MODO 12.2
Discover Modo’s latest release
| | price £1,499 standalone / £499 per year subscription company Foundry Website www.foundry.com/products/modo
We reviewed the first release of Modo 12 back in Issue 236, and now that we are with the final release of the product’s threepart lifespan, we can look at version 12 and take stock of where Modo is now.
First of all let’s take a look at the new features that come with Modo 12.2. It could be argued that Modo has been on a constant refinement path rather than offering lots of splashy new features; that being said, there are definitely some big new additions that will be compelling to new and existing users.
Following on from the addition of the beta integration of AMD’S Hybrid Radeon Prorender in the previous point release, the Modo developers have brought in NVIDIA’S Optix Denoiser to clean up renders from Modo’s proven CPU renderer.
This is a big deal for a couple of reasons. As powerful as Radeon Prorender is, it does need its own texture and lighting conventions which are disparate from the core Modo rendering solution.
This is not the case with the NVIDIA Optix Denoiser – just switch it on via the Final Color Output on the Shader tree and ‘boom’, much, much cleaner renders with practically no loss in render time. (In fact, in some cases the Gpu-accelerated Optix Denoiser may make renders slightly quicker.) The only downside with the Optix Denoiser is that it cannot be supported on the latest Mac systems due to a lack of NVIDIA drivers, which is not Foundry’s fault.
It is great to have this addition to Modo’s first-party render system, which has always been quick to learn but can be slow to master. With the addition of the NVIDIA Optix Denoiser, the path to production-ready renders has been drastically shortened.
Modo 12.2 also sports a new UI, and while it may be a bit of a shock for existing users, it is much more streamlined, which is a good thing, and definitely feels better on a 4K screen than
any previous version of Modo. The new default layout has quick access to all the major toolsets, and is likely to subvert the old Modo methodology of switching between defined layouts.
This new lick of UI paint has been accompanied by features like the new Workbench toolbar, which allows the creation of an easily edited menu of tools, scripts, macros, in fact whatever the artist wants, directly within one of the Workbench toolbar areas in the UI. This is easily the most intuitive bespoke panel creator I have used across any application. The Workbench toolbar has the ability to add recently used tools and is available across all the new layouts. If this is the direction that Modo is taking with its UI – then more of this please!
Speaking of more, there are a lot of new UI enhancements that serve to make animations easier to manage. It’s easy to record specific elements, for example a rotation, and then simply save and apply that to other meshes.
The procedural modelling tools have been given a lot of love in Modo 12.2, which makes the option of using the procedural modelling toolset even more enticing. Plus, these tools also apply to some fantastic procedural UV enhancements. The only issue is that it can be hard for the uninitiated to actually tell the difference between all the new procedural tools, as the iconography for the procedural tools is very similar.
Meshfusion has also gained features, including much better strip control, along with the new skirt ability for the Surface Strips toolset, which creates much better final meshes with a more logical and tidier topology.
The Modo VR UI also allows selection of edges, vertices and polygons amongst other new enhancements, which makes the VR toolset much more of an integrated part of Modo rather than an addition. This is an exciting new toolset for Modo artists which should be explored by those with VR hardware.
Summing up Modo 12.2 and Modo 12 as a whole, there is a lot to like now that we are at the end of the version 12 process; Modo is evolving nicely for its user base.
The new UI improvements, procedural enhancements and Gpu-accelerated rendering options make Modo 12.2 worthy of a look for any artists looking for a unique and customisable modelling environment, which could potentially be, in some use cases, all an artist would need.
“The procedural Modelling Tools have been Given a lot of love in Modo 12.2, which Makes The option of using The procedural Modelling Toolset even More enticing. plus, These Tools also apply To some fantastic procedural uv enhancements”