Questions about incorporating MODO 11 into my workflow

d3rpko

I am definitely replacing Maya with Modo for modeling, but I am curious about what else I can get away with inside the same software. I've been out of the 3D loop for a year or so, Can any Modo chime in. I really enjoy it for modeling and navigation, feels more organic, I'd like to use it for more.

I guess in the end, what I'm asking is what other features are worth taking a look at.
(My main focus are Game Assets & Product Design)

Thank you for the input!

igi

Main thing about Modo is it's customizability. Find your commonly used tools and bind them to a key. Easy way to bind a command to a key is to Press F5 then go to History tab. Here are you can see your command history. You can right click on any command and choose 'map command to a key'. It's more convenient then input editor at first. But when you add more scripts(something every Modo users should) you gotta use input editor and form editor.
 Scripts are an important part of Modo. Find Seneca's scripts. There's tons of convenient scripts in it. Learn how to bind them to a key and set up pallettes.

d3rpko

Alright good to know, are the scripts python based or what? That actually sounds like I can customize a very powerful modeling environment.

igi

Yes, scripts are Phyton based. You can create your own pie menues too but you need to get your hands dirty with form editor. You can also record and save your own macros, as well as custom cfg file that contains your own custom palette configuration.

badkangaroo

d3rpko said:

...
I guess in the end, what I'm asking is what other features are worth taking a look at.
(My main focus are Game Assets & Product Design)
...

One interesting thing I found as a modo user is being able to edit a file as FBX and save as FBX. For Unity at least this seems to be a rather interesting ability. Say if i have a particularly simple asset and I just want to assign materials or edit some key frames in the FBX I can do that in Modo, save the file, it'll say that some features aren't available in FBX format, but I can excuse the dialog and save anyway. Hop back into Unity and the file updates. No more exporting from a source file to FBX.
Also helps with debugging problematic FBX files, like if a model shows up with messed up textures, I open it in Modo, and observe "Oh, it's UVs are all messed up" or something like that. Had things like that happen a few times.

d3rpko

badkangaroo said:

d3rpko said:

...
I guess in the end, what I'm asking is what other features are worth taking a look at.
(My main focus are Game Assets & Product Design)
...

One interesting thing I found as a modo user is being able to edit a file as FBX and save as FBX. For Unity at least this seems to be a rather interesting ability. Say if i have a particularly simple asset and I just want to assign materials or edit some key frames in the FBX I can do that in Modo, save the file, it'll say that some features aren't available in FBX format, but I can excuse the dialog and save anyway. Hop back into Unity and the file updates. No more exporting from a source file to FBX.
Also helps with debugging problematic FBX files, like if a model shows up with messed up textures, I open it in Modo, and observe "Oh, it's UVs are all messed up" or something like that. Had things like that happen a few times.

Ah, that's actually super interesting thing to know, thanks a lot for the feedback. This would of helped a lot back in the UDK days :P 

Klawd

For game assets production Modo offers a very complete bake system. I tend to bake everything in it, and then use the results either in substance painter or UE4/Unity.
Also, for product design Modo 11 has optimized meshops procedural booleans which is an awesome way to design stuff quickly.