Modo New York Demo videos ONLINE!!!

[Para]

Seems like nexus now has FPrime-style rendering... :drool:

[Darktwin]

I'm having problems viewing the mp4 format, with the divx player I can't get audio, with winamp player I get no picture, am I doing something wrong, or do I need another player?

[js33]

Seems like nexus now has FPrime-style rendering... :drool:

Yes but even faster and cleaner. So when will Nexus be released? It looked like it was quite usable. I would like to see it released and update it as they go rather than wait forever till it's old news. It's not like they won't have to update as they go anyway.

Cheers,
JS

[Rigley]

Thank You very much for the videos !!! :thumbsup:

[maX_Andrews]

Darktwin, quicktime player and 3ivx should both work. A great cross-platform player that plays just about everything is VLC: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

[maX_Andrews]

Oh and js33, brad mentioned something if the afterward discussion along the lines of "don't expect anything for at least a year." I think they want the system to be much more robust and brad hinted that they had some interesting texturing ideas in the works. Brad stated that he was hesitant to provide an ETA because that is not the way they work at luxology. They have no set date for product deployment. They build a product until they are satisfied, and then it is released. Building a render engine from scratch is no small task, especially for a small company such as luxology. As modo becomes more popular the company will grow, and more people allows more allocation of time and resources, hence they will be able to work faster.

Analogous to cooking, you want really sharp, really god knives so that you can cook quickly and accurately and the way you want to. You don't want really poorly made knives that you have to replace with the warranty every 2 months because they are slowly getting sharper ;-P

But on the other hand...I want that freakin' renderer! :)

[DotPainter]

It sounds as if Nexxus, being a brand new, from scratch renderer, will be able to take advantage many of the latest and greatest technologies like hardware rendering and such. Cant wait to see it in action.

[StuManFu]

Thanks for filming that, Max. Good to see it.

Did the real-time raytracing technology previews have any shadows? And was it rendering in a constantly refined pixel fashion, ala F-Prime? (It was hard to see on the clip).

Cheers

Stu

[Beamtracer]

Viewing the MPEG-4 movies
The best way to view an MPEG-4 movie (.mp4) is with a Quicktime (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/) player, which must be version 6 or above, either Mac or Windows is OK.

Alternately, the very latest RealPlayer (I think that's version 10) should be able to play them on any platform.

Also, as Max said above, the VideoLan player should do it as well.


((re: Luxology renderer)) brad mentioned something if the afterward discussion along the lines of "don't expect anything for at least a year."

Oh no! Another year? I need that renderer now! Another year to wait is a big let-down.

[RangTang]

From a non-Modo user: The opening presentation almost drove me from the room- hot air with no content. In the contest it was refreshing to see the tweaking of polys approach win. The new renderer looked amazing, but after hearing the opening crap about modeling, it makes me wonder how much of it is real. The speed with depth of detail was stunning.

Edit: I re-read this, and it sounds harsh on Brad's contribution, and I must say I really enjoyed his interjections during the contest on the features and tools being used.

[Phil Lawson]

From a non-Modo user: The opening presentation almost drove me from the room- hot air with no content. In the contest it was refreshing to see the tweaking of polys approach win. The new renderer looked amazing, but after hearing the opening crap about modeling, it makes me wonder how much of it is real. The speed with depth of detail was stunning.

Edit: I re-read this, and it sounds harsh on Brad's contribution, and I must say I really enjoyed his interjections during the contest on the features and tools being used.

You have to remember that it wasnt aimed for a pro audience...more for a new user interested in stepping into the world of 3d. :)

Great videos and thanks for sharing. :)

[Paul-Angelo]

I wonder what they will end up calling the render engine. Maybe "Rendo"? :D

Did they mention if they are working on any animation tools? Modeling and Rendering are nice but I like doing character animation. I want to see what they have in store for the future in this area.

[ThirdEye]

What about texturing? effects? particles? dynamics? I hope they're gonna add this stuff too.

[StephanD]

That "technology preview" looked sweet :)

If you haven't given Modo a try,I suggest getting the production evaluation.I was sceptical myself at first but now I'm completely addicted!It's the fastest software that I've got.

[xtrm3d]

coooolll ..
downloading the rendering part now :-)

haarrrrggggg can download it .. the other work fine .. but not this one ..
could any one pont me to a downloadable file for the renderer preview ? pleaaaaaase

[bradpeebler]

Hey RangTang!

I read these forums ya know. ;) OK, so the slides are a little long, I'll cut em back a little next time. At least we added a spoon full of sugar to get that medicine down. Besides, modo deserves those props and quotes and we had to setup some context for new viewers. And with quotes like we get from the press, who wouldnt want to share that! ;)

BP

[bradpeebler]

and BTW: The official head count at the event was about 100 according to the Apple store employees. They said it was the largest non-Apple announcement related event. Special thanks to all the Lux and CGTalk community members that showed up and hung out afterwards. Good times.

BP

[xtrm3d]

hey brad, i see on teh preview picture that you guys did use my truck for some render ,.,
any chance to get my hand on a working link to download a video ?? pleasse ..

beside of that .. for the people who are interested ..follow the link in my signature for update on the scene

[bradpeebler]

The video link above worked perfectly for me.

Beam, at the event I commented that no one should expect animation this year. I did not say anything about the render tech taking that long. ;)

More details at Siggraph. A LOT more details at Siggraph...

BP

[yog]

The video link above worked perfectly for me.

Beam, at the event I commented that no one should expect animation this year. I did not say anything about the render tech taking that long. ;)

More details at Siggraph. A LOT more details at Siggraph...

BP
Tease !!! :D

[Beamtracer]

Beam, at the event I commented that no one should expect animation this year. I did not say anything about the render tech taking that long. ;)

More details at Siggraph. A LOT more details at Siggraph...

BP
Hey, now I'm excited. Excellent, excellent, excellent!

The people employed at Lux are the who's who of rendering. This is going to be the renderer to watch, everyone.

I'm glad now that I don't have to wait years more to see this come to fruition, after all, it's already been many years in the making.

That's a very strong hint that we'll see the new Luxology renderer released at Siggraph 2005.

[RangTang]

You've got a good looking program, just sell it on the features, and of course it's just me but I don't need to hear so and so thinks it is the best.

[pnoland]

I don't know, I could stand to wait a year to before I buy...I need to save up my money first! ;) Things are looking amazing, very awesome renderer indeed!

[Strang]

So is Nexus the developer sandbox or the renderer? he seemed to contradict himself a few times in that render video.

[leuey]

my guess is that you can open up whatever part of the program you want (renderer, modo, ani, etc.) within the Nexus umbrella. Not that it may matter to the end user - I don't think they've ever said anything about Nexus being a product, but it seems like a cool dev. enviro.

brad, you can't release the renderer soon enough. I could have used it yesterday.

-Greg

[Beamtracer]

Just watching that last video on the renderer.

Wow. That renders FAST! It's a bit hard to see the quality from the small Quicktime file but I trust the presenter when he says there are no anti-aliasing artifacts at all.

Being a "bucket renderer" makes it very beneficial to those who render still images, as it splits up the render among processors across a network.

Bring it on, Luxology, bring it on!!! :applause:

[js33]

Yes it looked like an FPrime on steriods. Interesting that LW uses a polygon/scanline renderer and they went with a bucket renderer for Nexus. I can see the benefits, especially for splitting buckets among processors, cores and threads, networked machines and render farms. It looks very efficient. I wonder how fast it is on organic things like smoke, fire, water particles, etc... or if it has or will have something similiar or better than LW's Hypervoxels.
I also wonder if they will have fluid simulations like Next Limits Real Wave? Oh also I wonder if it will have anything like Maya's Paint Effects? OK thats enough for now, that sounds like a lot of work. :)

Cheers,
JS

[Para]

Just watching that last video on the renderer.

Wow. That renders FAST! It's a bit hard to see the quality from the small Quicktime file but I trust the presenter when he says there are no anti-aliasing artifacts at all.

Being a "bucket renderer" makes it very beneficial to those who render still images, as it splits up the render among processors across a network.

Bring it on, Luxology, bring it on!!! :applause:

Here's Dion's bikewhatever, I think this shows the quality of the renderer quite nicely: http://www.afilmdream.com/modo/Rvr_jbk_4_22_05_am.png

[Beamtracer]

Here's Dion's bikewhatever, I think this shows the quality of the renderer quite nicely: http://www.afilmdream.com/modo/Rvr_jbk_4_22_05_am.png
In that case Luxology's renderer is something phenomenal, if it could render that large image in less than a minute, with radiosity. That was using a dual 2GHz machine.

[ThomasMahler]

To be honest, I'm kinda sick of this hyperbowl. Every modeler who's been interested in Modo already had the chance to test it out. I downloaded these videos, since I wanted to see some "real world" modeling done inside of Modo. I expected to see experienced modelers using Modo, showing it's workflow and stuff. But what I've seen was a bad joke. I mean, come on Brad, maybe Lux should hire a few decent modelers who REALLY show people what can be done inside of Modo and not something like that.

You could say that loading up an already finished model, deforming it in a weird way and calling the end results "real world modeling" is an evidence of incapacity. Maybe it'd be smarter to use the time that Lux invests into hyping Modo to actually turn Modo into a better modeler? I think Luxology could really learn from the Nevercenter guys: They're extremely active and responsive in their forums, they listen to peoples needs and respond accordingly. 99% of the new things that you can find in Silo 1.4 were actually user requests - Smart Highlighting, Pre-Selections, the Snapping Manipultor, etc. etc.

As Modo's been released, many experienced modelers bought Modo, tested it out and wrote their ass off, trying to tell Luxology what they wanted to see inside of Modo. I remember that e.g. Martin Krol really invested a lot of time testing the program, he posted a lot of good advices and discussed with other users how Modo could become a better modeler. Luxology should have taken this source of information, cause it should be worth more than gold to you guys - But with the 1.02 update, it just seemed that you guys didn't listen at all. The update felt more like "Okay, guys: We need ten new reasons that we can use to hype Modo again - So let's work on some new, fancy tools and I'll happily write a cool newsletter!"

I don't want to start another 'Why should I buy Modo if I can get Silo for a lot less?" discussion, I'm not in any way affiliated with the guys over at Nevercenter, I just wanted to tell you that I'm personally sad because of the way Luxology developed Modo. I don't really feel that Luxology really listens to their users when it comes to the development of Modo. And Modos workflow just doesn't cut it at the moment. Let me just show you one thing:

http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/graphics/gfx3/gfx-silo/gfx-silo.htm

Glen Southerns portfolio - He used to be a die-hard lightwaver and now he states that Silo is his most used modeler. Think about that.

Modo has some very cool aspects, Modos deformations are great, the way Modo deals with blendShapes is awesome and a real life-saver, but when it comes to the most important aspect of a modeler, the workflow, Modo just feels like a rushed piece of software, it feels slow and too complicated.

Give us a better Modo and less hype and I'll forever keep my mouth shut.

[PhilWesson]

Wow, someone's bitter...

I personally enjoyed the show. I had never seen modo before, and I was impressed. Coming from Lightwave, a lot of it seem familiar, so I downloaded the demo (told ya I would brad,) and I'm trying to wrap my brain around it.

Was very cool to talk to Brad after the show about modo and everything, plus, I got to meet Big Jay. Next time, we wear badges or something....

"Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!"

Sorry, couldnt resisit.

**EDIT**

For some stills, click here (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=232947&page=2).

[StephanD]

Thomas:Are you satisfied with your current tools or still looking?

[Strang]

my guess is that you can open up whatever part of the program you want (renderer, modo, ani, etc.) within the Nexus umbrella. Not that it may matter to the end user - I don't think they've ever said anything about Nexus being a product, but it seems like a cool dev. enviro.

brad, you can't release the renderer soon enough. I could have used it yesterday.

-Greg

I heard what he said in the begining about it being a dev sandbox. but..

Modeled entriely in Modo, rendered with the Nexus rendering

I am sorry i am nit picking..

[StephanD]

Maybe is Nexus the base system,which includes the renderer and which can be attached additional modules such as animation etc so you only load up the one you need to work with.Similar as the Mirai way.

I'm assuming though.

[PhilWesson]

From what I understood Brad said, Modo actually spawned from Nexus.

[Strang]

Modo has some very cool aspects, Modos deformations are great, the way Modo deals with blendShapes is awesome and a real life-saver...


I am glad you said that..

It looks like Luxology did a good job implementing this to work with falloff tools and non-destructive morph targets. but like your saying Thomas its all hyped up. I have been able to do that with XSI since I started doing shape animation in 3.5. No the interface/tools were not built around this concept until 4.0. when construction modes came into the game. But it was doable..

small side note, I over heard a luxology demo artist at GDC talking about how XSI is destructive to its blendshapes. Which is just wrong. I wish I coulda showed him. Anyways I am trying to agree with Thomas, I see nothing but hype coming outta Luxology. And if they dont even know whats going on with other apps they are going to be sorry (silo being one of them in their EXACT market)

IMO it just looks like Luxology has the same roadmap as Lightwave did. Developing 1 aspect of a 3D app at a time. With different modules or sections. Model in the Modeler and Render in the Renderer. again this is opinion but this doesn't make something that has a smooth workflow. And from a programming aspect it doesn't "sound" like a smart way of doing things. I am not software dev so take that with a grain of salt.

all in all.. the render video looked nice. I would like to hear more about it..

[ThomasMahler]

Thomas:Are you satisfied with your current tools or still looking?

Currently, Silo is doing a good job, but there's still a lot of room for improvements.

I'll always be looking for tools and techniques that let me work faster and more efficiently. I'll always be looking for a tool that is so intuitive that I can actually forget about using it while using it. I don't wanna think about the tool while working. Silo gives me actually no big, fancy UI, I don't see any obtrusive stuff floating around on the screen, If I want to bevel an edge and tweak some verts I press 1 button, not 5, compared to other modelers it's extremely configureable and so on and so forth. Of course, there's still a lot of stuff that I'd like to see inside of Silo, but it's just a joy to see how it evolved since 1.0.

Silo feels simple, sleak, fast, intuitive. And if I don't like how Silo works, I configure it to my needs. And you should! That's Silos strongest point: You can turn it into a modeler that YOU want to work with. Compare this to Modo: Try to change Modos Camera Navigation to something else than the Default or the Maya scheme - You can't do that? Oh, cool, so I have to get comfortable to a totaly different camera navigation every time I'm modeling something? Did I hear someone saying "...developed with the artists in mind...?"? Yeah. Sure.

Man, I hate to nag and write these mean comments, but I just think that Modo could have been such a cool thing and now it's just a bloated application that doesn't really work. I hope Martin won't be mad at me, but I love what he stated a few days ago in the Hexagon Thread:

http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=2194589&postcount=57

Poly/SubD Modeling is actually really nice today. All the porgrams have very similar tools and many even share a similar workflow. I'm sure you can model _everything_ inside of Modo. Just as you can model _everything_ inside of Silo. But today, it's about workflow, not tools. It's about functionality, not hype.

[StephanD]

Silo gives me actually no big, fancy UI, I don't see any obtrusive stuff floating around on the screen, compared to other modelers it's extremely configureable and so on and so forth.

Silo feels simple, sleak, fast, intuitive. And if I don't like how Silo works, I configure it to my needs. And you should! That's Silos strongest point


After reading your last post I'm convinced you haven't given Modo the fair trial it deserves.

[ThomasMahler]

After reading your last post I'm convinced you haven't given Modo the fair trial it deserves.
Believe me, I have.

[lovisx]

I agree totally with Thomas.

[policarpo]

Thanks for posting the vids guys! And congrats on showing off Nexus LUX...I sprayed my soda all over my monitor thank you very much!

Keep up the great work over there guys and congrats to all the artists showcased during the demo...you are the one's that help to show off the power of modo!

:thumbsup:

[c-g]

IMO it just looks like Luxology has the same roadmap as Lightwave did. Developing 1 aspect of a 3D app at a time.

For someone that was real picky about XSI features you sure screwed that one up. They weren't developed one at a time they are seperate apps. There is a difference, you know...like destructive vs. non-destructive. :)

[DanSilverman]

Thomas never misses an opportunity to tell people how Modo has missed the mark. ;)

In any case, MY personal oppinion is that Modo simply rocks. I own Silo, MAX, Real3D and Realsoft3D and have had opportunity to use various other 3D applications. Modo has become my modeling tool of choice. It does need to be improved, but it is a v1 product. Luxology DOES listen to its customers. The last release (v1.02) is evidence of that since the majority of additions to the app were because of customer suggestions. Overall, I am extremely pleased with Modo and I am excited about its future.

[Phil Lawson]

Thomas never misses an opportunity to tell people how Modo has missed the mark. ;)

In any case, MY personal oppinion is that Modo simply rocks. I own Silo, MAX, Real3D and Realsoft3D and have had opportunity to use various other 3D applications. Modo has become my modeling tool of choice. It does need to be improved, but it is a v1 product. Luxology DOES listen to its customers. The last release (v1.02) is evidence of that since the majority of additions to the app were because of customer suggestions. Overall, I am extremely pleased with Modo and I am excited about its future.

...plus modo isnt even a year old. :)

[Strang]

For someone that was real picky about XSI features you sure screwed that one up. They weren't developed one at a time they are seperate apps. There is a difference, you know...like destructive vs. non-destructive. :)

wha? I wasn't being picky. I was talking about someone from Luxology stating something false. I didn't screw anything up. Sorry if it looks like I am trolling... and no bad feelings towards the demo artist..

AND i dont see how its better that it was multiple apps put together instead of 1 app being built part by part.


your missing the point. dont take it outta context. It was my opinion of the how Modo's development looks compared to Lightwave. again IMO. making part by part doesn't SOUND like a good plan.

[DanSilverman]

making part by part doesn't SOUND like a good plan.

The industry is steadily moving toward a more modular approach. Many studios have various 3D apps because of something one does better than the other. One is a better Sub-D modeler. One animates batter. One renders better/faster. Etc. But why should we have to purchase all these "complete" apps to get the best of all worlds? It seems much better to me to purchase the modeling tools you need, add on a renderer and then a tool for animation. Also, some of us don't need "everything". For example, due to the nature of the business I am in, I never need to render. I only need to model and animate. Why then should I get MAX, Maya, etc? Why not just get a modeler and an animation package?

This is the direction I see things heading in and I believe this is somewhat of what we will see from Luxology. To me, developing part by part sounds like a good, solid plan. Based on the clients that Luxology has already it looks like it is working, too.

[bradpeebler]

Our approach is radically different than that used to develop LW3D. As far as modular versus integrated, we feel that should be the choice of the user, not something that is forced by the developers. If you want the benefits of an integrated system your app should work that way. If you want the benefit of focus and pipeline integration enabled by seperate enivronments for modeling, rendering or animation the user should be able to work that way as well. That is our philosophy and direction. Some people use multiple apps and we work to allow for that. Others want a single app that does it all and we work to allow for that as well.


BP

[lovisx]

As discussed in other forums, modularity isn't necesarrily the key to everything. Best example is maya. Sure its poly tools arent the strongest, but its a pretty big canvas to work with. Most everything in it works together and opens up creativity rather than packaging it off to different modules. You can skin deformers to your skeleton and animate in Maya for example. Zbrush is the same. It is a multipurpose tool. Who's different parts work together to make a much more creative tool, and works well with other applications to pull off things which prior weren't as easy.

Personally I think modularity is necessary for hobbyists, but in the production pipeline I'd much rather have all my tools under one roof, if it were possible. Then problem solving is much easier and I don't have a jigg saw puzzle.

As a hobbyist, I'm looking for an app that is focused just on modeling and speeding up the boring parts. I'd like to see modo focus more on solving edge loop modeling problems then working on creating a new renderer and selling its product.

[bradpeebler]

Lovisx,

I think studios look for modularity as well especially since they more often than not have to fight the existing applications so that they can use more than one in their pipeline. DIgital Domain, for example, uses LW3D, modo, Maya, Houdini and Mental Ray as well as a few others. I think they appreciate the integrated nature of applications but also would like to have the choice to use them as "modules". But keep in mind that modularity does not preclude integration. We are not confined to conventional wisdom. It is a beneift of starting fresh but having a team with decades of experience in this market.

BP

[c-g]

I'd like to see modo focus more on solving edge loop modeling problems then working on creating a new renderer and selling its product.

Shouldn't you be the one to solve your own edge loop problems? I also didn't recall seeing any of the programmers in the video.

[lovisx]

I agree Brad, I think that's why zbrush and your app modo are going for more then just one thing, and can't just focus on modeling. It needs to model and you have to be able to pose your model and do blend shapes before you pass it onto the next stage in production, you have to be able to render it too to make sure it looks well lit. Especially if you want the more advanced tools that moduler modelers have in a pipeline.

but for me like always, and just to make everyone mad, it comes down to the cost of the program for hobbyists. And for me to work on stuff as a hobbyist its not realistic. I'd much rather have the less costly modeling only tools. That's what I'm looking for in a modular modeling program.

Any word brad if modos price will ever be lower? If I'm not a complete bastard for asking?

[Strang]

Our approach is radically different than that used to develop LW3D. As far as modular versus integrated, we feel that should be the choice of the user, not something that is forced by the developers. If you want the benefits of an integrated system your app should work that way. If you want the benefit of focus and pipeline integration enabled by seperate enivronments for modeling, rendering or animation the user should be able to work that way as well. That is our philosophy and direction. Some people use multiple apps and we work to allow for that. Others want a single app that does it all and we work to allow for that as well.


BP

I see what both you and Dan are saying.. I hadn't looked at it that way before... regardless I will be paying attention to what you guys are doing.

[Beamtracer]

I've got modo for modeling and I think it's fantastic.

The exciting thing about the soon-to-be-released rendering module is that it is blisteringly fast on both Macs and x86 PCs. There are some other 3D companies that don't bother optimizing their Mac software as much as their Windows software. With Luxology, it's great to see a 3D company that knows how to optimize for Mac OS X and make it fly.

The modo modeler design team was lead by Stuart Ferguson. The Luxology rendering team has luminaries such as Alan Hastings working on it. It's certainly going to be a renderer for the pros. I don't care about the hobbyists.

[xtrm3d]

I don't care about the hobbyists.

well i would not go as far as stated above ..
started as a hobyst myself .. long time ago ..

but let me put it this way ..

if you are a professionel fotograph ..
you buy a professionel camera with a lot of super duper funktion and pay the price for it

now if you are an hobyst ,..
1 : you dont need such an expensive material
2 : you buy it , and feel like a pro :-)

what i want to say .. is that hobyst and pro obviously dont have the same need , and teh same expectation for a software .. and on the other side .. pro can afford to pay the right price if the tool is the right one ..

[shingo]

I have to agree with some of your comments Thomas

I remember a few years back, when Nexus was shown to a closed audience how, the smug comments about how they saw something so amazing that it would blow everything else out of the water, but stated that they weren't allowed to talk about it yadda yadda yadda.

Well, sure the real time raytracing looks pretty awesome but good poly modellign apps are a dime a dozen these days. And quite frankly, once you've been touched by Zbrush, eveything else just feels so dry.

And seriously, what's the big deal about the blend shapes anyway when you don't have an animation environment?

To be honest, I'm kinda sick of this hyperbowl.

[shingo]

After just reading about the incredible numbers being pushed around on the 64 bit version of XSI, the stuff looks rather lame.

Brad Peebler was trying to wow the audience with a rendering of a 2 miilion poly model while Mark S is talking about 300 million poly scenes.

I've got modo for modeling and I think it's fantastic.

The exciting thing about the soon-to-be-released rendering module is that it is blisteringly fast on both Macs and x86 PCs. There are some other 3D companies that don't bother optimizing their Mac software as much as their Windows software. With Luxology, it's great to see a 3D company that knows how to optimize for Mac OS X and make it fly.

The modo modeler design team was lead by Stuart Ferguson. The Luxology rendering team has luminaries such as Alan Hastings working on it. It's certainly going to be a renderer for the pros. I don't care about the hobbyists.

[kursad_pileksuz]

300 million polygon? who is going to model 300 million poly? it is not the quantity it is the quality matters





After just reading about the incredible numbers being pushed around on the 64 bit version of XSI, the stuff looks rather lame.

Brad Peebler was trying to wow the audience with a rendering of a 2 miilion poly model while Mark S is talking about 300 million poly scenes.

[AmbiDextrose]

What makes you so sure we won't reach that mark? In a couple of years, people will be laughing at this thing we now call 'polygon budget'.

[shingo]

Well, Brad Peebler seemed rally pleased with the 2 million poly render he was showing. I mentioned these new developments put ings in perspective.

It's very easy to get into the millions of polys in a scene these days so that kind of head room helps a great deal - especially when you are talking about meshes generated from fluid sims, outdoor scenes, detailed cloth ect. The fact that you are so quick to pull out the "quantity vs quality" argument suggests that you haven't come up against these issues before, so you might want to be careful who you are lecturing too.


300 million polygon? who is going to model 300 million poly? it is not the quantity it is the quality matters

[bradpeebler]

300 million polys is not threatening. When you have 54 seconds to render a video res image with full radiosity and you want it to look super clean (high antialiasing, high GI rays) on one computer, 2 million polys is more than respectable by any apps current standards.


BP

[kursad_pileksuz]

well sure as long as there are this many people screaming for more polygons i think we would . Just think about why american cars are getting bigger and bigger and we have soccer moms riding mini buses with one baby inside.

my point is that we do not need 300 million polygon to make something beatiful. 300 million polygon is more than film pixel resolution. This can be the same argument for pushing for 300 megapixel camera meanwhile lenses cannot provide same amount of detail level to cmos or ccd.

Thou i am not against for more polygon or more tex resolution, i just think that raw comparison of numbers is plain DRY.

[bradpeebler]

I agree Brad...snip...Any word brad if modos price will ever be lower? If I'm not a complete bastard for asking?

No word on that. I think the current price structure of many companies is not sustainable in the long run. We shall see. However, we are sensitive to the needs of the hobbiest market and are looking into various solutions.

You can't make all the people happy all the time, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt try.

BP

[bradpeebler]

Good points Kursad. I do think we should work to shade as many polys as possible as quickly and cleanly as possible. Who knows what the resolutions will be in the future. :)

BP

[kursad_pileksuz]

i just worked on a 7 million poly model.

only reason i mentioned quantity versus quality is that this 300 vs 2 millions issue keeps coming. and it means nothing than a mathematical equation

on the other hand, i do respect people`s needs, like more power and detail for simulations like hair, fluids, cloud trees etc. But that is one part of the market and by itself cannot determine where the market needs to be.



Well, Brad Peebler seemed rally pleased with the 2 million poly render he was showing. I mentioned these new developments put ings in perspective.

It's very easy to get into the millions of polys in a scene these days so that kind of head room helps a great deal - especially when you are talking about meshes generated from fluid sims, outdoor scenes, detailed cloth ect. The fact that you are so quick to pull out the "quantity vs quality" argument suggests that you haven't come up against these issues before, so you might want to be careful who you are lecturing too.

[bradpeebler]

I should add that Kursad is one of the most prolific and talented artists I have had the pleasure to know.

BP

[maX_Andrews]

Luxology demo'd the renderer a while ago at the 2004 macworld expo in paris.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/expo04/
Go to the 23.5 minute mark.

Nexus renders 1.2 billion polygons worth of hippos with full radiosity in 37 seconds.
Not bad at all :)

[leuey]

What's your point? Mask S. was talking about **rotating around** a 200 million poly model (and NOT in real-time)

"if you stop by the Intel booth I'll show you a level 7 subdivided model with over 200,000 million triangles... yup, two hundred million. No bounding boxes either! While Im not getting real time performance moving points or polys on that model"

This has everything to do w/ a 64bit system w/ 8 gigs of RAM and is not nearly as impressive as **rendering** a 2 million poly model w/ radiosity in under a minute. Eventually all 3D programs will be 64 bit and be able to take advantage of that much RAM.

Show me MR rendering a 2 million poly model w/ radiosity in under a minute and I'll be more impressed than loading a 200 million poly model up into RAM.

c'mon.....

-Greg





After just reading about the incredible numbers being pushed around on the 64 bit version of XSI, the stuff looks rather lame.

Brad Peebler was trying to wow the audience with a rendering of a 2 miilion poly model while Mark S is talking about 300 million poly scenes.

[kursad_pileksuz]

Btw Brad we need some speed improvement in Modo :)

on the other hand we do not even have an efficient way of creating uv sets for couple of thousand poly models, it would be plain pain for millions of poly models, except using per poly projection uv creation like auto uving, which is not that good way especially for game companies. Add texture painting on top of it. There are many issues needs to be resolved before hitting 300 million or 1 billion limit

i think that it would be great if modelling programs should handle 3-4 million polygon models for "editing" at a decent speed. Because plain camera move and pan speed does not help much

[shingo]

No disrespect intended Brad. I am a former Lightwaver and have always been a great admirer of you and guys that make up the Modo team.

Sure 300 million polys in itself is nothing more than an impressive statistic, but what I was getting at is the fact that being able to practically work with scenes in the tens of millions of poly's has got to be a good thing. Generally speaking, it is easier to throw a huge number of polys at a renderer than pushing it around in a scene, though I admit, I have never scene real time raytracing before. ;-)

As for how poly counts translate to film resolution, that in itself is meaningless. If a full academy res film frame is 2k, then why are matte painters working at resolutions many times that? If cineon file are 10 bit log, then why are compositors working at float? The fact is that 3D effects are still limited by the amount of data that can be managed in a scene. You only have to pick up a Cinefex mag and read about the hoops TD's are jumping through hoops to manage the feathers on the creature for the last Harry Potter flick, or how CFC hand to wrangle the rendering of their crowds in Troy.

And I am sure Kursad is a very talneted artist. I just foudn the quality vs quantity comment a little superficial. After all, can anyone ever imagine someone suggesting that a renderer that can easily handle billions of poly's unecessary? vbmenu_register("post

300 million polys is not threatening. When you have 54 seconds to render a video res image with full radiosity and you want it to look super clean (high antialiasing, high GI rays) on one computer, 2 million polys is more than respectable by any apps current standards.


BP

[shingo]

I am not disagreeing with you there. I don't recall suggesting this was some example of XSI hoodoo going on here, but it is indeed an exciting development.

A 2 million poly render with readiosity in under a minute is impressive yes. Still, I have been in the 3D business long enough not to take anything at face value. Stick on a few 2K textures, perhaps some high level displacements and motion blur and maybe, we're getting closer to real world situations.

What's your point? Mask S. was talking about **rotating around** a 200 million poly model (and NOT in real-time)

"if you stop by the Intel booth I'll show you a level 7 subdivided model with over 200,000 million triangles... yup, two hundred million. No bounding boxes either! While Im not getting real time performance moving points or polys on that model"

This has everything to do w/ a 64bit system w/ 8 gigs of RAM and is not nearly as impressive as **rendering** a 2 million poly model w/ radiosity in under a minute. Eventually all 3D programs will be 64 bit and be able to take advantage of that much RAM.

Show me MR rendering a 2 million poly model w/ radiosity in under a minute and I'll be more impressed than loading a 200 million poly model up into RAM.

c'mon.....

-Greg

[leuey]

You're right about that - I'd like to see a little more out of the renderer than skydomes. I'm sure we will soon enough. For me a fast renderer is everything - my company does a lot of short turn-around projects almost always at NTSC res. w/ the occasional HD. With a renderfarm of less than 2 dozen processors I can hardly turn on motion blur in MR.

So yeah - I'm really curious to see how it does w/ mo-blur, hi-res textures, displacements, etc. I'm even more curious about the interface and how it will interact w/ Maya.

anyway...

-Greg



I am not disagreeing with you there. I don't recall suggesting this was some example of XSI hoodoo going on here, but it is indeed an exciting development.

A 2 million poly render with readiosity in under a minute is impressive yes. Still, I have been in the 3D business long enough not to take anything at face value. Stick on a few 2K textures, perhaps some high level displacements and motion blur and maybe, we're getting closer to real world situations.

[BigJay]

The one good thing is despite everyone's doubts they have a demo so we can all test the final product when it appears and decide if it makes the change worth it.

I'd rather wait than make an assumption

[Beamtracer]

For me a fast renderer is everything - - - With a renderfarm of less than 2 dozen processors I can hardly turn on motion blur in MR.
I'd like to see Luxology implement an "intelligent" vector blur. Along the lines of what Fprime is for Lightwave, but not hobbled like Fprime is because of Lightwave's poor SDK.

A smart vector blur would be good enough quality in most cases, while not slowing down the render times.

[kursad_pileksuz]

no disrespects intended here either. But i am standing behind my argument that raw numbers does not mean much, as i said i just worked on 7 million poly model, but maybe it was a good model or it was a bad one, you do not know, because number of polygons does not equate to greatness of the model or the scene. That was my original argument.
i say this because if users push for numbers way too much, tools makers will try to saturate that area , putting all the efforts into numbers game, instead of putting efforts into some unique and creative tools that will make life easier.

But it is for sure that, zbrush opened a hole on the wall, now it is time for many other tool developers to catch or follow close.


No disrespect intended Brad. I am a former Lightwaver and have always been a great admirer of you and guys that make up the Modo team.

Sure 300 million polys in itself is nothing more than an impressive statistic, but what I was getting at is the fact that being able to practically work with scenes in the tens of millions of poly's has got to be a good thing. Generally speaking, it is easier to throw a huge number of polys at a renderer than pushing it around in a scene, though I admit, I have never scene real time raytracing before. ;-)


And I am sure Kursad is a very talneted artist. I just foudn the quality vs quantity comment a little superficial. After all, can anyone ever imagine someone suggesting that a renderer that can easily handle billions of poly's unecessary? vbmenu_register("post

[maX_Andrews]

Once again,

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/expo04/
Go to the 23.5 minute mark.

It's a streaming video so you don't have to wait. 1.18 billion polygons rendered with nexus in full radiosity in 37 seconds.

[DanSilverman]

Sorry to break the flow of this discussion, but I really would like the see Brad (and others from Luxology) be as active on their OWN forum as Brad was here in this thread. Please don't take me wrong. Brad and others do respond from time to time on the Luxology/Modo forum, but there are a lot of posts (bug reports, questions about Modo, etc) that are left to be answered by users and are untouched by Luxology. I think things should be reversed. There should be more Luxology activity on their forum then on threads here in CGTalk.

OK! Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. ;)

[bradpeebler]

Dan,

I appreciate your comment. I went and had a look at my accounts and I have posted 108 times (OK now 109) and 278 at our forum. So I am 300% more active at Lux.com than I am here. :) I'll poke Dion about getting more active on bug reports.

BP

[DanSilverman]

went and had a look at my accounts and I have posted 108 times (OK now 109) and 278 at our forum. So I am 300% more active at Lux.com than I am here.

If you were 300% more active on the Luxology forym then you would have 327 posts, not 278 ;) . Therefore you are only a bit over 2.5 x more active on your own forum than here ;) .

Please don't take this the wrong way. You know I love Modo and think the world of Luxology, you and the people that work with you. I just think that Luxology should give a bit more attention to their own forum and being involved with their customers. There have been several threads about snapping issues, UV mapping, etc that seem to have drawn very little attention from Luxology, but a lot from end-users. All of us appreciate it when we hear from the "powers that be".

For example, one customer was really wondering about the future of Modo and its possible "modular" approach (see this thread: http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=uNtkirVf1CYsbI/0+RewCQ==) I had to point the customer to THIS thread for the answer.

Modo is an awesome product and, as stated, I have the highest respect for you and Luxology. I just (personally) would like to see more posts from all of you on the Luxology forum in relation to user questions, requests and bug reports. I do have to admit that Luxology is doing better than many companies out there in this reguard, but I have seen better also.

So, once again, please don't take these posts the wrong way :) .

Thanks!

[bradpeebler]

No offense taken Dan. As I said, I will prod Dion to get more active on the tech responses.

One thing I will note about my involvement on other forums. It is critical in my opinion, for Lux employees to get "out of the bubble". People are not as harsh or direct at the company site because they don't want to allienate themselves or offend the developers of thier favorite app. If we only spend time on our own forum we will be subjected to a reality distortion field. It is important for us to read what is happening on other forums as well. It is also important to post on other forums. Some modo users prefer 3rd party sites to the Luxology site.

At any rate, I appreciate your feedback and we will work to do better communicating on our site as well as on external ones. :)

BP

[DMack]

Can I jump in here Brad. I fully understand that you do not want to release info about upcoming product releases such as the renderer or the animation module. It probably doesn't make commercial sense telling eveyone all the secrets before you release but when we have the basic modelling, animating and rendering packages out, will you relax your policy on 'no information before the actual week of release'. It's just nice to know what's coming next, what's being worked on etc....makes you feel more involved and as you release info, you effectively test the waters and get feedback. Find out from the masses what people are craving. I think this is important as it should give you a braod cross section of user requirements.

[PetterSundnes]

Whats the name of the presentation software used, with those cool transition effects...?

I bet it isnt powerpoint :)

[Para]

Whats the name of the presentation software used, with those cool transition effects...?

I bet it isnt powerpoint :)

Hehe yeah, PowerPoint would never strech to that sort of thing (although I recently did saw a similar kind of presentation software done with XAML+Avalon). So tell us Brad, what's the name of the product?

[longorshort]

In all fairness. The top two main responsibilites of any CEO/President of a company are:

Marketing and Innovation

Obviously Brad's presence on 3rd party forums satisfies these two areas in certain ways.

By being proactive on them he is able to market and promote awareness about Modo/Lux... And by reading what 3D users want and need he is better able to gauge what innovations would be best to include in future products and/or features.

Lux is a business.. this ain't open source baby :) So in my eyes, if Lux was a publicly traded company I'd rather see 10 times the number of posts in 3rd party sites than his own forums to know that as the head of Lux he is on top of his game with what needs to be done with Marketing and Innovation.

So his role on these forums are well justified from a business perspective. And code/bug stuff should be addressed on Lux's support forums by those that actually handle/resolve them. It's easy to say Brad should be proactive on those issues, but in reality Brad should have those that can fix those problems get proactive to address them.

[bradpeebler]

Whats the name of the presentation software used, with those cool transition effects...?

I bet it isnt powerpoint :)

Keynote from Apple. Great app.

BP

[bradpeebler]

DMack,

We have to keep quiet for many reasons. One of the most important is the fluid nature of development. There are often features that get changed or cut during a dev cycle and while there is always the "Specificiation subject to change without notice" catch all, it is bad policy in my opinion to get users excited about something they may not have access to. Further, ship dates change constantly. Another important reason for privacy is competition. We need to protect our IP until we are ready to launch it on the market.

To hit your point about guaging peoples needs and user feedback. This is exactly why we are active online in our forums and 3rd party ones as well. It is also the reason we have a beta program with hundreds of users giving us feedback during the design and development process.

We are always open to new ideas and may change this policy in the future, but we do not plan to anytime soon. I hope our users feel a part of the process based on our communication with them online and based on the results of our updates. 102 was clearly a user driven update and I believe future releases will prove the same thing.

BP

[chadtheartist]

Although I can't afford to buy Modo at this time, I do like it's capabilities. The tool pipe is hands down one of the coolest features of the software, IMO. And I think you guys did a great job with the demo of Modo. Releasing all of those videos opened my eyes to its workflow.

I'm pretty sure in the future I will be an owner of Modo. I think it has a lot of potential.

[tjnyc]

It's too bad I missed the NYC demo, I would like to have had a chance to see the renderer and chat with you Lux guys. Anyway, good luck with rest of the demos.


Cheers,

[harlan_hill]

no disrespects intended here either. But i am standing behind my argument that raw numbers does not mean much, as i said i just worked on 7 million poly model, but maybe it was a good model or it was a bad one, you do not know, because number of polygons does not equate to greatness of the model or the scene.


Absolutely. You could take a simple cube and subdivde the hell out of it to get a 'cube' composed of 7 million polys. Is it a great model? No, it's just a high-poly cube. :)

[DanSilverman]

You could take a simple cube and subdivde the hell out of it to get a 'cube' composed of 7 million polys. Is it a great model? No, it's just a high-poly cube.

Actually, it wouldn't be a cube anymore ;) .

[maX_Andrews]

But is it ever a cube?
hehehehhehee.....

On a serious note, Luxology is one of the most open corporations I have ever had the honor of being associated with. Brad is very approachable and does not present himself as a celebrity or refer you to someone else, he always answers questions directly and listens to what you have to say. The updates are very user driven, and modo itself is desgined with the user in mind. It's not about what is under the hood of the app, it's about how you create the link between what's under the hood and the user. Modo bridges this link quite well, and it gets stronger based on the suggestions of the community. Perhaps there should be a sticky request thread so that it is easier for the developers to see what users want? I'm not up on the LUX forums so I don't know.

One request brad, when will we see custom mouse remapping? I am so used to wings that it's really hard for me to navigate in modo, and I'd like to remap select to my left mouse button, rotate (dolly) to my middle-mouse button, zoom to my scroll wheel, and menu pop-ups to my right mouse button. I like to navigate/select with my right hand on the mouse and do the other shortcuts on keyboard with my left hand. I believe mirai also operates this way, as wings is based off mirai.

[chrisWhite]

Thanks for posting the videos, very interesting.

[harlan_hill]

Actually, it wouldn't be a cube anymore ;) .


True. Then I guess it would be a high-poly box. :)

[DanSilverman]

True. Then I guess it would be a high-poly box.

While I was joking with you, when you sub-divide a cube it becomes more and more SPHERICAL as a result of the sub-divisions.

[yog]

While I was joking with you, when you sub-divide a cube it becomes more and more SPHERICAL as a result of the sub-divisions.
Not if you use Subdived-Faceted :D

[DMack]

Thanks Brad P for getting back to me. I fully understand your position and your reasoning.....I guess it boils down to anticipation being nine tenths of the pleasure in things. It just feels too biased towards TOTAL secrecy at the moment....maybe I'm the only one, I don't know. I just thought that post the big renderer/animation launch you guys might just let the users know what you're working on, even broadly, so that between releases it doesn't all go completely quiet. I mean, at the moment, the 'news and announcement' and even the 'general discussion' areas of the Lux website feel a bit dead - can't be a good thing.......

Just my 2 cents worth.

[<Pino>]

... if somebody buy Modo now, have he to buy the render software extra?? or it is something like an update to moto with special pricing ?

[Nemoid]

thanx for the videos. that Modo presentation was very good and i liked especially the rendering part. glad to hear that we'll see a rendering engine with such a power soon, and also more news to come. :drool:

as an artist interested to modelling, i see around great features that modo could add to become even more cool and intuitive than it is now, like interactive booleans and modelling , together with construction history that we can see among other things in Eovia's Hexagon, and also the Silo topology brush.
another cool thing i'd want to have in modo are indicators in viewports when u activate tools , a la Lightwave.
and... another idea i put some time ago. since Modo has macro recorder : what about the possibility to have something similar to z scripts for learning purposes ?

can't wait to know more about the animation package !!

[nick74]

No word on that. I think the current price structure of many companies is not sustainable in the long run. We shall see. However, we are sensitive to the needs of the hobbiest market and are looking into various solutions.

You can't make all the people happy all the time, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt try.

BP

Coming from using cad for 7 years the 3d programs are very cheap now even the price of maya unlimited are lower the the mainstream cad systems like inventor and much cheaper than high end like pro-E or catia.
So I think Brad has a point here the price are perhaps on the low side now and unless the market grows very much and/or if some actors goes out of business leaving the remaining actors with larger sales, then the low prices will most likely mean lower developing funds for new products.

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