not softimage but :..pmG's Dare To Share ™ $10 Challenge

[calmasacow]

Friend pointed this out to me. Pretty sweet deal.

We're doing an unprecedented viral test marketing campaign where your success in sharing this offer will allow you and others to get our amazing award winning animation and rendering software ( messiahStudio5 ) for the unheard of price of just $10 (regularly $499) or choose the Pro version for just $40 (regularly $1195). When this experiment ends, the prices will return to normal.

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

(Moderator edit - added the quote tags, as it looked like a quote to me - HB)

[Hirazi Blue]

Fascinating marketing move... ;)

[Rez007]

I agree, that is extremely clever. That is a brilliant way to slowly migrate to other users. Once you get them in, and offer a relatively low upgrade price, which would most likely take place for the next version given the normal pricing, is a great way to grow. I beleive, from what I have read on the net, the development team is 1 person, or relatively few at most. So, the overhead is far less than what Autodesk would endure. There are some nice videos on the site as well. $40 for the Pro version versus what we pay for our current software with subscription makes one think...

[SamHowell]

So what does it do? I've never heard of it.

Is it a general 3D package or some kind of speciality rigging thing?

[Hirazi Blue]

Messiah is an animation & rendering application (no modeling as far as I know), that has its roots in Lightwave (as a plugin) apparently & probably wouldn't offer such a crazy scheme if everybody knew the answer to the question you just asked.

In Reply #3 of this thread over at the XSIBase, Wacom gives a basic overview of Messiah's strengths and weaknesses.

[SamHowell]

Hmmmm. It's a good marketing idea but I think I'll give it a miss.

[Mathaeus]

It has a very nice radiosity, including the usable radiosity fur rendering. While ago, I had a hard time trying to match fur rendering from Messiah in XSI - using all heavy trickery in XSI-ICE-MR, ,that pmgMessiah guy even didn't heard of.
Definitively there is no flexibility as in Softimage, most of the tools are in use-it-or-leave-it style, there is no real cloth - but many of the tools are just *better* than XSI or Max counterparts.

[luceric]

the renderer is based on an early version of Arnold

[rray]

"dare to spam" . (only kidding- am actually glad to see some fresh marketing moves)

[Hirazi Blue]

I must have missed it in the accompanying text, but I can't seem to find, what the actual goal is that should be met (in its hundreds, its thousands or even an Autodesk buyout) & how I should read the progress bar?

But what I find more problematic is the state of their website:
Here you can read that this software is "now in its fourth major iteration", while "version 5" seems to imply that it's in its fifth "major iteration" (or am I missing something, once again?).

[SamHowell]

You are right, the goal is not mentioned anywhere. It's all a bit mysterious.

The progress bar has gone from a third to a half since yesterday so the goal is being reached, whatever that is.

[calmasacow]

well guys you have to give them a bit of slack. I mean I think there may be 1-2 people in the whole company.

[Mathaeus]

But what I find more problematic is the state of their website:
Here you can read that this software is "now in its fourth major iteration", while "version 5" seems to imply that it's in its fifth "major iteration" (or am I missing something, once again?).

Well it was definitively more popular before about five or seven years - it was my 'second option' when I brought XSI 4 Foundation to my home. And in this time, I was able to get a job with pMessiah in place where I live - to be honest, nobody wanted XSI skills.
But this telling a much more about current state of character animation. 3d seems to grow up in every direction except this one. From about 100 users of 3d apps, probably three or five are able to setup a simple IK chain, and those three or five were able to that for a long time. The same, or even worse ratio, applies to zBrush people, especially those 'born in zBrush'.
IMHO, Softimage makes a great move, running into the field of simulation and 'general' VFX.

That I know, one of pMessiah developers is a si-community member Thomas Helzle.

[Hirazi Blue]

So it seems, the goal has been met... ;)

Due to the overwhelming response, we are in the process of updating the license system to better automate the management of everyone generating their licenses. We have a 3 day delay in finalizing the transactions, and downloading them into the system. We hope to have license generation up by Saturday or perhaps sooner. You will be getting an email to the email address you provided paypal when you purchased, that will contain the url and login info to generate your license for your purchase or purchases(if you did them in more than one transaction)

Quoted from here

[Rez007]

I just grabbed the Pro Version myself - about 12 hours left until the deal ends. I plan on keeping Softimage as my primary package, but this was just too good to pass up, even if it just ends up collecting dust.

[Nizar]

I hate export/import from different software. Prefer doing all as possible in softimage.
In any case, I touch only today SI rigging system, an I don't find it so bad, why do you want use another software for animation?