That depends on what you actually want to do, if you just want to model stuff i would say modo but if you want to animate Lightwave(modo doesn´t have animationfeatures as far as i know)
But like Ben said i would rather take Modo + some free animation alternative
That depends on what you actually want to do, if you just want to model stuff i would say modo but if you want to animate Lightwave(modo doesn´t have animationfeatures as far as i know)
But like Ben said i would rather take Modo + some free animation alternative
Yes I'll be Modeling , mainly vechicles and buildings with some props and vechicles, maybe the odd hand held tool or gun.
Yeah you could easily use blender for the animation, the 2.58 tools seem really good especially with rigify plugin. Although I haven't actually got stuck in too much yet so might be wrong.
You should try the demo of Modo before you buy it. As much of a fan of Modo as I am, I think it's not a perfect fit for everyone.
If you have experience with any other 3D apps it will seem fairly different from them and you might not like it (at first). It took me about a month or so of constant use and some customization before I felt comfortable with Modo YMMV.
Also Blender is actually shaping up pretty well as a 3D app you might save yourself $1000 if you can wait for the Bmesh branch to be integrated, possibly by the end of the year... maybe... if we're lucky.
EDIT:
Even without Bmesh Blender has some pretty nifty modeling addons like looptools.
I don't have any Lightwave experience, but I was a 3ds Max user and had to switch to Modo 501 at work. Now that I have some experience with Modo, if you gonna Model, make UV's and some Bakes, I definitely recommend Modo!
As a Max user as well, for me, I felt that Modo after a while becomes more intuitive using the modeling tools.
I'm in the same spot I'm deciding between Blender and Modo. Modo is cool, but blender is shaping up very well. What I want to know is why Bmesh is taking so long. Did they trust the job to the wrong guy?
@Ben Apuna you say modo may not be a good fit for everyone, do you find it to be close to silo in work-flow or interaction at all.
silo is by far my favorite app to use, but some problems with crashing and lack of updates from NC has been making me look elsewhere, which i turn to Voidworld which i love how it's tools work but it's UV tools aren't there yet, and it can't handled really high polycounts.
so im just wondering if someone with mostly silo and maya experience would have a hard time learning modo, or it would feel kinda natural.
Well honestly my Silo experience was extremely limited. I downloaded the trial, installed it, played with it for like 3 hours, then IIRC a big freelance job came in and I didn't have a chance to touch it again until after the trial had run out My impression of it was that it was a super fluid modeler very well suited to organic modeling, the only drawback at the time that I could see was that it was a 32bit app and thus a bit limited in terms of sculpting tons of polygons. I mainly recommend it based on it's price, what others say about it, and the impression it made on me back then.
With Modo on the other hand I've used it for about two actual years (302 -> 501) and have found it to be a much more fluid modeler than Max (8 -> 9) and way more capable than Maya (2.5 -> 7).
Sadly I haven't put my 501 upgrade to much use, soon after purchasing it I decided to switch focus away from art to programming for various reasons. So in the end I can't really speak to it's sculpting capabilities. It is 64bit though so theoretically it can push a lot of polygons. From what I've read on the Luxology forums it mainly depends on how good your graphics card is similar to how Mudbox works rather than how Zbrush depends primarily on CPU to reach high polycounts. There are some big missing scuplting features though, no layers, and no masks. I wouldn't buy Modo as a sculpting solution, but as a subd modeler (with some sculpting capabilities) I have little to complain about.
Two big things to consider when buying software and investing the time to really learn how to use it are:
1. What kind of people/company are developing it?
2. What does it's future look like?
I think both Blender and Modo have great things in store for them. I guess it's just a matter of what do you need? and when do you need it?
You should download the trial and give it a go. I decided to buy Modo 3 days into the trial, though I did get a nice discount offer at the time to help convince me.
I'd choose Modo over Maya as a modeler any day of the week. The only thing that Maya has to offer over Modo is that is has official export options to various game engines (UDK, Cryengine, Unity, etc...), getting things into engines directly from Modo can be a bit of an adventure sometimes...
Another modeling software you guys might want to look at is Hexagon, though I've heard that it's development has stagnated so it's probably a dead end...
man thanks for the in-depth post ben, ya the reason why i want to get away from silo is that there are some remaining issues with it but nevercenter seems to have just dropped it, so i doubt that they will be resolved, so as a result i would stick away for hexagon too.
and like you said blender does look like it could be useable for modeling in the future, but right now i olny find it good for animaiton and getting things into game engines, since i really find it is lacking with polygon modeling tools and i dont like it's UV tools that much when working on hardsurface models, and it's interaction isnt as smooth as silo, or voidworld, or even maya.
but i diefniatly will give the modo trial a chance and see if it can win me over at all, since right now iv been using silo + xnormal + zbrush + blender which fills in most things i do, but i dont see silo continuing so i need to replace that part of my work flow, and voidworld dosnt have good enough UV editor yet.
On the subject of Modo, which companies are using it these days? past it being used a ID and ReadyAtDawn I haven't heard much about its level of adoption in the industry.
Modo is pretty much it for me when it comes to hard surface modeling. Everything else is in Silo, the tweak tool is just so good..even better than the one in XSI
Modo is pretty much it for me when it comes to hard surface modeling. Everything else is in Silo, the tweak tool is just so good..even better than the one in XSI
Agreed, although the one thing that really bugs the living hell out of me in Modo is it's linear workflow...
Especially annoying if you have to work with splines. I do not want to continuously re-extract or -duplicate over a spline if I made a stupid little settings mistake, or need to change something on the extract/duplicate base.
But I guess that's the Lightwave heritage peeking in.
The tweak tool in Modo is fucking horrendous though... Waaaaaaay to sensitive! Ditto with the screen space coordinate system being just fucked imho. XSI's and Silo's multi-component tweak tools are still king of the hill regarding that.
But I still lurv mah Modo.
@ben does it have both smoothing groups and the maya style edge hardening or just smoothing groups now?
i never like smoothing groups compared to how it was done in maya and blender.
@Talon ya i remember looking into valve application process a while ago, and they want people to know maya or xsi, but recommend some modo experience too, so it seems that valve might be trying to move towards modo.
Heh smoothing groups are just like Max but without the GUI... which makes them a bit harder to work with. You just assign faces an "id" and any faces that have the same "id" have a smooth transition between them. Faces can have multiple "id"s for more complex scenarios. Maya smoothing via hard/soft edges would be a bit more intuitive but it's not really a big deal, at least not for me anyway.
Chai's pipelineIO script sort of support the idea of hard/soft edges when exporting to xNormal, Unity, etc... via edge selection sets.
Luxology's official word is that they kind of just threw in the feature (probably because enough people were making noise about it) and that they intend to improve upon it's implementation.
I'd rather see a full blown GUI for explicitly editing vertex normals rather than the simplistic notion of smoothing groups or hard/soft edges anyway, but for now it's usable.
@Talon ya i remember looking into valve application process a while ago, and they want people to know maya or xsi, but recommend some modo experience too, so it seems that valve might be trying to move towards modo.
Dunno, talking to an employee a couple of years back and he said they'd ditched XSI and were focusing on Maya. No idea how true that holds now, uh, 3 years on :P
Lightwave is pretty much doomed now, since they scrapped their next generation application that they had been developing and have decided to 'tack' the features onto their legacy code.
Goto Luxology.com and check the features for modo 401/501. It has rigging and animation features in 401 (my version) and that's improved on in 501. I have no idea how its animation features stack up against any other package though.
McG.
Lightwave is pretty much doomed now, since they scrapped their next generation application that they had been developing and have decided to 'tack' the features onto their legacy code.
I don't know if Lightwave is doomed but it will have a rocky road ahead. Rob Powers is taking over a program from someone else, but that is a different issue all together. IMHO.
I can only afford these programs , which would you recomend ?
I know this posting is about two months old but have you tried 3D Coat for Texture Painting. It has been working with our studio so far. Just figure out the workflow that fits you. We use Lightwave/Modo ->UV Layout ->3D Coat and then back to Lightwave/Modo ->then onward to game engine.
Also try looking at Houdini $99 for smoke and fire. That is if you want to incorporate that into a game engine. Good Luck!
Replies
Don't go with Lightwave for now as CORE just died! Many Lightwave artists are currently asking for refunds and jumping ship to Modo.
Oh, and welcome to Polycount
EDIT:
Another option at that price range you might want to consider is Voidworld and/or Silo + Blender + ZBrush.
Oh and when I say Blender I mean the new 2.58+ version not 2.49b.
But like Ben said i would rather take Modo + some free animation alternative
Yes I'll be Modeling , mainly vechicles and buildings with some props and vechicles, maybe the odd hand held tool or gun.
Thank you sir , and thank you for your detailed reply.
It's modelling & UVing tools are awesome, as are it's baking times.
I will use Blender for any non mechnical Animations.
If you have experience with any other 3D apps it will seem fairly different from them and you might not like it (at first). It took me about a month or so of constant use and some customization before I felt comfortable with Modo YMMV.
Also Blender is actually shaping up pretty well as a 3D app you might save yourself $1000 if you can wait for the Bmesh branch to be integrated, possibly by the end of the year... maybe... if we're lucky.
EDIT:
Even without Bmesh Blender has some pretty nifty modeling addons like looptools.
As a Max user as well, for me, I felt that Modo after a while becomes more intuitive using the modeling tools.
Hope this helps!
silo is by far my favorite app to use, but some problems with crashing and lack of updates from NC has been making me look elsewhere, which i turn to Voidworld which i love how it's tools work but it's UV tools aren't there yet, and it can't handled really high polycounts.
so im just wondering if someone with mostly silo and maya experience would have a hard time learning modo, or it would feel kinda natural.
With Modo on the other hand I've used it for about two actual years (302 -> 501) and have found it to be a much more fluid modeler than Max (8 -> 9) and way more capable than Maya (2.5 -> 7).
Sadly I haven't put my 501 upgrade to much use, soon after purchasing it I decided to switch focus away from art to programming for various reasons. So in the end I can't really speak to it's sculpting capabilities. It is 64bit though so theoretically it can push a lot of polygons. From what I've read on the Luxology forums it mainly depends on how good your graphics card is similar to how Mudbox works rather than how Zbrush depends primarily on CPU to reach high polycounts. There are some big missing scuplting features though, no layers, and no masks. I wouldn't buy Modo as a sculpting solution, but as a subd modeler (with some sculpting capabilities) I have little to complain about.
Two big things to consider when buying software and investing the time to really learn how to use it are:
1. What kind of people/company are developing it?
2. What does it's future look like?
I think both Blender and Modo have great things in store for them. I guess it's just a matter of what do you need? and when do you need it?
You should download the trial and give it a go. I decided to buy Modo 3 days into the trial, though I did get a nice discount offer at the time to help convince me.
I'd choose Modo over Maya as a modeler any day of the week. The only thing that Maya has to offer over Modo is that is has official export options to various game engines (UDK, Cryengine, Unity, etc...), getting things into engines directly from Modo can be a bit of an adventure sometimes...
Another modeling software you guys might want to look at is Hexagon, though I've heard that it's development has stagnated so it's probably a dead end...
and like you said blender does look like it could be useable for modeling in the future, but right now i olny find it good for animaiton and getting things into game engines, since i really find it is lacking with polygon modeling tools and i dont like it's UV tools that much when working on hardsurface models, and it's interaction isnt as smooth as silo, or voidworld, or even maya.
but i diefniatly will give the modo trial a chance and see if it can win me over at all, since right now iv been using silo + xnormal + zbrush + blender which fills in most things i do, but i dont see silo continuing so i need to replace that part of my work flow, and voidworld dosnt have good enough UV editor yet.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=85276
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67904
Some of the info is obsolete with 501 having smoothing groups but a lot still applies.
Agreed, although the one thing that really bugs the living hell out of me in Modo is it's linear workflow...
Especially annoying if you have to work with splines. I do not want to continuously re-extract or -duplicate over a spline if I made a stupid little settings mistake, or need to change something on the extract/duplicate base.
But I guess that's the Lightwave heritage peeking in.
The tweak tool in Modo is fucking horrendous though... Waaaaaaay to sensitive! Ditto with the screen space coordinate system being just fucked imho. XSI's and Silo's multi-component tweak tools are still king of the hill regarding that.
But I still lurv mah Modo.
i never like smoothing groups compared to how it was done in maya and blender.
@Talon ya i remember looking into valve application process a while ago, and they want people to know maya or xsi, but recommend some modo experience too, so it seems that valve might be trying to move towards modo.
I'm biased, but give modo a try. It's only getting better
Chai's pipelineIO script sort of support the idea of hard/soft edges when exporting to xNormal, Unity, etc... via edge selection sets.
Luxology's official word is that they kind of just threw in the feature (probably because enough people were making noise about it) and that they intend to improve upon it's implementation.
I'd rather see a full blown GUI for explicitly editing vertex normals rather than the simplistic notion of smoothing groups or hard/soft edges anyway, but for now it's usable.
[ame]
Modo seems like a really good choice though. all I hear are good things, and its one of those programs i want to learn so I can be next level..
McG.
I don't know if Lightwave is doomed but it will have a rocky road ahead. Rob Powers is taking over a program from someone else, but that is a different issue all together. IMHO.
Glen
I know this posting is about two months old but have you tried 3D Coat for Texture Painting. It has been working with our studio so far. Just figure out the workflow that fits you. We use Lightwave/Modo ->UV Layout ->3D Coat and then back to Lightwave/Modo ->then onward to game engine.
Also try looking at Houdini $99 for smoke and fire. That is if you want to incorporate that into a game engine. Good Luck!
Glen