Modo 401 for game art
Hi there,
I'm currently looking for a OS X compatible 3D app. For the past few years I've run Macs at home and used Max under Bootcamp which has been fine. But every time I boot into OS X it just makes me want to find a comparable 3D app so I don't have to use Windows.
I use a Windows machine for work and that wont be changing any time soon, but for personal projects, if I can stay in OS X that would be awesome.
I've tried Maya, and I do like it, I used it exclusively for about a year at one point, but it's not playing at all nice with 10.6. I've tried Cinema 4D and while the interface looks rather attractive, it's not really a contender for Max/Maya imo, I've used it a lot for some Arch Viz stuff and it's fine for that, but game art, maybe not so much.
So, I know Modo 401 is available for Mac and I was wondering what people think of it in a game art workflow?
I know there's one or two certain members here who might use it ;p
As I said, this is just for personal projects, so ease of use and enjoyment of use is key here.
Also, am I likely to get by with the included training content or could you recommend some decent training material, ideally geared towards game assets (baking etc).
Many thanks
I'm currently looking for a OS X compatible 3D app. For the past few years I've run Macs at home and used Max under Bootcamp which has been fine. But every time I boot into OS X it just makes me want to find a comparable 3D app so I don't have to use Windows.
I use a Windows machine for work and that wont be changing any time soon, but for personal projects, if I can stay in OS X that would be awesome.
I've tried Maya, and I do like it, I used it exclusively for about a year at one point, but it's not playing at all nice with 10.6. I've tried Cinema 4D and while the interface looks rather attractive, it's not really a contender for Max/Maya imo, I've used it a lot for some Arch Viz stuff and it's fine for that, but game art, maybe not so much.
So, I know Modo 401 is available for Mac and I was wondering what people think of it in a game art workflow?
I know there's one or two certain members here who might use it ;p
As I said, this is just for personal projects, so ease of use and enjoyment of use is key here.
Also, am I likely to get by with the included training content or could you recommend some decent training material, ideally geared towards game assets (baking etc).
Many thanks
Replies
http://www.mikebrainard.net/
So it's definitely possible.
If you are only ever going to do static objects for props or environments, then it should be ok, but as soon as you need to pose or animate anything more complex then you'd be stuck.
Also, Xoliul, Mike Brainard only used Modo for the most recent 2 pieces - all the previous images seem to be from 3DS Max and ZBrush.
The manual is very good, their site is full of tutorial videos and training and there's a very good community. If I get stuck I always find the answer after a basic search in the luxology forums.
And no, I'm not in any way affiliated with luxology and I'm not a rabid fanboy.
It definitely looks like an enjoyable package to use and it seems like it will fit into my workflow ok from what's been said.
The rigging/animating thing isn't a problem since any of the small amount of rig work I do will be in Maya. As I said, it's just to make my personal projects a little more fun to do from an application point of view. While I'd never argue that the toolsets from Max/Maya are incredible, a pretty interface and some clever tools makes for a more pleasing work environment I think.
I had heard great things about the modelling tools, I just want sure about baking/realtime previews which I'd need for game art, but if they're fine then I'll give it a go.
How's it's export capabilities? OBJ? ASE?
Thanks again
It does? I´ve never had any problems with it.
Well let me clarify that. It sucks when trying to import a Modo OBJ to XNormal. Because Modo has no option to triangulate the object for export. Also there seems to be problems with the Collada exports for Modo. If I have a couple of mirrored object in Modo sometimes everything else wont export out correctly. The UV's get out of whack.
Tried shift-T?
Exporters:
I've gotting static objects into Unreal without any problems with the ase exporter found on this page.
There is a Collada exporter currently being developed and improved.
Fbx and Obj are both natively supported, though the Obj exporter could use some work. I think Chai has released a script that might help with Obj exporting I still need to get around to checking it out.
The Good:
1. Modeling - Poly modeling and SubD
2. UV mapping - especially after you get some custom scripts (just scroll down to the UV section - Google translate might help).
3. Very easy to custimize UI.
The Bad:
1. Linear workflow - no modifier stack or construction history.
2. No smooth skinning for animation - no bones. I'm pretty sure this will be added to Modo in the future, though it might be a long wait.
The Ugly:
1. Smoothing groups or Soft/Hard edges are handled through a smoothing angle in the object's material. The workaround is to manually split edges where you want a hard edge then apply a 180° smoothing angle to the whole object.
2. Triangulation could be handled better, I personally wish it was like Max with hidden edges. Though you can always manually tweak the triangulation after the fact.
3. The realtime viewport shader is limited, it cannot display specular/gloss maps properly. There is the preview render window, but with that you are pretty much offline rendering stuff. I just use Unreal or Marmoset to show game engine type renders.
Hard edges? Can you elaborate?
I have a rough idea of what he has in mind. Yes a tutorial will be nice. Thanks. Also can you have multiple smoothing groups in Unreal 3?
Yes I've experienced some bugginess. Some of Seneca scripts don't work right with Modo 401. He has some very valuable scripts too.
401 is rather unstable yes. I´ve gone back to using 302 for modelling and UVmapping. I only use 401 for rendering atm.
Yeah... I using 302 at work, 401 at home. I'm using it for all my game art these days. Neither is crashing alot atm. It seems to have a mood of its own, sometimes I get ten crashes in a workday, sometimes it doesnt crash for weeks on end, so.. i dunno. I'd say modo 401 is a tiny bit better for game art. It's got better AA etc for baking.
As for the scripts, sofar I have no problems with any of Seneca's scripts I use regularly.
All the artists at Massive use modo, aswell.
"Originally Posted by OBlastradiusO
Well let me clarify that. It sucks when trying to import a Modo OBJ to XNormal. Because Modo has no option to triangulate the object for export. Also there seems to be problems with the Collada exports for Modo. If I have a couple of mirrored object in Modo sometimes everything else wont export out correctly. The UV's get out of whack."
Yeah, xnormal don't like n-gons. Just select the n-gons and triangulate them, and there you go! SHift-T and you are ready to go :P No problems exporting to xnormal, the tricky part is importing to maya/max, but I think that is more the importers in maya/max that are wonky imho.
I use it for modeling highpoly subd's, lowpoly, uving and painting wear/tear seams.
I have written a custom .obj exporter which supports smoothing groups, vertex normals, does triangulation on the fly and more.
It might take a bit to get used to, but once you do you'll have a quick one click exporter.
That looks sweet, downloading it now to try it out
Need to try this out. You might have saved my day/week/month.
It's slowly gotten better and more fully featured over the years although it lacks some of the stuff you may expect from things like Max or Maya (physics simulation, full complex character rigging, modifiers and object history). That said, for modeling and UVing I've yet to find anything better.
Ben Apuna's "The Ugly" list of points are also the things that annoy me about it. So be careful there. They're certainly not enough to make me dislike the app at all though.
As for the stability, the x01 releases are historically the most unstable being the first releases with a major new feature set added, and they get more stable as that x0x cycle goes on.
After this (baring fixing any n-gons) it's ready to go to Unreal or wherever.
pior:
401 has had a two service pack updates and is far less crashy than it was on initial release, that said it's still not quite as stable as 302...
I've narrowed 99% of my crashes down to being from one of two things.
1. Deleting some verts that are on the edge of some geometry and then undoing that operation. This is the one that gets me from time to time
2. Using the make face command after a edge loop selection. My workaround for this is to use the bridge tool instead followed a edge extrude -> edge collapse -> weld vert - which is kind of lame I know
Unfortunately these crashes only happen sometimes and are not reproducible so I don't think reporting them will help much... maybe I should anyway.
EDIT:
Seneca also updated his scripts a bit here's the thread.
So the realtime render previews aren't great? While not really a deal breaker for me, it would be nice if there is at least a half-decent representation of previewing normal/spec properly. Sending my mesh to Unreal/Marmoset is no problem, but obviously neither of those have a Mac friendly option so it'll mean booting to Windows which is what I'm trying to get around!
Is there a better shader available for it anywhere else?
As I said though, really not a deal breaker so I'm gonna go get into Modo!
Thanks again for all the great help.
Whoever thought smoothing angle by material was a good idea should be buried in a tank of snakes.
Does the Modo viewport support FX shaders or HLSL or anything?
The short answer is no
Though this guy made a "red wax" shader for Modo.
And he says somthing about: "Implemented new toolchain to support translation from GLSL (email us for more information on converting GLSL Shaders to ARB style machine code versions. Its hot.)"
So maybe something is possible, I haven't had the time to investigate further.
This should come in real handy!
Smoothing angle was 180 and everything is unwelded including my uv's. Any suggestions?
Check this post from this thread out.
Yeah honestly this is #1 on my list of pet peves with modo. Its never really been a deal breaker for me, as i'm always going to be setting up in max/maya/whatever the client needs, and its better to bake in an app that their engine supports, modo may be able to bake fine, but chances are its not going to look good outside of modo, just like nearly every other baking app.
I'm still using 302 here out of lazyness/habit, been meaning to try 401 for a while. I do all my high/low/uv work and some renders of high meshes as well, but that is it.
IMO modo crashes are always much less annoying than other apps, simply because you can load the app up, load the autosave back up in a matter of seconds, instead of waiting an hour for max to load back up, and deal with potentially corrupted files.
Also, i would highly suggest not using that split edges method, atleast dont bake with that mesh! As you'll lose detail are those edges in your bake. If you can find a different way to do it, you really should.
Technically you can write your own OGL shader and replace any existing viewport shader with yours, however I haven't seen a way to get the texture map locations out of modo so you could include them in your shader. Meaning you'd have to hard-code them or use a textureless shader... which isn't much use.
And, well... let's just say I think I'm gonna need some training!
I may have been a bit over confident in thinking I could just jump straight in and get to know the software. It's a little different to what I'm used to!
I've had a read through the documentation which is admittedly great, but I usually prefer to go through some sort of video training, I find a project based kit usually helps me get to know the app in the best possible way.
Could anyone recommend any?
The 'Spotlight' course on Luxology's site looks pretty good, and I know Digital Tutors do some Modo stuff, but before I drop the cash on those, I'd rather know what people recommend.
Thanks
This post has a great video about action centers, I put up a link to more recent versions Senecas scripts earlier in this thread, you should visit his website anyway as it's good for showing you what they do.
Modo Rules! and Where all the Modo users? are a couple of other Modo threads here on Polycount, there might be useful information there as well.
Best thing is to go through the included help videos and the free stuff, there are a bunch of really long tutorial videos by Andy Brown on the Luxology site/forum about that might help you with the interface. I'll go try to dig out the links for you.
EDIT:
Here's one
http://www.luxology.com/community/user_tutorials/modeling/camera/
Another one - no audio on this on though
http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=26239&show=son%20kim%20cell%20phone
MOAR!
http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=3344&show=radio%20car%20tutorial
http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=23739&show=hand%20UV%20sonk
Snapping:
http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=38719
Some older Modo tutorials but still good.
http://www.sabpro.com/modo/index.html
http://www.sabpro.com/modo/index202.html
Another Modo site has some scripts and tutorials, etc...
http://www.modonize.com/Articles/default.aspx
More Modo scripts can be found here:
http://www.vertexmonkey.com/
and here:
http://park7.wakwak.com/~oxygen/lib/script/modo/category.html
Running it through Google Translate Japanese to English seems to help.
PDF about action centers.
http://www.pixsim.co.uk/downloads/Modo_401_Action_Center_Reference_Sheet.pdf
Another video about action centers
http://content.luxology.com/community/user_tutorials/Greg%20Leuenberger/Action%20Center%202%20Step%20-Modo%20tuts%20Final%20H264.mov
Senaca's action center video
http://content.luxology.com/community/user_tutorials/seneca/SENECA_MODO_ACTRS.MOV
Moar action center video
http://content.luxology.com/community/user_tutorials/JORust/JORust_01.mov
Maya has OpenGL viewports and supports HLSL and CGFX shaders... you don't need DirectX for shader support
There was some talk on the modo podcast the other day about nVidia teaming up with Lux for something or other (viewport accelleration?). Haven't listened to it yet to know what it's all about but it'd be interesting to see if the let us do that sort of thing in future releases. I certainly get pissed off with gloss maps not showing up in the Advanced OGL viewport.
All i do is done in modo, and i feel unconfortable using any other app such as maya and max (i've used them for years!). To work with subdivs in modo is a total pleasure, you can also work with the tablet using the sculpt tools, so you won't need to use a mouse never!. I edit and move the polygons using the sculpt tools :P
There are too many good point about the program (and bad too), but you won't love it until you dedicate more than 2 weeks XD. Some friends hate it haha. Although Modo comes with a great amount of tuts, if you are customed to work in max as example, you won't like it!. Silo is far easy to work with, you don't need help.
I really don't care about smoothing groups because modo it's a subdiv modeler mainly, and all what i mainly do is hi-poly work. For game art, it's better to export to max and do the tweaks there. It's as easy as to load a .max file. Max 2009 importer work flawlessly.
What makes me iffy about getting modo is not knowing if I can use the models in any game engine or not and also its exporter.
Download the trial version of any app you are considering buying and do some real work with it before you throw down the cash. Give all three a try, might as well throw in XSI as well. Only by actually putting an app through it's paces will you really know which is better suited to your needs and workflow.
What 3D apps have you used in the past? Did you like any of them?
What types of game art do you want to do? Characters? Animation? Environment?
If the answer to this is character animation stay away from Modo for the time being. Modo does not support smooth skinned animation yet, and it might be a long time before it does.
As for getting things into game engines from Modo. I've personally used it for static meshes in Unreal without much trouble. I've also taken Obj files into Marmoset Toolbag without any major problems as well. There is also a Collada exporter which seems to be getting better everyday, though I haven't used it much yet.
Hope that helps you
"Freeze all transforms" under the properties tab.
Ahhh Thanks man!
I think that's one of the strengths of modo that gets overlooked, actually. Anyone can get used to anything and can therefore get faster. But modo really lets you go beyond that: instead of the user having to get used to modo, after a while, you realize "hey, I can totally change this and put stuff anywhere I want." I mean literally anywhere. In a viewport, bound to a hotkey, in a pop-up tray, in a pie menu, in a pie menu that leads to a pop-up tray, whatever...!
I have a whole pie-menu devoted to nothing but edge-related commands. Split, Sew, Slide, you name it. It's all under Alt-E. I have a second pie menu devoted to nothing but Symmetry stuff. I took a really good script by Gim Dong Joo (LoopSlicePick) and mapped 3 versions of it to hotkeys so I can loop slice freely, uniformly, or symmetrically through whatever is under my cursor. Very fast, and beats pressing Alt-C and then setting stuff manually. Now I place my cursor where I want the new loop slice and press either S, Shift-S, or Alt-S. I've got about half a dozen other pie menus that I use regularly and they all save me tons of time.
I even created a simple Card Form to set up quick options for rendering, and a custom variable macro to change my resolution on the fly.
It's not a perfect app my any means, and it has a different way of offering its commands to the user, but it's a very powerful modeling tool!
How is it for animation ? id consider getting it if i knew of some program i could buy seperately to do my animation in, have any suggestions ?
the tour on the modo website has really tempted me.
Seems a lot of the Modo people doing character animation in the VFX industry are using Lightwave + Messiah.
If you want to be doing character animation in the game industry I'd suggest sticking with Maya or Max, maybe XSI (XSI is supposed to be great at animation, it's just not widely used in the industry).
If you want a free animation package maybe blender or non-commercial use XSI Mod Tool or Houdini.
If you really intend to use Modo + another app for animation, definitely get the trials and test out the back and forth workflow before you buy anything.
However, if you really want to texture, light, and render in modo, you can easily import MDD files exported from other apps. It works quite well, actually, and gives you a solution for animating in Maya, Max or XSI, and doing everything else in modo. I know some people do that. Whether you can turn an MDD file into something you can export for a game, I don't know...