Blender VS Modo

Hi

I don’t want begin any fight or argument. I have work years ago with max, a few with maya and I know other software like houdini. Houdini is a great software but not to create assets for games, only FX and some procedural or mechanicals objets… and I preffer blender to max and maya, I think that the pipeline is better.

The last week I tried to learn modo because all people speak about this program. But after some days using the software I don’t see any special for my pipeline except mesh fusion and the “shadow box”. I don’t have a lot of free time and I want ask to the people that know both software which are the special features that modo have from a blender user perspective. Because learn a 3d suite is a big task and I will need months or more in that and I will preffer have more clear differences to see if I must learn modo or other software.

Then my question is ¿Which are the highlight features of modo if we compare with blender? from objectivity. I don’t think that is a bad software, but i want know if have enough features to compensate the learn process.

Like I told i don’t want an argument, trolls, fans,… only have the opinion of people that use blender and modo.

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Chris Offner put together some good videos that compare the two

thanks existe, but i think that the video talk about very basic concepts of the interfaces. I talk about the differences in particular tools that help you in the process. Like mesh fushion, or maybe differences in the workflow that improve a lot the time of the works.

The principal areas that I search is modeling, edit normals, retopo, scultping, texturing and UVs. The tools that I need for my work. For the rest of things like particles, fx,… i think that blender have really good tools and if i need better software I will use houdini.

First off, you mentioned the lack game asset creation with Houdini so I can only assume you want to use Modo for game assets. As far as that’s concerned, Modo is a great tool. It’s one of the only 3D DCCs that you can create Unreal and Unity materials and export your work directly to the engine. Modo’s viewport developed has taken a front seat lately. They seem to really be pushing for game dev hard. Totally ignoring other parts of the program. Which is great if you are into game dev but really sucks if you are into character animation.

EDIT:

I was going to try and answer all of your particular questions about the different parts of the program but to be honest… Other than the game export options and the game engine materials, Modo doesn’t really offer anything that special over Blender. I actually only use it for Modeling at work now. I think that Blender is more actively supporting my needs as an animator and film maker. Modo seems much more concerned with architectural/engineering/product visualization and game asset creation. They know who buys their program and are really tailoring it to those markets.

EDIT2:

Alright fine: Keep in mind that I use 3DSMax, Maya, and Modo all the time at work so I’m not really biased towareds any of them. Well, maybe I’m biased “against” Max though. :wink: Modeling is nice to be sure but you can do most of the same things in just about all the different programs. I don’t really know much about editing normals. Sorry. Retopo is nice and fast but it’s still poly by poly. Sculpting is kind of an afterthought and I either use dynotopo Sculpting in Blender or just use ZBrush. It’s really, really hard to beat Sculpting in ZBrush and if you’re going to spend money on a program, I would spend it on that. Texture painting in Modo is actually a bit lacking for my tastes. There’s not a lot of options for editing the brushes and it’s kind of a pain. It has a tendency to get really laggy way to easily. But, most of the time it suffices. UV’s are about the only area where I think Modo really kicks some serious ass. Most of the time it’s just, mark seams, unwrap, relax a bit, arrange and it’s done. That being said, since I always use Modo for UV, I haven’t really use Blender’s UV facilities enough to be able to compare.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, If you tried Modo and you weren’t in love with the UI or the way to tools work, I don’t think it’s really going to be an upgrade from Blender. Now, if you had a reason to learn it like if you were seeing a lot of job postings with Modo experience, then by all means go for it! But I have a feeling that Maya would be the better choice if you are seeking employment. :wink:

Now… If you were needing to do large clean renders of products or houses and stuff. Modo’s internal render engine is really, really nice. They have a really great pass system where just about anything that’s animatable can be overridden per pass. The preview window can update to show you any bit of pass data you need and it’s very fast and responsive. There’s a lot more to say about the render engine and look dev features in general in Modo. It’s really a shame they don’t want to farther develop their animation and rigging features because it would be a really great all round DCC if they did. But, since you wouldnt even be using those features, it don’t really make sense to use it.

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If your interest is in modeling, retopo, baking (texturing) and UVs… you should have seen what Modo has thats “special” by now. Basically Modo modeling is simply very good, this includes selections and tool implementation. You can do more with less. For example how bevel is also the extrude and the inset tool at the same time. Its really well done. The retopology tools are also very good, with a retopo pen that acts much like 3rd party specialty applications that specialize in retopology. Auto-retopo was also recently added.

Retopo Pen tool example

Baking is easy and extremely quick. Due to the shader tree (love hate relationship), you can get a lot more control with less time when it comes to baking out textures. For direct projection based texturing, it has that too. Its fairly basic stuff, though I wouldnt pick it over 3D Coat if the option was on the table. Modo is also known for its smooth edge shader, which lets you work at a low poly level and bake out normals that smooth edges rather than need to retopo on top of a sub-d mesh for the same result.

Tor Frick is known for using this method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buHpJSAJshM

UV editing is one of the best I have seen in a DCC app. Quick, painless, and dynamic. You can get near perfect results fast, and if you make some changes on the mesh… it reflects those changes on the UVs properly.

Normal editing is a bit like Maya. You can smooth and harden edges, verts and faces via a native integration of Farfarer’s vertex normal toolkit. Basic stuff, gets the job done with minimal effort.

The best part of all this though is that its all tightly integrated, so that you wont have to “relearn” too much just to work with it. Viewport and UV window act the same, Item list follows the same rules as the shader tree…ect

Procedural modeling was added recently as well, though to be quite honest I hate how it was implemented. Its not user friendly.

That said.
Do you need modo? Its really up to you as the artist and the workflow they desire. I went from Maya to Blender to Modo, will probably head back to Blender again at some point depending on where the winds blow with Modo (not happy with Foundry as the “owner”).

Blender doesnt feel as unified (workflow and design wise) as Modo, but it also gets the job done. Technically you get more customization out of it as well. It covers all the bases. Sculpting will be better than Modo currently, though you should probably use a 3rd party sculpting app instead of try to stay in application. Blender’s node workflows are some of the best I have seen so far. Modo’s is complete garbage. If the nodes in Blender keep improving and covering more areas, it will become a huge perk.

Blender will probably feel more comfortable as well for someone coming from Max, given the modifier workflow attached. There is also Bmax which you might be worth looking into https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?306867-BMax-Tools-or-how-I-left-3ds-Max-)

Again though its really up to the artist. I personally prefer the automation and smart design of most of Modo’s modeling, UV and baking to Blenders. It is very easy to make game assets in Modo, in fact thats one of their target goals with the software. On the flip side, I like the way Blender looks, with the nodes being pretty fun to use. It feels more down to earth, not necessarily better designed but maybe more enjoyable to use. Ultimately I’d write both applications off as a love hate relationship. You will just have to work with both and see which one you feel more comfortable in.

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Looks like MODO just earned another look from me. :smiley:

I worked two years in modo from 5 to 7 versions, then switched to xsi now in a blender
http://render.ru/gallery/work/87149#work
After this work, he never again opened a modo

Hi guys, thanks for the answers.

From your info I really see few reasons to learn modo. THe parts that I have worked is better in blender (sculpting, UVs, textures, retopo) and the few problems that blender have are solved thanks to some plugins that I think that make better tools than modo (YAVNE for example). Other parts like materials for me are less important because the pipeline that I’m using actually is substance painter and pick all the maps from this software and put all in unreal, unity or any other.

from pov I think that the blender GUI is strong and unified, all the tools are the same in all windows, hotkeys,… and the cursor and basic commands like translate, rotate, extrude,… use the magic of mouse distance in a perfect armony. After some work I think that blender have more modeling tools (except mesh fusion) that I use all the days, thanks to all the addons maybe.

The only things that I think that modo do better are

  • multiresolution in sculpting. A long problem for blender that nobody want solve. But I use Zbrush when i need it.
  • No remesh solution like “instant meshes”. For my this is weird because we can see a lot of free software with solutions for this.
  • Sub-D boolean solution, mesh fusion. The same that before, we can see some solutions to all this.

I think that modo have a good strategy, make a good game asset creation tool, and ignore the rest of things. Meanwhile BF want a suite for all instead to be the best solutioon for one part of the production.

Out of curiosity, which free software packages have remesh solutions like instant meshes? And are we talking “free as in beer” or “free as in speech”?

I don’t care about your curiosity. I really don’t know why i don’t have you in ignore list… Oh, yeah, because you are moderator.

I don’t care about your curiosity. I really don’t know why i don’t have you in ignore list… Oh, yeah, because you are moderator.

I would’ve been quite curious about this as well, in particular the “free software” that has something like Mesh Fusion. That would be a great feature to port to Blender, if only it existed.

From your second reply, I gather you were just talking rubbish?

Thing is, unlike Autodesk product’s… Modo (like Blender) isnt going to be on a requirement list to get an industry job (broadly speaking). So if you already have a 3D application you are happy with, that fulfills most of the needs without too many annoyances then yes it would make little sense to go and learn another application, especially if its just for the hell of it.

Then again, in order to evolve ones workflow and expectations, learning and doing projects within different applications can actually help an artist grow. It also helps provide better feedback as far as Blender development is concerned (not that its always taken into consideration).

THe parts that I have worked is better in blender (sculpting, UVs, textures, retopo) and the few problems that blender have are solved thanks to some plugins that I think that make better tools than modo (YAVNE for example). Other parts like materials for me are less important because the pipeline that I’m using actually is substance painter and pick all the maps from this software and put all in unreal, unity or any other.

(Playing a bit of devil’s advocate here)

Its hard to claim the plugin tools will be better than Modo’s, though that depends on on the plugin in question. However major detractor for Blender plugins vs native Modo integration is the long standing problem of Blender plugins depreciating over time…whether through incompatibility and breakage, or through the fact the authors go missing. The result is that users had to juggle multiple versions of Blender just to keep that “pipeline” intact. Additionally, Modo also has plugins that are pretty damn good, however I generally do not include those as part of reviewing software. Some examples of these plugins within Modo are Seneca Scripts (Seneca is a developer who worked at Id Soft (Doom 3, Rage…ect)).

The vertex normal toolkit which found its way into Modo’s native toolset was created by a developer at Rockstar games. Mix that Modo’s native smooth shader feature and the results/workflow will at least be on par if not better than something like YAVNE, with the added perk that its part of the native feature set…and therefor will be maintained over time. You could say there is a sense of security in knowing that features are more reliable than plugins due to one being 1st part and the other being 3rd.

UV editing is also vastly superior in Modo. That part isnt even up for debate. I wish that were not the case, but it is. Aside from the vast amount of features and near effortless UV management/editing found in Modo… it tightly mirrors, rather almost acts as though it is an extension of the 3D Viewport. One of Blender’s biggest cons in my opinion is that the UV editor is almost a separate entity altogether, the workflow is not necessarily consistent nor is the design intuitive. This isnt to say you cant get great results out of Blender, because you can… and its certainly does the job it sets out to do… but the level of development and integration between the two is pretty big. Hell if I didnt have a Modo license, I’d be tempted to pick up Modo Indie just for the UV tools on their own.

If blender developers could pick one thing to take from Modo, the UV editing features and implementation would be one of the top contenders.

On the subject of Sculpting. It is a tough one because on one hand Modo gives you the auto-retopology features, which can be used as a kind of poor mans Zremesher/Dynamesh (Zbrush). Additionally the brush controls are better (mirror’s 3D Coats approach). On the other hand, Blender’s brush strokes and displacement feel closer to Zbrush… thus giving a better sense of stroke control. The dynamic topology, via tris, mirrors 3D Coat’s live clay a bit. The result is that despite the better brush system (resize, strength…ect) in Modo, Blender’s sculpts will be much better with the final result. In short Modo really doesnt have much pull at the end of the day for sculpting.

Still it would be better served to not sculpt in either application, but instead opt for a dedicated sculpting program such as Zbrush or 3D Coat, assuming you have the funds.

Retopology on its own, objectively I still think it is better integrated into Modo. The retopo pen tool and the retopo layout with proper ghosting… as well as the background constraint system just make it faster in my opinion. When mixed with the UVs, many which are not broken by using such tools, the process is better. Between the two, Modo would have the edge on retopo. Again though, better to use a specialized application if one wants the best workflow. 3D Coat and Topogun take the cake with that one.

Thankfully, both applications will be covering the necessary workflow. Even if one is perceived to do a better job at something, there is a definite benefit for staying in one application for most of the pipeline. Blender and Modo will be covering all bases. If you know one well enough, the pull to learn the other is diminished.

I’ll end with one observation worth noting. You mention making use of Substance Painter (substances) and target game engines like Unreal/Unity. Blender is GPL, Modo is not. This means while Blender probably can’t get certain support for Allegorithimic’s Substances, Modo can.

Thus Modo has Substance support. Meaning you can use substances for rendering, baking and general texturing purposes within Modo. So if you have designer, you can make custom substances and work with them inside of the DCC application. This is also true for other primary players (Maya, C4D…ect). In Modo, these now work with its new PBR viewport as well, though apparently it still needs some adjusting for full compatibility.
See:

On top of that, Modo did integrate Unreal and Unity materials into Modo itself, thus creating parity between what you get in the game engine and what you can see in the viewport. With this parity, they added plugins in both Unity and Unreal in order to send stuff directly out of Modo and into the game engine.

See:

These are a few of the kinds of developments I would love to see happen with Blender. The challenges however, at least as far as substances, are in part limited by the licensing type. Whether or not Modo is worth the cost for those features is up to the artist.

This is more food for thought than a recommendation to switch or learn Modo. Rather, if anything it helps shed light on the subject so that users can have a more informed perspective regarding the two. A good artist will do fine in either application.

Fortunately I have the friend of Fweeb (beerbaron) in ignore list since a lot of time. I know that you will lick the ass of Fweeb in the message. Because you two are the worst example of people in this forum and the reason why the people know that blender is used in some studios only because somebody see a image of blender in a making off and nobody told nothing in this forum.

For this reason I don’t want know nothing about you two.

Responding to this comment in particular… as it should be broken up a bit and they are two different kinds of subjects. This one has less to do with Modo, but directly with Blender.

from pov I think that the blender GUI is strong and unified, all the tools are the same in all windows, hotkeys,… and the cursor and basic commands like translate, rotate, extrude,… use the magic of mouse distance in a perfect armony. After some work I think that blender have more modeling tools (except mesh fusion) that I use all the days, thanks to all the addons maybe.

It is not strong or unified. That’s kind of why we have years of UI debates, discussions and now a “revamp” target in relation to Blender’s future.

Each editor is its own window that over rides the keymap based on where the mouse hovers. Each one seems to exist in its own unique space. This is not exactly unified, sure they work together but a lot of what Blender does is broken up between editors. With a lot of “chefs in the kitchen” (er developers), there was bound to be a mixed bag of implementations and input types. On top of the already existing UI, more kept being added and it resulted in a lot of unnecessary scrolling and hidden menus, all of which again were separated by each individual unique editor.

Thus a lot of the goals for Blender going forward include workflow improvements, fixing and improving the UI, streamlining the keymap… ect A lot of it was long over due, but its happening regardless and that is a good thing. Its worth being cautiously optimistic over.

It was an honest question. I was hoping to learn something… perhaps even try these tools out myself. I’m not sure it warranted this kind of response from you. You’re welcome to have whatever opinion you’d like of me, but I’d appreciate it you limit your personal attack to be just via PM. This thread really isn’t the right place for that.

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Your reason i respect it, but since i meet Fweeb in real life i believe you have a very wrong image of him, that is sad :frowning:

Couldn’t one say Blender has remesh capabilities via the “remesh modifier”? =)

The only software that I can think of that is also free, that can remesh in some way, is MeshLab. It isnt a modeling application though.

@saintheaven

Ohhh, that was a dense message, really thanks for the time that you use in this, and the info that you add. I will try to comment all but sorry if my english is not very good.

I’m not agree with that modo won’t be a requirement of the industry. In my pov, the future is hard to predict. But I think that the future will be in the hands of modo, at least in games. I would think more in blender if we will have a strong support for studios that want a out of the box solution.

About blender plugins… my experiencie with all addons are good. I don’t lost any of them never, but maybe I’m wrong and with 2.8 I will repent of my words. You have reason that it’s important to have reliable addons along the time.

About UVs I don’t see that “vastly superior”, I see few tools. But for that reason I created this thread, because I will need a lot of time to discover all this things, the details of the tools. I’m not agree with the consistent/design comment of UV tool in blender but it’s something personal and how work the brain of each, something for me could be really logical and not for other. The only thing that I think that UV blender needs is a island border and better pack system. The few time that I spent trying this tool in modo I see few options, not clean solutions in the unwrap,… maybe I must spent some time with that.

The sculpting for my is a fast solution to little problems. I preffer Zbrush for a hard sculpt work. And I think that everybody do the same. I use blender sculpt only to scenes and works that need references from the rest of the scene. Because work with complex scenes in zbrush is painfull.

The retopo native tools in blender maybe are poor, but with retopoflow and other addons I think that I cannot improve this more. And I preffer don’t move of the program if I don’t need.

I’m not sure if blender cannot be compatible with substance materials because the license. But with my work and pipeline I that I don’t need. But maybe if I go back to make game covers and renders I will change my mind.

For this “things” that you told I want to learn modo. The part of “official support” is really important for all companies and I need to take in consideration. Could be likely that I change my mind when I see blender 2.8.

Yeah. It’s sad for me too but all artist that I know don’t want to talk here for this reason.

THis a good example in different points of view, I really like this part and I think that is good because I can use the same hotkeys for differents tools and depends of the context. I think that is one of the better parts of blender.

For example the problem of menus… I know all the tools that I need with the name and I can search in the searchbar. Only sometimes I need to go to some menus and it isn’t a problem.

Normally I would suggest that people should try and not cheapen themselves by airing such issues in a public venue, but to be candid I was in a voice chat last night with some game devs and we were talking about making a drinking game that involved people having problems with admins and staff on this forum.

But, and this might just be an artefact of my upbringing or as it was put once here “my type of people”, but there is a time and place to consider what impression that is being made. reputation of a thing that will follow you and quite often whoever you touch wherever you and those who associate with you go and it tends to have considerable impact on one’s life, relationships and earning potential.