Modo/mari indie experience

Development Rendering
1

Hi,

I am thinking about buying mod and mari indie. Currently I am on the 801 trial for modo and love the tool so far. However, as time soon runs out, I d’love to hear about experiences using these two tools together with UE4.
So if you are using, or have tried, either modo indie or mari indie, could you please tell me if you are happy with them? I know it’s not possible to use plugins with modo, but I think this is not really a big deal.
Generally I am looking for a tool which covers the whole asset creation process. I know Maya LT, but at around 800 it is too expensive for me now. The modo/mari combo looks fine.
Regarding mari indie, is there anyone uisng it? Or is everyone using Substance?
If you tried modo, but ended up using something else…why id you not choose modo indie?

Thanks a lot

2

My ONLY complaint about modo is the lack of high quality tutorials. Other than that, it is perfect!

I am going to use substance instead of mari though.

3

why not mari indie? it seems mari indie is not often used for game texturing; I wonder why s it seems to be a nice package?

4

Modo indie doesn’t support scripting, there are a bunch of useful script that speed up your modeling workflow. That’s my main grip with modo indie. If you like to use Mari indie for paint PBR asset you’ll be out of luck, Mari does not support PBR workflow(version 3 probably will). Substance Painter does support PBR out of the box, and was design for game asset authoring from the beginning. Mari was design for film asset/workflow.

Mari 3.0 is probably a few months away from release, so at least wait for that before buying the indie version.

awesome scripts: Loading...

5

Thanks for the info guys, just started my 30 day MODO trial…

6

Modo indie is a brilliant piece of software. I will be honest and say that the only limitations I have had so far have been down to my own lack of 3D modeling and unwrapping experience.

7

Though, when you start with MODO you might have to factor in additional costs, a lot of good tutorials are only accessible on DigitalTutors. I managed to make basic 3D stuff but decided to check out Blender now …

8

There’s tons of good stuff for MODO on YouTube, just look it up. :slight_smile:

The ones I like are small tidbit videos - I don’t want entire DT sessions on something big, but hands-on with tools and doing specific things. Practicing along with that, at least for me, works the best.

Here are some random channels I follow:

Tor Frick - Tor Frick - YouTube
Peter Eriksson (pkberiksson) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkZSXaPSO3ZtiOE3WiSbPDg
Peter Stammbach (stammpe2) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ2NYo3MqqKi96TqQyl5_jQ
Pavel Dostal (Luxgiver) - Pavel Dostál - YouTube
Villusion Studios - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSl6f733PwHNlic8MrBKhBQ
3dthunder - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJRcpe5sQZivoje6bL-FtDA

9

I have spent some time in MODO Indie and its a great software with all the stuff you need for composing 3D and animations. What I didnt like is the infinite-grid. And the material-editor was
abit wierd. So the workflow was just not for me. Now I use Blender3D but Im thinking about to go with MayaLT again when they get the sculpting tool and they said it will be out 26 march after a day or two on Steam. “To confirm, yes! The 2016 version will be coming to Steam. It should be on March 26, or possibly after a day or two.”

So MODO Indie is a great software, but the workflow is not just me :slight_smile:

10

I love it but the lack of mods bothers me, I’ve never used any but a lot of people on the forums swear by them. Even without it though it’s still amazing. I also do all my texturing and uv stuff in modo. I’m really surprised more people don’t use the texturing tools, it’s like the way spotlight should work in zbrush. I can’t stand substance painter myself. Everybody has there preferences though.

11

Modo and Mari full editions are great, INDIE not so much

I have used Sculptris, Modo and Mari exclusively to make a character model as a pet for Torchlight 2 with the non-nodelocked educational license.
This includes: sculpting(sculptris), retopology(modo), modelling(modo), smoothing groups(modo), uv unwrapping(modo), texture painting(mari), animation(modo), rendering for video(modo).

You can see my model in-game and my workflow in last part of the video on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO9W0dfJD_s

Torchlight II Steam Workshop here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=176913718

Several of the tools I use in modo are scripts made by other people,
because modo’s standard interface/tools are simply not good enough for me when doing game models.
But with the custom scripts, modo is simply a bliss to model in.
I have also had teaching in: 3DS MAX 2010-2014, Maya 2014, Blender 2.6x.
Modo is simply so much more enjoyable to me than the other software packages I have tried.
One example in the video, is that you see me do smoothing groups with edge loops, like Maya does it. Not possible without scripts.
You can do smoothing groups in Modo’s default interface somewhat, but you have to do it through the window menus every single group you want to make. Sigh

So for modo, when they decided that INDIE should not have scripts and plugins,
I think they missed the mark by a long shot on that one in terms of enticing the indie developers.
I will never consider buying/subscribing to modo INDIE with those limitations.
And there are many more limitation…
One would think that the unshareable modo files was enough of a limitation in itself, that the other limitations wasn’t necessary?
And why would The Foundry think that “Full dynamics toolset” is more useful for an INDIE game developer than usability scripts? Boggles my mind!

As for Mari, I love the way I can paint on a 2d canvas before projecting it onto the 3d model. It took some time to adjust to, but it is so much more powerful than direct 3d painting.
Regarding Mari INDIE’s limitations, 4096x4096 maximum pixel textures are good enough for my needs,
but I think it has some limitations as to how many “patches”(extra textures/material id’s) you can have loaded per object. I think it is 6 at present.
But only 3 objects loaded per scene. If my character model required separate models for every bit of clothing for customization, Mari INDIE is not good enough for me there either.

But yeah, make sure to read up on those limitations, they might not be a problem for your project.

I saw the limitations listed on steamcommunity.com:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/289550/discussions/2/624076851317052780/

I can only praise the full editions of these two software packages, but not the INDIE editions.

Best regards

12

You make some good points. I really wanted to like Modo indie but the limitations are stupid…no scripts? It doesn’t make any sense. The locking of files and export/render limits should be sufficient.

I’ve yet to find anyone seriously using modo that isn’t using a mountain of scripts. They are too important to leave out. I hope they think about unlocking scripts for the next release.

13

I use MODO indie and I love it, I swapped from Maya LT to MODO indie. The Foundry are a lot more generous than Autodesk. Maya has a ton of stuff that isn’t in Maya LT (Hypershade is really watered down in LT, no GoZ support in LT, this is off the top of my head). With MODO indie you get everything thats in MODO apart from scripts and there is a poly limit when exporting which is more than enough for game assets, along with the few other things mentioned above. For game art its perfect!

MODO indie is so quick and there are a few features that are a real life saver (edge smooth shader can now be baked into normal maps!) I will admit that some of the user made scripts look bad ***, swiss knife tool, seneca scripts. It would be cool if TF let us have at least 3 scripts as a max that we can change on a monthly basis may be?

Anyway my experience with MODO indie has been amazing. I have a few tutorials that really helped me (environment modelling, prop modelling, UV mapping basics etc.) If anyone wants access to them I would be more than happy to share my Google Drive link, sharing is caring :slight_smile:

14

I also started testing MODO today and it seems that you can buy MODO and MARI for $150 if you are a student which is awesome.

15

You can get Maya for free if you’re a student.