Does anyone here have any experience/know anyone using Modo for Arch-Viz?
I'm currently shopping for my first commercial license (been on student license for the past few years) and undecided on which package to go for. Modo comes in almost £1000 under the alternatives (Max/C4D) and if it fits the bill, it'll be tempting.
Thing is, I'm looking ideally for a Mac solution which Modo obviously is, as is C4D, Max is not but I can BootCamp. Max would obviously be the sensible choice but if I can save a grand then I would like to.
I do use it for realtime stuff in my spare time too but for my job, I need a few things like CAD import, a decent Hair system, cloth would be cool and obviously a renderer to rival VRay/MR is crucial. Any one got any input on this?
-No node-based shader system (it uses a Shader Tree instead)
-No audio support for animation
-No fracture/destruction system
Its physics system is also really buggy atm, but that might be fixed in service packs.
It does however have support for realflow particles and a decent hair system.
I guess the obvious reason for max would be that there is a ton of tools and plugins for all kinds of stuff, like particle systems, fluid simulation, cloth simulation, vegetation, renderers. Modo still has alot to catch up in this regard.
Just starting using 601 coming from 401. I had a script that I used that allowed you to get a export menu for a selected item and export as a obj which seems not to work in this new version. Does anyone know if any obj exporters out here allow you to export a selected item and not the whole scene?
This is my biggest issue with Modo: no native way to export selected layers. Its just pathetic. The first version of Modo should have had it, and instead we're six versions in and people still have to use workarounds and scripts. For now I'm deleting everything I don't want to export, exporting, and then undoing the deletes. Talked about this recently on the Luxology forum too: http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=63958
Anyhow, there are a few scripts to do this, but none that I know of support obj groups sense that was just introduced in 601 (and the reason I'm using a work around instead of a script). However, If that doesn't matter then this seems to work ok: http://www.artstorm.net/plugins/export-selected-to-obj/
I think thats a wierd issue ^^ Yes, there is no native way, but if you only use modos native functionality and zero scripts you are silly and unefficient. ^^
True scripts are always a good thing to have, but basic functionality should never be left to scripters. Its like if a 3D app lacked a grid, or loop/ring selection, saying "that's ok, the scripters will fix it!" is not a very good excuse.
But saying its your biggest issue is wierd, because its something that takes 30 seconds to fix. My biggest issues is usually the ones I cannot fix with a few simple klicks. Like broken or missing functionality that you cannot add yourself.
I see it as the biggest issue because interoperability with other apps is so important. Even if Modo lacks a certain feature you can always just export into another package that has the feature you need. And this issue affects all export options and formats, so no matter what programs your moving to it will affect you.
And I say its NOT a big issue because its so supereasy to fix, and even without a fix its just another few seconds of delay. I have export tools on hotkeys, so I never notice that. I think its a bigger problem that certain things cannot be baked out for example, because there are no workarounds. ^^
Fundamental issues are the biggest issues, because they affect everyone. Sure Modo not having cage baking is an issue for some, but thats just it: It only affects SOME people. When very nearly your entire userbase has to use workarounds and scripts for a feature that could be implemented in a day by a single employee, and 10 years later its still not implemented, well, it's not a good sign.
Also, on the subject of scripts, the way they work for exporting selected layers always seems to be by copy/pasting the layers into a new scene and saving out that scene. The problem with this is that is doubles the amount of memory in use, which I assume could cause crashes with high poly meshs on exporting due to the memory doubling.
If anyone's a Max user and wants to be able to toggle the whole/partial selection of enclosed polygons...
Open the System > Form Editor.
Use Find Form to find a place you'd like to put the button.
Create > New Command and give it the command... pref.value remapping.lassoSelectPartial ?
...including the question mark.
Set Boolean Control Style to "Toggle Button".
Give it a Label of whatever you like.
It only works with polygons, not edges, but it'll toggle the ability to select either partially enclosed polys or only completely enclosed polys.
I fired modo up this weekend to see what all the fuss was about. Needless to say, I love it. I'm going to play around with it a bit more, and if the love continues, I might end up buying it to use for personal projects/freelance work.
The only downside I've seen so far is getting models into cryengine. But it seems to work pretty well with Unity and UDK, so I can't complain too much.
I don't want to create a new thread for this, so I thought I'd post it in here..
Do any of you modo users have any good modelling tutorial recommendations? I'm having trouble finding anything useful. I've gotten the hang of the basic modelling toolset, however I want to learn more about some of the more advanced tools.
I'll be honest, I have tried modo several times and I just end up hating it. The UI, the number of steps it takes to get somethings done, much of which I do faster in other apps...the slow and or sluggish way the viewport feels. I managed to learn blender easier than with Modo and thats saying quite a lot!
Its just my impression but modo fans feel more like apple fans, they love their brand and hate everything else. Of course once I head over to the luxology forums I realize this isnt the case, as many of them are more than happy to gripe about Modo as well and not shower it with blind claims of perfection.
If some of you keep saying how great it is, Ill keep trying to get into it...one way or another.
I'll be honest, I have tried modo several times and I just end up hating it. The UI, the number of steps it takes to get somethings done I do faster in other apps...the slow and or sluggish way the viewport feels. I managed to learn blender easier than with Modo and thats saying quite a lot!
Its just my impression but modo fans feel more like apple fans, they love their brand and hate everything else. Of course once I head over to the luxology forums I realize this isnt the case, as many of them are more than happy to gripe about Modo as well and now shower it with blind claims of perfection.
If some of you keep saying how great it is, Ill keep trying to get into it...one way or another.
Modo is like the rehashed version of Lightwave but better in some ways. I learned Lightwave last year and I did not like how you navigate in the viewport as well the hotkeys you have to do in order execute certain modeling tools. I'd take Modo over Lightwave any day in terms of navigation and tool function but Modo still has similar things as Lightwave which I am not a big fan of.
I'll be honest, I have tried modo several times and I just end up hating it. The UI, the number of steps it takes to get somethings done I do faster in other apps...the slow and or sluggish way the viewport feels. I managed to learn blender easier than with Modo and thats saying quite a lot!
Its just my impression but modo fans feel more like apple fans, they love their brand and hate everything else. Of course once I head over to the luxology forums I realize this isnt the case, as many of them are more than happy to gripe about Modo as well and now shower it with blind claims of perfection.
If some of you keep saying how great it is, Ill keep trying to get into it...one way or another.
Wow I couldn't disagree more. Number of steps ? Everyone says that Modo is the fastest app to model and I agree. Viewport feels great. Nothing sluggish about it. I really don't understand how could one get such impression of Modo. Apple comparison ? Where did you get that from ? Apple is everywere trying to appeal to everyone. Luxology is doing what they can in their own corner. Humble and silent ;p I know you changed opinion but this apple thingy...wow. Weird!;p
I know I sound like I work for Luxology but once I tried Modo I never went back. Best modeling tool I've ever used and I've never been more productive. The thing is an absolute BEAST.
tried modo a few times, could see myself really liking the tools and scripting the fuck out of it, but the selection always bothered me, can choose between cross, and window selection for edges and faces.
Wow I couldn't disagree more. Number of steps ? Everyone says that Modo is the fastest app to model and I agree. Viewport feels great. Nothing sluggish about it. I really don't understand how could one get such impression of Modo. Apple comparison ? Where did you get that from ? Apple is everywere trying to appeal to everyone. Luxology is doing what they can in their own corner. Humble and silent ;p I know you changed opinion but this apple thingy...wow. Weird!;p
No need to go on the offensive. Just my opinions are present.
As for the apple thing, it was an initial impression nothing more. If you understand the apple fanbase then you might understand the point i was trying to drive across. In short apple fans are more often than not (they carry the impression and or stereotype) fairly elitist when it comes to their brand loyalty and their views towards the competition, even though PCs for example make up over 95% of the international market. There was even a documentary awhile back about this perception of them, in a generalized sense. So my opinion was that Modo fans were starting to come across the same way, and of course I said I was proven wrong once I visited the forums on luxology.
As for the feeling of the viewport, it does feel sluggish, like the camera is on some sort of camera rig seen on film sets...(believe they did this on purpose). Compared to say something like Maya, which just zooms around like the speed of light with no real camera emulation, it feels slow or sluggish. If you ever saw me speed model in maya for example, it would look like the viewport is tweaking out because I would be moving around in it fast, jumping to verts, faces, rotating ridiculous amounts while a mesh is forming into something to use for zbrush, or a large scale modular scene is coming together.
Trying to emulate that on modo was a no go. Took forever just to figure out how to turn off the track ball and override the horrible rotate effect just panning left and right. With those on, the whole movement left me discombobulated/out of place.
As for the number of steps... I come from Maya... I dont have to be in certain modes to make anything, or flip through tabs to get effect certain parts of a mesh/texture. The workflow is entirely different. In Maya, I can hide most of the UI and be able to do everything! Space bar brings up every tool i will need, one or two clicks in the same menu tree and I have it. No modes, no tabs, just tools all layed out in one spot. Right mouse click menu for selection and snapping with D+x,c,v and you dont need anything else really. The steps I have to take to get anything done is very short.
What I felt in Modo, and this is just my experience only...is that it felt like there were procedures one had to do to accomplish certain things. A method or set of processes one has to do...not that this is bad, but compared to Maya's "here are the tools, hide everything else and have at it" approach...as old as Maya's approach is, it still feels the most intelligent to me. Then again it could just be how my thought processes was conditioned from using it...that and legos. lol
Hope that shed some light onto my impressions/experiences with Modo so far. When I was at Siggraph, I stopped by Luxology's tiny booth (sorry, they had a very small presence there) and from talking with other artist in the area I did get a few "As for modo, its too weird, or two foreign to use". I think a lot of artist using other applications feel like its workflow doesnt make much sense, or that its not entirely intuitive.
Of course anyone pushing themselves can learn just about every software package and start to get a feel about how it works, but some go more smoothly than others. Modo for me personally is not a smooth transition and I'm still looking for what makes it better than other applications, especially for modeling. I just dont see it yet.
On a side note, I still dont understand the reasoning behind charging for a 30 trial. They would probably get much more users if they offered either a longer free trial or just a non commercial version for free like Autodesk did. Charging for a trial just seems...counter productive when it comes to growing your userbase.
First of all it wasn't offensive. Sorry you took it that way. It was first time I heard such an opinion about Modo, thats why my reaction was so extreme (not offensive though). I come from 3ds max which I still love and I won't be choosing. I like both apps and will use both apps. I understand not everyone will find Modo smoothest but public opinion is that it's one of the fastest modelling app. It comes down to preference though. If you don't for example have a lot of cash Modo is nice solution. It's complete package. You can sculpt with it, model, uv (damn uving is great compared to 3ds max), paint textures, retopologize and render. It lacks in few of those aspects but still you can get a lot done in Modo. Take a look at Snefers work. He even bakes maps in Modo and they look great in UDK (even though most people would say that baking in Modo is crazy thing to do).
I was just suprised by your opinion. Sorry if you felt I was rude. That wasn't the intention
No need to go on the offensive. Just my opinions are present.
As for the apple thing, it was an initial impression nothing more. If you understand the apple fanbase then you might understand the point i was trying to drive across. In short apple fans are more often than not (they carry the impression and or stereotype) fairly elitist when it comes to their brand loyalty and their views towards the competition, even though PCs for example make up over 95% of the international market. There was even a documentary awhile back about this perception of them, in a generalized sense. So my opinion was that Modo fans were starting to come across the same way, and of course I said I was proven wrong once I visited the forums on luxology.
As for the feeling of the viewport, it does feel sluggish, like the camera is on some sort of camera rig seen on film sets...(believe they did this on purpose). Compared to say something like Maya, which just zooms around like the speed of light with no real camera emulation, it feels slow or sluggish. If you ever saw me speed model in maya for example, it would look like the viewport is tweaking out because I would be moving around in it fast, jumping to verts, faces, rotating ridiculous amounts while a mesh is forming into something to use for zbrush, or a large scale modular scene is coming together.
Trying to emulate that on modo was a no go. Took forever just to figure out how to turn off the track ball and override the horrible rotate effect just panning left and right. With those on, the whole movement left me discombobulated/out of place.
As for the number of steps... I come from Maya... I dont have to be in certain modes to make anything, or flip through tabs to get effect certain parts of a mesh/texture. The workflow is entirely different. In Maya, I can hide most of the UI and be able to do everything! Space bar brings up every tool i will need, one or two clicks in the same menu tree and I have it. No modes, no tabs, just tools all layed out in one spot. Right mouse click menu for selection and snapping with D+x,c,v and you dont need anything else really. The steps I have to take to get anything done is very short.
What I felt in Modo, and this is just my experience only...is that it felt like there were procedures one had to do to accomplish certain things. A method or set of processes one has to do...not that this is bad, but compared to Maya's "here are the tools, hide everything else and have at it" approach...as old as Maya's approach is, it still feels the most intelligent to me. Then again it could just be how my thought processes was conditioned from using it...that and legos. lol
Hope that shed some light onto my impressions/experiences with Modo so far. When I was at Siggraph, I stopped by Luxology's tiny booth (sorry, they had a very small presence there) and from talking with other artist in the area I did get a few "As for modo, its too weird, or two foreign to use". I think a lot of artist using other applications feel like its workflow doesnt make much sense, or that its not entirely intuitive.
Of course anyone pushing themselves can learn just about every software package and start to get a feel about how it works, but some go more smoothly than others. Modo for me personally is not a smooth transition and I'm still looking for what makes it better than other applications, especially for modeling. I just dont see it yet.
On a side note, I still dont understand the reasoning behind charging for a 30 trial. They would probably get much more users if they offered either a longer free trial or just a non commercial version for free like Autodesk did. Charging for a trial just seems...counter productive when it comes to growing your userbase.
IMHO Modo is one of the most overestimated application out there, but if I look over the great hype around it, there is many interesting tools.
About modelling, out of the box is totally true, modo has many step/click/tab to control and press, but you need a bit of customization, using Tool Pipe menu, understanding action center (nohing so complex, only different from maya or softimage) and workplane (a cumbersome version of blender 3d cursor). Using the tool pipe can adjust every tool like you want (not unlimited options, but many), so can make your bevel like a one click tool (automatically bevel every face of the amount you want simply click one time on it). Useful and flexible, also in tool pipe you can merge different tool in a single one. I prefer Softimage for my modelling work, more clear, fast, more important, I'm used to it. For rigging no story, maya and especially softimage are on another too distant planet.
rendering is great in modo, I using it only for this and paint capabilities (imo better then zbrush in paint). Shader tree is complex only at first approach, but after a bit has a simple logic and can be used very fast. I like very much the ultrafast preview window, can adjust my material and look soon and can doing the some when paint in 3d (ala mudbox, so free 3d and not like bodypaint or mari), with a floating preview window in Paint tab to control how appear every my stroke.
At the end a good application, rich of bugs, expecially in modelling task (modo messy meshes without warning, lost symmetry and his "too sexy" GUI/viewport is not so clear for modelling like softimage or maya) and with a limited viewport flux data (aka, cannot handle complex scene). But worth learning IMHO, in particular for rendering.
Don't know why they want charge for a trial, stupid idea IMO, but they refund you when buy the full application.
First of all it wasn't offensive. Sorry you took it that way. It was first time I heard such an opinion about Modo, thats why my reaction was so extreme (not offensive though). I come from 3ds max which I still love and I won't be choosing. I like both apps and will use both apps. I understand not everyone will find Modo smoothest but public opinion is that it's one of the fastest modelling app. It comes down to preference though. If you don't for example have a lot of cash Modo is nice solution. It's complete package. You can sculpt with it, model, uv (damn uving is great compared to 3ds max), paint textures, retopologize and render. It lacks in few of those aspects but still you can get a lot done in Modo. Take a look at Snefers work. He even bakes maps in Modo and they look great in UDK (even though most people would say that baking in Modo is crazy thing to do).
I was just suprised by your opinion. Sorry if you felt I was rude. That wasn't the intention
No worries, its probably not a opinion most would articulate the way I did.
Im not so sure on the fast modeling. Most of the vids I have seen from the modo community generally involve slow modeling approaches. If you have any videos you can share that showcase how fast one can model in modo, I would love to see them as well as see how well it works in a high speed environment. Maya, especially with plug-ins (nurbs to polygons, extrude along curve, curve snapping..ect), has been the fastest at clean modeling that I have experienced so far. I generally want to try out many other software packages though to see how they compare, in part because being tied to Autodesk isnt all that fun and because you never know what else is out there.
As for going for the cheaper alternative, in that case Blender seems the best choice no? It has sculpting, painting, UV, Retopology, a modifier based modeling system, Cycles (which is a lot like Modo's render), works with luxrender and other 3rd party renderers, a functional dynamics system thats quite good though limited, hell even has a node based compositor and video editor inside and its FREE. If price vs capability were the major factor, Blender would probably take the prize every single time.
In that case Modo probably needs something...special or strong to sell it, not based on price but feature set since it wont necessarily win in the cost department. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on what app is used, pixar's subd capabilities that were present in modo are now being implemented in other applications, including maya and even blender (Ton, from the Blender Foundation tweeted he talked with the head of pixar to get a special license for it). I am not sure how the modo crowd will take this or if it will affect Luxology.
Thanks for pointing out Snefers work. I remember seeing the thread on here with his work but never knew it was done in modo. It is impressive, though a bit too high poly. That work can be done in a number of other programs quite easily as well. I noticed he had a livestream account. I like his mesh work quite a bit, though again its fairly high poly, which I am afraid is more along Modo's strengths as opposed to low poly work (Which I havent seen it excel at yet). I could be wrong though. Either way I'll still try modo again one way or another.
IMHO Modo is one of the most overestimated application out there, but if I look over the great hype around it, there is many interesting tools.
About modelling, out of the box is totally true, modo has many step/click/tab to control and press, but you need a bit of customization, using Tool Pipe menu, understanding action center (nohing so complex, only different from maya or softimage) and workplane (a cumbersome version of blender 3d cursor). Using the tool pipe can adjust every tool like you want (not unlimited options, but many), so can make your bevel like a one click tool (automatically bevel every face of the amount you want simply click one time on it). Useful and flexible, also in tool pipe you can merge different tool in a single one. I prefer Softimage for my modelling work, more clear, fast, more important, I'm used to it. For rigging no story, maya and especially softimage are on another too distant planet.
rendering is great in modo, I using it only for this and paint capabilities (imo better then zbrush in paint). Shader tree is complex only at first approach, but after a bit has a simple logic and can be used very fast. I like very much the ultrafast preview window, can adjust my material and look soon and can doing the some when paint in 3d (ala mudbox, so free 3d and not like bodypaint or mari), with a floating preview window in Paint tab to control how appear every my stroke.
At the end a good application, rich of bugs, expecially in modelling task (modo messy meshes without warning, lost symmetry and his "too sexy" GUI/viewport is not so clear for modelling like softimage or maya) and with a limited viewport flux data (aka, cannot handle complex scene). But worth learning IMHO, in particular for rendering.
Don't know why they want charge for a trial, stupid idea IMO, but they refund you when buy the full application.
Thanks for the honest and down to earth review of Modo. The tool pipe sounds interesting, might want to try it just to see how it works. I agree, Modo has one of the better rendering systems out there, it feels like a "make pretty" button based off what I have seen so far, where as other renderers require a bit more technical art knowledge.
Alright, shameless self-pimpage etc, but I do all my work in modo, everything I have in my folio etc is 100% modo, except for the occasional sculpting (even do a fair bit of that in modo now aswell, its pretty sweet to just put dents etc in your HP meshes without having to freeze the mesh, and can just add more support loops while sculpting). here is an old video where i build highpoly and lowpoly of an asset in 1 hour (the video is 4x the speed)
Modo is insanely fast when it comes to stuff like UVmapping, lowpoly-modelling is also very fast, but for me the biggest win is how easy it is to get really fast with the highpoly modelling. There are many issues with modo, lots of big and small things, like baking from a cage not being supported, which is crazy, some annoying bugs like network-baking not working, etc, but overall I think its a very sexy package, and the amount of new (and useful!) features with every update is great.
Modos rendering is great aswell, very fast and easy to tweak, which is not only good for pimping your HP work, but also for baking down maps fast and easy : ) I have tried and worked with most apps out there, but nothing comes close to the fluidity of modo imho : )
I dont see how low poly modeling can be "fast" ... in an app not allowing clean cuts to be made across faces ?
I do love the integration of the sculpting tools while poly-modeling tho. But besides that, I have to agree with Dataday. I have been trying out Modo for a while now, all the way back to 302 and it always felt like a very precise but also very slow app. Not slow as in bad viewport performance - slow is in, slow user interaction. But obviously it varies from person to person. Some artists are more twitchy than others when it comes to viewport manipulation.
Modo from my experience has some significant issues (scripting is a clusterfuck, Double verts/edges/faces are created unendingly, etc.) that drag the whole program down. Little things like the inability to cut across multiple faces or lack of a built in export selection feature could be addressed easily, but Luxology seems to be deaf to anything but the largest and most "bullet-point" worthy changes its users ask for.
I get the feeling that the Luxology devs don't implement anything unless it matters to their artists personally, or they can splash all over their front page to sell more copies to new users, and that's why small but common user request go forever unfulfilled.
Alright, shameless self-pimpage etc, but I do all my work in modo, everything I have in my folio etc is 100% modo, except for the occasional sculpting (even do a fair bit of that in modo now aswell, its pretty sweet to just put dents etc in your HP meshes without having to freeze the mesh, and can just add more support loops while sculpting). here is an old video where i build highpoly and lowpoly of an asset in 1 hour (the video is 4x the speed)
Modo is insanely fast when it comes to stuff like UVmapping, lowpoly-modelling is also very fast, but for me the biggest win is how easy it is to get really fast with the highpoly modelling. There are many issues with modo, lots of big and small things, like baking from a cage not being supported, which is crazy, some annoying bugs like network-baking not working, etc, but overall I think its a very sexy package, and the amount of new (and useful!) features with every update is great.
Modos rendering is great aswell, very fast and easy to tweak, which is not only good for pimping your HP work, but also for baking down maps fast and easy : ) I have tried and worked with most apps out there, but nothing comes close to the fluidity of modo imho : )
If excluding the space bashing kit you using in this video, I don't see nothing so exceptional in the modelling task (the quantity and quantity of nice preset in modo, natively or like plugin, is another nice feature). By my personal experience (stress this point, what I said is strictly IMHO) blender is more fast. I prefer the blender/XSI approach to modelling, where can I doing as much possible with shortcrust and mouse without tabs and menu (i.e. in blender and XSI when cut or using loop slice, pressing CRTL automatically snap your loop in the middle, in, if you add a single loop or using knife must use tab and select the option "middle", and when don't need the middle point must deselect, or like you did in your video doing an approximation by hand, nothing so terrible, but I hate this type of interaction...
I don't mean Modo is bad, but is not so incredible like luxology said, in some task is very fast, in other look a bit not so mature (why cannot export single object from my scene?). In any case is a matter of preference, if you and others are comfortable with Modo and doing good job ok, this is the important thing.
About viewport I know for sure one of the next goal Luxology want is a more strong viewport, so, IMO, 701 will streamline the process like did 501 and will handle better heavy scene, just now with SP2 they improved viewport performance a bit. Now are very poor if compared with gygapolygons, more fast if compared to blender, but in animation and weight paint blender is a step forward.
Modo has another philosophy of modelling, and it's more an app aimed to sudbivision modelling than anything else. Do you remember the days of silo and hexagon?
I model faster in modo than in Max, and i do all in expert mode, without using the UI for anything, just a few keyboard shortcuts and my wacom. With modo 1 i had my troubles adapting myself to the app, i had my 5 days of frustration , and i found out that i could do the same things like in Max, with less tools and faster (There are some tasks that can't be done in modo and viceversa).
If you are customed to work in another app... the experience may be annoying because you are customed to a set of tools and the worst... you are customed to its workflow. Modo is another world.
The cut tool in modo is not like in Max, but with a script, you can do it but much better.
BTW, i'm still using the 302 version. The load time with 501/601 has increased a lot, and they just have added common things in other apps.
Modo has too many Service packs... and it's very "bloated". It has lost a huge amount of perfomance in viewports and in rendering.. it's not as great as they try to sell. I prefer to use Mental Ray or Vray.
ya what you said there blaizer, can be said about most packages, when someone say switches to max from maya or vice versa and rages for a week, is mostly because there trying to use a 3d package spefic workflow on the new package there useing.
I think the Cut in Max is shit anyway, when i use it, it leads to bad geometry all the time. Much prefer to avoid it, instead using Swiftloop and Connect on vertices.
I'm thinking I should try this program. I really feel like I should learn something else than Max, as that feels like a sinking ship to me at times...
some one needs to post an image of the problems they are having with cut in modo as it seems to work how I want it to and not really any different from max
@Swizzle I think the cutting tools are pretty different between programs, but to be more specific:
The issue is that you can't easily cut through edges in Modo.
I'm just cutting by selecting those 2 vertex, could be done with edges for the same result.
Modo's Edge Slice requires manual input for every vertex/edge you cross on your path, it also snaps to vertex/edges very badly in my opinion
This example is not even that bad, if you need to cut/connect 10 edges/vertex in a row, then you will fall asleep
Some alternatives that I've tried:
- Modo's Pen Slice : Works most of the time, but it's very tedious, requires a preselection, turning on Vertex Snapping and changing the Workplane every time, very slow.
- Seneca's Knife Screen : Very unreliable for me, half the time it won't cut anything at all
- JJ_PointKnife : Sounds great in paper, but it WILL randomly destroy your mesh if you don't make sure you have a preselection before using it, scary and unreliable :poly142:
I'd love to hear if you found any different approaches, I depend a lot on cutting edges/vertex for working on lowpoly stuff :poly127:
@Swizzle I think the cutting tools are pretty different between programs, but to be more specific:
The issue is that you can't easily cut through edges in Modo.
I'm just cutting by selecting those 2 vertex, could be done with edges for the same result.
Modo's Edge Slice requires manual input for every vertex/edge you cross on your path, it also snaps to vertex/edges very badly in my opinion
This example is not even that bad, if you need to cut/connect 10 edges/vertex in a row, then you will fall asleep
Some alternatives that I've tried:
- Modo's Pen Slice : Works most of the time, but it's very tedious, requires a preselection, turning on Vertex Snapping and changing the Workplane every time, very slow.
- Seneca's Knife Screen : Very unreliable for me, half the time it won't cut anything at all
- JJ_PointKnife : Sounds great in paper, but it WILL randomly destroy your mesh if you don't make sure you have a preselection before using it, scary and unreliable :poly142:
I'd love to hear if you found any different approaches, I depend a lot on cutting edges/vertex for working on lowpoly stuff :poly127:
Slice tool with Geometry snapping and you are done... just select polygons you want to cut before. Never failed me. If geometry is really dense it lags but you can check 'Quick Slice' which pretty much doesn't change a thing from user perspective (and solves the lag issue).
Make sure you run Seneca's knifeScreen as "@knifeScreen.pl fullCut" that way it cuts through "everything". Without "fullCut" it won't cut anything past the visible borders of your viewport.
It's the fastest most accurate cutting I ever had Maya, Max, Modo.
Replies
I'm currently shopping for my first commercial license (been on student license for the past few years) and undecided on which package to go for. Modo comes in almost £1000 under the alternatives (Max/C4D) and if it fits the bill, it'll be tempting.
Thing is, I'm looking ideally for a Mac solution which Modo obviously is, as is C4D, Max is not but I can BootCamp. Max would obviously be the sensible choice but if I can save a grand then I would like to.
I do use it for realtime stuff in my spare time too but for my job, I need a few things like CAD import, a decent Hair system, cloth would be cool and obviously a renderer to rival VRay/MR is crucial. Any one got any input on this?
-No node-based shader system (it uses a Shader Tree instead)
-No audio support for animation
-No fracture/destruction system
Its physics system is also really buggy atm, but that might be fixed in service packs.
It does however have support for realflow particles and a decent hair system.
Anyhow, there are a few scripts to do this, but none that I know of support obj groups sense that was just introduced in 601 (and the reason I'm using a work around instead of a script). However, If that doesn't matter then this seems to work ok: http://www.artstorm.net/plugins/export-selected-to-obj/
Also, on the subject of scripts, the way they work for exporting selected layers always seems to be by copy/pasting the layers into a new scene and saving out that scene. The problem with this is that is doubles the amount of memory in use, which I assume could cause crashes with high poly meshs on exporting due to the memory doubling.
thanks,
will
I love Modo's modeling tools.
Open the System > Form Editor.
Use Find Form to find a place you'd like to put the button.
Create > New Command and give it the command...
pref.value remapping.lassoSelectPartial ?
...including the question mark.
Set Boolean Control Style to "Toggle Button".
Give it a Label of whatever you like.
It only works with polygons, not edges, but it'll toggle the ability to select either partially enclosed polys or only completely enclosed polys.
http://www.indigosm.com/modoscripts.htm
The only downside I've seen so far is getting models into cryengine. But it seems to work pretty well with Unity and UDK, so I can't complain too much.
Do any of you modo users have any good modelling tutorial recommendations? I'm having trouble finding anything useful. I've gotten the hang of the basic modelling toolset, however I want to learn more about some of the more advanced tools.
Any ideas?
http://www.luxology.com/SIGGRAPH/index.aspx#crossgrade
Its just my impression but modo fans feel more like apple fans, they love their brand and hate everything else. Of course once I head over to the luxology forums I realize this isnt the case, as many of them are more than happy to gripe about Modo as well and not shower it with blind claims of perfection.
If some of you keep saying how great it is, Ill keep trying to get into it...one way or another.
Modo is like the rehashed version of Lightwave but better in some ways. I learned Lightwave last year and I did not like how you navigate in the viewport as well the hotkeys you have to do in order execute certain modeling tools. I'd take Modo over Lightwave any day in terms of navigation and tool function but Modo still has similar things as Lightwave which I am not a big fan of.
Wow I couldn't disagree more. Number of steps ? Everyone says that Modo is the fastest app to model and I agree. Viewport feels great. Nothing sluggish about it. I really don't understand how could one get such impression of Modo. Apple comparison ? Where did you get that from ? Apple is everywere trying to appeal to everyone. Luxology is doing what they can in their own corner. Humble and silent ;p I know you changed opinion but this apple thingy...wow. Weird!;p
@Dataday what problems have you been having with modo?
No need to go on the offensive. Just my opinions are present.
As for the apple thing, it was an initial impression nothing more. If you understand the apple fanbase then you might understand the point i was trying to drive across. In short apple fans are more often than not (they carry the impression and or stereotype) fairly elitist when it comes to their brand loyalty and their views towards the competition, even though PCs for example make up over 95% of the international market. There was even a documentary awhile back about this perception of them, in a generalized sense. So my opinion was that Modo fans were starting to come across the same way, and of course I said I was proven wrong once I visited the forums on luxology.
As for the feeling of the viewport, it does feel sluggish, like the camera is on some sort of camera rig seen on film sets...(believe they did this on purpose). Compared to say something like Maya, which just zooms around like the speed of light with no real camera emulation, it feels slow or sluggish. If you ever saw me speed model in maya for example, it would look like the viewport is tweaking out because I would be moving around in it fast, jumping to verts, faces, rotating ridiculous amounts while a mesh is forming into something to use for zbrush, or a large scale modular scene is coming together.
Trying to emulate that on modo was a no go. Took forever just to figure out how to turn off the track ball and override the horrible rotate effect just panning left and right. With those on, the whole movement left me discombobulated/out of place.
As for the number of steps... I come from Maya... I dont have to be in certain modes to make anything, or flip through tabs to get effect certain parts of a mesh/texture. The workflow is entirely different. In Maya, I can hide most of the UI and be able to do everything! Space bar brings up every tool i will need, one or two clicks in the same menu tree and I have it. No modes, no tabs, just tools all layed out in one spot. Right mouse click menu for selection and snapping with D+x,c,v and you dont need anything else really. The steps I have to take to get anything done is very short.
What I felt in Modo, and this is just my experience only...is that it felt like there were procedures one had to do to accomplish certain things. A method or set of processes one has to do...not that this is bad, but compared to Maya's "here are the tools, hide everything else and have at it" approach...as old as Maya's approach is, it still feels the most intelligent to me. Then again it could just be how my thought processes was conditioned from using it...that and legos. lol
Hope that shed some light onto my impressions/experiences with Modo so far. When I was at Siggraph, I stopped by Luxology's tiny booth (sorry, they had a very small presence there) and from talking with other artist in the area I did get a few "As for modo, its too weird, or two foreign to use". I think a lot of artist using other applications feel like its workflow doesnt make much sense, or that its not entirely intuitive.
Of course anyone pushing themselves can learn just about every software package and start to get a feel about how it works, but some go more smoothly than others. Modo for me personally is not a smooth transition and I'm still looking for what makes it better than other applications, especially for modeling. I just dont see it yet.
On a side note, I still dont understand the reasoning behind charging for a 30 trial. They would probably get much more users if they offered either a longer free trial or just a non commercial version for free like Autodesk did. Charging for a trial just seems...counter productive when it comes to growing your userbase.
I was just suprised by your opinion. Sorry if you felt I was rude. That wasn't the intention
IMHO Modo is one of the most overestimated application out there, but if I look over the great hype around it, there is many interesting tools.
About modelling, out of the box is totally true, modo has many step/click/tab to control and press, but you need a bit of customization, using Tool Pipe menu, understanding action center (nohing so complex, only different from maya or softimage) and workplane (a cumbersome version of blender 3d cursor). Using the tool pipe can adjust every tool like you want (not unlimited options, but many), so can make your bevel like a one click tool (automatically bevel every face of the amount you want simply click one time on it). Useful and flexible, also in tool pipe you can merge different tool in a single one. I prefer Softimage for my modelling work, more clear, fast, more important, I'm used to it. For rigging no story, maya and especially softimage are on another too distant planet.
rendering is great in modo, I using it only for this and paint capabilities (imo better then zbrush in paint). Shader tree is complex only at first approach, but after a bit has a simple logic and can be used very fast. I like very much the ultrafast preview window, can adjust my material and look soon and can doing the some when paint in 3d (ala mudbox, so free 3d and not like bodypaint or mari), with a floating preview window in Paint tab to control how appear every my stroke.
At the end a good application, rich of bugs, expecially in modelling task (modo messy meshes without warning, lost symmetry and his "too sexy" GUI/viewport is not so clear for modelling like softimage or maya) and with a limited viewport flux data (aka, cannot handle complex scene). But worth learning IMHO, in particular for rendering.
Don't know why they want charge for a trial, stupid idea IMO, but they refund you when buy the full application.
No worries, its probably not a opinion most would articulate the way I did.
Im not so sure on the fast modeling. Most of the vids I have seen from the modo community generally involve slow modeling approaches. If you have any videos you can share that showcase how fast one can model in modo, I would love to see them as well as see how well it works in a high speed environment. Maya, especially with plug-ins (nurbs to polygons, extrude along curve, curve snapping..ect), has been the fastest at clean modeling that I have experienced so far. I generally want to try out many other software packages though to see how they compare, in part because being tied to Autodesk isnt all that fun and because you never know what else is out there.
As for going for the cheaper alternative, in that case Blender seems the best choice no? It has sculpting, painting, UV, Retopology, a modifier based modeling system, Cycles (which is a lot like Modo's render), works with luxrender and other 3rd party renderers, a functional dynamics system thats quite good though limited, hell even has a node based compositor and video editor inside and its FREE. If price vs capability were the major factor, Blender would probably take the prize every single time.
In that case Modo probably needs something...special or strong to sell it, not based on price but feature set since it wont necessarily win in the cost department. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on what app is used, pixar's subd capabilities that were present in modo are now being implemented in other applications, including maya and even blender (Ton, from the Blender Foundation tweeted he talked with the head of pixar to get a special license for it). I am not sure how the modo crowd will take this or if it will affect Luxology.
Thanks for pointing out Snefers work. I remember seeing the thread on here with his work but never knew it was done in modo. It is impressive, though a bit too high poly. That work can be done in a number of other programs quite easily as well. I noticed he had a livestream account. I like his mesh work quite a bit, though again its fairly high poly, which I am afraid is more along Modo's strengths as opposed to low poly work (Which I havent seen it excel at yet). I could be wrong though. Either way I'll still try modo again one way or another.
Thanks for the honest and down to earth review of Modo. The tool pipe sounds interesting, might want to try it just to see how it works. I agree, Modo has one of the better rendering systems out there, it feels like a "make pretty" button based off what I have seen so far, where as other renderers require a bit more technical art knowledge.
https://vimeo.com/24273363
Modo is insanely fast when it comes to stuff like UVmapping, lowpoly-modelling is also very fast, but for me the biggest win is how easy it is to get really fast with the highpoly modelling. There are many issues with modo, lots of big and small things, like baking from a cage not being supported, which is crazy, some annoying bugs like network-baking not working, etc, but overall I think its a very sexy package, and the amount of new (and useful!) features with every update is great.
Modos rendering is great aswell, very fast and easy to tweak, which is not only good for pimping your HP work, but also for baking down maps fast and easy : ) I have tried and worked with most apps out there, but nothing comes close to the fluidity of modo imho : )
I do love the integration of the sculpting tools while poly-modeling tho. But besides that, I have to agree with Dataday. I have been trying out Modo for a while now, all the way back to 302 and it always felt like a very precise but also very slow app. Not slow as in bad viewport performance - slow is in, slow user interaction. But obviously it varies from person to person. Some artists are more twitchy than others when it comes to viewport manipulation.
I get the feeling that the Luxology devs don't implement anything unless it matters to their artists personally, or they can splash all over their front page to sell more copies to new users, and that's why small but common user request go forever unfulfilled.
If excluding the space bashing kit you using in this video, I don't see nothing so exceptional in the modelling task (the quantity and quantity of nice preset in modo, natively or like plugin, is another nice feature). By my personal experience (stress this point, what I said is strictly IMHO) blender is more fast. I prefer the blender/XSI approach to modelling, where can I doing as much possible with shortcrust and mouse without tabs and menu (i.e. in blender and XSI when cut or using loop slice, pressing CRTL automatically snap your loop in the middle, in, if you add a single loop or using knife must use tab and select the option "middle", and when don't need the middle point must deselect, or like you did in your video doing an approximation by hand, nothing so terrible, but I hate this type of interaction...
I don't mean Modo is bad, but is not so incredible like luxology said, in some task is very fast, in other look a bit not so mature (why cannot export single object from my scene?). In any case is a matter of preference, if you and others are comfortable with Modo and doing good job ok, this is the important thing.
About viewport I know for sure one of the next goal Luxology want is a more strong viewport, so, IMO, 701 will streamline the process like did 501 and will handle better heavy scene, just now with SP2 they improved viewport performance a bit. Now are very poor if compared with gygapolygons, more fast if compared to blender, but in animation and weight paint blender is a step forward.
I model faster in modo than in Max, and i do all in expert mode, without using the UI for anything, just a few keyboard shortcuts and my wacom. With modo 1 i had my troubles adapting myself to the app, i had my 5 days of frustration
If you are customed to work in another app... the experience may be annoying because you are customed to a set of tools and the worst... you are customed to its workflow. Modo is another world.
The cut tool in modo is not like in Max, but with a script, you can do it but much better.
BTW, i'm still using the 302 version. The load time with 501/601 has increased a lot, and they just have added common things in other apps.
Modo has too many Service packs... and it's very "bloated". It has lost a huge amount of perfomance in viewports and in rendering.. it's not as great as they try to sell. I prefer to use Mental Ray or Vray.
Would you mind sharing that script you are using to replace the cut tool in Modo?
Seneca's "Knife Screen" script is great for making cuts. (which might be the one Blaizer is talking about)
See the video and instructions here:
http://www.indigosm.com/modoscripts.htm
Grab Senecas's updated scripts from a link in this thread:
http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=64729
Keep your eye on the main Seneca script thread here for updates:
http://forums.luxology.com/topic.aspx?f=37&t=52061
(weird external links to the Luxology forum don't work... ?)
EDIT: Having said that, the Seneca script looks great! Much better than the default tools. Hehe...
I'm thinking I should try this program. I really feel like I should learn something else than Max, as that feels like a sinking ship to me at times...
The issue is that you can't easily cut through edges in Modo.
I'm just cutting by selecting those 2 vertex, could be done with edges for the same result.
Modo's Edge Slice requires manual input for every vertex/edge you cross on your path, it also snaps to vertex/edges very badly in my opinion
This example is not even that bad, if you need to cut/connect 10 edges/vertex in a row, then you will fall asleep
Some alternatives that I've tried:
- Modo's Pen Slice : Works most of the time, but it's very tedious, requires a preselection, turning on Vertex Snapping and changing the Workplane every time, very slow.
- Seneca's Knife Screen : Very unreliable for me, half the time it won't cut anything at all
- JJ_PointKnife : Sounds great in paper, but it WILL randomly destroy your mesh if you don't make sure you have a preselection before using it, scary and unreliable :poly142:
I'd love to hear if you found any different approaches, I depend a lot on cutting edges/vertex for working on lowpoly stuff :poly127:
Slice tool with Geometry snapping and you are done... just select polygons you want to cut before. Never failed me. If geometry is really dense it lags but you can check 'Quick Slice' which pretty much doesn't change a thing from user perspective (and solves the lag issue).
You can use it as well as 3ds maxs cut.
Make sure you run Seneca's knifeScreen as "@knifeScreen.pl fullCut" that way it cuts through "everything". Without "fullCut" it won't cut anything past the visible borders of your viewport.
It's the fastest most accurate cutting I ever had Maya, Max, Modo.