MODO 901

[efflux]

Darktable has actually copied the Lightzone zonal system. I should have shown that in the shot. I bet other apps do as well including Apple's forthcoming app which is actually going to be called simply Photos. Screw that though. I'm on Linux now. Dartable is great. Lightzone was quite pioneering in the way you interface with editing the picture. I lose part of the depth though if I go to Lightzone 16 bit tif though.

[efflux]

I'm looking forward to trying high bit depth output from Modo then editing. It's no good to use bitmaps or whatever low bit depth format for outdoor scenes. You are clamping out info that needs to be post adjusted for photo like quality. The renderer needs to light the environment realistically like Terragen and Modo then you adjust exactly the same way you would do with a photo otherwise there is a flatness. I've stressed this before but everybody should use exr from Terragen. I some people are but everybody should do it.

[efflux]

There is actually an OSX version of Darktable. You'll find it here:

http://www.darktable.org/install/

No Windows version though.

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[Kadri]

I don't use Linux. Still thanks.
I tried at different times in the past but it was always problematic at the installing stage.
In the last years i use Linux just for disaster case precaution. So only some small flash sticks around that i hardly had any use for.
I know it is good but most programs i use are on Windows only anyway.

[efflux]

Windows isn't so bad now. I still have Windows 7. I don't really hate it but previous to Windows 7 I used to hate it. It wasn't good until Windows 7. However, I never use it for the net. In particular, it was always bad for audio compared to a Mac. Not so much now but Apple are still king for audio. Linux would be great but not enough apps. The open source stuff is a bit weak. Bitwig (developed by ex-Ableton Live people) is Linux and there is Tracktion. Tracktion is excellent software but it lacks a few features.

I just discovered that the Meshfusion part of Modo (which was once a plugin) is developed by the guy who made Groboto. That makes sense because it's doing the same thing. Apparenty Groboto development was stalled because the developer Darrel Anderson was ill. It seems he never made much money from it. Another example of great software nobody used. Another thing is that Darrel's own work with Groboto is brilliant. He is the best Groboto artist.

[efflux]

Here's Darrel showing you some texture use in Modo. There is a texture map but only the masking (i.e. the text etc) not the cracked texture which is a Modo procedural. It's surprising that this video doesn't have more views. He shows you a lot about how to do things.

Terragen should have a gradient editor. It's a prerequisite for any app heavily relying on textures.

There are other videos on his channel about the awesoness of Meshfusion. Pity about the more highly technical side of Modo's modeling. For that you'd probably need to use Moi or something. I still haven't got to the end of that Modo video I linked to before. I have a half baked Charles Eames house.

[efflux]

This video here is a must watch to resolve the horrendous keyboard dancing. It seems The Foundry assume everyone is a Modo expert. This guy's videos are all worth watching. They should be linked to at the Foundry site because they don't address any of these terrible anoyances that people will find in Modo if they are coming from other apps.

Notice the bit where he says "when nothing is selected, everything is selected". Well you don't find that out at all to begin with until you accidentally try to do something without a selection. You wouldn't try it because other apps don't do this unless you are in item mode rather than poly, edge or vertice. It is mentioned somewhere in the manual about selections though.

[Kadri]

"when nothing is selected, everything is selected" It is the same in Lightwave. You know they are the same original programmers

[efflux]

As for the bugs. You save a project and reopen then your item list is jumbled. The buttons to hide show items break so you can't hide an item without closing the app. Some actions cause an item to disappear for no reason. Sometimes for no reason you can't type into numerical boxes. The refining of what you see in your shader tree doesn't show you what the manual says it should. The snapping seems to be hit and miss. There seems to issues with the mirroring but like many of the problems, I can't absolutely verify because I'm not a Modo expert. How could a beta tester not find some of these problems?

[efflux]

"when nothing is selected, everything is selected" It is the same in Lightwave. You know they are the same original programmers

Probably a lot of users are coming from Lightwave.

I think there is currently a big problem with The Foundry not addresing new users. There should be videos exactly like the ones I just linked to on youtube which I just randomly found by searching. You can't possibly read the whole manual and learn that way. You need videos on fundametal basics which don't seem to coming from The Foundry.

[Kadri]

Probably. Some use them together from what i see in the Lightwave forum.
Looks like the least they like is modeling in Modo comparing to Lightwave.
Not that Lightwave don't needs more innovation in modeling althought
But together with LWCad and 1-2 plugins modeling is still not so bad in Lightwave.

[efflux]

I was looking at CAD type software. I'm not sure there anything much usable when you take cost into consideration. Moi isn't that expensive though. I think Modo will be usable for some architectural type stuff because that's mostly boxes but from what I can see, if you want to model something like a car or similar type product with more flowing lines, then that can be more clearly defined with nurbs modeling. It seems nurbs are considered pretty unimportant in a lot of 3D apps. Blender has them but they look crap. I don't think they have been updated for about a decade. Modo is definitely lacking in this area. The whole area of precisely working with exact sizes etc just seems like it's been tacked on. Snapping seems to be a disaster. Snapping is really important. This means people will model this type of stuff elsewhere and just use Modo to render. I hate the way Modo doesn't default to absolute scales. Everything is 100% size when you create it. Nothing can be related easily or mathematically laid out easily in the default UI. It also creates problems with environments because scale is needed for things like fog which has settings specifically in metric because obviously that has to be distance related but then you can't easily see how this relates to the objects in your scene. Wings 3D uses units of scale but then changes to % where that is logical like resizing.

[efflux]

The magic in Modo happens at render time and all the tools that deal with anything to do with that including all the textures, shader tree, procedurals, displacements etc. This s why it's very appealling if you are coming from apps like Terragen. The real time render view is similar to Terragen as well.

[efflux]

The thing with Meshfusion is that to me you'd want to do that in nurbs then transform to subdivision where extra sculpting and tweaking was going to be done for a more messy organic approach. I would never want to try to sculpt a car in subdivision when I could precisely lay out geometry using a decent nurbs app. That is simply much cleaner. This goes for architecture as well. Apparently Moi outputs really clean meshes for further work in a subdivsion app so Moi is clearly really good. I'm not sure how Groboto works internally but with that app you don't see any subdivisions. It's all boolean though. I only want to see or work with subdivisions if I'm sculpting a mesh. Then subdivisions is the way.

[Kadri]

Lightwave uses real world scaling.Interesting that they haven't used the same in Modo.
Here is a short video about snapping in LWCad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6quzDC-03Hs

This is a 2 part (total 50 minutes or so) tutorial in that he builds a house from scratch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ivrXgSTgSs

LWCad is cool (i have it) but i am not a good modeler and only model when needed.
If you are curious and have real questions about LWCad and modeling in Lightwave you could jump to the Lightwave forum.
There are great guys that might help you Efflux.