Modo 701 announced
Mar 12, 2013 by CGP Staff
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The Foundry and Luxology have announced the upcoming release of Modo 701. New features include:
- Procedural particle engine with an easy to use preset workflow
- Audio playback and sound channel modifier
- Schematic improvements, reducing scene graph complexity
- Dedicated dynamics simulation layer, significantly improving performance
- Simplified complexity of materials and layered shaders
- Large scene performance improvements by as much as 175x
- Preview render synchronization improvements, over 50x faster in large scenes
- New Python interpreter making Python execution many times faster
- Unlimited network rendering
- Soon to be released LINUX operating system support
Watch a video showing Modo 701’s particles in action on YouTube and find out more on Luxology’s website.
Source: Algosuk
Seeing all that in a release just makes me wish max were young again. :-S
Word to the herd!
all programs become better with each version, only max becomes worse…
In the past few years , modo and blender’s new announced overshadowed max,maya and softimage
Yeah, max is too old (and being old means SLOW as hell), for me Max is almost dead my new strong candidate for replace it is Blender (very young and growing so fast)
At now Blender not worse than max and Modo a much better.
3d Max is already dead. Even if a new 3d max will be free, I will not use it
And with current policy of Autodesk all of theirs software in a deadlock.
Hola, i would slow down now. Yes,we hate Autodesk and love Blender. But please be realistic.
Risking to become an Autodesk 3dsmax lawyer, here are few facts to write down:
– it is “easy” to build some functions in a software that does not have it. Audio playback and network rendering – awesome! I remember Max has it since 10 or more years. 10 Gazillion times faster Viewport and Shematic-Improvements! Wow – this sounds almost like Autodesk: “Sorry, the code in last version was busted, now we have fixed the view-port!”. Particleflow? Can anyone tell me what is so orgasmic in this Modo news, save the fact they built in functions other software has since years? No dialectic blah-blah, just write me down numerically the unseen, unique and innovative features of Modo, ->indispensable<- and completely missing in other software?
– Linux. Good. I work since 22 years with CG, i can't remember anyone using it for professional CG-Artwork, save my linux-religiously-fanatic brother (he even tries to use Gimp from time to time). Maybe some XXL Studios can profit from render farms, but 99,9% of Modo users are not in Sony Image Works or Weta.
– Max is not innovative. Sorry, Modo is it neither. I am working almost all my life with Lightwave, Modo is currently a small, light, modern version of Lightwave.
It is easy to build missing functions in your software when you have a good , finished reference to look at (Max, Maya etc). For better understanding: it is easy to for you to make style-sheets and mood-boards from google image-search for your video-project, then to develop new look and story. This "something new" is expensive, it takes a long time, and it requires half-genius man-power.
It is damn difficult to invent something new and become a trend-setter. Modo is not a trend-setter (at least not now).
ZBrush, for example, is.
Max was it, before a long time and for a long time – Max defined the path of how to work in 3D which many successors followed.
What is good in Modo?
– They have still a lot of holes to fill with missing functions. And they do it fast. Working in 2012 with the SIGGRAPH papers from 2010, in the latest, documented, version of OpenGL and VC++ is much easier then to clean 16bit junk from your 20 years old pile of trash, done by programmers from which are some already dead. Modo uses this speed and technology momentum in a great manner, and so it should be.
– Massive amount of user-feedback: all those frustrated Autodesk users port for free (actually the pay money for it) their experiences and knowledge into a new software. They write the path of how it works at the moment, and how it should actually better work. And apparently, Modo developers listen to them and build it in. They still can do it: it is a small company without a board of directors etc. Wait few years, and you will see how it will blow up like a bubble and become an inert Godzilla. (Hopefully no one from Modo reads this text, they will think i declared a war to them. My point is not Modo, i don't care about it: i talk about the comparison to existing software, in our case 3dsMax.)
Despite our outrage about Autodesk, i think we should take in count during the enthusiastic modo-freak-outs some vital time and material parameters. This could help to understand why this young software has at the moment a huge impulse and why it is very difficult for max to move from spot.
As always, the magic words for the end: it is my private opinion.
@Igor I agree with everything you said. I see nothing in that features list that has not been around for years in other software. This is catching up, not innovating.
Carried by the hype, I tried a 30-day Modo eval – and went right back to 3ds Max. The program has some nice things going, but is way too immature compared to something like 3ds Max. The main problem with 3ds Max is the messy and directionless development being done since 2009 – if you disregard that, 3ds Max still has a toolset that will take many many years for Modo and Blender to match or surpass.
Igor is dead right. I have Modo and Max, but when I need to get a job done, it’s always back to Max. I use Modo for modelling sometimes, and I love the way it works. However, it’s axis system drives me nuts and the way materials are assigned seems overly weird. But that’s just lack of familiarity.
I think we tend to forget the good aspects of Max, sometimes.
@Igor I couldn,t agree more!
I saw the particle video and did not find any “advanced” features. But, it seems a lot of people like it,
Maybe all 3ds max need is that acquired by Foundry. People just love everything Foundry does.
My comment stems from the fact when you are young your are far more free to try things without the massive repercussions and constraints that you have when your older. From that list that is something we would have seen in max5 or max6, pretty close in fact.
“The main problem with 3ds Max is the messy and directionless development being done since 2009 – if you disregard that,… ”
I love max, people are working tirelessly to make it better, unfortunately that quoted statement has sentiment from many people, including myself to some extent. I know they are working hard on trying to clean up the messy part.
There are directions BUT there are far too many directions. Directions we the user really know nothing about until they arrive. Directions, that left me with the impression, why autodesk split max into two separate packages in the first place. Directions for Design and directions for Entertainment. Other than Icons and a Splashscreen, as of now I see exactly one feature that is different for Design vs. E!. some light tool and the SDK. Why the split? Maybe I missed something there. Something in the future maybe, who knows I can’t figure it out.
As I have said before and I continue with my stance that I want no new features in max (I have them all in plugins already) until current features that need overhauls get the overhauls they need. I would certainly forgo a full release cycle just for this and welcome it. Things like optimizing all of the modifiers that need to optimized, reworking particle flow, proper vp map display, optimizing materials, vertex color workflows need love, me not personally but fixing whatever is wrong with UVW Unwrapping, the list goes on.
I have read dozens of things from dozens of users with most issues amplified by other users. Go take a look at:
http://3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com
yeah when was the last time you were there? 😉 Some of these things are getting fixed, yay!, it isn’t readily apparent that others with big user support are.
Max is mature and as with everything that is mature there comes a time when you’re not worried so much about looking good, you care far more about feeling good. 😉
@JohnnyRand
Autodesk did not split 3ds max into two, Actually they merge two code(max/viz) into one.
Even though max/viz had a code compatibility. They were two separate code to manage(waste of resource). They had to unify code as one while keeping viz users.
You can not just tell viz users If Autodesk said “hey, we will discontinue viz tomorrow, just upgrade to max”, many not-so-educated upper managers would say “max is for game company. why we should buy max?”
3ds max Design was a marketing trick to convert viz users to max user.
We can speculate on the reason the cheaper VIZ disappeared, my take on it is they wanted to make more money selling the design/visualization market a more expensive product.
Regardless of the reasons, there are now two versions of max. *shrug*
@JohnnyRand
Like Anonymous said a couple of posts above, when Viz was around there really were *two* versions of Max with two differing code bases.
It was costing them time and money keeping the two different code bases updated in parallel.
With Max and Max Design, the code base is identical, the only real difference is UI stuff, presets, a few plugins and a lack of the SDK if you’re a Design user. This means that one-time code changes pass simultaneously through to two products, saving development time and manpower.
Well since we have completely digressed from the original topic and narrowed the discussion to a single sentence I wrote 🙂
I merely thought of VIZ as a dumbed down version of max. I didn’t not know it was a different code base, at least in the way you guys describe, good trivia thanks.
I see what you are saying about the “selling max to Viz companies”
Anyway still pretty much beside the point. Max IS two products right now, it has been split into two versions, and you must make a choice between the two when you purchase a license, THAT was the point I was trying to make 🙂 I think it really has done nothing but confuse people.
To coin a phrase, You can paint shit white and in the end it is still just shit painted white 😀