What plugin is the best rigger?

[Mr Big]

for a small studio,I have heard of:

T4D
Messiah
Joytrol & Morphtrack
Maestro

I am leaning toward T4D, for its quick rigging capabilities & my free time is limited. But will I end up buying Maestro or Messiah anyway?:help:

[pixelinfected]

depend of your needings, all of that have demo.
but : maestro and t4d are autorigger, you add skelegon to your obj, setup weightmap and more, and it prepare a rig to use on lw. both add useful tool.

joytrol and morphtrack add tool to control a rig, not build a rig

messiah is a complete system of animation and render (if you buy messiah workstation) and offer some autorig features, a faster opengl and some interesting tool to lw arsenal.

there is a demo, download it and test it if you like.

but if you search autorigger check meastro demo or t4d character to test the rig and verify if you like how the rig work, which is the most important thing.

[t4d]

Messiah if you got the dollars
give it 2 or 4 days to learn rigging etc and you'll love it untill the end of time
Build one rig and reuse it and the speed and feature WOW !!!
by far the biggest BANG for your Character animation Buck so to speak.

if you want to stay in LW not have to learn rigging at all
( only afew hours to learn a new plugin )
I have to say Maestro is very cool, alot of cool stuff !
and mine T4D rigger is very simple, easy and fast.
and Joytrol & Morphtrack is great for facual animation and other things !

truly a case of try the demos/rigs and see which fit you brain and $ the best.

[Mr Big]

Thanks for your quick response, speed is important so I'll try messiah first.

[tonybliss]

Thomas how is the dynamics in Messiah??
and also comparing XSI and messiah's character animation capabilities, which is better for quick, stable, multicharacter production.
Also which render do you use LW or Messiah?
Thanks !!

[t4d]

Thomas how is the dynamics in Messiah??
and also comparing XSI and messiah's character animation capabilities, which is better for quick, stable, multicharacter production.
Also which render do you use LW or Messiah?
Thanks !!

>>Thomas how is the dynamics in Messiah??

better then LW I've only done Softbody and it is much better
But you would still have to do you hardbody in LW
and it's only just got Particles in the last update
But They work with the expression system which is pretty cool

>>and also comparing XSI and messiah's character animation capabilities, which is better for quick, stable, multicharacter production.

Hmm this is a Hard one,.. Both are far better then LW due to Rig features/transfer tools, Speed and CA features etc etc etc, so both have much more stable Rigging and Animation systems in place.

BUT I would look at it this way

Small budget maybe 3 or 4 weeks work
Messiah would still be much better then LW alone
( Messiah would take at worst a week ( 3 days for me ) to bring into your workflow pipeline and get it all working the way you want ( like all things they are ALOT of options in how you work with Messiah )

BUT the advanages would be easy to see and very much worth it for the project as a whole.

NOW Bigger budget maybe 3 or 4 months or more of work.
XSI Would be worth every cent
Alot longer to move into then messiah for a LW'er.
BUT with every day you uses it ,You WILL see the advanages of moving over to it.
if you never want to see limits of "workarounds" again,. XSI is the place to go

Messiah has some very minor "workaround" issues too,
But again Far from the problems LW has right now for the rigger or Character animator.


>>>Also which render do you use LW or Messiah?

Messiah Render,.. well I can't really comment on it
I really have not used it beside some basic tests

It's not that fast, it's node surface system is pretty cool even has some joy over XSI.
but Honestly I havn't seen anything in Messiah render to make me move from LW or mental ray ?
Point oven works so good i don't see the need to learn another render system.

and again I'm not messiah render guru, I really just work 2 ways
IF i don't have the time I render in LW.
IF i have time to play and test I render in XSI.

[tonybliss]

Wow thanks!!
I just downloaded and installed the demo and i am truely impressed with the featureset so far!!
I think it may just make sense for me to invest in Messiah - Animate since I too enjoy LW's Renderer.
I am also getting to like XSI more and more. I always tell my wife and some students the only 3d application that i will ever cheat on LW with is XSI.

PS I just realised that I CANNOT use MESSIAH. I am the ANTIchrist and the program MESSIAH stands for everything that i am against >:(

....just had to say that :b

[pixelinfected]

if you decide to buy messiah, decide for workstation and not to animate, it have same tool of animate, but cost less than animate.
i not understand why pgm continue to have animate, if workstation have all tools of animate + render for single workstation...
workstation is cheaper

[Mr Big]

Can a low poly mesh drive a highpoly mesh for faster collision calculations?
Do any of the plugins help with this ? Poser uses this method, can it be done in lightwave?

[t4d]

I would get Workstation myself as well, it's only $ 50 more and then you will never wondered again, spend afew fun weekends playing with it and it may fit your brain and you may love it, many messiah users do love it.

cgswami if you are the ANTIchrist think of it this way man
remember The other guy has to send his son down one day :devil:
you may be him so There's no need for Software Loyalty :D

MR big
For collisions in LW don't normally have ANY of your high polygon character mesh in the Collision Cals at all

the normal method to do a dress or pants is to attach a very low polygon mesh to your Main character rig ( using the same weight maps etc )
the low poly mesh should only cover the area the dress will touch,
( no need for feet or chest sections )
then have the Dress only by effected in the low Polygon model
and your high polygon mesh doesn't effect you Cal times

[tonybliss]

Thanks for the advice, I think I will get Messiah pretty soon for what I am going to do.

T4D
You and other 3 dimensional beings may not know it. But me and the "other" guy upstairs are one and the same, you know like Proton and Minus man.
I just like to catch my kicks watching you mortals ***** about it all the time.
.... Never gets stale. ...
................................never!!!! :D

Thanks a buzillion guys and esp you thomas for your candor :)

Cheers!!