Dele

I think I see what's going on. Windows 7 just doesn't have all of the service updates or something? Anyway, found this little app that runs a check and updates any previous versions of DX on the machine. Fixed it right up. http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=35 Thanks again for the help! - Dele

Thank you for the info AbnRanger! Do you know if that will roll back my DX to v9 or will I still have DX11? There is another 3d app I was going to try out that uses DX11. Plus it would be nice to keep it installed for some games. Thanks, Dele

Hey guys, I was recently forced to upgrade to Windows 7 64bit and am trying to get all of my apps up and running (Yeah, it's as fun as it sounds!). Anyway, I installed 3DC 64bit for Windows and when I try to run the DX version it says it can't load because of a missing file "d3dx9_38.dll". I have DX11 installed, but it looks like it's searching for a DX9 file? Do I need to roll back, or is something not right? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Dele

That sounds like it might be an issue with the license file not taking. Not sure if this is the problem, but you have to be very particular about creating the txt file. For instance, make sure it is named "exactly" the way they stated. Below are the steps that I've found create a good license file. Not sure if it will fix your problem, but these steps have resolved issues with several other folks. 1. Open Notepad (NOT wordpad) 2. Paste the license text into Notepad 3. Select File>>Save As 4. Type the file name: messiah_license.txt 5. Make sure the Save As Type dropdown list is set to TextDocuments(*.txt) 6. Make sure the Encoding dropdown list is set to ANSI 7. Then click save Also make sure you are running the 32bit version if your running basic as 64bit is Pro only. As for your Pro license, I guess you'll need to contact pmG. I'm sure they'll help you sort it out. hth

Just a heads up. It appears they have some kinks in the new licensing system. My key generated fine, but some folks are running into issues. They are trying to track down the problem. I'm sure they'll sort it out before long, but keep that in mind if your key doesn't work properly.

Fred posted this message on the Setup Tab forums a couple of hours ago:

I think he might have been implying that CAT's muscle system may be faster/easier to set up. I have not tried it, so that may be the case. As you point out though, messiah studio is certainly capable of realistic muscle deformation. Ulven has been messing around with the Xerxes model from Infinite-Realities with some very compelling results. He mentioned that he was mostly using regular bones and muscle bones, but hinted that he had a few tricks up his sleeve too that he would divulge later. He did also mention using animated displacement maps as well, but didn't elaborate on that much yet. Still, good stuff! http://setuptab.com/index.php?topic=2321.0 Edit: Come to think of it, I don't believe any other animation package has auto-weighting similar to messiah studio. So that, along with some of messiah studio's other speed enhancers might negate any extra work you'd do setting up muscle systems. I guess the only way to find out for sure is to get your hands dirty and test it out.

Messiah studio does have muscle bones. I haven't used them yet, so not sure how well they work. Not as perty as CAT's muscles, but I would think they're functionally similar. Check out the tutorial in the docs: http://www.eggswhyzed.com/messiah_docs/

Interesting article at 3d world: http://www.3dworldmag.com/2011/02/14/pmg-co-founder-talks-10-messiah-studio-project

Though I don't fully agree with you, I can see your point. They will have to focus more on retention rather than drawing in new users for a while here. If they make enough off of this deal to float them over the next year, I would think they'd do just fine though. Having your company name plastered all over every 3d forum out there, and mostly in a positive light at that, is not a bad thing either. If people enjoy the application it may even drive new sales up next year, on top of upgrades. I agree, we will have to wait and see just how well this bold move works out, but my initial gut feeling is still "Brilliant".

I don't think this sale financially hurts pmG one bit. In fact, I would say to the contrary. I bet they're making as much money, if not more than they usually do just from the shear volume. Even at $40 a pop, 2500 sales would rake in $100k. Based on the buzz I've seen, I wouldn't be surprised if they're selling even more copies than that. Considering there are only three developers, they could probably pay their bills to float them over the next year of development. By then it's "upgrade" time. Even if only 10 or 20 percent of the new users upgrade, they've significantly increased their user base. Not to mention that an infusion of new users of this magnitude means growth in things like plug-in development, which can bring in and hold even more users. So not only do they make enough money to keep themselves going for another year or so, but they also have a larger user base for upgrades later and an energized community. This is just as big a win for pmG as it is for their users. A week ago messiah studio was quietly being used in the industry and only a few knew about. Now you'd be hard pressed to find someone in the 3d community who hasn't heard of messiah studio. All in one week, without having to pay a dime for advertising. One of the most brilliant internet marketing strategies I've ever seen!

Ah I see, it's a type of brush. I was thinking about it all wrong, trying to find a type of fill. 'doh Thanks 3DArtist! That's exactly what I was looking for.

Hi guys, I've been working on texturing some low res game models and I'm finding it kind of tedious to lay down base colors. I just want to quickly fill polygons with a solid color separated onto different layers. Basically I just want to click on a polygon and have it fill with the selected color. Is this possible? I've looked through the docs and forums here a bit, but can't seem to find a way to do this. Currently I either hide polygons I don't want to paint and then manually paint the visible polygons, or I fill the whole model with a color and then go back and erase the areas I don't want the color to be. Both of these methods are quite time consuming though. It would dramatically speed things up if I could just click and fill polygons. If it's not possible, any ideas for a better workflow? Thanks

Very nice as usual Leigh! Make that hair a little more wild looking and I think you'll almost have Albert Einstein there!

Oops...my apologies 3dioot. I didn't see your request there. Thanks for bringing it to my attention Leigh. We'll continue that discussion in another thread then.

A lot of interesting ideas here! On the idea of retopo, I think 3dioot made some good points. For an animatible mesh, it really needs to be done by hand. However, it might be interesting if you could retopo the "important" areas by hand, and then let the auto-quadralate patch the rest together. The parts that are usually most time consuming for me to retopo are always the small areas (like human ears) where the edge flow really doesn't matter as much because those areas are rarely animated independently (they just move with the head). That way you could define the edge flow in the areas that you intend to animate (the important areas), and let the program patch the rest together. I'm not sure if this is plausible, but I could see it being useful and speeding up the retopo process a bit.

Nice work Matt. I like the rat the most so far. Keep 'em coming.

Some of the pros around here would know better, but it makes more sense to me to size the islands based on what kind of detail you need in that area. I can't think of any advantage to keeping the UV's relative to polygon size.

Made some minor adjustments and started adding some detail. It's starting to get a little heavy so I think I'm going to move on to retopo soon.

Wow, looking very cool! Excellent work Haikalle!

Sweet, I was hoping that was possible. Thanks for the insight Tinker. I'm learning a lot from this thread.

I really like UVlayout myself. I'm curious about how you incorporated it into your workflow here. Is it possible to export the retopo, UV map with UVlayout, then import it back in and still collect the details of the voxel sculpt? Is that what you did? Or did you do the detailing while texturing?

I think overall this turned out quite nice. Good Job Deadman21! There does seem to be a strange dent in his left leg there. I also agree with Leigh that the pose is a bit stiff. The head looks excellent, though it would be nice if the symmetry was broken up a bit. Maybe some scars or something. A Goblin like this is going to have been in some brawls. I'm really just nitpicking though. All in all he looks pretty good. I like it.

Nice retopo. Are you going to texture it in 3DC too? It would be cool to see with some nice textures on it.

I really like this sculpt. Nice work Taros! I can't wait to see the final pose you come up with. As for testing poses, you could always save out new files for each pose. Then you always have the default to revert back to.