Playing with modo...part II

Here are finally my thoughts about Modo. As I stayed in my previous post a friend lend me hi Modo 601 to play with. I had decided to model one of the 2 subs I showed you in my first post as a quick way to dive into the program.

I modeled the typhoon class sub since it is a tad more difficult shape but more importantly it is an all time favorite of mine.As a way to test how user friendly is the program I put a time limit of 3 hours for modelling and rendering,

Here is the model before any subdivisions are applied. I did not spent to much time refining it since my aim was to quickly dive into the program and test its tools.

And here is a quick underwater scene where I placed the model for rendering.

The modelling took me about one hour and another hour and a half for rendering. Although if I had spent more time in refining the model and the environment I am sure that I could have created something better, even with the limited time I had set for myself I got some useful conclusions.

• Modo is really an intuitive modeler which allows entry level users to quickly start learning the ropes and produce some excellent pieces.

• The inclusion of sculpting and painting tools allow for a better workflow and minimize the need to go back ad forth between programs.

• The real time renderer is really fast with a lot of options which minimize the need for constant final renders to check the progress, thus speeding up the workflow, while providing the user with all the bells and whistles you find in the industry standard renderers (V-ray, Mental ray, Arion, Maxwell etc.).

• The material editor in is one of the best I have seen with a wealth of options.

• The are a lot of kits that speed up the creation of artwork for people that are in the advertisement sector, ie model bashing kit, PACK kit, SLICK kit & Splash kit.

• The NPR renderer allows for a more diverse creation of images.

• The only drawback I found is that Modo at the moment can handle well polygon heavy models when you are in the sculpt mode. For example in the above scene the underground environment is around 3.5 million polygons finished. But I found that some areas needed better definition. When tried to modify them there was a lag between my input and the result showing on screen, something I do not see in more traditional sculpting tools like Zbrush when working with polygon heavy models.