Product Design and Engineering

Meet the Product Design Professionals who use modo

Product designers have found that modo is a valuable tool for conceptual design and visualization of consumer product goods (CPG) to transportation and vehicle projects. modo flexible subdivision surface modeler allows almost any man-made or organic shape to be modeled with incredible control. And the modo renderer is ideal for representing even the most subtle surface details and lighting effects. Often modo is used as a tool to quickly work up alternative designs, other times it is used to render CAD data for marketing shots or animations.

“Out of all non-CAD software I use, modo’s snapping is the one I like best. It’s so versatile it’s crazy, everything except painting snaps! And when all I want to do is move this thing over there, the drag snap (rigid) does 95 % of everything I ever need.”

Simon Lundberg
London

How quick is modo?

modo been used by Adam O’Hern in the speed modeling competition known as Cut&Paste where he has been a finalist in the years 2009 and 2010.

“Every time I use modo on stage, people constantly want to know what I’m using. The modeling speed and flexibility are really impressive and enticing for designers, even to those who’ve been scared off by other packages. The rapid modeling and rendering work flow makes a speed-modeling event like Cut&Paste a cinch: I can worry less about modeling technique, and more about communicating my design intent. It’s a huge advantage.”

Adam O’Hern
Industrial Designer

Phil Brace

phil&teds was formed in 1995 to help parents retain a sense of self and live a dynamic life with kids. Based in New Zealand, they offer a stylish range of products that allow parents to adapt and survive. Phil Brace is the design leader at phil&teds. We recently caught up with Phil to explore some projects at phil&teds on the eve of the company’s introduction of a fabulous new jogging stroller called the “Sub 4” aka “The world’s fastest jogger.”

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Adam O'Hern

Recently we had a chance to interview Adam O’Hern, an industrial design consultant based in Santa Monica, CA. He specializes in corporate visual brand language development, and has worked on products ranging from laptops to power tools, audio gear to bathroom fixtures, lab instruments to lint rollers, and classroom toys to medical robots.

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Paul Beards

Any regular visitor to the modo forums is familiar with the many WIPs and active community participation by Sumimasen. We decided to get to know the person behind all of these great images and posts... Mr. Paul Beards. Paul works for Dyson Ltd in Malmesbury, Wiltshire in the UK as an Illustrator.

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Barnaby Gunning

Barnaby Gunning, principal at Barnaby Gunning Architects, designed the LEGO house built for James May’s Toy Stories television show, where each episode is focused on the creation of ambitious projects using classic toys. Gunning used modo to design the house built out of more than three million standard-sized LEGO bricks.

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Gene Dupont

Gene Dupont is a graphic artist specializing in creating 3D illustrations of packages and products at the San Francisco-based design firm, Thompson Design Group, and at his web based business, www.genedupont.com. In this interview Gene talks about his use of modo to create images for product design, packaging and computer graphic imagery for print advertising.

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Graeme Findlay

Graeme Findlay is a London-based designer who works at IDEO. In this customer profile, we feature the 3D modeling work in some of Graeme’s extra-curricular projects outside of IDEO, including the exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind, and the Project Smell +.

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McKay Hawkes

McKay Hawkes is a digital effects artist and experienced photo retoucher. In this interview, McKay explains how he was able to create photorealistic advertising graphics for Kensington’s line of computer input devices using the original CAD engineering data.

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Power SubD-NURBS

Power SubD-NURBS is a modo Plug-in that allows you to convert Subdivision Surface meshes created in modo into NURBS-based CAD formats and then export directly to standard CAD systems. This allows modo to be used as a flexible conceptual modeling tool at the initial stage of the design process, where modo’s ability to quickly create organic shapes is especially useful. With this Plug-in you can freeform model a variety of design alternatives in modo and then transfer them to your CAD system for further refinement and engineering.

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CAD Loaders for modo

Need to bring specific CAD format files into modo? The CAD Loaders for modo are ideal for designers, engineers, product visualization specialists and 3D generalists who need to bring CAD data into modo for visualization or design. In addition to simply loading CAD data, the CAD Loaders also provide interactive control over how geometry is imported and provide you with the ability to handle large files with repetitive elements.

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modo for SolidWorks Kit

The modo for SolidWorks Kit is for design and engineering visualization professionals working with SolidWorks data. The Kit allows SolidWorks users to tap into the complete visualization power of modo to produce high-quality presentations and animations that bring designs to life.

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Studio Environment Set 2 from 9b studios

SES 2 is a collection of high dynamic range spherically mapped images for interior lighting of product shots, industrial design presentations, engineering visualization and packaging designs. Designed for people who want professional studio lighting results, SES 2 includes 50 new environments that are different from SES 1. For users of modo, Bentley Systems MicroStation and SolidWorks 2011 / 2012.

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PAD / Product and Automotive Design Kit

If you create consumer product or automotive imagery, the Product and Automotive Design Kit (PAD) can save you the trouble of painstakingly creating materials to accurately mimic real world surfaces like leather, carpet, tinted glass and mesh grills – or even “x-ray” materials that reveal interiors. Showcase every curve, line and silhouette of your model with incredible speed.

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Sunglasses Modeling

This new series of video tutorials by master modo modeler Adam O’Hern is ideal for designers or anyone interested in hard-surface modeling techniques in modo 501. It starts at the very beginning, covering everything from the overall modo user interface to the most commonly-used tools and techniques for hard-surface modeling and rendering in modo. A rapid prototype of the glasses are produced as part of the tutorial.

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May 2012

Renderosity

modo 601 review by Ricky Grove

While legacy 3D programs are working to re-write two decades of code in order stay relevant in the fast moving 3D market, modo is based on modern, flexible code that allows Luxology to slowly build up features like animation over several years, so that the development is done right. Quality and simplicity are key to the release of modo 601, which, in my view, is now the most affordable, powerful and modern tool for working in 3D.

modo 601 is going to open so many doors for Luxology. There’s already been a wave of new users on the forums and many new tutorials are being created by excited users. I see 3D filmmakers adopting modo as a tool for filmmaking. The film RUIN by Wes Ball is a perfect example of what one artist can do with modo. The film was modeled entirely in modo.

Renderosity artists should give modo 601 a serious look as it simplifies the modeling process and allows for quick creation of models in a variety of formats. Perfect for the artist selling a wide variety of 3D models in the Renderosity MarketPlace.

modo 601 has my highest recommendation. I now work with the program daily, and through the outstanding community of artists, am learning just how incredibly deep this program really is.

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May 2012

SolidSmack

Power SubD-NURBS for modo 601 review by Josh Mings

If you know modo, you know it’s a powerful full-featured polygonal modeling to animation program. The surfacing and sculpting capabilities are phenomenal. Additionally, modo is able to create Subdivision (SubD) surfaces to refine the polygon mesh and, may I say, do so quite beautifully. The problem? CAD software is NURBS-based and doesn’t like those crazy meshes too much. Hence, Power SubD-NURBS, a new plugin for modo that converts SubD surfaces to a clean NURBS-based format.

This allows modo to be used as a flexible conceptual modeling tool at the initial stage of the design process, where modo’s ability to quickly create organic shapes is especially useful. With this Plug-in you can freeform model a variety of design alternatives in modo and then transfer them to your CAD system for further refinement and engineering.

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February 2011

Develop 3D

modo 501 review by Josh Mings

“modo 501 is a massive update to a program that mixes modelling, rendering and animation. More than ever, modo is becoming the program that does it all.

The effort put into the updates of each tool and tab in 501, even down to the help system, make this version an excellent upgrade option for those on 301 or 302 and, given the speed increases, a definite consideration for those on 401.

The most substantial are features easing the strain of modelling and smoothing the process of rendering. The bump map updates bring the ability to add much more detail at a fraction of effort and poly count. The implementation of Pixar subdivision surfaces is making this possible and providing many more options than ever for sculpting and shaping your model.

If you’re coming from a mechanical CAD background, modo is a different workflow with different terminology. However, the rendering interface and options will help you become oriented with the software while having an incredible amount of options available to create photorealistic images.

With modo becoming increasingly easier to use, it’s clear that Luxology is focusing its development efforts on the user or, at the very least, having them twitch repeatedly from a rendering they just created.”

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