Messiah (software)

Messiah (also known as messiah:studio) is a 3D animation and rendering application developed by pmG Worldwide. It runs on the Win32 and Win64 platforms. It is marketed to run on Mac OS X and Linux via Wine. Messiah's fourth version, messiah:studio was released April 2009 and version 5.5b as messiah:animate was released November 2006. messiahStudio6 was released in April 2013. Messiah seems no longer maintained since 2013 (abandoned).
Early history and releases.
Messiah was developed as a commercial plugin for Lightwave 5.5 to 7.5, by principal programmers Fori Owurowa, Dan Milling and Lyle Milton. In 2000, pmG released "messiah:animate"; a stand-alone application that provided animators with an advanced rigging and animation toolset geared towards the animation of complex organic characters and shapes. This new package offered an Animation Host Connection which allowed users to transfer animation data into a variety of packages including Cinema4D, Lightwave, 3D Studio Max, Softimage 3D and Maya.
In 2001, pmG announced "messiah:studio", a stand-alone package comprising messiah:animate and messiah:render, boasting numerous animation enhancements coupled with an all new render engine. Previously, messiah:studio stored license information on a HASP hardware dongle, but now stores license information on a USB stick.
Core features.
Animation.
Messiah:studio offers a realtime full motion and deformation-based character animation toolset.
Features include:
Rendering.
Messiah:studio includes messiah:render, a hybrid scanline/raytracing render engine. Messiah also allows for the output of .rib files for use with RenderMan and offers network rendering via the ButterflyNetRender (BNR).
Features of messiah render include:
Import and export.
Whilst messiah:studio offers no native modelling tools it is capable of exporting and importing many common 3d filetypes, such as .3ds, .lwo, and .obj. Messiah can import and export motion capture, via .bvh files, and can transfer datasets using the host API suite. It also provides native support for .mdd files, for use with the Point Oven program.
On 17 April 2008, pmG released the source code and SDK for the Host Connections plugins, so that users could update and adapt the connections software and plugin files for external programs.
Uses.
Films.
Messiah has been used for character animation and the creation of VFX shots in several feature films and shorts, including "Ghost Rider", "Harry Potter", "Hellboy", "Into the Deep", "", "Syriana", "The Triplets of Belleville", "X-Men", and "Zambezia".
Television.
Messiah has been used in television productions, including "", "Robbie the Reindeer", "Andy's Airplanes" and the upcoming "Plankton Invasion", as well as commercials.