and ideas. damn shame.

[Czarek Kwasny]

Yes! This is how I see things.

Instead of refining old workflows, bringing another layer of tools which is
integrated into the core of the application. ICE seems like a great
framework for bringing the new paradigm while leaving the default one most
of the users are so much used to. Node-based modelling, rigging? This way it
is possible keep the interoperability between the tools resulting in
cross-paradigmatic environment that meets the demands of large user base and
the progress, all happening seamlessly without 'choking'. Of course it's
just a part of the story.

Just few thoughts to share...

--
Czarek Kwasny
http://czarekkwasny.com

[Matt Lind]

> I see a lot of resistance from users to new and different things
> in general, however. A bit discouraging. It's like everything
> in animation stopped 10 years ago.

I'm very discouraged too. I had great hopes for the animation mixer that if certain improvements were made it would be a killer animation tool, but sadly never got there.

However, it's not limited to animation. It's happening across the board. The single biggest problem I encounter in the studio is getting artists to understand how different tools can improve their workflow by thinking a little differently than the primitive point and click solutions they currently have. Artists want to use tangible/concrete tools that have simple linear relationships between what they click and the result it produces. When the input vs. output equation becomes more abstracted (like the animation mixer), users have difficulty imagining the utility of such tools (ironic considering they're artists with supposedly great imaginative powers). That's where having very elegant user interfaces, and more importantly, quality documentation and examples is paramount.

Make the path from linear concrete relationships to abstracted workflows easier to understand and use, and you'll see more adoption of your tools. Not just in usage, but in displaying the advantage. This is the main hurdle to the mixer, ICE, the construction history (believe it or not), UI customization (especially) and so on.

Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 9:01 AM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: If you don't yet have enough 3D software...

[Olivier Jeannel]

"Make the path from linear concrete relationships to abstracted workflows easier to understand and use, and you'll see more adoption of your tools. Not just in usage, but in displaying the advantage. This is the main hurdle to the mixer, ICE, the construction history (believe it or not), UI customization (especially) and so on."

Amen to that. My understanding of Ice only rely on what people share to the community. The more samples scene, tutorials, etc. the better.

Le 09/02/2011 20:18, Matt Lind a �crit :

[Graham Bell]

There's always people, especially artists who get a bit too entrenched into their package of choice and way of working,. And as echoing Luc-Eric I also see a lot of resistance.
They also tend to be perhaps to focused purely on features (which can still be valid)instead of looking at workflows and tools. For me personally it's all about workflow and trying to highlight the advantages of something that might be different.
In some ways, Autodesk are doing and working on the right things, but I think we don't always do a great job of getting stuff out there and showing it off.

-----Original Message-----
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Olivier Jeannel
Sent: 09 February 2011 20:01
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: If you don't yet have enough 3D software...

"Make the path from linear concrete relationships to abstracted workflows easier to understand and use, and you'll see more adoption of your tools. Not just in usage, but in displaying the advantage. This is the main hurdle to the mixer, ICE, the construction history (believe it or not), UI customization (especially) and so on."

Amen to that. My understanding of Ice only rely on what people share to the community. The more samples scene, tutorials, etc. the better.