It should be noted that although the studio package is new, the messiah technology is not. The company's products have been used in the creation of numerous television and film titles, perhaps most recently in the making of the movie Jimmy Neutron. Users may also know messiah as a plug-in for NewTek's LightWave animation and modeling software (it is now being sold as a standalone product instead).
The messiah:render product features photorealistic global luminosity and radiosity, including a shader system that allows users to invent new effects by linking materials, shaders, expressions, and scripts. The program also features raytracing, custom volumetric lights, and procedural rendering, among other capabilities.
A new scripting feature will allow users to create custom scripts for messiah:animate. The animation module will also include a realtime OpenGL cartoon-drawing mode that will let 2D artists make use of 3D models without having to learn numerous new operations. The animate module also has pmG's proprietary hierarchical expressions and effects systems, a nonlinear animation editor, and other capabilities.
Last, the messiah:develop module will give developers and users the capability of developing their own messiah extensions.
Both messiah:render and messiah:animate will be pipeline-capable for Alias|Wavefront's Maya, Softimage, Discreet's 3ds max, and NewTek's LightWave. The software suite costs $1795. (pmG; www.projectmessiah.com) -JD