MODO 901

Started by TheBadger, June 10, 2015, 04:58:16 PM

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efflux

Here we go. 2000 mesh displaced rocks with three layers of pretty mangled displacement. Normals are recalculated. You wouldn't actually need to do this. You probably wouldn't do it in Terragen either. In fact you can another layer of displacment again for fine detail.

efflux

Although a mesh is created when displacing the original rock forms to begin with before the further surface displacement layers, these rocks are in fact initially a voumetric material. Modo also has a volumetric ground plane which can be added. Not sure where they are going with that though.

Tangled-Universe

Actually, in TG, if you want to do it "right" you also need to recompute normals after each displacement layer.
All displacement nodes prior to a compute node are simply vectors added to each other.
A computation of the surface after each displacement allows for similar effects as seen in your rocks.

So this is a good thing of Modo I would say, that it computes normals after each layer.
If you do that in TG it becomes hideously slow very quickly. How is that in Modo?

efflux

Modo 901 is ultra fast in terms of rendering but it takes a lot of memory. I've got 16 gigs of RAM and I'll need it. More eventually. The other problem is geometry. There is a lot of it unless you control what mesh you are seeing before render time. There are various ways of controlling this in Modo so you aren't seeing absolutely masses of mesh which will clog any graphics card. At render time though you will always have a mass of calculations which is dependant on your RAM. I think it will be very good with the latest graphics cards though because there have been huge advances with that. My next graphics card will probably be about five times more powerful and RAM is cheap.

Yes, Terragen can recompute the normals multiple times but Terragen recomputes the normals after terrain. Other apps dont do that. The original geometry supplies the normal much like Terragen's sphere. That is now changed in Modo for at least any chosen mesh but there will be obvious limits due to the computer power needed.

Modo has found a great compromse which isn't a compromise as such in terms of users being able to do stuff. What I mean is that for example the "rock" item can be any mesh at all but calling it rock gives users a clue to a use. I fully expect to see this kind of thing extended to things like clouds etc but it will still be open ended.

I'm playing in the node network and it's a joy. Quite complex as you will know from Terragen but no hard coded stuff which is a problem is Terragen as far as I'm concened. It always has been.

efflux

What's quite surprising is that sometimes features get added to Modo and people don't quite seem to see the implications. I mean why are the Modo forums not full of experiments with Rocks? We understand this stuff here but there is a huge gulf between how people use apps like Terragen, Mojoworld or even programs like World Machine and what most Modo users do.

Tangled-Universe

Quote from: efflux on June 19, 2015, 08:39:34 PM
What's quite surprising is that sometimes features get added to Modo and people don't quite seem to see the implications. I mean why are the Modo forums not full of experiments with Rocks? We understand this stuff here but there is a huge gulf between how people use apps like Terragen, Mojoworld or even programs like World Machine and what most Modo users do.

That answer is SO simple:

>99% of the CG out there: creatures, cars, chicks, robots and a bit of arch-viz (the latter one I do appreciate though).

efflux

The Modo gallery is full of that stuff. I understand it because it's commercial but considering the amazing creative tool Modo now is, it's a bit boring. Knowing about landscape stuff could certainly come in handy for arch-viz environments. I think the artwork at Blender artists.org is more interesting. I find tutorials for these apps excruciating as well. I'm not really inspired to learn how to model a car. That stuff has a certain skill of course but it's not pushing the limits of the apps. I've been trying to find tutorials about the Modo node network and there is virtually nothing except a few things to do with animation. The node network and the graph editor are obviously great for that but hardly anyone uses the graph for non time related stuff. Procedural materials seems to be this almost alien thing in most of CG. It's all UV bitmaps. Of course that is a great tool and needed for some stuff but it's not that interesting.

efflux

This is a good basic rundown of Meshfusion. This is really great. I don't like the workflow in Modo for doing ground up poly modelling but this tool cuts a whole lot of that crap out and provides room for lots of experimenting. I must admit, I haven't tried using it yet. I'm just assuming there aren't any problems.


efflux

Here's a rock but more carfully constructed. Just the same as the last picture I posted but an individual close up. The rock volumetric can be baked out to geometry for export. I haven't tried exporting yet but the baking gets it to standard mesh. This is a very good way to create rocks very quickly. This rock has an overlying color and displacement for detail. The rock item simply uses three levels of noise to form the shape and then you apply matetials as normal.

[attach=1]

As for terrain. i've sussed that. Modo is very good for creating terrains. It has the same procedural power as Blender but is much easier to use. You can create a single poly then add displacement. That's your basic terrain. This can be replicated masses of times with each replication being rotated. It works because you rarely see the repitition. I did the same in Terragen here:



This was a Blender terrain simply repeated. You can see in the top right that the terrain repeats but you would not necessarily notice that unless it was pointed out.

In Modo you can create another large plane to extend beneath all the replications. This acts similar to Terragen's procedural terrain around a heightmap in that it creates background detail and forms around the heightfields.

There are two ways to get th terrain to slope at the edges. One is to create a mask from shaders. Nodes are good for this. The other way is to create a vertex weight map around the edges. For this though, the terrain plane must be subdivided. This option opens up another feature. Once the plane has been subdivided, you can sculpt the geometry underneath the displacement.

I've yet to get to really exploring how a baked to mesh displacement can be handled in terms of mesh optimisation. The meshes I have are too heavy and need culled down but intelligently.

It can all be got out of Modo though for Terragen or whatever.

I've been looking at having a website so I can post about all this stuff. Probably I should just knock up some pages by hand and start putting stuff up and leave aside messing with fancy looks or Wordpress or whatever. I set up an Apache server with Mysql etc on my Linux system to use Wordpress or Drupal but this is probably over the top.This had to be done by hand on Archlinux. Nightmare but at least I know how it works now. No just instaling Wamp or anything that easy.

efflux

#39
This is really Modo speficific but here is a Modo render. I need to create masses of new terrains but I'm using this one as my tester:

[attach=1]

This is pure displacement. I had to edit in Gimp because of dark ground. Modo is set up in a way that you have to work with real world lighting for landscapes to get best results then post edit an exr. You have to clamp the lighting when you work but be aware how it's going to be at high range depth blow out. I haven't worked on that properly yet hence the standard tga output and Gimp fix. Lightzone is better because I could have edited a high bit depth output but I haven't got that installed.

This is what you see in Modo. Each plane here is a replication of that terrain. Modo has no problems with this. Super fast render and the realtime preview is now awesome. Kind of like working in Terragen. No recalculation of normals though. That's why this displacement must be baked to mesh for overhanging displacements. Rocks, even very large ones can be handled by the rock item though.

[attach=2]

So far so good. If any brick walks are reached, Terragen can be used but all content can come from Modo if you want, whether it's textures or mesh.

efflux

#40
The point is that as far as terrain is concerned, Terragen is weak in the facility to manipulate the fractal. The ultimate model for this is Mojoworld but standard 3D apps are getting there now. You also have the Alpine Fractal in Terragen but that's a bit of a one trick pony. The thing we lack between Modo and Terragen is really good erosion like you have in World Machine. That's very cool but I find World Machine eroded terrains tend to all have the same character. In Terragen it's hell to try to create steps and you can't drive any fractal parameters. In Modo or even Blender nodes these facilities are immense and dead easy. I hear talk of some Terragen erosion plugin. Maybe that will negate a need for World Machine because apart from erosion, I'd much rather use Modo or Bender for Terrain forms. With Modo instead of World Machine you have an app that can do anything not just terrains.

efflux

Modo can also do vector displacement.

efflux

Now onto Blobs. These are also volumetric items but you can't layer displacements. No need here though. One displacement layer is enough. The blobs fuse together to create interesting forms. You could use these to create medium size stones. They eminate from a vertice source. This can be particles. It will be possible to bake blobs to a mesh as well but I've yet to try that. The blobs have much more complex mesh formation. You won't want cavities for example. Since they are controlled by vertices, any particle groups can be sculpted to whatever form you want. The second image is a subdivided tall cube with blobs attached. An oclusion shader was added.

I don't think anything tops modo for any kind of kind of content creation. Apps like Zbrush and 3D Coat have better scupting but you could do that in Modo as well.

I'm going to try some more architectural stuff and leave the landscape type things for a bit.

I have an idea for Terragen after these Modo experiments that could be potentially brilliant in Terragen and I don't think anyone has tried it. You'll have to wait until I test it.

Oshyan

Cool stuff, but still really hoping to see some realistic clouds, atmospherics, etc. :)

- Oshyan

efflux

#44
Realistic clouds will be a long time coming. I want to do other stuff in Modo as well.

I did post about my idea for Terragen though. While working in Modo I was using different meshes with different materials. This can be done in Terragen by simply using two planets in the same place. I posted in Terragen Discussion about it. I had meant to post in the Image Sharing but the image example I used is a WIP anyway.