Rendering
Making great objects is one thing. Getting them to look good during render is another. Enhancements to the modo render engine now lets it create images that are drop-dead gorgeous. Period. In addition, if you do architectural interiors, the new support for industry standard IES (Illuminating Engineering Society) lighting information means no more fiddling with lights to “get them to look right” for your interiors. Simply load a free IES profile for real light types, and bulbs that fits your scene. Badda bing, badda boom. Done.
3D rendering can bring any computer system to its knees fast, especially when invoking real world effects like blurry reflections and camera depth of field (DOF). Even the fastest computer is never fast enough. modo has been improved in this department, in several ways. First, there are optimizations that allow better, more stable frame-to-frame rendering in general, when doing an animation. Moreover, those same benefits pay off for still images too.
However, the real kicker is modo’s ability to successfully render with the help of additional machines, (simultaneously to PC and Mac), all chewing on the same project. This process of having nodes or a “render farm” is called Zero Configuration in modo. If your budget allows for 50 multi-core boxes, you can “farm” the render out to all of the PC’s and Mac’s and they’ll all work on the same image - very quickly too because modo doesn’t put a limit on processors working on the job, just computers.
However, if like me, you are not so fortunate on the financial side and only have several variously aging machines with different processor speeds, you are still in luck. The improved distribution and calculation modes ensure smooth, consistent and speedy rendering - even for us producers with only average means.
Another nice tidbit is the feature for multi-channel masks (color, ambient occlusion, etc.) can now be baked/exported out in a single render pass to separate files. This makes quick and tidy work for compositing.
Other Improvements
There have been widespread improvements to both the efficiency of the modeling tools and the user interface, partly to support the new features and partly just because the folks at Luxology are continually doing smart things. I won’t list them all here. Suffice it to say modo left me saying, “Ahhhhhhhhh...”, instead of, “Arrrrrrrrrrggghhh...”. If you’d like to see a full list of the enhancements, hop over to the Luxology site.
Performance
modo 301 is astonishingly fast and good at what it does - both from the hardware and the human side. The program is being written to leverage the latest in computer technology and capability, so it’s not shy about requesting resources when it needs them. modo does handle less than state-of-the-art systems with dignity and respect, however. So, if you don’t have super fast processors, that’s ok. However, you may want to check the specs on the graphics cards to make sure that you can get the full benefit from the real-time modeling displays.
In the rendering area, what I appreciate most is that modo has such an excellent internal render engine. There is no need to send your work to a separate render engine to finish the job. This eliminates an additional workflow and troubleshooting sessions. Interoperability is the bane of anyone producing content on a deadline.
On the human side of the performance equation, the Luxology team has obviously been paying attention to user needs and interface requirements as well. It does not really matter how good the software executes commands if you can’t find the tool you’re looking for. The modo interface is simply elegant and rapidly “disappears” because it is so easy to use. That is performance worth noting.
Value
At $895 for a new version or $395 for an upgrade, modo 301 won’t break the bank, but it’s not exactly cheap either. Obviously, there are less expensive and very good options for pure modeling like Silo (www.nevercenter.com - PC/Mac $150), Hexagon (www.daz3d.com - PC/Mac, $150). There are other near feature-for-feature competitors like Rhinoceros (www.rhino3d.com - PC only $995). Additionally, if you currently have another 3D application, you also probably have the modelers associated with those programs. However, in considering cost in this case, the old adage is true –“you get what you pay for.” Silo and Hexagon are very good and, from what I hear, since I don’t use it personally, so is Rhino. However, from what I’ve experienced and from the comments of others, modo is not just very good, it’s great.
So, what’s a girl to do?
