modo 501 image by Simon van de Lagemaat
modo 501 Technical Specifications

modo 501 Technical Specifications

General System Requirements

  • 2 GB RAM
  • 2 GB available hard disk space
  • Mouse or pointing device (pressure sensitive tablets supported)
  • OpenGL 2.0 accelerated graphics (at least 1280 x 800 resolution)
  • Internet connection required for product activation
modo image by Luxology

modo 501 renders this image 3.1 times faster than modo 401.

Macintosh System Requirements

  • Mac® OS X 10.6 or later (32 and 64-bit)
  • Intel processor(s)
  • 2 GB available hard disk space (for full content installation)
  • 2 GB of RAM
  • OpenGL 2.0 accelerated graphics (at least 1280 by 800 resolution)
  • Mouse or pointing device (pressure sensitive tablets supported)
  • Internet connection (needed for product activation and to access online videos)

Windows® System Requirements

  • Windows 7, Vista and XP (32 and 64-bit)
  • Intel Xeon/Core 2 Duo or Quad /Core i7 or AMD Opteron/Phenom processor(s)
  • 2 GB available hard disk space (for full content installation)
  • 2 GB of RAM
  • OpenGL 2.0 accelerated graphics (at least 1280 by 800 resolution)
  • Mouse or pointing device (pressure sensitive tablets supported)
  • Internet connection (needed for product activation and to access online videos)

User Interface and Workflow

  • Fast startup speed
  • Inline Help system with tutorial videos and search function
  • Preview renderer updates as you work or as you mouse over
  • High-quality OpenGL display (including ray-traced view)
  • Completely configurable viewports (size, function, visibility options and location)
  • Preset Browser provides access to wide array of pre-built content
  • Input fields support math operations like 5*2m
  • Pie menus offers "heads up" menu selection
  • Renderings begin instantly, with no waiting
  • Drag & Drop support
  • Undo/Redo enabled
  • 3D navigation method can emulate other 3D programs
  • Task-specific layouts provided for common operations (like painting)
  • Help mode invokes explanations of any selected tool or command when clicked (often with video examples)
  • Tool values can be hauled (adjusted) directly in the viewport with visual feedback
  • Commonality of commands across modo (e.g. paint tools use same system of Falloffs as modeling tools do)
  • Cut / copy / paste functionality
  • Smart selection of polygons, vertices and edges (including pre-highlighting, grow selections with arrow key)
  • Customizeable color picker
  • Cursors indicate selection type
  • Extensive system of Falloffs (spatial influence of tool)
  • Extensive system of Action Centers (definable origin for modeling and transform operations)
  • Shadowcatcher feature simplifies placing 3D objects into existing photos
  • Easily align-able workplane
  • Measure the parallax offset at any point in your scene for stereoscopic productions
  • User Interface forms and viewports can be easily spread across multiple monitors
  • Over 2GB of pre-built content, plus access to Asset Sharing portion of Luxology website

Modeling and Sculpting Features

  • Complete hybrid polygon/SubD/Ngon modeler with extensive toolset for creating and modifying meshes at the vertex, edge and polygon level
  • Pixar Subdivision surfaces support sharp creasing and multi-resolution sculpting
  • Re-topology modeling (model and sculpt on top of existing geometry)
  • Extensive duplication tools support mirroring, linear and radial arrays
  • Deformation tools let you twist, bend and shear geometry
  • Instance replicators let you create render-time instances of meshes (like barnacles, leaves or welds) with trillion polygon detail and time-varying appearance
  • Add thickness to existing geometry
  • “1 click” modeling tools (e.g Add Loop)
  • Flexible coordinate systems (SI, Metric,English, Game Units)
  • 3D primitives and text
  • Solid Sketch tool for quickly creating base meshes with branches
  • Symmetric modeling
  • Pen tool supports structured drawing with snapping
  • Curve creation tools
  • Smoothing Groups
  • Model over background image
  • Snapping (to grid and geometry) supports precise placement and can be invoked and modified during tool use
  • A scene can reference multiple files on disk
  • 2D Profile Presets can be used when modeling
  • Sketch tool lets you create lines, curves, straight lines, slices, or quad strips
  • Sculpt or use traditional modeling tools at will (sculpting is not a mode)
  • Modifier keys affect the behavior of sculpting tools so you do not need to drop a sculpting tool to get opposite effect (Push vs. Pull for example)
  • Mesh-based sculpting for roughing out forms
  • Image-based sculpting for adding fine surface detail
  • Multi-resolution sculpting supported on Pixar SubD’s
  • Mesh Paint tool lets you add geometry onto surfaces with a brush
  • Unique vector displacement brush lets you create a brush from 3D geometry and sculpt with it (e.g. an ear)
  • Sculpting can be made to constrain to an existing surface
  • There are ten 3D sculpting tools:
    • Push
    • Smooth
    • Tangent Pinch
    • Spin
    • Move
    • Carve
    • Flatten
    • Smudge
    • Emboss
    • Mask

Fur Features

  • Fur material lets you create wide variety of effects such tinsel, grass, hair or fur
  • Create vast forests or leaf detail with images mapped to Billboards
  • Fur is readily visible in both OpenGL and Preview
  • Fur can be interactively styled with guides
  • Adjust Fur length, spacing, and tapering
  • Support for flexing, jitter, strays and clumping
  • Kink and frizz options
  • Fur can inherit color from textures (e.g. tiger stripe image)

Rendering Features

  • Fast ray-tracer with physically-based shading options
  • Preview renderer updates as scene changes are made and progressively renders to near final quality
  • Multi-threaded to use all available cores on your system
  • Time-enabled for rock solid motion blurs, stable reflections in animations
  • Layer-based Shader Tree offers Photoshop-like control over materials and environments
  • Fast global illumination (GI)
  • Physical sky and sun (specify location, date and time)
  • Fog
  • 2D and 3D procedural textures require no UVs (e.g. cellular, rusted panels, monster skin)
  • Render high resolution images to disk that vastly exceed available memory
  • Extensive lighting model (point, dome, area etc.)
  • Extensive array of render outputs (over 30 types)
  • Stable GI solution for walk-through animations.
  • IES (photometric) lights
  • HDRI lighting
  • Bake maps to single or multiple images
  • Displacement rendering of micro-tessellated polygons at trillion polygon detail
  • Orthographic rendering
  • Transparency can vary with absorption distance.
  • Edge Contour rendering
  • Subsurface Scattering
  • Anisotropic Blurred Reflections
  • Weight maps
  • Volumetric lighting and deep shadows
  • Instance and replicator rendering to trillion polygon detail
  • Curve rendering
  • Depth of Field
  • Bokeh effects
  • Stereoscopic support and output formats
  • Blurry refraction
  • Dissolve
  • Occlusion shading
  • Dispersion
  • Photon mapping
  • Light linking
  • Clear coat
  • Fresnel Effects
  • Motion Vector output
  • Vertex illumination baking
  • Network rendering on up to 50 workstations

3D Paint Features

  • Use Airbrush, Paintbrush, Smudge, Fill and Erase brushes to paint directly on your 3D models
  • Create and save your own brushes
  • Paint layout includes a canvas, gallery-style row of images along the bottom, a color picker and brush preview pane
  • Paint on any image in the Shader Tree
  • Paint across multiple images and onto multiple UV maps
  • Roller brush facilitates continuous painting
  • Image ink lets you paint existing images onto surface
  • Image maps can be used to drive over 25 effects (e.g. displacement, bump, specular). Paint bump maps in real-time
  • Paint on objects that lack UV’s

UV Editing Features

  • Streamlined user interface for interactive UV editing
  • Use same tools as rest of modo to rotate, move, scale etc.
  • Easily visualize the distortion of UV polygons against 3D polygons as RGB colors
  • UV projection to variety of shapes (e.g. cubic)
  • Project from view option
  • Unwrap tool with seal holes (e.g. eyes) option
  • Relax tool
  • Peeler tool
  • Fit UV’s option
  • Pinning lets you nail down portions of UV map
  • Numerous UV alignment and expansion options
  • Sculpting tools work in UV Editor
  • Move and sew
  • Cut / copy / paste functionality
  • Show UV overlaps option
  • Symmetry option
  • Show poly fill option
  • Pack UV option

Animation Features

  • Set keys on virtually any property of any item
  • Graph editor with curve-based control and slope options
  • Schematic view provides visual connection editor for building rigs
  • Transforms can be layered easily
  • Seconds, Frames, SMPTE and film code time systems
  • Import animated scenes from other 3D applications in MDD format and render it in modo
  • Can save animation in OpenGL viewport or Preview Renderer as a movie
  • Cut, copy, paste keys
  • Animate while seeing real-time playback
  • Reverse playback option
  • Vertex map deformers
  • Camera and light targeting
  • Morph targets (aka Blendshapes) are fully editable and can multiple morphs can drive the shape of the item at any given time
  • You can render an animation to a sequence of still images or to a movie file
  • COLLADA and FBX file support
  • Channel linking and custom user channels
  • Extensive library of constraints and modifiers
  • Time offset channel
  • 2D Inverse Kinematics
  • Face Camera option
  • Dynamic parenting
  • Ability to save re-usable rigs with simplified labels and shape controls that explain operation

Developer Features

  • Toolpipe lets you customize and create new tools
  • Script in Perl, LUA, Python
  • Software Developer Kit (SDK) provided with each modo license
  • modo can be used in headless mode for command line operation

Marketing and Reference Materials

Current modo 501 Version

Previous modo Versions

 

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modo 501 Feature Tour
Rendering
Rendering Part 2
Rendering Part 3
Preview Renderer Improvements
Pixar Subdivision Surfaces
New Modeling Tools
Replicators
Multi-Res Sculpting
Fur / Hair Enhancements
Animation Rigging and Assemblies
Improved Workflow and UI
New Content Included

modo 501 Technical Specifications
modo 501 Brochure PDF
modo 501 Improvements PDF
modo 501 File I/O PDF
modo Plug-In SDK PDF

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