Modo 201 w Renderer. ok......

[Mylenium]

Maybe I'm missing something. Ok, I'm severely impressed by the potential in Modo 201's renderer. Micropoly displacements! yeehaw! However, attaching it directly to a modeler just strikes me as odd. Obviously one can render beauty shots of one's model with it, but what else? Without the ability to rig or even animate, how much use is it going to be at this point if it can only render the model file currently loaded into Modo?

Basically I guess I just don't get what Luxology's strategy is in releasing it at this point, in this manner. Its sort of apparant to me, reading all of their press releases, Sigg. Interviews, etc, that they seem to be working on a suite of tools. Something that would, in total, provide all you need for animation. (IE modo = standalone modeler. Followed by a standalone "Layout" sort of rigging/animation solution and so on.)

I would have just thought that a renderer with the sort of power demonstrated in those images would be marketable in a "standalone"(albeit linkable with any other Lux. product, natch) fashion. Something able to read/render from as many other aplication's formats as modo is able to model for.

Dunno, just something thats been kicking around in my head for a while as I salivate over the prospect of 201 coming out soon.

Do people doing print stuff need animation? Do package designers need animation? Do viz people (of a certain kind) need animation? I'm sorry to say so, but this topic has been discussed to death and if you can't see any advantage over other packages in modo and find it unsuitable for your workflow, then simply don't use it (until the day it gets animation).

Personally I think it's an close to ingenious move of Lux to make 201 in such a fashion, it will be well suited to some of the above audiences. It's a market other companies simply don't seem to care about (which is stupid, since even in this day and age the "analogue" markets are gianormous!) and I know enough people who will love modo just for being able to render their stuff without endless waiting and at ultra high-rez without jumping hoops as in other 3D packages. Add to that the PS like shader tree and the interactive tweaking (and modeling) via iView, and you have a pretty comprehensive package for this exact same market.

Mylenium

[Nichod]

I don't know. It COULD be because they are going to make Modo so it can animate as well.

[Mike RB]

why did they put the renderer in 201, simple:

Painting. It's lets you see the result and bake out gi and things. It's in there for the painting.

[jorust]

And I prefer to have my Lux-renderer NOW wo/animation, instead of w/animation in 2-3 years...

Did'nt they say something about render-node / 'standalonetingystuff' at the Siggraph...?

[yolao]

why did they put the renderer in 201, simple:

Painting. It's lets you see the result and bake out gi and things. It's in there for the painting.

i agree with Mike.

[gabe28]

Well, I understand that they're making this thing one piece at at time... but c'mon, they really need to get a move on. At this rate they'll have a full suite in time for my grandchildren to enjoy. I really hope the animation part of Modo isn't another couple years away.... but I suspect it is.

[drkollossus]

I really hope the animation part of Modo isn't another couple years away.... but I suspect it is.I would bet it will be sooner than that. Sigraph 2007 is my guess. Besides, think of it this way, the modeler matured a great deal between 103 and 201. So the renderer will be pretty mature by the time you get to animate with it. In 201 the renderer is in its' infancy, Im betting 202 will be out in less than six months. and it will be a big jump. but when 301 comes out it will be ready to go head to head with anything out there.

[Mylenium]

Well, I understand that they're making this thing one piece at at time... but c'mon, they really need to get a move on. At this rate they'll have a full suite in time for my grandchildren to enjoy. I really hope the animation part of Modo isn't another couple years away.... but I suspect it is.

Have you viewed last years SIGGRAPH presentation? Seems to me you haven't but you definitely should. large parts of the animation infrastructure seemed to be already in place back then, and assuming they haven't just focused on polishing up 201, but also have been already working on making the animation part "usable", it shouldn't be too far away and SIGGRAPH 2007 doesn't look like a bad guess.

I also think you are being somewhat unfair - all of todays "big" 3D programs had a very long development themselves or are based on the results of their predecessors. The old 3DStudio, Softimage and PowerAnimator only got animation in later version numbers and once they were out of the picture, their followers 3DSMax, XSI and Maya inherited all the technology, experience and sourcecode associated with this. This could be seen as just lucky circumstance. Similarly C4D, Truespace, Carrara and others had a long life without animation, yet it didn't stop them from becoming popular.

Lux are in a somewhat different situation - they had to start from scratch at a point where they probably have been in a tight spot and under enormous pressure. Considering that, they are moving at a tremendous pace and have done many things in a short time already. Therefore I'm confident that if they keep up the speed combined with their fresh approach to solving old problems, we will get animation soon.

Mylenium

[Nichod]

Lux has a major advantage over other software companies. They have seen what does and doesn't work. And they know how to do it right. So far it seems this way anyway.

[webhead]

Personally, I can't wait for Modo 201 with it's rendering and painting cababilities.
Just wondering when it's expected to be released. I go to the website pretty regularly and see no new news about a possible release date. I'm getting antsy.
Lightwave 9 is taking a bit longer than anticipated, but thankfully, Newtek has the open beta program and regular updates on the progress posted on their website as well as regular e-mails to it's client base. Is it just me, or is Luxology been pretty mum about 201 the last several months?

[Gwot]

They've been providing weekly updates complete with videos on new features for a few months now in their own forums. There is quite a large amount of info available now in video format - enough to have a very accurate idea of just what you will be getting in 201.

Go to Vertex Monkey (http://www.vertexmonkey.com/tutorials_general_modoFeatures.php) for a nicely archived set of videos and thread links to the modo forums at luxology.

[webhead]

Thanks for the tip, Gwot. It was just me. Gonna check it out now!

[Gwot]

It's cool, and understandable... for some odd reason, nobody seems inclined to posting many of the very cool updates that happen over there on cgtalk. I've seen much less interesting things make the news forum from other software and yet lux's weekly updates rarely show up here. :shrug:

[webhead]

Yeah, and there is some cool things happening over at the forums. Great stuff!
Now, I'm really getting antsy for 201!

[durexlw]

The ability to show your work in a rendered form is from a practical point of view, not as important as it is for marketing:
You need something to model right, but then you need something to make sure people spread their work around, that's a renderer.

And once you have a renderer, there's a void created: people see how easy it is to create and how beatifull it looks rendered, so then they want to move it. Posts like the first one, show me their marketing strategy is working.

As a company it's important for them to get money right now. And for us, a renderer, well, I love it. And it motivates me to model stuff.
Little sidenote by the way: the renderer is secundary. Texturing and painting are important in this release. Rendering is just a tour-de-force and a logical addition to verify the painting and texturing tools, otherwise they would become pretty useless.
Sure, the lack of animation is a missing. If that's important to you, go for XSI Foundation. It's cheaper then Modo and has all you desire. Anyway, my brain like Modo alot better. Then again, that's just my oppinion. Feel free to use whatever appeals to you.

In the first post, I still see the misconception that Modo is a modeler. Modo is a complete application. The views are modular, Modo is nothing more then a collection of viewports: (in the end) a viewport can be a toolbox or a 3D view, a timeline, a dopesheet, ...

Fundamentally there's only 4 components: create, move, paint/texture, render.
In other words: all functionality is already in place (fundation-wise I mean). For example you could write scripts to do animation. Dion of Luxo will release one of those.
What will happen in next releases is that there will be more viewports. Viewports contain technology that make operations to one of the four foundations user-friendly.
For example: a toolbox contains technology to create 8 points, connected with polys: a box
or a preview window has technology to show your model in a shaded way.

With this in mind, it'll bring the integration (of modeling and animating) that Lightwave misses and add some additional features that you can model in one view and see the animated result in real time in a different viewport.
Also, since all viewports are modular, you'll end up with a very RAM-concervative system that allows you to build the interface you like. Modelers will still see Modo as it will be in 2.0 animators can get it in the form of LW-Layout. Without the visual overheat of apps like Maya or Max.

As for Modo 2.0, I kinda expect that they will reel in some gaming companies and get more modelers showing off work.
The one dude that says they should speed up, should be coding for a week. Don't let me persuade you into something, but it's my experience Luxo is flying at the moment.
My prediction is that they will have matched LW in 1.5 to 2 years, then again, I don't expect you to believe this. It's just my 5 cents of vision.

[CaptainObvious]

Little sidenote by the way: the renderer is secundary. Texturing and painting are important in this release. Rendering is just a tour-de-force and a logical addition to verify the painting and texturing tools, otherwise they would become pretty useless.
My desire to render visualization shots in 201 says otherwise. ;) Not all rendering is dependant on animation. In fact, open just about any magazine or newspaper, and you're bound to see dozens of CG product shots, completely devoid of animation.

Otherwise I mostly agree with your post, durexlw.

[draetsch]

And don't forget the game industry. They rely on the possibility to create a lighting for the background objects for example and bake them out. This is also possible with 201.

And what I have seen on the videos at Vertexmonkey and the 201 presentation movie gives me the expression that something really cool is in the works.

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