Useful Slug release beta of Walker

Walker is our new walkcycle generator for Messiah:Studio. It scales to fit any biped character. You can use any character rig but it is advisable to use AutoRig v.2 with it because the setup time is greatly reduced compared to when using custom rigs. AutoRig v.2 will be included in the next patch of messiah and is also included when you purchase Walker.

Click here to see a feature overview movie

more at www.usefulslug.com/downloads.html

Setuptab.com

Setuptab is a new forum completely dedicated to messiah and enriching the messiah community. If you're a messiah user or looking to learn more about this incredibly powerful animation and rendering application this is the pace for you.

http://setuptab.com

Plankton Invasion; Webisode 5

Webisode 5: Making the call watch it at www.planktoninvasion.com

pmG releases connections open source (Maya, Max, LW, C4D)

cgSociety,
"pmG has just released the connections open source for Maya, Max, LW & C4D. They include C source code and Microsoft Visual C project. These sources are provided so that people who know how to compile for the various plugin SDKs, and have the latest versions, can maintain or even improve current connection DLLs for others, who are using messiah's animation realtime connection to Maya, Max LW or C4d; as well as those who wish to create a connection plugin for any other program that allows it, or plug messiah into an in-house proprietary system. Once created, an animation done in messiah can be moved to any program that supports the connection, and instantly edited without having to import and export multiple different scene file formats. messiah's interface can be called up while in another program, the anmiation can be changed, and it will instantly update in the other program, if the other programs allows it.

Click on the SDK menu item at http://www.projectmessiah.com"

There's also a script for copying setup values in messiah on cgSociety. Get the script and read about it at this thread"

In other news

Luxology release Modo 302, read more

Lightwave 9.5 is now in open beta for registered users of LW9. Visit NewTek and log-in to the product registration section.

New BVH video tutorials

Mark Grice has produced a series of videos detailing how to make use of BVH motion capture data with messiah. There are 13 videos in the series, broken into 3 groups. Click to see a list of the videos in the series.

2 Tutorials from Vegard Myklebust

Mimicing Pixar's Ratatouille as a way of learning Messiah's rendering engine

This free tutorial takes the starting point of working to mimic the rendering style on Pixar's Ratatouille as a goal driven, project based learning approach to messiah's rendering engine.
The video tutorial is 45 minutes long, so make sure you have some coffee when you get started.
Included in the zip file is both the starting point mpj, as well as the final project file, both with a very basic rig also included.

How to apply motion capture to your characters in messiah

This is a free tutorial for messiah showing you the basics of how to apply bvh motion capture to your characters quickly in messiah (about 7 minutes). There's no audio commentary on this tutorial.

Messiah 3 Released

project messiah has release messiah Studio 3. Priced at $399 for a new license, $169 to upgrade from messiah Pro and $189 from workstation version.

Partial feature list (collected from rush's posts and emails)

New features include:
Breakthrough Hair/Fur Module.
Instancing
New advanced GI options for smooth, sampled GI.
Glass rendering with dispersion.
Fast volumetric designable clouds.
New edit sphere with options to simulate different programs.
Dynamic parent in place.
Quickly swap between curve types of selected objects.
Quick 'Snap to on keyframe' ability for objects anywhere in the hirearchy.
New armature controls for animation.
+ a whole host of production level features have been added.
64 Bit

Additional features:
Morphblender module (Endomorphs)

Plugins
ChangeCurveType
ChangeCurveTypeAllChannels
ChangeCurveTypeAllObjects
CreateVar
CreateBetterKey
MoveToAlignKey
DynaPIP
Autoriglite
IKFK Blending

Scripts:
VarChannelAdd
HandleCreate
HandlePosTypeSet
HandleOffTypeSet
HandleControllerSet
HandlePosType
HandleOffType
HandleController
ActionCreate
ActionMouseSet

Shaders:
Ramp (New)
Voronoia (New)
Simple volume
ParticleCloud (New)
Speed Hazer v2
Noisette v2
Grids & Wires update
Gradient & Fresnel update
Standard shader – Improved SSS
Additional secularity mode

Lights:
Falloff Attenuation Color
Falloff Type new Exponential mode
Shadows Minimum Quality threshold

Render:
New AA mode
Matte objects
Unseen by atmosphere option
Zero the alpha buffer
Occlusion distance
Improve gamma

Visit project messiah for more information.

Plankton Invasion ep 1 "15 Degrees" and KeyFaderBranch plugin now available

The first episode of Plankton Invasion 15 Degrees is now online.

Vegard aka "useful slug" has released a new plug-in KeyFaderBranch, it will perform a keyfader expression on any object that is below in the hierarchy of the selected object.

Joe Cosman releases Advanced Facial Rigging 1

Joe Cosman has just released his latest messiah training set Advanced Facial Rigging 1. You can get this on disc from Cafe Press or download it now from lulu.com

Joe has 4 other training sets available covering rigging, animation and general tips and tricks.