so...who modos?
jardine
Posts: 1,217
in The Commons
i've been messing around with the demo for a couple of days, and i'm as happy as a dog with a stick to chase. it's the first modelling app i've tried that has an interface and tool setups that make enough instinctive sense to me to give me a learning curve that's doesn't flatline into confusion and curses every time i fire it up.

Comments
I wish! I subscribed to the steam version for a couple months and just loved it. However, the steam version is too limiting (if ever I wanted to do commercial stuff) and the full version is too expensive. :'( I went instead with Rocket 3F which is also very easy to grasp with tons of features but doesn't have the astronomical price tag ;).
Laurie
$1,800 purchase or $600 a year subscription. ROFL Yeah ...No.
Their pay plan is really gross. While $1800 makes sense for a gaming company, that's just stupid pricing for individuals. They need to get their heads out of the clouds and make a plan for individual content creators. Even their licencing page makes it really clear that their target is companies. Really a stupid idea to exclude individuals from your product and price them out since the only price point you offer is geared toward companies.
I poked at Modo briefly but ended up with 3d-Coat.... Which I originally overlooked precisely because it was so damn cheap.
Diva, have you looked at the prices of other high end modeling apps, $1800 is a steal compared to Max at $3800, Maya one year subscription is $1470, or C4D at $3900
Yeah, Modo is relatively cheap.
Perhaps, but I am extremely cheap. Hexagon and Blender are priced perfectly for me, lol.
Cheap is a relative term...relative to the amount of money in my checking account. LOLOL
Laurie
What were the limitations?
ZBrush is $1000 less.
Compared to what? The super high end stuff that only gaming companies really need? Sure. But ZBrush is $1000 less than Modo. The average content creator isn't going to need to spend two grand or more on a program to create 3D content.
Can't go over 100,000 polys. Sounds like a lot until you put a whole outfit together o.O.
Laurie
What do you think Modo is?
And the average content creator isn't Modo's target market.
...Obvously not.
I still have an ancient seat of MODO 401 Installed that I used to custom sculpt my CG self clone for G2 male.
(here is a screen shot of my old MODO401 seat with the G2 female testing Subsurface settings)
The modern versions of MODO have evolved far,far beyond a modeling application into a full CG/VFX suite Like MAYA , MAX, Lightwave Cinema4D.
In fact its Character animation tools far out perform the $3900 C4D particulary in the area of rigging &retargeting mocap from external sources.
It has Node based particles ,Fur, Collission dynamics for rigid and soft bodies, realtime viewport etc.
so indeed at less than $2000 it is a Great value compared to C4D
and the others and you have the option of getting a permanent license for $1800 unlike the Autodesk products that are subscription only.
Now for those who only plan to make Daz content Clearly it is
overkill ( as is MAYA , MAX, Lightwave Cinema4D etc)
however some of the users here may have creative aspirations beyond
the objectives of other Daz users.
removed duplicate
Well said Wolf! Been awhile since I used MODO and since my version of Max is getting long in the tooth and I don't want to go the subscription route, I think I'll give it another shot.
I like it so far.
If I run up against the limitations of the Indie license, I'll consider buying it. Still trying to get my head around all the tools, but I'm relatively new to modeling in general, so... that's more me than the software.
It probably depends on what your aims are - ZBrush and 3D Coat are very good for organics but less suitable for hard-surface modelling. Marvellous Designer plus something to retopologise (which modo will do) is the obvious choice for clothing. But as a modeller for hard-surface stuff with the ability to do extra things modo is an obvious candidate (there's also Lightwave, which is relatively even cheaper, but its interface really is showing its age - althogh it clearly shares a pedigree with modo so may well be worth checking out).
I have, but don't have tiem to use, modo - but my starting copy was much cheaper thanks to a special offer. The Foundry has had fairly hefty discounts on new seats once or twice a year, usually one towards the end of the year.
David Brinnen is a DAZ content creator who uses Modo:
https://www.daz3d.com/david-brinnen
Not sure if he's full time on 3D creation, or if he does commercial work beyond the DAZ store.
I use Modo and I absolutely love it. The maintenance subscription works out the same as upgrading once a year since I already owned a perpetual license. If you're planning to create content as a full time career option then its a good pick. I would recommend doing the steam subscription first to learn the program and make sure that its actually a program that clicks for you before spending a lot of money on something that you never open.
Yes Modo. Used most days. Occasionally there are commissions beyond what you see in DAZ. Modo is quite stable for me, will handle a scene nicely up to about 2million polygons without problematic slowing down, has many fancy tools, most of which I don't use. Most of the time I get away with using the primitives, edge extension, bevelling and loop slicing with the occasional radial replication, bend and sweep. Most of the rest of the tools, interesting though they are, I rarely feel the need for. I'm more impressed with the intuitive nature of the interface and how things are usually where you expect them to be. The move from Wings3D to Modo was quite painless. I use UVlayout for UV mapping although Modo has inbuilt UV mapping tools.
Quite clever, then, to make compound curvy things that look like Hondas I saw in my youth.
https://www.daz3d.com/moped
Or indeed, vintage ice cream vans and London buses. Mablethorpe & District Motor Club + tapemeasure?
Thank you. Well since you ask, the first task for any project is to get a dozen or more reference images, preferably some with measurements on. For the compound curvy surfaces, a bit of trial and error - like the front plastic fairing on the moped - I form very crude versions of the shape and subdivide it, see if it is going in a direction that looks useful, back up and adjust, then forward again. Subdivision is good because it results in an all quad mesh. When I spot a useful curve, I go in and delete extranious subdivions lines, simplifying the geometry again, so I have something made from only a few polygones (but this time, I already know at least one line is going to reform the curve I had before taking out the extranious lines when I subdivide) and now I can move points around to line up with my reference more closely and then subdivide down - repeat as needed. If this is a good or efficient approach, I don't know, but that is the solution I came up with. Since much of my Wings3D modelling relied heavily on forming shapes by repeated subdivision (as shown on my youtube) then I suppose this is where I picked up this idea.