modo or LightWave?

[antti]

I would like to have a new toy and I have been thinking about getting a 3D modelling software, either modo or LightWave. I know modo is the new, modern contender with lots of potential but, perhaps, still somewhat uncertain status in the future. LightWave, on the other hand, seems to be the old 'champion' with lots of users, great plugin support etc, but with uncertain future as well as the old code will, at some point, be replaced with the new LightWave Core, which real capabilities seem to be uncertain for the time being. I know that there are many people here with modo and/or LightWave experience. Which one, in your opinion, would be a better choice and why?

I know that in good hands both software are capable of producing great pictures. I, on the other hand, am just a hobbyist, who wants, with limited spare time, to play around with the program, try this and that, and hopefully, every now and then come up with some semi-decent renders. I will not be making any real work (money) with the program and I am not focused on modelling anything special, so a versatile, fast and easy-to-learn program could be good for me. I know that Terragen and LightWave have made a good combination, but I must admit that I am impressed by some of the modo features, including the apparently very capable multi-threaded renderer, and, as far as I know, also modo works nicely with the .lwo-files. The prices do not differ much, so, what to do, that is the question.

[PabloMack]

I just asked a friend of mine who is an advanced LW user and has worked closely with Newtek's development team for many years what he thought about Modo.  He has been a Modo user for probably close to two years and I just emailed him a similar question only a week or less ago.  I have been using LW myself for 6 years now and I would consider myself to be a novice intermediate user.  My recommendation is that, if you ONLY want to do modeling, then Modo seems to be one of the best.  But if you think you will want to animate your models, then Modo is very weak in that area.  Lightwave gives you a much more complete package.  I am evaluating Modo myself for its modeling abilities.  LW is definitely a bit weak when it comes to "soft modeling" but it has pretty powerful hard object modeling features.  Dan Ablan's book on Lightwave [8] says that he thinks that, if you used Lightwave every day for work, it would take you eight years to really learn the package.  According to John, LW 9.6 is the very best version of LW that has ever been released.  I upgraded to 9.6 in January because it is the best it is going to be for at least a couple of years because the development team is busy on Core.  The animation capabilities have brought it up to being a lot more competitive with XSI which is regarded as the king when it comes to animation.  I went to a demo a couple of months ago and LW 9.6 is now supposed to be better than Maya for animation (and costs a lot less). 

Neither application (LW or Modo) is going to stand still, so if you are new to either LW or Modo, it will most likely get better as you climb the learning curve.  John also said that Modo falls apart when trying to do painting for high end resolutions.  But Modo's renderer is supposed to be quite good for stills.  So, since it is likely to take you a very long time to master the software, the answer to your question depends on what you ultimately plan to do with it.

[Kadri]

... I went to a demo a couple of months ago and LW 9.6 is now supposed to be better than Maya for animation (and costs a lot less). 
...

This is one of the standard flame topics on Newtek 
But the other parts are quite reasonable !

[PabloMack]

... I went to a demo a couple of months ago and LW 9.6 is now supposed to be better than Maya for animation (and costs a lot less).  
...

This is one of the standard flame topics on Newtek  

That's interesting.  LW must be at least threatening Maya in the animation area or the flaming wouldn't be going on.  The guy that gave the demo was quite experienced with both LW and Maya so I assumed he knew what he was talking about.  He didn't actually say that LW had passed Maya in its animation capabilities but he kept pointing out things you can now do in LW 9.6 that you can't in Maya.  And I don't know whether or not he has kept current on his Maya software versions either.  

[Kadri]

http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109200

This  is one of the recent and civil ones ! 11 pages and 157 posts for now.
But you will have a broad view of this topic , if you have time to read 

[rcallicotte]

Red or green.  You choose.