So, what do you think of modo?

#1

So it’s almost been a month since modo was released, and I’m curious to find out what people think of it. Is it the best thing since sliced bread?

I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve seen so far.

[edit: this is my 1600th post. Wow]

#2

I am just a beginner in 3D and can’t compare to many other modelers. However, I have tried recently to get into 3D modeling using LW and I had a hard time to get started. With modo I have not experienced these problems it is much more intuitive and the modeling examples and training videos have made quite a difference. I would regard modo as a very good modeler for the 3D beginner.
Cheers

#3

I just LOVE modo.

first of all, the interface is really rapid to learn and is very user-friendly, all the important thing, as selection, transform and make tools are very rapid and easy to use (as a maya user i didn’t felt like a fish out of water …).

Well it’s a modeler tool, some will say that using a “all-in one” program is totally the same but NO, modo is only a modeler but it’s an intelligent modeler.
However, there’s some bugs but the time will repair all those little stuffs… (btw, a nvidia driver is urgently needed :sad:, but everybody know that…).

I modeled 2 heads in a very short period (some hours) and i’m very happy of the result,
Personaly, i think that the sub-d rapid preview and the user interface helps a lot to make progress and being always motivated to make something new :).

Once again : I just LOVE it !

Cipher

#4

Wings3d roxor boxor!!1 xD

Seriously tho. I really don’t understand why people rushed into purchasing modo at such a high price when it doesn’t offer anything extraordinary compared to any other 3d package. In fact, I believe that you are better off getting XSI4 Foundation which offers more for much less money.

All in all, the price of modo is absolutely ridiculous.

That’s what I think.

#5

well you wont understand until you use it i guess

#6

It’s a tough call right now as a Maya user, and I also have not used it that much. Customization of the tools for the somewhat maya like interface (if you can call it that) is going to be the first thing that gets attention from me.
Being that Modo, and Zbrush2 were released almost simultaneously I have had little time to get to know modo yet. What parts I was most interested in I have looked up in the manual, and it’s all there. And what I wasn’t sure about I asked in here. For what it’s worth I think Modo will be exactly what I dream it will be once I go through it, and get it fully customized how I would like it.
The reason I started ZB2 first is mostly because the wait for it was really long over due, and secondly. I had the full manual for ZB2 first, and started it the day before the modo box arrived here.

I think the modo app it self is a grand start to a really exciting modeler. If it goes completely to the lightwave model I’ll loose it. But if they evolve the Maya interface, and workflow, and do the same with lightwave workflow I think both camps (and then some) will be extremely pleased with it. We’ll see.

:slight_smile:

#7

yeah,i love modo!

#8

workflow, leaves lw8’s modeller in the dust. also very simiply yet incredibly powerful. sub-d’s are a lot faster than lw’s subpatch. can’t wait to see what else luxology come out with. :thumbsup:

#9

And I have to spend 800 bucks just to see and understand it?

#10

What I think:
modo has so much potential to be the de facto modeling program that there’s just no way it will fade away. It’s not the best of the best yet, but next update will show us whether or not Luxology will use it’s possibility to literally make history.

BTW, 800-900 dollars isn’t that much for a professional software. Sure, there’s other software that’s really cheap but if you know anything about running a business you soon realize that even 3000 dollars for a compositing program is cheap - both from your own company’s view and the other company’s view which is making the software.

#11

I think it’s the best modeler there is and it’s a version 1.0.

But I also agree with wolve1ne. It’s to expensive.

with less, you can get XSI Foundation. There must be a rethinking regarding the price or they have to put some extra cherry on top of Modo.

#12

Modo vrs XSI are two different beasts in my opinion. Without doubt XSI is an excellent hard surface modeller (my current project is being modelled in XSI, and I’d be pulling my hair out and sobbing in the corner if I had to do it in LW), but possibly due to experience I find I can modeller organic models far faster in LW, and even faster again in Modo.
There is a lot in both programs that I really wish were in the other. Luckily as they both have good Obj support, transfering elements between the two isn’t a problem.

As for the price, it’s all relative. A year ago (before Silo and XSI-Foundation hit), most people wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at a modeller this good for $600. Heck, a lot of commercial plug-ins with far less functionallity cost this much or more. You could say that Vray ($800) only renders, or that Syflex ($2000) only does cloth deformation, and that most programs already come with a renderer and cloth deformation.

I own XSI-Essentials, LW and MAX, and personally I think the purchase of Modo was a good move :thumbsup:

#13

Hey Yog,

could you please elaborate a bit about XSI an being an excellent hard surface modeller. Are you implying that (based on your, experience, taste and opinion) XSI does a better job than Modo for hard (mechanical) surfacing?

Since you are faniliar with both packages, I would really appreciate if you could tell me which one is better for that and why.

Thanks!

Gustavo

#14

Yes, I would say that XSI is better for precise mechanical modelling, but as normal this is very much a matter of personal preference.

A few reasons are :

Instances
When you have an aray of components that you are trying to fit precisely to an area, in XSI you can aray the components, then tweek their dimentions/features with the benifit that each component will update in real time.

Grouping
Mechanical objects tend to have many individual pieces and although you are able to group by layer or part in Modo, XSI’s grouping facility is far more effective, and the tree view makes it a lot easier to examine a hirachical chain at a glance.

Rotation values.
Modo doesn’t retain rotational information (in basic rotate it doesn’t even display the value during transforming). Whilst this isn’t neccessary for organic modelling, or even hard surface modelling if you are roughing out a new design. If however you are recreating an existing design to a high level of precision, then it becomes very important.

Construction planes.
Modo’s Element action centre is very good, but XSI’s Reference mode (does the same thing) feels more robust, and doesn’t give me the worry I may switch off the element mode accidentaly.

Local mode.
Again, Modo’s Element action centre is very good, but IMHO not as robust as XSI’s local mode.

If a person is just starting up and wanted to buy a base package, I don’t think they could go far wrong than buy a copy of XSI-Foundation and a copy of Modo. The range this gives is staggering, and the two together is cheeper than either Maya, Max or LW. If they were doing a lot of organic work I would suggest a copy of Zbrush as well, and the three would still be cheeper than most of the others :thumbsup:

#15

BTW, 800-900 dollars isn’t that much for a professional software.

In today’s market, yes it is. I shelled out for it mostly out of curiosity rather than any hope that it would be the ‘uber’ modeler. I wanted to see what an evolution of LW would be like and that’s exactly what I got (modeler is not worth 900 bucks on its own either by any stretch). I’m not disappointed, but I’m not super excited with it yet. For a 1.0 release it got off to a good start, but I’m not dropping my other tools just yet.

A lot of the tools could use some more versatility, visual feedback and general refinement. There’s definitely been effort put into utilizing modifier keys and extra mouse buttons, but it needs more. There’s no reason why any application can’t just get by with a few really loaded core tools like extrude, bevel, cut and the transform/selection tools with variations on each stacked within mouse/key binds, all relevant to each core tool. XSI feels like it’s sort of stumbling in this direction somewhat, which is good. Its Add Edge tool rocks over the Edge Slice tool in modo, especially since it works on any type of geometry, including polygon surfaces. Notice how visual feedback is very apparent with this tool as well.

Symmetry has been improved a bit since LW, but it’s still flaky and that makes it useless for serious modeling use.

I think I still prefer LW’s SuperShift tool over Modo’s SmoothShift. It’s more versatile and predictable, and generally smoother to interact with. The widget’s in modo’s Smoothshift don’t even work intuitively as an alternative. I’d expect the blue arrow to be used for dragging the extrusion along that vector (without scaling) and the red handle for scaling of the selection but they don’t quite work that way. A rotation handle would be a nice addition to that widget too, to save the need to drop the tool, rotate the selection to change direction, then reactivate the tool again to continue extruding. You could stay within the tool for as long as you needed then. For redundancy, an extra modifier/mouse button combo could be reserved for rotation for those who don’t use widgets or manipulators.

Even things like selecting itself could use some extra mousebound features. Things like double click are cool for loops and selecting connected… what about using the mousewheel for grow/shrink selection for example?

There’s tons of things you can do to improve tools by adding more functionality to them. It’s easier to remember a couple of consistent mouse button, and keybind variations for a single tool (CTRL, SHIFT, ALT) than many extra keybinds or hunt through menus/tabs for limited one tool, one button solutions. LW suffers horribly from redundant feature bloat, cluttered menus and keybinds because nobody has taken the time to refine any of its tools over time and better utilize the mouse as an input device. Modo will go the same way if Luxology continues with the “patch it on” mentality that now plagues LW development. I’m not saying this will happen, but it’s a possibility if stuff like this isn’t taken care of early on.

I wish Lux had abandoned the need to bash the spacebar to toggle selection mode sensitivity as is common in LW. Cycling through that stuff is a real waste of a good key bind not to mention time consuming. Individual keybinds (1234) are a much better solution and that’s all I use in Modo - or any other app. Spacebar could be much better used as a tool/selection toggle (even better than using separate sticky keys for each active tool to toggle selection mode). If I’m doing some smoothshifting on some polygons I could just hit space, pickup or drop some more polygons, then hit space again to reactivate the last tool used (smoothshift in this case). It beats having to hold down a different key every time to “toggle” selection mode on and off, depending on the tool you are using, if you want to stay working with that tool.

The app definitely looks cooler than LW… though ultimately that means little to me. XSI looks like ass, but it works great, so I could care less.

Please get some decent, innovative UV tools in there as well. For the amount of money I spent on Modo, I DO expect that much. XSI comes through well in that dept AND it’s much cheaper. The real shame here though, lies in the fact that even blender has wicked UV tools in the latest version. Integrated LSCM and UV vertex pinning makes UV tasks a snap. Speaking of snap… where is it for UV editing?

There’s some nice basics in Modo for UV stuff, like being able to edit UV edges, polygons, etc using the standard tools like drag, but there needs to be more. The relax tool should be interactive and provide feedback as you drag the iterations slider. Having to wait till you hit “OK” makes it kinda useless.

http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/mytut/uvtut.avi

Skip forward a bit to the point where he defines the seams and starts unwrapping if you just want to see the LSCM goods.

Overall, I enjoy using Modo, but there’s lots of “little things” I’d like to see fixed in future updates. Please don’t mistake this post as whining either. I’m merely looking out for my investment in this software and hoping to see it improve to be something even better than it is already. It won’t get better either unless we point out its flaws. I think part of improving it will require shedding some more of its LW heritage for it to really shine though.

#16

Or 8.0, depending on your view. :wink:

#17

So then when you do ANY work for a client you charge $1.50 for your time and work? I’m sure your work is worth no where near $800 for what you do?

You also point out that you prefer a LW function that NewTek purchased from a 3rd party, hell, I prefer Sasquatch to nothing in Modo for rendering hair. Maybe there is a plugin in Max or Maya that is better than Modo’s “Close File”

Sorry to jump on you for this, it isn’t really directed at Gwot, but I am tired of hearing people bitch and whine about how Modo is too expensive by people that no doubt actually charge for their work. Let’s see some models that aren’t WIP and are really finished, delivered work so Luxology can rip it apart and say that they are glad that their product isn’t attached to it.

#18

Looks like we’ll just have to disagree then. It’s not as if I refused to buy the software because of the price - I did buy it so it couldn’t have been TOO expensive.
I’m still entitled to judge its worth compared to other software I’ve used and how useful it will be to me in my work.

Just because you make money with something doesn’t justify charging too much for it. The market has changed since there were only a few priveleged geeks working on expensive machines and software that were worth far more than any one of us makes in a year, and open source 3d software was a pipedream. Feel free to pay all you want for your tools. When there are better, cheaper alternatives compared to what I paid for I will step up and ask for improvements. To not cater to the user is suicide for any developer these days. Your outdated attitude is just as annoying to me as my “whining” is to you. But don’t worry, I’m not offended by your stance or your post. This is a common argument around here these days. :slight_smile:

As for purchasing plugins and such, well that’s probably an argument best left alone since nobody is clean when it comes to that, least of all Luxology. The fact remains that SuperShift is NOW a LW tool, whether Newtek developed it or not. I know where it comes from, I was using it long before 8 shipped with it included. I was merely using SuperShift as an example of how Modo could still use some refinement because imo, it is one of the best and fastest organic extrusion tools I’ve used in any software.

#19

c-g,

Wuh? What is with the hostility? You make it sound like Gwot insulted your girlfriend or mother. If you disagree, then share your opinion without personally attacking another member.

I have been seeing more hostility in this forum, what is up with that? I know there are many users who avoid a certain forum in CGTALK due to the hostility, I hate to see the Modo forum turn it that.

Peace man, hostility isn’t going to do anyone any good, it is just going to hurt a great new forum before it really gets going.

Cheers,

#20

I think between the new Bevel option ‘Group Polys’ and Smooth Shift in modo, we get the same, if not better, results in modo.

A lot of professional animators using Maya and XSI enjoy Modeler’s workflow; it’s fast and powerful. I think what Lux has done is smart, they’ve take that workflow to the next level. It might seem a little expensive if you’re a hobbyist or student, but c-g is right: if you’ve ever done freelance work in 3D, it’s not really a lot of money.