Modo
| modo | |
|---|---|
| Maintainer | Luxology LLC |
| Latest Version | Sept 10, 2007 |
| Website | Modo |
| Forum Link | CGTalk Forum |
Contents |
General
modo is a 3D software from Luxology that handles the taks of modeling, sculpting, 3D painting, UV editing, rendering, baking and animation. The software runs on both PC and Mac computers.
Much of the focus on the development of modo has been on providing a very flexible user interface that is adjustable "on the fly" (according to task).
The modo software is used in game design, film and broadcast, graphic design, architectural and design visualization, education and scientific applications.
modo, having been built over the past 5 years, has a modern architecture that fully utilizes multi-core CPUs, as it is extensively threaded. The software also has very realistic OpenGL viewports that are hardware-accelerated. The software starts up very quickly and can be configured to navigate (pan, zoom etc.) like other programs like Maya.
modo accepts and writes a variety of 3D file formats and is often used in conjunction with other 3D applications that provide missing functionality (there is no character animation support within modo).
There is a very active user community on the Luxology website.
A sample of the user interface is below (model by Martin Almstrom).
Modeling
modo was first introduced as a modeler. The modeling tools continue to be a focus and the result is a very capable "hybrid" polygon and Subdivision surface modeler that includes N-gon support.
modo 301 also has two kinds of sculpting; image-based and mesh-based.
modo has very powerful selection tools and includes a variety of "fall offs" that influence how point, edges and polygons are selected in 3D space.
Extensive UV creation and editing tools are provided, including the ability interactively unwrap UV's.
modo lets you configure the grid system in a variety of units and has "power of 2 grid" support for game developers.
Painting
modo offers 3D painting. A dedicated user interface is provided for people who want to use modo as a 3D painting application, or the paint tools can be invoked at will whenever needed.
A variety of brushes and inks are supplied. Image ink lets you "paint through" and existing image onto a 3d model so that you could paint an image of a tattoo on.
Pressure-sensitive tablets are supported.
One of the cool things in modo is the ability to paint bump maps and see the results in real-time in an OpenGl viewport.
Rendering
modo has its own renderer, that has quickly gained a reputation as being both fast and very high quality. The renderer is capable of ray-tracing and global illumination. It also provides subsurface scattering. The micro-polygon displacement can be used to add very fine surface detail like grooves or ridges.
The modo renderer can be used to "bake" out things like normal maps or ambient occlussion.
There is an interactive render view that lets you see a rendered view as you paint and/or model.
The materials editing is layer-based; a workflow that is Photoshop-like.
As of modo 301, modo is equipped for rendering across a network and the renderer is able to render consistent jitter-free animations.
Scripting
modo supports LUA, Python and PERL scripting. It has a "tool pipe" that lets you combine tools into new combinations.
There are many scripts and tutorials for modo available at this site VertexMonkey
Misc
There is no hardware dongle needed for using modo.
modo works on both the PC and Mac.
Luxology allows users to install the software on all of your computers (Macs and PC's) as long you do not use it on more than one system at a time.
A 30 day full function evaluation version of the software is available.
A full color book on modo was published in October 2006
- The Official Luxology modo Guide by Dan Ablan ISBN 1-59863-068-7
Current Version
The current release version of modo is 301.
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