Foundry MODO

Hi, it´s a pleasure and an i´m so proud that The Foundry has once again chosen one image from me for the release of MODO 901. The image was more or less a funny accident as i firstly just tried the new shader-system, then i tried to do something more complex with it and then the "Desert" idea came relatively quickly to my mind. As moving pictures are more sexy then just a single image it tried it with a (again) simple animation first, sadly it stopped here as i run out of time ... But anyway, here is the animation ... https://vimeo.com/128710341  

MODO NPR-Kit2 The Foundry recently released NPR-Kit version 2 which is quite cool in my opinion. Here are some early beta-testing images i have made with it and one short video just to check it out in motion. https://vimeo.com/129705426 Have fun ...

Let me scan it ... Recently we got a request to build a "cup cake" for a rendering, the same kind of cup-cake was already used before in traditional shootings but of course the cup-cake was not available anymore in real as some one my have had it for lunch =) So the question was if we model it using the one only reference photo available or if we try to scan it, we decided to give Agis Photoscan a try but to do so we need that cake in real again. Thomas found someone in Munich to bake the cake again using the ref-picture and then we started to shoot the cake here in our studio. The first session was done by me moving around the cake and shoot some freehand pictures in three rows, allover i shoot about 70 pictures or so, that worked okay and i got the first but not perfect 3d mesh. I used two LED-Lighsources to light the cake a bit and the shadows did not look to bad but in the end i got some ugly holes on the lower backside of the cake. I have no material to show as we used the trial-version which can not save or export. Next session was done by taking more care about the shadows and again it was me moving around the cake and the result was way better now, no holes but also not that super detailed 3d mesh in the end. The paper-cub thingy where the cake lives in did not show that zig-zag structure in the 3D mesh, but in combination with the textures it worked okay.     For my third test i liked to use a turntable from a friend of mine because in my theory it should deliver better results cause the lighting stays the same for all images. I tried to use a turntable before but only "freehand", means i just used my iPhone and shoot some quick´n dirty photos - big fail - results not useable at all. I used the same setup as above, two LED-Lights but the camera was at a fixed position on a tripod and again i shot three rows to capture as much as possible from the cup-cake. The result was amazing, the difference is already noticeable in the lower quality "sparse-cloud" But checkout the "ultra dense" point-cloud after merging the three point-clouds together ! This is freaking amazing =) Here are some screens from the final mesh, you can see the difference it makes using the ultra-cloud in the second picture especially in the "paper-cup - zig zag" region.   And here is a quick Modo render using the older not "ultra dense point-cloud", the pre-final mesh had also nice uv´s with only two uv-islands which makes it easy to paint extra maps like the one i did for the reflections.   I´m investigation more these days with different objects like a donut, a pixar walking teapot and a second cup-cake without the cut. Overall i´m really impressed what Agis Photoscan can do in no time, i stopped the time it takes to take the pictures for the second cup-cake and it only took 6 minutes for all rows.

Hello, After watching a cool MODO-video about how to exactly define hair-shapes using "cage-polys" used as guides, it suddenly came to my mind that this maybe is a new method to create light streaks. =) https://vimeo.com/108608110 As i have to do some animated streaks in MODO once again i decided to make me something like a rig. After a few hours i got the first "version" up and running using a bezier-effector to move the streaks along, but then i decided to use a normal spline-effector instead as i got some serious problems with "twists" on the geo. You can download the scene here and check it yourself, maybe it´s helpful for someone =) Download the MODO801-Scene

After watching Andrew Brown´s video about the growing vines for the new MODO 801, i liked to give it a try. Here´s what i ended up after a few hours of doodling.

ARVE Error: Mode: lazyload-lightbox is invalid or not supported. Note that you will need the Pro Addon for lazyload modes.

Yeahh, finally it´s released, MODO 801 is ready to download/buy which you by the way can do on our homepage www.meilenstein-digital.de too =) I recorded a few videos about features i like much in the new version, this time in german only as there a quite some cool videos available in english anyway. So here we go: First one is about the new DYNAMIC-REPLICATORS which are cool like hell - LOVE

ARVE Error: Mode: lazyload-lightbox is invalid or not supported. Note that you will need the Pro Addon for lazyload modes.

ARVE Error: Mode: lazyload-lightbox is invalid or not supported. Note that you will need the Pro Addon for lazyload modes.

ARVE Error: Mode: lazyload-lightbox is invalid or not supported. Note that you will need the Pro Addon for lazyload modes.

ARVE Error: Mode: lazyload-lightbox is invalid or not supported. Note that you will need the Pro Addon for lazyload modes.

ARVE Error: Mode: lazyload-lightbox is invalid or not supported. Note that you will need the Pro Addon for lazyload modes.

Hi, i had to animate a Rubik´s Cube for a pitch and this is what i have right now. Animation was done in Modo using traditional keyframes, nothing fancy.

In case that you don't know, i created a MODO related tutorial group 4 years ago with more then 400 tutorials online right now. Surf bye if you like or even better, join the group if you interested in MODO.

Here is a quick tutorial how to build a "rig" to animate a wobbling can in modo. https://vimeo.com/89051537

The Foundry released a nice plugin called "MeshFusion" for MODO701, with Fusion you can easily create stunning models in "no time" as it uses "booleans" like you may know from Cad-Apps. I doodled a bit with it these days and impressed of the quality it delivers.