The words "easy" and "3D" don’t often come together. Hence, tools promising a better path for 3D tend to get plenty of attention. For its part, the Luxology team behind Modo is essentially the same one that brought Lightwave to the masses. Obviously, it has good standing in the community it serves (this team was among the first to bring SDS or subdivision surface technology to the 3D crowd). Of course, there are no guarantees, as 3D artists look to their own niche needs from gaming and film to broadcast. That said, some things remain constant: most 3D pros want a package that’s reliable and potent at modeling, animation and rendering. Alas, Modo is not an animation package.

Modo does modeling. Since 201 it also does 3D painting and rendering with strong export ties to Maya (through.obj,.ma Maya ASCII and.FBX) and Lightwave (.lwo) for finished animation. 3D Max is supported primarily via the FBX (Filmbox) format. In other words, Modo is used as a front-end for other animation programs. This is typically done by "baking" through its Shader Tree textures and effects to a single image map into a model for export. Modo’s baking system can handle all textures, procedural shaders, effects, OpenEXR and HDRI. Model objects can also be baked so that a low polygon count object can be substituted for a high poly count object, complete with other baked-on Modo surfaces. This is definitely a robust feature from 3D gaming to film.

Modo has the look and feel of clean, well-thought-out power. Modo’s default UI puts its Tool Bar and Render Settings to the left and most selection controls over a view port layout at the mid section. The management and accounting end of Modo is to the right where an Item List, Item Properties, Info and Statistics, Vertex Map List and Color Picker, etc. are positioned. As with most 3D programs, Modo is extremely customizable and can adapt to virtually any workflow imaginable.

Modeling tools in Modo are muscular and offer good implementation of subdivision surface tools. New features here are Mesh Paint, for actually painting geometry on models, and Mesh Instancing, for altering one model that updates changes to tens or even thousands of objects. A fresh Pen Tool to add vertices, lines or polygons on the fly is another new feature, along with the Slide Tool that allows for literally sliding and repositioning any kind of 3D geometry from edge loops to polygons. Building in Modo can take time to master and, although there are tutorials available from the package (an F1 key hit), I would recommend Dan Ablan’s 3D Garage Modo 201 Signature Courseware DVD-ROM trainer with its 15 hours of hands-on training. It’s a lively learning experience and hits most bases from scratch level to more advanced modeling, painting and rendering.

Hands down one of Modo’s key strengths is its UV surfacing interface. It actually works as advertised to make texturing models far easier with a very interactive Open GL unwrap and alignment UI that is relatively simple and logical.

Note: Better UV mapping is no petty trait when most 3D people spend as much (or more) time texturing their creations as they do building them.

What really struck me was Modo’s Paint Tool system, which is strong enough to stand as a UI and application on its own. Although a good deal of that clout is owed to Modo’s powerhouse UV editing capacity, this tool is more than clever at taking the mystery out of 3D paint with procedural style and a good bit of very pro fun, to boot. Next to get kudos is a fine GI (global illumination) renderer that is industrial grade and fast, even on massive scenes.

New packages in the 3D realm are rare, and for good reason. To build an audience they need to offer unique technology and a compelling path for artists to get their tasks done. Modo does this with a tasty modeler married to a world-class UV and Paint system that takes a good deal of pain out of surfacing 3D. Put another way, industrial strength modeling, GI rendering and UV Paint make Modo a triple threat and a tool to watch. For now, work built and surfaced out of Modo has to be finished in Maya, Lightwave, etc., for animation. But since Modo comes from a team that made its name in 3D animation, this, too, will no doubt change.