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mypeople
09-14-2009, 06:59 AM
ive been thinking of leaving softimage for modeling. i'm thinking of picking up modo since so affordable.i was wondering if anyone can tell me if modo can do somethings that i really love about XSI.

1. i can select one edge and select another edge then xsi will seclect the 'loop or path' of edges between those two edges. extremely useful and i use this all the time. i can do this for faces and points too. can modo do this?

2. if i have some faces selected and they're not flat but all random, i can hold control and scale in Y for example and it snaps while scaling and i get perfectly flat faces now. this can work in local mode or however i have my manipulator set. also extremely useful.

3. i clone alot of my stuff so for example, ill clone half of my characters face, scale -1 in x and ill put that model in subd mode and i can model on my poly model and see it update on the subd model. i work like that with a ton of stuff.

4. xsi has the explorer and if i'm working on a mesh xsi keeps a history of all the tools ive used and moves ive used and i can go in at anytime and click on one of those nodes and change options or re-arrange or delete nodes i no longer want. this is one of the most useful things that i want most in modo, does modo have something like this? i guess you can could call it history?

5. deform a high res mesh using a low res mesh? for example i have a mesh of a ton of bolts and i want to have them kinda wrap around a surface, i can create a super simple poly plane and set all those bolts to deform using that new mesh and now when i move the points on my low res the high res is weighted to it and its very easy way to deform objects.

6. i use to use wings 3d years ago and it had a connect points command, just curious if modo has anything like this. i can select a row of points and run connect and it draws a line to all those points now.

7. i sometimes select a lot of faces and move them in their Y normal independently of each other. i can do the same thing with scaling and rotation too. so instead of grabbing a lot of newly extruded faces and moving them in Y and they all go in the same direction, they'll all go in their own direction based on their face normal.

8. memo cams. if i have a image in my background for ref, sometimes i add a memo cam so the camera remembers its location which i can go back to anytime i want. so i guess some kinda cam bookmark?

9. when i use the tweak tool in xsi i can turn on point merge 'think thats its name' and i can tweak a point and if i move it to another point it snaps and welds, really fast and handy.

10. in xsi we have ultimapper, and i use this constantly. ill create like a row of bricks and then an image plane on top of it with its uvs already done and bake that brick group for my normal, color, AO map. i use this constantly, i hope modo can bake normal maps.

11. in xsi i can do simple maths for everything. if i create a box and its scale is 1 1 1 i can do something like 1-.25 and now the scale for everything is .75, i use the math stuff all the time. i can also do a random value to everything too, i can give aforementioned brick a value like r(1,-1) in the Y direction so now all my bricks are going to be offset randomly in Y. SUPER useful as well.

its alot of questions i know, i'm sure i'd have more questions, but these are the ones off the top of my head. i hope some xsi user can help me with some of this, modo looks so promising and worth purchasing that i'd love to switch for modeling but i also have my own kinda way of working and would hope that modo can do what i already do so easily in xsi. thanks for any help, would really appreciate it.
Burritoh
09-14-2009, 04:03 PM
Hello,

I use XSI and modo in tandem. To be fair, I never model much in XSI, but my coworkers do, and from what I gather, both modo and XSI have extremely competitive modeling toolsets. Some of the questions you posed don't have anything to do with modeling per se, I'll try and answer as best I can.

1. Yes, modo has a bunch of selection options. You select a ring of edges, a selection range of edges, edge loops, whatever. One thing I personally prefer over XSI is how easy it is to select element "islands." In modo you just double-click. In XSI I had to create a script to go into poly-island mode.

2. Yes, modo lets you scale polys down along Y to flatten them, but out of the box it's not quite as streamlined as XSI's control-click method. However, modo would let you create a macro to streamline this further, and there are a couple of 3rd party scripts that you can add to the interface that will do the same thing.

3. XSI's clone function is probably best duplicated in modo with the Mirror Instance command. It will instance your mesh item and mirror it, allowing you to do whatever you want inside your original mesh item and have it mirrored across. It's not exactly the same thing, but it works out very well. There are several advantages to this method actually. As a matter of fact, here's a thread on the Luxo forums about this very technique (http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=38268).

4. XSI's operator stack has no equal in modo. At. All. The best you get is a command history, which is really just an undo list. You cannot go back and change a modeling parameter and have the mesh update accordingly. I know, it sucks, especially if you're used to it. For straight modeling, it's not really a problem. For other animation issues, it is.

5. As far as I know, modo cannot deform a mesh based on another mesh in the way that you describe. Really, I just wish modo had Lattices, and it doesn't. There are other ways, of course, of getting those bolts where you want them, and just about any problem you face can be solved with the tools at hand.

6. Out of the box, I don't know if modo can do this or not. I've never had to try this. But it sounds like something that could be scripted. There may be something over at vertexmonkey (http://www.vertexmonkey.com)that can do it.

7. Yes, modo does this with one of it's "Action Centers" modes. Set to "Local", each face will move along it's own Y axis. In fact, action centers (and also falloffs) are a great set of tools for modeling that XSI has in part, but not in whole, and which help set modo apart.

8. I *think* there's a 3rd-party script that does this. Out of the box, modo doesn't do this, but like I said I think there's a script for it.

9. XSI's tweak tool is a bit more robust that modo's. Modo has the Element Move tool, which can be altered to do a couple of different things (like right-click to drag out a radius for prop modeling). Modo 401 also has the Drag Weld tool, but whether it can be combined with the Element Move tool or not is an excellent question. You should ask that on the Luxology forums, actually. I'd like to know too.

10. Modo's baking is awesome. It's stupid easy and fast. The principles are basically the same.

11. Yes, modo can do simple math just like that. But unlike XSI's unit system, modo will let you choose whether you want actual units (metric, English, etc.) or a unitless system more like XSI. I wish XSI gave me the option, at least.

12. You didn't ask this, but I'll tell you right now: modo's UV toolset is way better than XSI's, I'd say even better than Roadkill, even though my experience with Roadkill is limited.

You'll find that modo does things very differently from XSI. It's better at some things, and worse at others. Same thing with XSI. The big attraction for most people to modo is that it offers a more customizable streamlining approach, meaning that it lets you radically change elements of the interface to suit your workflow. You can create new menus and panels and controls or pie menus from complete scratch in a way that XSI can't even touch. Working with XSI, you have to get used it it's layouts and it's way of doing things, but in modo you get to decide where you want your commands to be and how you fire them. It's pretty fun.
T4D
09-15-2009, 07:18 AM
Hello,


12. You didn't ask this, but I'll tell you right now: modo's UV toolset is way better than XSI's, I'd say even better than Roadkill, even though my experience with Roadkill is limited.

.

I disagree with the term" way better then XSI's"

Yes some stuff modo you just grab the Unwrap and it's done ...sort of
But with Gator ( where you model something simple UV it then get that to project/create UV for a more complex item ) OR the new UV tools in 7.5 .. and the generial UV workflow of XSI sub projecter and not needing to hide the meshs etc..

Makes XSI hard to beat in a UVing comp Softimage VS Modo type thing,.

BUT again You can UV map in modo pretty well and well hey some may prefer it and that's cool :thumbsup:
Burritoh
09-15-2009, 03:16 PM
T4D makes a good point about the Gator feature. Modo just doesn't have anything like that.

I do like the ease of use of XSI's subprojections, but personally, I just get better results with modo in nearly all cases, and more quickly.

And to be completely fair, I haven't used 7.5's new UV tools! I'm glad to know they're a step up!
T4D
09-15-2009, 03:32 PM
hey No point in disagreeing I'm glad i have both
( I just done some UVing in Modo ) so .. Life is good :buttrock:
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