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Today many artists are assembling a set of world class content creation tools and then using the combination of them for maximum advantage. You already know the power of 3ds Max… consider adding modo. Many people find modeling with modo to be faster, particularly when tackling organic shapes. And we think you’ll find the UV editing power of modo to be best in class. And the 3D painting in modo is a real time saver. You can even configure modo to navigate just like 3ds Max.
We have assembled some examples below to give you a hint as to how other artists and designers have added modo to their 3ds Max workflow to create a combination that leverages the best of both packages.
Artist Chris Morris worked with Harley Davidson's ad agency to show them some different ways to integrate 3D CGI into their traditional photography workflow. The bike was modeled beautifully in 3ds Max and then imported into modo. There the model was tweaked and quickly rendered using the modo’s advanced shader tree.
Read Chris' first hand account about working with 3ds Max and modo.
 
Additional Note from Chris:
My name is Chris Morris and I am a CG artist at Giannini Creative Imaging in Chicago, a creative imaging studio servicing ad agencies in Chicago and abroad.
The Harley VROD project was a test conducted for two reasons. First, we are working with Harley Davidson's ad agency, Carmicheal Lynch out of Minneapolis and wanted to show them some different ways that we can integrate 3D CGI into their traditional photography workflow. The second reason for the test was to give modo's new texturing and rendering capabilities a try. We had modo 103 and were impressed by it's modeling capabilities, but we wanted to see how 201's new rendering engine stacked up against our main rendering platform, mental ray.
I started with an existing VROD mesh created in 3ds Max by Tomasz Rozkosz. This model was exported as an obj file and opened in modo where I made some further modeling modifications. Then it was time to try the Shader Tree. Most of the CG work we do is integrated into photography - so photorealism is essential. It is the little details that will make or break us on a project. In mental ray, I usually build very complex shaders to achieve the rich details we need. I was surprised at how quickly I was able to build similar shaders in modo's shader tree. The ability to easily stack and mix layers of materials together combined with modo's wonderful UI that puts all the controls for those materials in one place (and a speedy interactive preview) allowed me to experiment and tweak my shaders much more efficiently than our old workflow. And as a bonus, it was fun! Instead of the tedious building of a complex network of shaders and render tests, I felt like I had much more creative control and instant feedback throughout the process.
Another discovery was the robust integration of Global Illumination in modo. Because of the nature of the work we do, I rely pretty heavily on GI, FG, HDRI and Image-based lighting, and Ambient Occlusion to give CG lighting that real world feel. Not only does modo include all of these tools built in, but as with every other aspect of modo's toolset, these functions are seamlessly integrated and easy to use. With just a few clicks I was able to create a lighting rig with great depth, richness and mood. And it was speedy, too! Despite a pretty heavy mesh and the burden of a lot of lighting effects that usually bring a renderer to a crawl, modo rendered out our final image in a very respectable time and the final results exceeded all of our expectations.
In this business, the only thing that ultimately matters is how it looks when it is finished, and for this project, modo delivered. Our client was blown away by the realism we achieved and our studio found a new application that has quickly become our artists' tool of choice. modo is an elegantly designed and engineered 3D package capable of producing the finest quality imagery. Our thanks to the people at Luxology. modo is a homerun!
Guillaume Gaillard is a freelance 3D Artist in Le Vigen, France. He created this image of an imaginary WWII secret German weapon which was designed, modeled and textured, and rendered for a TV movie teaser. First the design was manually sketched out. Then it was modeled with a combination of 3ds Max (including PolyBoost) and modo. Then it was UV'd and textured with modo. Next, lighting and final materials were applied in 3ds Max and then the image was rendered with mental ray 3.5. Any volunteers for a test launch?
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