THIS JUST IN: MODO indie 10.0 has just been released!

BladeEvolence

We're proud to announce that the new update is here: MODO indie 10.0

MODO indie 10.0 is chocked full of all the awesome new features and goodies that the full version has to offer. The same indie restrictions hold though:

• OBJ and FBX export limited to 100k polys
  
• Bake and render resolution limited to 4k
  
• Command eval options unavailable
  
• Command, scripts, and command history panel results unavailable except “undo” and “history”
  
• Python editor, third-party scripts, and third-party plugins unavailable
  
• Can import all formats, but can only save in .lxf format
  
• Export formats limited to OBJ and FBX
  
• Image save formats limited to .png, .jpg, .tiff, .tga and .exr
  
• Network Rendering is disabled

Let's get into the pricing since this is a factor for everyone as well.

If you already own a perpetual license of MODO indie 901 or are on subscription… guess what? You get MODO indie 10.0 for free! We only released MODO indie 901 six months ago and felt that it wouldn't be right to charge you for an upgrade again so soon.

If you still own the earlier perpetual versions of MODO indie (801) and the older bundle and have not yet upgraded then there will still be an upgrade fee of $29.99 for just MODO indie and $37.99 for the bundle, but this was the same for 901 so no big news there.

New perpetual licenses and subscriptions are not discounted or on sale at this time.

The team and I here want to thank you all for your feedback and patience awaiting this release. 

Link to the Store Page:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/401090/

Sincerely a very ecstatic,
BladeEvolence

Zack Maxwell

Indie is looking pretty good. Hopefully we get ACS soon.

Any plans to add more plug-ins soon, or reduce some limitations?

BladeEvolence

Grimwolf said:

Indie is looking pretty good. Hopefully we get ACS soon.

Any plans to add more plug-ins soon, or reduce some limitations?

I'm in the process of working on some new plugins/kits for full MODO in the background that should be utilized for indie as well. We know that users want ACS2, but at the price point its at currently it may be counterintuitive to put it on Steam. We're sorting out what to do though and will let the Steam community know.

nervouschimp

Nice! 2 comments though. Maya LT has no poly limit for game artists, and that is a huge deal to me. I know, I have complained loudly about this before... just sad to see the 100K limit is still there, because I feel it is behind the times, especially with Modo now exporting instances and replicators to FBX and Unity and now Unreal 4 able to import whole scenes and maintain instancing. You've kneecapped an awesome feature. Also, both Unity and Unreal are starting to get very cutting-edge auto LODs. 100K is just a super oldschool interpretation of the indie game art workflow, and needs of the modern 3D artist. I know, there are probably yelling fights in the Foundry boardroom where objects are thrown whenever you bring this silly poly limit up. Also Maya LT 2016 ext 3 has a fantastic auto-rigger. You literally just select your model and push a button. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo0hHJ1FbAU

I am one of those that can totally live without the Modo renderer, and would trade it for a higher poly cap, or no poly cap any day (especially now that you've got the new PBR viewport). Many of us bake in substance designer, and we can't do that with Modo indie, thanks to your poly restrictions. I was unable to export some meshFusion models for instance, and that was infuriating. Also, you've started to incorporate natively some of the useful community scripts like perfectcircle and vertex normal toolkit, please continue that and include more modeling essentials like quickpipe, quadcaps, bools kit, eterea swiss knife and UV, etc.

But I suspect that for most people, Modo indie is just a cheap way to learn Modo, and not a permanent production tool. They plan to upgrade to full Modo as soon as they can afford it. So in that sense, the restrictions are working, as they lead to more sales of the full package... and I just realized that it's not likely to ever change, so I should stop typing now.

Stay sexy, Brandon.

Boozebeard

I was subbed for a couple of months and Modo 10's features seem really amazing but the 100K limit was a deal breaker for me. I like to bake in substance and not being able to export my high poly models obviously makes this impossible. Admittedly it looks like there are a lot of improvements to Modo's own baking tools but I still hate the idea of not having the option to bake things in other programs.

Son Kim

I also think the 100K limit should be lifted while I do like to bake in Modo, I find baking in Substance Painter much quicker. It's not a issue for me since I have a commercial license but you'll quickly hit that 100K limit if you need to bake in SD/SP, this makes Modo indie not very pipeline friendly.

Doc holliday

NevousChimp, don't even bring up kiling the renderer in indie. For concept artists it's a godsend Honestly Modo Indie is more than enough for any concept artist that uses 3d in their workflow. No poly limit if you stay within Modo.

MeshMagnet

I'm gonna chime in as well, the 100k poly limit is a deal breaker.

Steppenwolf

The limitations make no sense to me. The point of an indie license is to give small timers access to tools they would either ignore or pirate otherwise not to lure them into purchasing the license for AAA price. It feels a bit disingenuous to me.
From the pov of indie developers and small time freelancers Modo isn't in competition with Max or Maya but with Blender which is free and without limitations.

Pizdos

Steppenwolf said:

The limitations make no sense to me. The point of an indie license is to give small timers access to tools they would either ignore or pirate otherwise not to lure them into purchasing the license for AAA price. It feels a bit disingenuous to me.
From the pov of indie developers and small time freelancers Modo isn't in competition with Max or Maya but with Blender which is free and without limitations.

Absolutely agree here.

I don't understand why those limitations. The basics behind "indie/solo" is that you make less that X money per month or year.

Why you restrict "indie" to make any money and be able to buy next tier of license is beyond me. Is like directly encouraging piracy from vendor. Is very simple, if you don't have money for full license, what's left for you? Piracy or open source tools. I just wonder how many zillions are loosing company's like Autodeks or other big dudes, totally ignoring "indies", and keeping prices so high.

Dataday

How would the foundry possibly monitor or manage the money made by someone used by Indie? Its not really possible nor are they really set up for it. The foundry is not in the same situation as Autodesk either. The worst thing that can happen to Modo is to have it become cannibalized by a far cheaper version.

It would be great if they open Indie up a bit more or just made Modo cheaper as a whole, but I am not sure thats a risk they can take... nor do I see many win win solutions. Something would have to be cut.. Its tough. Very tough. Perhaps the answer is some kind of deviation from Indie and Pro... make Indie focus on the game dev arena... and focus pro on product design, archviz and advertising... for example.

Zack Maxwell

Dataday said:

How would the foundry possibly monitor or manage the money made by someone used by Indie? Its not really possible nor are they really set up for it. The foundry is not in the same situation as Autodesk either. The worst thing that can happen to Modo is to have it become cannibalized by a far cheaper version.

It would be great if they open Indie up a bit more or just made Modo cheaper as a whole, but I am not sure thats a risk they can take... nor do I see many win win solutions. Something would have to be cut.. Its tough. Very tough. Perhaps the answer is some kind of deviation from Indie and Pro... make Indie focus on the game dev arena... and focus pro on product design, archviz and advertising... for example.

Dozens of other major software do it. Software with far more users to keep track of than Modo.
The Foundry and Autodesk are literally the only fools I know of taking the approach of managing two separate versions of their software so they can hamstring one of them.

Pizdos

Grimwolf said:

The Foundry and Autodesk are literally the only fools I know of taking the approach of managing two separate versions of their software so they can hamstring one of them.

This is where marketing fails miserably. Losing resources to keep 2 versions instead adapting prices to the real market. Also, the two company's forgot internet is worldwide available, and I think they are judging only by local money value.

Steppenwolf

Dataday said:

How would the foundry possibly monitor or manage the money made by someone used by Indie? Its not really possible nor are they really set up for it. The foundry is not in the same situation as Autodesk either. The worst thing that can happen to Modo is to have it become cannibalized by a far cheaper version.

They can't. Neither can they monitor who pirates the software. They have to rely on the honesty of their users either way. But imo it's better buisness practice to open a route for small timers then to leave that segment to pirates. A good deal can do wonders to peoples willingness to pay for something (see Netflix, Spotify etc.).

musashidan

Or they could complicate it further and break indie in twain: one indie version with the polycount restriction lifted for the games market, but the renderer is absent; another for archviz/product design with character rigging&animation/sculpting tools/game specific tools absent.....or similar

pior

If all of a sudden they decided to unify everything, offering a single app without limitations but with two license types (under or over 100k/year), the following would probably happen : 

- They would be able to market the Indie license as full featured, thus convincing many new users to give it a try and buy it.
- They will then be able to fully focus their ressources on making one single app as powerful as possible.
- Users of the full license making less than 100k/year will be able to downgrade their license (these will be very happy customers !)
- Users already making over 100k /year will keep their high end license, since it is not in their interest to game the system in the first place.
- Some people using a pirated version of the app might even decide to go clean and get the cheap license.

Just guessing here of course.

musashidan

@pior , then you're  back to the earlier point discussed of the foundry keeping track of the 2 different groups. I wonder how Epic does this with UE4?

Whatever way they do it, it can't be as ridiculous as Adesk breaking Max into Max/Max design, wasting resources for several years, and then unifying it again.... 

pior

Well, this has been discussed many times over anyways ... At the end of the day it's really up to them. They definitely are in an interesting space.