Ryan Drue from Luxology joined us on April 17th to give us a run down of Luxology’s new kit, HDRE. Check it out below.

Tags :HDRE, Ryan Drue

Check out the video below to get some tips and tricks on using ZBrush and modo together.  Thanks Henning for all of the info and we’re looking forward to another one!

Tags :modo, pipeline, workflow, zbrush

In this modo user group meeting Curt Thurston discussed one of modo’s unique features, falloffs.  Thanks to everyone who attended and thanks Curt for the great presentation!

Tags :curt thurston, falloffs

On March 6th Matthias Zellerhoff (Zeller) gave us some insight into his techniques of cloth modeling.  Check it out by watching the video below.

Tags :cloth modeling, zeller

Hi everyone.  Today I released two new training series for modo 401 that is geared toward beginners.

Foundational 3D with modo 401 covers terms and topics that the complete 3D newbie needs to learn and be familiar with as they enter the world of 3D graphics.  The series uses modo 401 while discussing the different 3D terms and topics so that the user can become more familiar with the interface.

The Beginner’s Guide to modo 401 takes the user who has completed Foundational 3D or already has 3D experience with another software package and illustrates tools that make modo unique like action centers, falloffs and the workplane.  We then look at modo’s modeling tools and discuss various ways of modeling different types of objects.  It then finishes with texturing, lighting and rendering a basic product shot.  The aim is to get a new user comfortable with modo’s modeling toolset as quickly as possible while exploring some of modo’s texturing, lighting and rendering capabilities.  It does not cover all of modo’s capabilities like sculpting, hair, animation or other more in depth topics.

Foundational 3D with modo 401 is available for $27.00.  The Beginner’s Guide to modo 401 is available for $35.00.  It is suggested that if you are new to 3D that you purchase the combo deal of both training series for $55.00.  If you have experience with 3D then you may want to just go straight to The Beginner’s Guide to modo 401

Tags :geoff swartz, training, tutorials

For our meeting yesterday we discussed each individual action center in modo.  It’s one of modo’s unique features that sets it apart from other 3D programs.  Along with the default action centers we also briefly explored how you can mix action centers with different axis to get the result your after.  We had a great question & answer time afterwards that even included some non-action center related questions.  Thanks to everyone who was able to attend and let us know if you have any questions.  We’ll do our best to answer them.

Action Centers Presentation by Geoff Swartz

Tags :action centers, geoff swartz, modo

Hey everyone, we’d like to get your input on what you’d like to see for the topic of the next meeting.  Here’s a quick poll and if we can get some ideas over the next couple of days hopefully we can line something up.  We can’t guarantee that the highest rated topic will be what we cover because if it requires someone to present that isn’t available that day, we’d have to work around their schedule and try to line it up for the next time.  So cast your vote and let us know.  Thanks!

Tags :meeting topics, poll

Yazan Malkosh gave us an awesome preview of his soon to be released Studio Lighting & Illumination Kit.  We’ve all agreed that most other 3d apps are going to quite jealous of this functionality.  And what’s amazing is that it’s all built off of tools already in modo without an SDK or any kind of plugins.  Just native 401 functionality used to create some very cool new features.  Thanks Yazan!

Here are some features of SLIK

• Pre-built studio lighting & camera setups
• Lighting assembly presets, scenes, material presets & HDRI environments
• The ability to create HDR images from your studio setup straight from modo
• Completely customizeable backdrops (height, width, floor rounding,  etc.) which can include underlighting and tents.
• Presets scenes based on object scale. (eg. lighting a watch vs.  lighting a car)
• Ability to change what is rendered in reflections for a more realistic  reflection
• Quick access to all of the item’s properties without having to navigate through a bunch of hidden channels
• Live creation of studio setups
• And all while getting immediate feedback via modo’s interactive render window

Presentation

Questions & Answers

Tags :HDRI, lighting, rendering, SLIK, yazan malkosh

Coming up this Saturday, February 6th we’ll be having a presentation by Yazan Malkosh with the latest kit from Luxology.  We can’t give details at this point but let me just say it is an amazing  kit that you WILL want to see.  Be sure to sign up for the mailing list if you haven’t yet.  Hope to see you Saturday!

Geoff

If you made it then I’m sure you’ll agree that this was a great meeting!  Warner McGee took us inside the planning and execution of designing and modeling a 2d character in 3d. He shared some great tips for all the work that comes before you even open modo and stressed the importance of realizing that modo (and any other application) is simply a tool which can’t replace an artist’s creativity.  Warner also mentioned a cool site for finding photos… cooliris.com.  Thanks a lot Warner!

Tags :character creation, warner mcgee