Softimage - Modo Experience / How are you doing so far?

[sirdavid32]

Hi Everyone, I recently saw the migration sub/forums. Great idea.
So I wanted to share my thoughts about my migration from Softimage to Modo from my website.
All though I can summarize some of the things about si-modo:
1. Easy to use (you can have almost all areas down to the table in 1 month)
2. Fracturing / simulation is rock solid (yes, caching preview directly from the viewer!!)
3. RT meter option comes really handy to have as many objects/particles simulate on the viewer
4. Deforming particles artistically is priceless
5. RT depth of field focus, and mouse-scratching over area of interest on previewer it´s GOLD.
6. Multi-layer pass naming is recepted on nuke "as is" (meaning you don´t have to go clueless, shuffling
new cahnnels into new pipestreams...) just name it back on Modo and receive your masks/pass on Nuke!
7. Baking tools have gotten an ultra-useful level.
8. Customizable pie menues (I have some scripts which you´ll find usefull, I´ll see to upload them later in a video)
9. Animation / deforming / cloning of individual particles can be created via poincloud maps (wow!) and also there are
specific organization for UVs, Vertex, Point and Weight maps (each one with special plus+up features on gamming or rendering workflows).
10. They have a large DB on forums an people is overall real-friendly-user-oriented people.
...as if we needed any more reasons, they can also save to "universal 3d printing" formats right out of the interface
plus sketchfab support (just send and wait via button panel)...and a huge more etcs...

Here´s the link for a real basic reviews on morphers, controls, linked parameters etc, from my site....
http://3dcinetv.com/softimage-to-modo/

Thanks.

[Rork]

Hi,

How do you cope with the massive slowdowns when the scene gets a bit more complex than normal?
We experienced massive slowdowns on even the simplest things, like moving geo around.
This even already happened when importing a bit more complex FBX geo and alike into an empty scene.

A friend of mine is working on the "Troll Bridge" project, and he got fed up with Modo real quickly, as the animation wasn't doable with even the simple rigs. Her said it was click-wait-stuff moves, click-wait---stuff moves....

We're not sure if it's his system or settings, but Modo isn't the powerhouse of efficient scene handling imho. I do hope 901 will change stuff in that area, as I like Modo for certain parts very much.

my 0.02 cents

[NNois]

hi, just to put my thought on this...

I've tried a full job on it and all i can say is modo is a complete mess.
Don't get me wrong but some concepts are really bad IMO

1. You can have simultaneous multiple selection type, like a mesh, a material, a polygon, at the same time and this alone is prone to big big mistakes, like selecting a poly delete it, boom you have deleted your shader too !!!!
2. history, same same, a little unseen mistake like hitting a wrong keystroke like spin quad on a distant selection and 2 min later you can't go back and you have to mix you scene with a backup etc... baaad
3. Explorers... when you have 50+ meshes + their respectives shaders you are in pain, badly, even if you sort this cleanly the shader tree shake you all that.
Now you add some Passes and you start insulting your software (like my collegues on Max)
4. Shematic (node shaders) are a joke, don't let the foundry fool you, this is not at all a classic node shading system, this is all tied to the original shader tree, overiding thing blindly, don't use it or as your project goes you will loose you feets
5. the animation editor is very bad and don't let you manipulate curves on your own like a simple tangent lenght, you have to do some vodoo manipulation to achieve a 50% functional thing.
6. you can't have a simple overview of simple things. Example: 3 passes / mutiple camera / different frame range... no you can't you just set passes with auto key and pray you don't miss to untick the auto key

this is my main big grips with modo, this is not a production software. and you definitly loose all the things that make softimage a great software

[nodeway]

... and you definitly loose all the things that make softimage a great software

That's why most use it as a companion to Houdini... not the other way around ;)

I use it solely for modeling/uv + visualization rendering.

[sirdavid32]

Thank you guys for your sincere point of view.
@Rork, yes, we miss manipulating 5M polys on screen (did someone say speedtree+forest on Alembic on SI?, yes).
The only thing I can think of is separating the meshes/simulations into different layers, and not have everything shown
at the same time.

@NNois , yes we miss having history stack. Great concept introduced by XSI (just like node compositing waaay before even Nuke existed). Animation rigs done by ex-xsi users are staggering. The software allows for powerful rigs but like SI, you need to go and tweak a lot of schematics to work the way you want:



Also: Materials, accidents: yes, they do happen. Grouping Stuff on the shader panel helps a lot. That "stacking method" Modo offers (labels a´la MAC) helps organizing stuff also. But yes, overall, it´s desirable to change the look of the panel. But you can do that by changing the preview of the material (like a shaderball). I just don`t happen to have the url video at hand...
And yes, "passes" per sé, aren´t what we would call "industry passes standard" (from the passes tab) they are more like "variation containers" and they, of course can manipulate objects and timeline....

Also: I believe being used to "speed" production on SI, we need to slow and take the modo road one km at the time...

[angus_davidson]

the 901 unveil is tomorrow

http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/events/live/

[El Burritoh]

the 901 unveil is tomorrow

http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/events/live/

It says the 21st....?

[MauricioPC]

the 901 unveil is tomorrow

http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/events/live/

I got an e-mail from TF today saying it's tomorrow but with the 21st date. I'm guessing they made something wrong in there.

[El Burritoh]

Yeah I think that's erroneous. The 21st is the correct date.

[angus_davidson]

I blame the bronchitus meds ;) But yes 21st is the date

[sirdavid32]

..still no history stack.

But progressive rendering for baking. That w00t me.
Schematics are becoming solid (real world I/O functions)
That 901 render engine....I want to be able to bench mark it against Vray
Love the RT viewport (shadows and reflections 20x faster than maya´s) that makes up my day.

[angus_davidson]

The stack as we know it will not come into Modo. It just doesnt fit the methodology. ;(

[Manticor]

That may not be totally correct, with fabric engine it should be a possibility.

[luceric]

That may not be totally correct, with fabric engine it should be a possibility.

I don't see how that would work. In order for an operator stack to work, every tool has to be aware of it and not really do its operations directly, but instead express it as a node on the operator stack. You can't mix procedural and non procedural modifications.

[angus_davidson]

That may not be totally correct, with fabric engine it should be a possibility.

I don't see how that would work. In order for an operator stack to work, every tool has to be aware of it and not really do its operations directly, but instead express it as a node on the operator stack. You can't mix procedural and non procedural modifications.

I have to agree with Luceric. I dont see fabric doing that at all.

[MauricioPC]

One thing to consider (I just saw this on twitter).

https://mobile.twitter.com/teleliq/stat ... 6186461184

So you have some top C4D artists experimenting with Houdini and getting a lot more feedback and speed with it. And Houdini Engine is coming to Modo.