Questo in inglese è la prima relazione dell'evento siggraph di presentazione modo. Questo pomeriggio inseriscono i video sul sito... intanto sappiamo che il rendering condiviso è illimitato, ci si compra una licenza e si renderizza su tutte le macchine che si desidera, pazzesco a dir poco e senza precedenti...
Si parlerà anche della piattaforma Nexus e dell'animazione questa notte in un nuovo appuntamento dove luxology dimostrà fino in fondo come hanno rivoluzionato il comparto, tra poche ore ne sapremo di più e potremo edere anche i relativi video...

ADL

It started out with dead silence, and a deep dark voice introduced Allen Hastings. He came out to the stage and didn't peep a word and starting painting on a 3d object, then he was painting bump maps, then he walked off the stage. Brad Peebler came out and had a large projector screen behind him and told us what "marketing" wanted us to hear (in good humor, of course), then quickly move on! Brad wanted to cover 4 areas of modo. The first was modeling, and this covered all the new features and enhancements. The very first thing Brad wanted to cover was that Luxology listens to its users. Not only do they try to fulfill user requests but they try to take those ideas one step further and enhance them beyond what anyone would have expected. I believe Geometry Slide was the feature he showed to demonstrate this. In another demo, there was a lizard model where he wanted to add prongs to it, and using Falloff he had one prong he could keep pasting but the size would vary based on falloff, then he editied the geometry of the original prong and effected all the other prongs that had been copied. A cool feature, but barely the tip of the iceberg of things to come! Another feature was Polygon Reduction. You could tell a model what largest acceptable amount of polygons will be and you can selectively decide what areas get reduced and what areas need more. Overall, Modeling took up the most time as he actually demonstrated quite a few features like painting, sketching, and so on. You really need to see the video of what he did. He then moved on to UV Mapping, and it was basically a two step process that lasts less than 60 seconds and you're done. Brad spent more time asking the audience who UV maps, who hates it, and how tedious and painful it can be, then he told us how Luxology wanted to fix this problem and make it simple. At this point I'd say there was a fair amount of time spent on talking about the interface, and how integrated it is into the code so it can be customize any way you want.

Next Brad talked about painting and texturing. The lizard you see on the Lux web site was the same object used in the demo. Brad also painted a castle and showed a cool feature of how one paramter can modulate another parameter. For example, you set a gradient of red to yellow, but instead of being a regular gradient you assign the values to altitude, so depending at what altitude you are at the scene will determine when the paint starts to change color. This example was used for the castle walls. The higher up the castle he painted, the more yellow the castle became, all on top of the original brick layer. Very cool! Also, Brad covered the Allegorithmic image/procedural plugin for Photoshop which looks great and is free with modo 201 (or $99 if you decide not to buy modo). There is more but holy crap it's 2:19 a.m. and it has been a long day and I'm going back tomorrow.

Next Brad talked about Render. I think most people have seen or heard rumors about rendering and everything holds true. It's very fast. FWIW, unlimited render nodes will be free with the single purchase of modo 201. modo 201 will use a bucket render system and take full advantage of your Intel CPU whether its Xeon, P4 with Hyper threading, or P4 Dual Core with Hyper Threading. This was the first Lux demo I had ever seen where they didn't use Mac.

The above topics covered the four main things Brad wanted to express as part of what's coming with modo 201. After this he went into Nexus, and ulimtaely animation as something that is definitely in the works and that's when he gave everyone a preview. He boldly stated Luxology is out to make a complete software solution...that plays nice with others! That seemed to be the theme for the night. I didn't get the feeling Brad was holding anything back or was leaving out any important information that will make us wonder where Luxology is headed. I think they realize they left us in suspense long enough and tonight was the night they made everyone who attended feel confident that Luxology is out to change the face of 3D forever. Everyone seemed to agree.


Hoepfully I've covered everything accurately. It's late, I'm beat, and I'm do back in the morning! Being at the show all day then partying all night has taken it's toll. __________________
Mark Holloway
http://www.markholloway.com