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Messiah: Animate 3.0
With the advance of the 3D technology, artists have been able
to create increasingly sophisticated 3D character animation pieces.
PMG is one of the pioneers of creating dedicated character animation
tools and has been known for its strong presence in the LightWave
3D market. Messiah: Animate 3.0 is a stand-alone character animation
package by PMG with plug-ins for 3ds max, Maya, Softimage and
LightWave 3D. Although I worked with the package for a short time,
I was struck by its deep coverage of character animation.
The depth of the program can not be experienced in a day or two,
even if you are a LightWave pro. It takes a bit of time to get
used to the interface, but, once you master it, you realize that
the time was well invested. Messiah: Animate 3.0 has one of the
best and easiest tools for assigning a skeleton to a 3D character,
which is often a nightmare in many other 3D-animation packages.
Using Messiah: Animate 3.0 nonlinear animation editing tools and
its programmable IK system, you can create and modify your animation
pieces quickly. In addition, the package offers several extra
bonuses including support for dynamic forces such as gravity and
wind, as well as soft bodies.
GOOD NEWS: A great Messiah: Animate 3.0 feature is its
realtime OpenGL "toon shader." This feature allows you
to create your character with a touch of 2D animation and then
render it with a cartoon look.
WISH LIST: Now that PMG has expanded its ties to most other
3D packages and is not limited to LightWave any longer, a revision
on Messiah: Animate 3.0 interface design could definitely help
its new users.
THE BOTTOM LINE: For a price tag of $595 and with all the
features that Messiah: Animate 3.0 offers, it is hard to find
any competition that matches its price or performance.
WEBSITE: www.projectmessiah.com
FINAL SCORE: *****
Animation Magazine's Seal of Excellence
EASE OF USE ****
INTERFACE ****
POWER OF TOOLS *****
QUALITY AND DEPTH *****
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SINGULAR
INVERSIONS' FACEGEN 2.2
It's my pleasure to announce that Facegen is the WOW product of
this month! I have reviewed a few 3D human head generators in
the past few years, but none of them have been as easy to use
and as powerful and impressive as Facegen 2.2. Facegen's interface
and tools is self-explanatory, and you can create realistic or
caricature versions of 3D human/monster heads immediately. A series
of sliders allow you to determine the gender, age and race of
your character. Next you can use the race panels of the Facegen,
such as African and European to further modify your character.
If you still need more control over your object, then you can
use the Shape sliders to change every single detail of your 3D
face. The Shape sliders are powerful tools for changing details
on the eyebrow ridge, cheekbones and many other specifications
of the face. Morph sliders not only create different states of
a character for anger, fear, disgust, sadness, surprise and so
on, but also morph targets for creating phonemes. Texture sliders
control the color and shades of the skin, eyes and other parts
of the face. The Detail Texture Maps that illustrate the laugh
lines and other wrinkles on the face are a real kick to use.
When you are done with the face creation, you can export it in
Maya, 3dsmax, LightWave 3D, SoftImage XSI and WRML file formats.
I imported a 3D head that I created in Facegen (FG Image 1) into
3dsmax 5. Upon opening the head in max, I noticed that the face
texture was not smooth . So I added the MeshSmooth modifier (FG
Image 2) to resolve the problem and it was resolved.
GOOD NEWS: Using the PhotoFit option of the FaceGen, you
can e-mail one or two photos of a head for Singular Inversion,
and for a small fee, receive a high-res 3D head model of the photos
within 15 minutes.
WISH LIST: It would be great if Singular Inversion offered a few
basic tools for making 3D heads from photos.
THE BOTTOM LINE: FaceGen creates high-quality realistic
3D human heads and offers all the controls you need to modify
and animate them. It's a must have for both animators and game
developers.
FINAL SCORE: *****
Animation Magazine's Seal of Excellence
EASE OF USE *****
INTERFACE *****
POWER OF TOOLS *****
QUALITY AND DEPTH *****
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