Modo (stylized as MODO, and originally modo) is a discontinued
polygon
In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain.
The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon ...
and
subdivision surface
In the field of 3D computer graphics, a subdivision surface (commonly shortened to SubD surface or Subsurf) is a curved Computer representation of surfaces, surface represented by the specification of a coarser polygon mesh and produced by a re ...
modeling,
sculpting, 3D painting,
animation
Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...
and rendering package developed by
Luxology, LLC, which is now merged with and known as The Foundry. The program incorporates features such as
n-gons and edge weighting, and runs on
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
,
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
and
macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
platforms.
History
Modo was created by the same core group of software engineers that previously created the pioneering 3D application
LightWave 3D, originally developed on the
Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...
platform and bundled with the Amiga-based
Video Toaster
The NewTek Video Toaster is a combination of hardware and software for the editing and production of NTSC standard-definition video. The plug-in expansion card initially worked with the Amiga 2000 computer and provides a number of BNC connect ...
workstations that were popular in television studios in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They are based in
Mountain View, California
Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census.
Mountain V ...
.
In 2001, senior management at
NewTek
NewTek, Inc., is a San Antonio, Texasbased hardware and software company that produced live and post-production video tools and visual imaging software for personal computers. The company was founded in 1985 in Topeka, Kansas, United States, by ...
(makers of LightWave) and their key LightWave engineers disagreed regarding the notion for a complete rewrite of LightWave's work-flow and technology. NewTek's Vice President of 3D Development, Brad Peebler, eventually left Newtek to form Luxology, and was joined by Allen Hastings and Stuart Ferguson (the lead developers of Lightwave), along with some of the LightWave programming team members (Arnie Cachelin, Matt Craig, Greg Duquesne, Yoshiaki Tazaki).
After more than three years of development work, Modo was demonstrated at
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference centered around computer graphics organized by ACM, starting in 1974 in Boulder, CO. The main conference has always been held in North ...
2004 and released in September of the same year. In April 2005, the high-end visual effects studio
Digital Domain integrated Modo into their production pipeline. Other studios to adopt Modo include
Pixar
Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney ...
,
Industrial Light & Magic
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American Film, motion picture visual effects, computer animation and stereo conversion digital studio founded by George Lucas on May 26, 1975. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lu ...
,
Zoic Studios,
id Software
id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...
, Eden FX, Studio ArtFX,
The Embassy Visual Effects,
Naked Sky Entertainment and Spinoff Studios.
Modo 201 was the winner of the
Apple Design Awards for Best Use of
Mac OS X
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
Graphics for 2006. In October 2006, Modo also won "Best 3D/Animation Software" from ''
MacUser'' magazine. In January 2007, Modo won the ''
Game Developer'' Frontline Award for "Best Art Tool".
Modo was used in the production of feature films such as ''
Stealth'', ''
Ant Bully'', ''
Iron Man
Iron Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Co-created by writer and editor Stan Lee, developed by scripter Larry Lieber, and designed by artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby, the character first appearan ...
, and
Wall-E
''WALL-E'' (stylized with an interpunct as ''WALL·E'') is a 2008 American animated Romance film, romantic science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Andrew Stanton, produced b ...
''.
On November 7, 2024, Foundry announced the decision to discontinue the development of Modo.
Workflow
Modo's workflow differs substantially from many other mainstream 3D applications. While
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (East Africa), a p ...
and
3ds Max
Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It is developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capab ...
stress using the right tool for the job, Modo artists typically use a much smaller number of basic tools and combine them to create new tools using the Tool Pipe and customizable action centers and falloffs.
Action centers
Modo allows an artist to choose the "pivot point" of a tool or action in realtime simply by clicking somewhere. Thus, Modo avoids making the artist invoke a separate "adjust pivot point" mode. In addition, the artist can tell Modo to derive a tool's axis orientation from the selected or clicked on element, bypassing the needs for a separate "adjust tool axis" mode.
Falloffs
Any tool can be modified with customizable falloff, which modifies its influence and strength according to geometric shapes.
Radial falloff will make the current tool affect elements in the center of a resizable sphere most strongly, while elements at the edges will be barely affected at all.
Linear
In mathematics, the term ''linear'' is used in two distinct senses for two different properties:
* linearity of a '' function'' (or '' mapping'');
* linearity of a '' polynomial''.
An example of a linear function is the function defined by f(x) ...
falloff will make the tool affect elements based on a gradient that lies along a user-chosen line, etc.
3D painting
Modo allows an artist to paint directly onto 3D models and even paint instances of existing meshes onto the surface of an object. The paint system allows users to use a combination of tools, brushes and inks to achieve many different paint effects and styles.
Renderer
Modo's renderer is multi-threaded and scales nearly linearly with the addition of processors or processor cores. That is, an 8-core machine will render a given image approximately eight times as fast as a single-core machine with the same per-core speed. Modo runs on up to 32 cores and offers the option of network rendering.
Modo's renderer is a physically based ray-tracer. It includes features like
caustics,
dispersion, stereoscopic rendering, Fresnel effects,
subsurface scattering, blurry refractions (e.g. frosted glass),
volumetric lighting (smokey bar effect), and Pixar-patented Deep Shadows.
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
Luxology's Modo 501 at GDC 2011ro
Intel.com
{{3D software
3D graphics software
Global illumination software
3D animation software
3D computer graphics software for Linux
Proprietary commercial software for Linux