http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/features/
Take a look at "painting"! Lots of people who use Zbrush still prefer Mud for painting. But this looks even better then that. Sculpting in MODO looks pretty awesome too!
I've just intalled the Modo 901 demo on Linux. It's looking good. 701 was dead in the water on Linux. Either some library didn't like it or the new Nvidia graphics driver presented a problem. 901 is fine so far though.
The problem now is the upgrade cost. I think they have taken this too high. It will kill hobbyists which was an important part of Modo. I also have a low powered Quadro card. To use Modo to it's best and 3D coat which I have on here I need a new graphics card. Nvidia Geforce GTX 980 seems the best buy. All this adds up to a lot so I'll be hammering Modo until the demo runs out to make sure.
As for Modo and landscape stuff. Modo is the best general 3D program for this in my opinion but you can't do multiple layers of displacement. What you do is create terrain procedurally from a flat plain. When you are happy with this and you want to edit it or add displacements you do a bake geometry cache but make sure the displacement subdivision isn't over the top in complexity. This gets you a terrain mesh which can be pretty complex. Then you can surfaces with displacements. Modo's instancing means you can reuse the same meshes multiple times to create large landscapes.
As for Modo'd new features I'll look to see if anything adds to the procedural power like nodes for example. I got good results with clouds eventually and quite similar to the way Terragen deals with it. This part was quite tricky though. No just sticking a cloud layer in. However, you can create whatever you imagine in Modo. That's what I like about it.
I also noticed somebody had posted on the forum here about Terragen 64 bit working on Linux wine all be it with some problems. I might try that. I thought 64 bit wine was way behind the 32 bit last time I looked.
Here's a terrain test with Modo 901. I blended perlin ridged with some voronoi. This can obviously be saved for import to Terragen or turned to a mesh for futher work in Modo. I need to slope off the edges though.
This was in 801 but it's extremely useful for landscape type stuff because you can quickly create piles of rock. I think it's been enhanced in 901.
I haven't tried sculpting yet but 3D Coat is what I have. The problem is that all other apps except Zbrush rely on your graphics card. I'm considering doing a huge graphics card upgrade then sculpting will be improved multifold. You can sculpt seamless textures in 3D Coat. I've not tried using that elsewhere but it very cool. 3D Coat has been upgraded as well.
What about Houdini, Ryan?
Houdini definitely allows you to do all the Mojoworld style modeling you often referred to in previous discussions. And much more!
Actually I'm not sure that previous video was all Modo but this is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuok0rEkx5w
This is so useful not just from the animation point of view but from the results you get after the shatter.
I remember looking at Houdini before and I see it's Linux as well. I can't actually remember all that does but the price is very high. Modo is currently just viable for non professionals who have already bought a licence when it was cheap. I expect most hobbyists to be pushed out from using Modo eventually but I've already invested in it. I do really like Modo though. I love it for editing materials like those terrains because the UI makes this very easy. Maybe the Indie version of Houdini has all the features. The licence is a yearly subsciption from what I can see. I don't like that.
All of this helps Blender. Blender gets better and better but only very gradually. The cycles rendering engine has not yet got proper micro displacement. This is no good but I think they have added volumetric atmoshere now.
I still do have a Windows partition so I'm not 100% Linux. Terragen is on there but I haven't upgraded. I might do so. I've tried to do other angles or art but to me drawing and painting is for the real world. I'm not that happy using Wacoms and the painting apps but Clip Studio (or Manga Studio - same app) is the best painting app. Mypaint is also very underappreciated. That's free and on Linux. Simple but very good. However, once you've got into big landscape scenes using Mojoworld, Terragen or even other apps like Modo, it's hard to do any 2D stuff. It's boring unless it's in the real world because real paint etc has texture that computers can't recreate.
The 901 procedural rock item looks cool. Blender can do that. It was one of the features in Blender which I wished Modo had. Now it has it. Blender has mesh displacement modifier because that's the only way to displace. Blender will only be truly great when Cycles get proper micro displacement.
I tried the sculpting. Granted, I have a crap graphics card but to describe it as chronic would be doing it justice. Blender blows it away. Obviously 3D coat does. It's Modo's weak point.
I guess it has been long ago then since you've looked at Houdini?
I suggest you look again, as they have completely overhauled their business strategy:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=117&Itemid=374
There's (still) a Free version which is basically unrestricted in terms of functionality and exploration of the possibilities, but only has restrictions on rendering.
You can lift those restrictions for $199, by getting the Indie type license. Given the sheer possibilities it's a steal. $199 is $199, still, but I think you get the point.
If you don't mind I would strongly suggest you to take a look at it, because it can absolutely do EVERYTHING you are interested in.
OK. I probably will take a look at it.
As for Modo, which I'm messing in again but haven't explored any new features. The things I don't like are the sculpting and modelling. I don't get why people say this is a great modeller. The problem is that you have a mass of tools but can't do certain stuff that is dead easy in Wings 3D. You can talk till you are blue in the face with these developers but they simply can't get why Wings 3D is so brilliant. In Wings you have a small set of tools but those tools are extremely powerful and the predictive selection process and moving between vertices, edges and Polys is brilliant. In Modo this is a complete nightmare. Modo is the most keyboard centric app. Blender is better. Blender is very logical in it's use of keys and navigation. Having said all this, Modo is a brilliant environment to bring everything together in a technical sense with work where you do work this way and it has a bunch of tools like the instancing, replicators, shatter, management of big scenes etc. The renderer is brilliant and so are the materials. This is why it's good for landscape type things. Modo is a brilliant place to take your models once you've sorted them in Zbrush, 3D coat or Wings etc - or app that is specific to the type of modelling you are doing. 3D Coat is brilliant for retopoly after you've sculpted stuff. Wings is the best box type poly modeller. I don't understand why more people don't use. That app is design perfection.
I absolutely hate Modo's key commands. I'm left handed to which makes it impossible. There are some absurd key commands. It's like playing twister while you're trying to look at the screen. This is one aspect which makes the modelling hell.
As for Modo's nodes, I've yet to play with that. I think it looks like a good compromise because the shader tree is very good. Blender cycles has this totally right. It's pure nodes and very good. The problem is that cyles basically isn't finished. The old Blender internal renderer is still good. It's very fast but the problem is that this renderer has a half assed Heath Robinson concoction for materials and textures which to any new user is utterly offputting. It's just really bad as far as the UI. The rest of Blender's UI s fine though. I diagree that Blender's UI is bad, it isn't but the materials/texture part for the internal renderer is.
I won't be able to try Houdini until I've hammered through Modo 901 before the demo runs out.
This is the kind of thing I hate in Modo. Piece of cake in Wings. Each process can act on individual polygons etc and their normals or whatever you want. It's all a context senitive workflow blowing away all these other modellers. There are endless long threads about trying to do things like this in Modo. You always end up at a brick wall in Modo when doing hard technical type modelling.
http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discussion/topic.aspx?f=75&t=79149
One of the reasons for the price rise is this which is now included:
https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/plugins/meshfusion/
Basically it's just non destructive booleans but the Foundry like to hype as if they have reinvented the wheel. It does look good but I'm not interested in modelling watches. There are some more creative possibilities with this. You won't see much experimentation on the Modo forum though.
You can do this in Wings as well, it's just destructive (or maybe it isn't - I'll have to check) but Wings isn't £1200.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?276683-Wings-3D-Booleans-similar-to-groboto
Modo is great, but Houdini does seem ahead as far as landscape-type creations. Here's a whole tutorial set on various types of landscape creations using Houdini's node network:
https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3095&Itemid=410
Some very cool stuff in it, some things TG can't do, but then some of the things that TG *can* do are way, way faster, easier, and more controllable in TG. :D
- Oshyan
OK, I take back what I was saying about the sculpting. It's really good now. Massively improved since 701. I'm going to get a graphics card which will utilise this properly along with 3D Coat's sculpting. I have a Quadro but it's an older one. No more Quadros though. The expense is insane.
Also, mesh fusion is brilliant. A bit complex to learn but it fits Modo's way of working perfectly. This seems like a really mature product now. I can see why the price is higher.
The only gripe I have is the huge complexity of basic modelling tools but limits within each tool. It needs to be much more of a process rather than having to select numerous tools.
Quote from: Oshyan on June 17, 2015, 06:04:01 PM
Modo is great, but Houdini does seem ahead as far as landscape-type creations. Here's a whole tutorial set on various types of landscape creations using Houdini's node network:
https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3095&Itemid=410
Some very cool stuff in it, some things TG can't do, but then some of the things that TG *can* do are way, way faster, easier, and more controllable in TG. :D
- Oshyan
I'll watch that but just by skipping through the video, it looks interesting.
I think Modo has finally come of age now. This 901 seems awesome.
I had an issues with 701 recently on this Linux system. 901 has occasionally given me the same problem but it recovers much quicker. I think it's window manager problems which will also connect in with my too slow graphics card. One thing I can say though is that I've used Modo a lot on Linux and it has never once crashed.
As for Terragen. Leaving asides the fact that you can work on a whole planet, the thing that shines is the surfacing. You can't build up multi layers the same way in any other app. I'm less into the idea of doing everything procedurally on planet scale. Smaller scenes are fine with more content of heightfields, imported meshes etc.
Modo has good atmosherics and natural day lighting. Also, you can definitely create good clouds. This is very difficult because you have to create huge boxes to emulate cloud layers and then control density in terms of height. You're involved with all this kind of thing:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,10582.0.html
Because you have to set this up by default in Modo. There is a reason you don't see many great clouds coming from standard 3D apps even if they have the engine to do. It's very technical. The clouds have to have the right amount of lighting etc. You can out do Vue clouds in Modo. I'm sure of that. I don't like the Vue clouds.
Terragen does do wonderful clouds. my only big gripe is the 3d Preview, which slows down the whole creation process to near unbearable. It is slow enough for complex terrain, but atmo takes me beyond my patients ability. Default scene and basic setups are plenty fast though. I am still not sure why no love for GPU rendering as far as the preview goes.
I am glad you are liking 901 now Efflux, I was rather surprised by your initial review.
And as far as left handed, don't they make keyboards that are partially reversed, for some keys?
You should also take a very close look at at UNReal4, Efflux. If you don't mind not having photo real like in TG, then you will probably love it.
The main complaint I have about TG is just not enough built in time savers/tools and such. But with plugins coming, I think that may change in a big way. Or I hope so.
Modo is not just a modeler anymore. Its the full monty, and the least costly of the big names. Add to that the power it gives you, and I don't see how anyone can compare the others.
Renting soft is not for me either!
I'll believe realistic clouds from other engines (without a bunch of extremely limited hacks) when I see them. Shaping can be better than TG, sure, but the shading still seems to fall far behind. Daylighting is good in many renderers, but most - if not all - use fairly simple and limited atmosphere simulations that create less realistic results. Efflux, I know you've experimented with clouds in Modo, but the last results I saw of yours still seemed, well, experimental. ;) I'd love to see more realistic results if you've achieved them.
- Oshyan
It's a lot of work, that's the problem because the volumetric shader has to have the right level of lighting interaction. This is why you often see kind of dark looking clouds like smoke. It can be better than Vue though. The way Vue lights atmospheres is good but the clouds always look like soup suds wich ruins the effect.
As for Modo. I've been messing with the nodes.
This is absolutely mental. Here's a screenshot of a few Modo nodes. One fractal is distorting the position of another and this is driving displacement value. The material node is selected and on the right you see the list of channels that can be procedurally driven. As you can see from the scroll bar, I can't fit them in the screen. You simply drag them over onto the node and it's there to hook up. You can hook up nodes for absolutely everything in Modo. Even modeling tools so when you move them and they alter values in the nodes. It's literally everything and all animatable as well. You can put in the curve graph of course which is the curve graph to end all curve graphs. There are hundreds of node types. Instead of using a material node you can use a constant that you place in the shader tree which you can't see here then you can save the node setup for later use.
There are also 36 channels of inputs on the multifractal to be driven by any other function. This is just the multifractal. There are of course dozens of different procedural nodes. Thousands upon thousands of functions all accessible by the user. It's completely mad.
Quote from: efflux on June 17, 2015, 06:32:38 PM
As for Terragen. Leaving asides the fact that you can work on a whole planet, the thing that shines is the surfacing. You can't build up multi layers the same way in any other app. I'm less into the idea of doing everything procedurally on planet scale. Smaller scenes are fine with more content of heightfields, imported meshes etc.
This is really interesting, because I have the same idea for quite some time. Planet-wide scenes are seldomly depicted/made.
Limiting TG's functionality to smaller scale scene might be shooting themselves in the foot as it's a unique feature, but given the limited use of it I can't really say it's a unique selling point! ;)
I don't know, but I think my observation that planet-wide scenes are rare is a correct one. The assumptions I make following that, well...I don't know for sure of course.
If you limit TG to smaller scale scenes I'm pretty sure that more is possible in terms of erosion simulation and such.
Of course Daniil Kamperov's erosion is told to be planet-wide (where is he??) and thus lessen the need for smaller scene scales, but there are more natural erosion phenomena which are likely only feasible to be simulated on smaller scales than planet scale.
Also this would allow for easier terrain manipulation with brushes/sculpting etc. Less to deal with.
And with less to deal in terms of scale and geometry, there's likely also more possible with the renderer.
Secondly, about the layering of displacement and such:
I think TG would greatly benefit from allowing a user to let fractals apply their displacement in 'tangent space' instead of 'object space'.
In TG you always displace outwards from the centre of the object. From then on (after a compute) the surface is evaluated in a 2.5D fashion, where it is *always* dependent on the underlying surface. With a tangent space based surface interpretation you don't have this limitation.
With a completely tangent space based system you can have your vector-based shapes become independent of the underlying surface. This will prevent those weird stretching of your noise function on parts of the terrain which quickly change in slope.
See it, if you like, as a more volumetric interpretation.
The main advantage of the planet scale is that you put less important stuff in the distance if you use heightfields, models etc for you main focus. That's a plus although in Modo you can put displacements in the background to fill out or replicate yor meshes.
I've been through that first Houndini video. Most of what he did could be done in Modo and you could use 3D Coat for voxel sculpting. Houdini is able to optimise a mesh very nicely though. I've yet to experiment with that in other apps. Blender dynamesh is cool. That gets you a semi decent mesh and it's very cool to sculpt terrains. However, I'm half way through the second video and this interests me much more. In particular the way Houdini can create controls lessening the need to delve into the nodes all the time. That's like a part of Mojoworld which if I remember right was called the hypermixer but it wasn't very good so everybody just delved right into the main UI with nodes etc. I like the way Houdini can mix up all sorts of stuff to get an output. That's very interesting.
What I'm interested in doing is creating assets that aren't Teragen, Modo or anything else. Terrains being the main thing but also things like rocks etc and ways to get populations between various apps. It also extends into particular scenes. Compositing certain aspects to use in different apps. I don't think trying to do everything in one app works that well. Modo is probably the only app that kind of allows you to do anything but some things will be very long winded and complex like clouds if those were to be created inside Modo.
For example I have lots of experiments with hoodoo type rocks. I've tried to incorprate these into full Terragen lanscapes but there are all sorts of masking problems because it's all one material. Basically, it's a technical nightmare so you might as well create this content in other apps then import to distrubute.
[attach=1]
There is a learning curve with these other apps. It's different from Terragen though. There is not much learning curve in working out how to use Terragen. The learning curve is how to hook thing up. These other apps have huge learning curves in getting around the UIs etc.
Quote from: efflux on June 18, 2015, 11:37:48 AM
Modo Houdini ;) is probably the only app that kind of allows you to do anything but some things will be very long winded and complex like clouds if those were to be created inside Modo.
Believe me, Houdini can do way more than Modo.
Only exception I can think of right now is sculpting-wise, but else, it's unimaginably powerful.
There's a reason every serious VFX house resorts to Houdini as soon as something becomes moderately to extremely complex.
Reason I'm being a bit pushy here is because I think you're the right guy to check this out as to me you seem to have an aptitude for this kind of stuff.
So I hope you understand the positive nature of me being pushy ;)
It does look good. I like the control you have with everything and non destructively. I did see that guy in the videos doing things and I thought the same tasks could be done in a fraction of the time in other apps. You'd lose the non destructive pipeline but for example, when he sculpts terrains with arches and tunnels, that could be done in both Modo or using 3D Coat's sculpting tools in a fraction of the time. Both would get different styles of results but much faster.
At the moment though I'm getting into Modo. This is my second phase with it. First phase was working out if it can generally do what I want. Now I'm getting into the details of properly learning it before the demo of 901 runs out. This is no easy task though. Modo is immensely complex now. I got quite far with this in Blender but ultimately I'll be waiting for features not there yet so I have to use Modo. Modo is better but that's no critique of Blender. It's amazing for open source.
Ok cool, I'll shut up for now then about Houdini :D
Looking forward to see your Modo doodles with the same interest and enthusiasm :)
Ha ha. I'm just playing with Modo's new rocks. Read this from the manual. This functionality may well be available elsewhere in Modo. I saw some clues to that but need to investigate further:
"The displacements are applied sequentially, meaning that each subsequent layer that is enabled displaces the geometry using the normals from the prior layer. There are three separate Displacement layers that all have identical functionality."
I wonder, do The Foundry staff actually read forum posts ;D
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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:
(http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=16337.0;attach=44064;image)
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.
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.
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.
Modo can also do vector displacement.
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.
Cool stuff, but still really hoping to see some realistic clouds, atmospherics, etc. :)
- Oshyan
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.
To start getting around Modo's more technical side of modeling, this is a decent set of tutorials. It's old but useful even with the latest Modo and it's free. You get to work out how to deal with snapping which itself is hugely complex. You could probably do this quicker in Wings but without the precision dimensions feedback. Modo's modeling tools are worth knowing because for some extremely complex precise modeling some of the tools come in useful. He has to makes macros to deal with windows etc. This isn't necessary in Wings which can auto detect similar polys. However, this macro capability could be very useful along with some of the other tools.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHp_LZELsqg&list=PLi2GhhsPL-RrFBfeUFGMocDmBgU6LZFsl
Modo is absolutely full of bugs. I've commented on their forum about it. There are plenty of threads about it. I'm no expert but there are lots of bugs that make it even difficult to learn. It doesn't crash but the UI and tools are totally bug ridden. Unless they get to grips with this and stop adding feaures Modo is going nowhere because it's all over the net now that Modo is bug ridden.
Yeah, I was reading some of the complaints. Seems to be hit and miss for those complaining. I mean bugs for some but not others.
Im sure it will all get sorted.
I was reading that the problem is that for subscription customers, a new release is due every year. So that may be why it was released as a WIP, sorta. Another reason to hate renting software I guess.
ITs funny though, I was reading that Maya 2016 is great :o, but MODO is having problems now. HA HA. Well, in the long run, I think MODO is the one to watch.
I'm trying to learn the modeler at the moment and the bugs make this difficult because it takes you ages to work out if t's your problem or a bug.
I didn't realise there was a subsciption. I'm guessing that's part of a package of Foundry apps? This is very bad news if they are forced to release no matter what.
Either the beta testers are useless or the Foundry simply release knowing about problems. I mean seriously, who in hell is beta testing this?
In all my time using Blender and Wings 3D I never came across any bugs. Wings is obviously simple but Blender isn't. One massive advantage of open source is that releases are very regular and they aren't forced to sell a product every so often. I find in general open source software is very stable compared to commercial, even if it lacks features.
Terragen is actually a really great app in this respect. Very solid and bug free.
They also need to seriously take a look at the viewports. Blender is massively superior. Just little things like when you mouse past the window the view doesn't move in Modo. In Blender there are certain mouse drag tools where if you run out of space it jumps to the other side of the window. Very intelligent. Then we have through selections. In Blender when you choose this, the polygons become transparent. Visually very good. Whoever thought out the default Modo colour scheme must have been on drugs as well. Wire mesh view is the same colour as the grid. Madness. I could go on and on. Materials and rendering in Modo are awesome but modeling is just tedious.
With apps as complicated as these, they need to release regular updates and allow users to use beta versions if they wish. Waiting for service packs and then bugs that go from one release to the next is useless. 3D Coat has a good system. Regular updates even if to fix a few bugs. Leaving users with serious bugs for months will destroy the app's credibility. Until they have things fixed they can't act like Autodesk. They will not be able to keep uping the price and keep users.
Apple did this with Logic DAW. They update the app and it seems idiots were used to beta test then bugs go on forever. New releases introduce masses of bloat features and masses of new bugs. That's why I don't use Logic anymore.
The Foundry also need to cut down on the massive hype. Fancy website pages, endless webinars and Brad Peebler endlessly talking about greatest update ever and rock solid. Rock solid it ain't. If they need to see rock solid look at Blender. All this while the online manual and tutorials are seriously lacking. Most videos are hype and not detailed instructions.
Greatest 3D modeling app:
http://www.wings3d.com/
Sounds crazy I know but this app is a joy to use. It doesn't have everything but the kitchen sink but what is there is brilliant.
As a side note Lightzone is free now. This is the best photo editing app. Total commercial failure which is mad. It's Linux as well which is ultra cool. I've tried lots of programs to edit photos but nothing tops the UI and algorithms in this. It's so easy. Brilliant for editing lighting in 3D renders which are exported as EXR. It doesn't do full 32 bit exr but if you alter exposure and convert to 16 bit then edit in this, it's great.
http://lightzoneproject.org/
To me it's just a complete funny farm the software everyone uses. They often use the worst stuff going. One of my favourite apps is Inkscape. That's brilliant and free open source.
https://inkscape.org/en/
You could make a living using this app designing graphics.
Maybe those Andy Brown videos I posted to before demo the problems. He uses all the long winded ways to get the results. Tha's actually why the video is cool because in a round about way, you learn lots of tools but notice how he says to make sure the bolt nuts have five sides! They must have had interesting spanners back in the 40s. I think this is indication enough about who is testing and using Modo. How far do you think they'd get with Terragen?
Maybe Modo users can't do maths either and that's why dimensions are all %. You can do real scale measurements but it's a pain. To me this should have been changed because this is crucial for accurate design. Wings uses % but it fits with the workflow perfectly.
LightZone looks interesting.I might try it.
Kadri,
Lightzone is great. Primarily it's the algorithms for relighting and the zonal approach in the UI to alter levels. Another huge plus is the way you can draw shapes over the image with fall offs etc where the effect happens. It's just really cool. I just can't understand why this app failed. Adobe Lighroom or Apple Aperture? Please, give me a break. Apple have ditched Aperture as well. iPhoto will be what you use. I guess that's the same as the destruction of Logic Audio so they could create Garageband. You can get Reaper and use for free or pay a small amount for the license. Presonus Studio One is decent as well but more expensive. The one and only thing that makes me keep Apple computers now is that they are good for audio and quiet which is obviously important for this. Apple died with Steve jobs for anything serious. I have a quad core i7 Mini server. They ditched this and have actually downgraded the Mini now. This is so they can flog the desktop machine but anyone buying that must have more money than sense. Sadly Apple has become everything everyone used to criticise them for. Apple watch? What a joke. OSX is good though. Reliable. I like it. iOS is another joke though compared to Android.
I'll stop ranting now but trying to learn this Modo modeler just reminds me of the dire state of a lot of computer software.
Quote from: efflux on June 25, 2015, 11:44:37 AM
...Lightzone is great. Primarily it's the algorithms for relighting and the zonal approach in the UI to alter levels. Another huge plus is the way you can draw shapes over the image with fall offs etc where the effect happens. It's just really cool. ...
Thanks i will try it certainly.
Or if you are on Linux you can use this for editing exrs:
[attach=1]
It's really good but you don't have quite the same control as Lightzone. Lightzone is a bit outdated now but I can't get quite the same results. In Darktable you can't draw shapes on the image. You have to carefully control zones in other ways. I used to use Blender to edit exrs then to Lightzone 16 bit tif but now I can do all of it in Darktable then some more post in Lightzone if needed.
I simply couldn't use Windows or OSX anymore as my main desktop systems. I use Archlinux. I have xfce desktop which is really simple and efficient. Close to how OSX used to be until Apple started bloating it out. I don't recommend Archlinux for new users though because for example, there is no graphical installer at all now. You have to command line install every part of the system beyond the very basic Arch system. Desktop etc has to all be set up. You'll be in the terminal endlessly after that as well but things like the package manager are really easy even if command line. It's not that hard but after a while you gravitate to Arch rather than Ubuntu or whatever because those have got the bloat that you went to Linux to avoid.
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.
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.
There is actually an OSX version of Darktable. You'll find it here:
http://www.darktable.org/install/
No Windows version though.
[attachimg=1]
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.
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.
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.
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.
"when nothing is selected, everything is selected" It is the same in Lightwave. You know they are the same original programmers :)
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?
Quote from: Kadri on June 26, 2015, 11:01:13 AM
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But as i said earlier there is much room for modernisation in Lightwave.
For sculpting for example you have to use Zbrush or 3DCoat etc.
I export rocks or landscapes from Terragen sometimes without using 3DCoat and use them in Lightwave for example.
If you have 32 GB RAM it is not so hard(until a certain limit obviously) to deal with cleaning up high poly meshes.
What i have seen from so long years working in this or that way in the the 3D world is, there is no software that does all well.
You use what you have and can buy.
As i said before, maybe here around too, a software that combines a Terragen and Lightwave kind of software would be so wonderful.
Maybe Matt builds a modeler too :D
I've got 16 gigs of RAM. I have pushed that to limits with Modo but for the moment, it's OK. The bad part is that my graphics card isn't good enough but I think I'll stick with it until I absolutely need better. The discipline or working out efficiency is quite good. I'm not going to be building vaste scenes any time soon. Probably the thing that will make me upgrade the graphics is if I want to do more detailed sculpting either in 3D Coat or Modo.
Wings 3D is based on this which probably explains some of it's elegance but there are limits to what this can do.
http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/COURSES/cs3621/NOTES/model/winged-e.html
I did try Lightwave many years ago. It's probably better now but I found it cumbersome to use at the time.
I've been watching videos on youtube with CAD type programs using nurbs. I love the way you are dealing in pure shapes rather than having masses of poly's. Nurbs are apparently much more complicated to code though but I suppose that's logical, they will be dealing with a whole higher level of maths. One of the reasons I love Inkscape is the precise way you can control every aspect of the vector graphics. I suppose nurbs is like a 3D version of this.
Nurbs...in the new LWCad :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmtpd4boCvc
Yeah, that's cool. It's how you work in an SVG app. The problem with subdivision is that, yes you can lay out flat polys then extrude but you can't control curves. Then you are messing about with adding vertices and smoothing rather than just grabbing curves or beziers handles etc to bend. Subdivision is just not cool for technical design and it's fixed once you've done it because of all the individual verts.
The intention for Modo is is for it to be a full animation app. Everything is geared in that direction so nurbs won't be added any time soon if it's possible at all. This is why so much focus has been on the renderer because obviously that's the prime part for animation.
The problem in Lightwave from a modeling aspect is in a way the same. Layout got much attention in the last years;Modeler not.
The Strategy with Modo was to first get the modeling out there because that gets plenty of people in. Next they concentrated on the renderer so now people render in Modo. They then have to go out of Modo and back in again. Now they are filling out the inbetween part. It's all a precise strategy to get people into using it. Brad Peebler refered to it as "book ending" but if they want this to work, they sure as hell have to stop all these buggy releases.
Brad Peebler sounds too much like a classic marketing guy to me.
That is what i like about Planetside. They sound more like guys you know and speak about what they have down to earth. Hi :D
I'm not sure exactly how this works in other apps but the beauty of Modo is that everything is kind of one thing. You can animate tools in the modeler if you want. Everything can be hooked together so that every single thing can be linked and animated.
Yeah that is what i miss since many years in Lightwave.
I think Brad Peebler is genuine even although he seems to be trying to emulate Steve Jobs. The danger is that with these buggy releases, people are going to start calling it BS the way Peebler hypes things. I think The Foundry has definitely overhyped this release.
I am just sad that the split with the original programmers of Lightwave happened.
Lightwave could be in a so much different position right now.Who knows.
I don't know why they split but I guess they wanted to create a new architecture from the ground up that would be better than Lightwave. These things take a long time though. The code behind these apps must be colossal. I can understand bugs. That's always going to happen but blatent in your face bugs the minute you start doing anything is just unacceptable. I'm sure there are bugs in Terragen but not ones you find easily.
Terragen doesn't need any hype because a lot of people know what it is now and it's unique. Vue is the only other app dedicated to landscaping. I do however think that when Terragen 2 or the first incarntion of the new app came out, it could have been better but Planetside is tiny so they can't possibly do everything. Over hype can be worse because that can create a lot of negativity with users. the Modo forum has turned a lot more negative recently. You can't massively increase prices and massively increase bugs and expect hobbyist users to be happy. Modo might be cheap compared to some other apps but it's still a lot of money. There is lightwave and Cinema 4D. Cinema 4D is actually very good. At least it was compared to the apps when I I tried it but this was also a while ago. It's more expensive though. Blender can't be discounted either. My only gripes with that are that the cycles rendering engine basically isn't finished and won't be for ages and Blender isn't as good at larger scenes as Modo is. Other than that though, Blender is quite capable of doing a lot of what many people need from a 3D app. Also, Blender is not full of bugs.
Yes. Newtek tried to rewrite Lightwave but that was a complete failure and a waste of time.
Cinema4D is good from what i have seen but too expensive. And Blender...i am still struggling with the GUI as always.
This might be one of the times i try regularly Blender ones again. Some of the fire and water effects capabilities are what i want to try actually.
I looked for Realflow etc. They are so expensive. No way to buy them.
I watched those other videos on Lightwave. the snapping looks much like it is in Modo. The problem is that the snapping seems to simply not work right in some cicunstanes or zoom levels etc. It could be my doing but I'll be snapping through points and it snaps to values way off from the points it's meant to be snapping to. This seems to fix if I zoom in but it's just not good. I always watch precisly what I'm doing if it's something like a buolding. this has to be accurate not because you need super accuracy in a CAD sense but simply that if things aren't right, the model will be screwed up.
I still have to work through a lot of things though. There is a hellishly complex system of action centres which obviously screws you up if you haven't got to grips with it.
I might try svg importing to Modo. That way you could potentially lay out plans then take to 3D.
This is free. It's probably very limited in capability but notice how easy and clear it is to use. Your'e concerntrating purely on the form not a bunch of polys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXgMY3-hlgs
I notice a lot of things he actually does here, Wings 3D can do in an almost as easy way. Wings can't cut holes in things though. This is a limitation of the winged edge data structure. Some of these things actually require a bunch of work in Modo though.
There is a free Linux CAD program but that looks like hell to use.
Actually, I haven't been fully through that house building tutorial in Lightwave but that looks like it's worth watching even if you don't use Lightwave. This is exactly my problem. Modo is not good for this. I want to get into architectural type stuff.
I bought LWCad after i saw that house tutorial. It is nearly all Hard modeling if i do it at all :)
Just for the record LWCad is a third party plugin. It does have a very fast frequently development.
Not sure but i think he wants to port it to other software too.
I wish you had never shown me that LWCAD. I knew there would tools for this type of thing but I've been on their site looking at all the awesome building renders. This would just cut out all the crap you'd have to do in say Modo. I don't get why they don't try to improve this a bit because surely Modo combined with even remotely more CAD friendly tools would have commercial appeal. If you already had Lightwave and wanted this function, the plugin would be worth it.
Is there anything remotely decent for CAD stuff similar to that Lightwave plugin but standalone? The big CAD programs are simply not for the casual user, cost wise.
Im still reading along with this thread. Looking forward to hear what the final judgment of MODO is, Efflux.
I am not really worried about the bugs, though I fully 100% understand the griping on the net about them. I just feel like it is impossible (nearly) that they wont get fixed. And I doubt very much that it will be anything like AutoDesk where bugs remain for years.
Again, I think you can't really look at MODO as just a modeler. My worry is about rigging and weighting and animating. I would very much like to see work done with Modo alone, like what we have seen from LW. I refer to that famous video of the hand inside the head (like a puppet) Where the face looked absolutely human real. Blew me away.
Natural humanoid movement and fur and hair are also a big interest of mine. The easier these things become to do with software, the happier I will be.
Its not, I think, a hard choice anymore. There are a very few full software packages. You can easily cutout the ones you can't afford, and one or two due to personal industry politics or general personal opinion. And then you are left with just 1-3 to pick from.
In terms of cost and what you get for the money, value, I don't see how you beat MODO. LW? Sure. But then its going to be about personal preference, UI and such. I feel like it is understandable then why MODO is growing.
Another thing to think on is the future. I feel like unless some strange thing happens, MODO will have a long run. Even if it gets bought and sold as a company, Modo will continue to be developed for a long time. And in the long run, I am betting that it will advance to where Maya (for example) is in the industry, beyond modeling I mean. Where you can not only do every part of the creative pipeline in modo, but you can do it all at a very high quality. But to be clear, no, it IS pretty obvious that MODO cant do all the animating that MAYA can yet (not sure about Houdini for rigging and weighting).
But then again, its all a gamble one way or another anyway.
Yeah, I can't actually see Modo failing. It would just be suicide to go this far with such potential then mess things up but it is a gamble because it takes time to learn these apps. I'll be at Modo for months. I'm actually not that interested in animation in terms of character rigging etc but if you are creating stuff in an app that has all that animation capability then all the better.
I'm tired of niche apps that go to the wall commercially. Mojoworld was a particular disaster because most people that used that spent a hell of a lot of time learning it. I don't see this fate for Terragen though. It's different. I used Logic for years then Apple screwed it up with a lot of bloat and endless bugs and actual downgrades of features in favour of fancy looking UI. It's not even the cost. Logic is cheap now but it didn't used to be. However, you invest time learning. So then I had to mess around in all the other DAWs and settled for Reaper. One reason is that so many people use it but it's cool because it's very customizable and no bloat like Logic. Regular updates to fix bugs. It does still have some annoying bugs but not as many as Logic.
Also, why not use apps where you at least have potential to earn some money? You can't do this with Terragen but it could be part of a group of apps to do this.
Modo will be here probably for a long time.
The most dangerous thing that could happen is the same fear that they had when they were sold lately.
Like Autodesk buying them and screwing it like they did to Softimage.
A big solution for Modo at the moment would be an archviz style plugin. It wouldn't even have to be nurbs. If they could do for archviz what they did with the boolean style workflow of Meshfusion it would be awesome. The big CAD programs cost an absolute fortune as well. I was on youtube looking at FreeCAD which is an open source CAD program. it's not good though. it'll take years for that to go anywhere but the view counts on the videos are huge so that shows you the potential market for any cheaper commercial app. I bet that Lightwave plugin sold really well. The videos of the house building have depressed me. I knew it could be easy but that plugin just throws in your face how bad Modo currently is for this type of thing.
There are a lot of Modo fanboys though it seems. I just read this on an architectural forum:
"Modo is a great application. Does it work for ArchViz hell yes it does and works well in all areas you outlined. 701 is stable and a very viable version. It's real benefit is ease of modeling, however the workflow is different from Max, way different."
I say hell no, it's not good for archviz if you want to do it all in Modo.
Maybe I should study the macro functionality of Modo. I think for example you could set up macros for various things like punching in windows etc. It wouldn't match that Lightwave plugin but still, it might work.
I watched the DesignSpark Mechanical video.Looks nice.
I'll have to just proceed with Modo. I'm thinking of ways to deal with the drawbacks. You'd need to create more macro functions. That Andy Bell video before demos the nightmare. In fact Modo is so deficient in this area that Bell even had to create macros just to do what Wings 3D can do without a macro.
Fanboys are everywhere. In the Lightwave forums too of course (lately not so much.Not a good sign :D ) .
I know it does have its limits.
There are sometimes post that say if it wasn't for Denis Pontonnier plugins (he even does have a nice tree plugin for free) , LWCad and like for plugins below
for example the user base would have been much worse then it is now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_sU7HrtuMY
If they can get through the coming 3-5 years they might have still a chance.
There are users that like modeling more in Lightwave then in Maya, Modo,3DSMax etc in the Lightwave forum.
Kinda normal it is the Lightwave forum of course.
Anyway i am not trying to lure you to Lightwave :) I like conversations like this.
I hate when somebody thinks that when you don't use Maya (for example) that you have to use it too for good work.
It is a little of a snowball effect. When big houses use Maya everybody wants to use it too. That is understandable.
But just because the industry standard is kinda Maya,3DSMax doesn't mean anybody can not do acceptable work in Lightwave or in other smaller ones .
My problem is i have used it since 21 years i think. Money factor aside hard to use other software after so much time.
Quote from: efflux on June 26, 2015, 03:59:11 PM
...The videos of the house building have depressed me...
LOL! Sorry :)
The first comment here really underpins the problems with Modo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-A8xCJWlXM
I don't even have a standard Meshfusion layout on the Linux Modo. Only the schematic view. I can not see ANY of what he is working in here. I'd have to construct the UI layout myself. It's just insanity. They seriously need to get to grips with this at The Foundry. This release is a disaster area.
Not good yes.
The manual isn't right about a bunch of things. This is very frustrating.
Also, for anyone trying Modo 901 Meshfusion. It is now like this:
This video is the only source explaining how Meshfusion is now integrated into the UI. The online manual points you to older videos and then you are completely confused.
Modo is a hell of a difficult program in terms of it's modeling if you are a new user. The Foundry needs to bin all the older videos and do a series of new short videos about the basics. How hard is this or does nobody actually know enough about how Modo works to even do this? I suspect this is actually the case. They do huge updates and nobody knows what the hell is there even when it gets released. It seems the only really good videos were ones done by Brad Peebler because he obviously knows how it works.
LOL
Well, uh hem.
It was pretty hard to get started with TG for quite awhile too, wouldn't you say?
In fact, isn't this a running joke with software in general? Seems to me this is why people make money with companies like Digital Tutors and some others. No one wants to share knowledge for free I guess, sept maybe here in this forum, which is one of the reasons I like it so much. I do though agree with you about the MODO forums, most forums are not as open and dedicated as this one is.
By the way, when you buy MODO you get some free Digital Tutors tuts.
I like digital tutors but it is not free. Its a very good value if you are going to really use it pretty much every day, but I canceled my membership because I was not using it as much as you have to to make it a good value. I spent to much time doing tuts and not enough time doing work. But if you are able to get the balance right, its a very good service.
I understood it that there are now 901 tuts available. You should look into that, being that you said you were going to stick with MODO for a while. They also have blender tuts now I think.
Planetside didn't provide enough info at the start. It's better now but Planetside have an excuse. They are essentially only three people.
The problem with Foundry training videos is exactly like that guy commented under that youtube channel. You have to already know the basics of Modo to fully follow a lot of those tutorials. Modo has some quirky ways of doing things in the modeler that you have to understand. I've now got to the point where I've isolated what I need to find out which is a step.
Where are the getting started with Modo videos or at leadt ones relevant to new versions? There are actually not really any useful videos of this type except ones made by some people on youtube. Yes, there is an online manual but you can't possibly read all of that so hence you miss stuff.
Also, I hate when they call it "training". Training is for monkeys. I want to learn. You teach people. You don't train them.
There are a lot of people slating this release. It may sound over the top but I think the way they release this software has become a consistant shambles.
I truly believe that nobody really knows Modo properly. Many of the "training" videos look like the person doing the training is also missing things on what can be done in Modo. The constant keyboard dancing of selecting tool, performing edit, then dropping tool, then selecting again to perform another edit is ridiculous, at least to be doing all the time. However, I now know that this isn't needed. For example there are key commands to keep the tool active for the next edit.
I often wonder how much developers look at other software. If you were an expert at Modo for example you might think it was all the obvious way to do things but if you went to Blender, you'd be totally lost for doing the simplest things. Not because Blender is difficult but because it's different.
Terragen actually has a very useful convention for dragging and dropping colours just by simply dragging and dropping. Blender does this as well. It's not uncommon. Modo doesn't do this. I have seen people mention the concept years back on the forum. Going to a menu to copy and paste colours is just too slow. When you get a build up of this type of slow down, then no matter how many fantastic features you add, the program becomes slow to use.
The best tool approach is that you select a tool, perform an action and the tool gets dropped. Blender does this. You learn the key commands and one press to activate and perform the action. I don't undestand the Modo convention of dropping the tool manually because unless you want to perform the same action again on the same polygons why have the tool still active? Sometimes you may want to perform the same action on another polygon selection. There is in fact a way of doing this. Once again Wings is king because you can have a key command but every selection type has a context sensitive right click menu with all the tools. It's so obvious. Wings understands all the way through your process what you will be doing next. Right down to selections. It seems nobody looks at that program. I'm not the only one going on about it in other 3D forums either. Other people understand why Wings is good. Pity other developers don't.
So in Modo what you essentially do is use a key command to perform the edit but keep the key depressed until the edit is finished. Then the tool drops. Find me a video where anyone does this? No, they will hammering away on the spacebar every time and reselecting the same tool. This is what I mean. I won't buy the tutorials because the people doing them make everything unbelievably long winded. That guy commenting under the youtube video summed it all up.
That Lightzone program that I've mentioned was designed by people with brains. They thought through what a photographer is likely to want to do to a photo and made the UI as clear as could be to do the task and nobody bought the app. Crazy. Everybody is copying it now though.
Another thing in Wings which other developers do not seem to get no matter how you go on about it is the select similar. This cuts out so much work. I'm watching people in Modo having to make materials and save selection sets while they work so as to be able to make the selection again or even make macros so as to apply a series of actions on eachrelated polygons which you can't multiselect anymore. With Wings this is hardly ever needed because Wings can intelligently work out what polygons you want to select by analysing other that are similar and you can refine this. Usually you will want to later perform the same actions on polygons that are similar.
It's the same with most software. Just not intelligently designed at all. One thing I've harped on about on multiple forums is Gimp's ability to use MIDI. Nobody gets it. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Somebody had the genius idea to add this to Gimp. What this means is that you can add any MIDI device to control anything in Gimp. This simply devastates any other method. Keyboards are useless in comparison because MIDI can send continuous controller messages. You set up knobs to increase blue, red, green or control your brush size etc. It's genius but actually obvious. Keyboards can not send a continuous control.
This is why Modo doesn't auto drop the tool. Modo has lots of stuff that you can do on every tool action. One particular thing is incredibly powerful fall offs. In other apps, fall off tends to be more basic so you can control it with the mouse wheel for example, as it works in Wings while you perform the action. The tool dropping method in Modo is there because each tool action can have a bunch of other edits. You do all this then drop the tool. However, if you aren't performing a complex procedure you use the toggle type key action and it becomes like most other apps. You won't find a single explanation of the hows and whys of what I've just described even although this is what makes the Modo modeler different.
Also, because everything in animatable, it's good to not have the tool drop because you may want to create another animation key with for example the fall off adjusted differently.
I'll not post anymore about Modo here, except to say that it is generally a brilliant app. The main problems are lack of clear info for new users and the bugs.