The recent update to MODO represents far more than just a technology upgrade. Version 901 certainly does deliver new creative tools and an enhanced workflow, but the fact that The Foundry was focused on how the roles of artists are changing and how they could adjust this tool to help those artists in a shifting landscape makes it relevant in a completely new way.
All screenshots from MODO
The recent update to MODO represents far more than just a technology upgrade. Version 901 certainly does deliver new creative tools and an enhanced workflow, but the fact that The Foundry was focused on how the roles of artists are changing and how they could adjust this tool to help those artists in a shifting landscape makes it relevant in a completely new way.
In the press release, MODO product marketing manager Shane Griffith is quoted as saying The Foundry was committed to bringing their customers the most powerful and relevant version of MODO to date, and we wanted to explore what that power and relevancy would really mean to users. We talked with Shane about the new capabilities of MODO, what sort of feedback he’s gotten, what he’s most excited about and plenty more.
ProVideo Coalition: News about MODO 901 went public earlier this year, but the release just happened. What has that process been like for you?
Shane Griffith: It’s been a whirlwind. The 27th of May is when we started making it available for purchase, but we went public with all the details a week before. And the trial just went live too.
And what are the details associated with the trial?
It’s the complete product, so you’ll get all of MODO. It’s just a 30-day temporary license for anybody to give it a try for free and to see if it’s the right fit for them. You can sign up for that trial right now, and we have over seven hours of video that showcases material which new and experienced users will find relevant.
Let’s talk about the additional power and features that are available in MODO 901. What sorts of new capabilities are users going to experience?
It’s exciting for all of us on the development side to take a step back and see how much is included in this release. We set out with a few specific goals around improving the modeling and texturing workflows, and we knew we hadn’t touched on a few of the features in a couple releases, so we were aware that there were some areas that needed to be revisited.
The biggest thing to highlight is probably the viewport. We had a big project around improving the viewport code in this release to be state-of-the-art and push it to the next level with real time lighting and shading and effects on the objects in the viewport.
Another major architectural change was taking what we did on the Linux build a few releases ago and porting over the rest of the interface code to be QT based. As we’re getting more and more plug-in partners with MODO, a top request from them has been to have QT support, and we kind of had that but it was only in the Linux build in the past.
A lot of what we do on a release-to-release basis is to continue to expand the product’s capabilities, so I’m happy to say that this was a really deep release. We made a conscious effort not to hide anything, and I’m hopeful a lot of the existing users see that there’s a real opportunity to get great value out of the upgrade.
Is there anything you try to bring to each release for new users?
Many of the barriers we face from a new user standpoint are around awareness and getting people to recognize that MODO can do so many different things. A lot of people in the market today recognize it as only a strong modeling application or rendering application, when it actuality there’s a really deep particle, hair, fur and sculpting toolsets, just to name a few. Out of the box today, MODO is a very complete all-in-one application. Many of the tools we compete with require several additions to complement all of their features.
We’ve seen a lot of new users embrace what MODO can do for them once they understand those capabilities.
What sort of feedback have you gotten back for the people who have tried out the software?
A lot of it has to do with the flexible of MODO. More seasoned 3D artists out there tend to appreciate that after a period of time. In production, there are often challenges that come in during the later cycles of a process and MODO is often flexible enough to allow them to quickly work around those problems. That’s something professionals of all sizes have recognized and told us about.
From a new users standpoint, it tends to be a product that is very easy to learn. It simplifies a process that in other instances might have taken five or six different tools or different clicks, and we really focus a lot on refining workflows with MODO. It’s kind of been a core concept for our team since the beginning. Lots of things in the modeling and texturing operation have few clicks associated with them, which makes the process to learn and understand how they can be utilized that much easier.
How do you feel you’ve helped enable artists with MODO, whether that’s in terms of them moving from job to job or what they can bring to a particular project?
It goes back to the workflow, and the simplification of what people are doing or what they want to be doing.
When you go to art school, especially a design school, you learn to process your ideas and continue to iterate on those ideas. But you really don’t know which of those ideas are worthwhile until they’ve been developed. Sometimes what you started off with is going to work the best, but other times what you come up with after pushing through from those initial stages is going to work better. Having a tool like MODO enables that iteration process to be a lot quicker and easier in many different industries.
Where and how artists work through their ideas changes from artist to artist and project to project, but having the ability to explore what might work for them and for a project is incredibly powerful.
Specifically, what types of professional are using this tool and what types of professionals should be using this tool?
It’s very broad. MODO’s install base is very diversified. It’s trending more toward the larger studio installations these days, but the roots of MODO are with the freelancer, and even with individuals within a larger department. In those cases, you had one person who had access to the software to explore ideas for modeling purposes or particular features of the overall workflow. As MODO has become more of a complete tool, it’s something that whole departments and design teams can utilize.
Where we’re seeing the most success, especially in the media & entertainment space, is with teams that have flexibility around what tool they can use. Many times, production processes are locked into a particular pipeline or structure, and whenever artists have a choice around the tools they use, we find many of them will gravitate to tools like MODO.
What has you most excited about this version of MODO?
That’s like asking someone to pick his or her favorite child!
The one that I was personally pushing for was the new advanced photorealistic viewport. This was something that was a very aggressive target for us, to accomplish in a short cycle. We literally started on the project 8 or 9 months before. We took a look at the code base inside of MARI and worked a lot with the MARI team themselves to turn that into a nice piece of technology which runs across the company now. So I’m very excited to be able to create something that’s going to be better for our existing product but also a central piece of technology that can be an essential part of our tools moving forward.
You mentioned that MODO stands apart from some of your competitors because it is a complete tool. How does that factor into the price for a seat?
Our price point helped put MODO on the map in a lot of ways. We’ve increased prices here and there over the years as we’ve built out more and more functionality, but we’ve been pretty sensitive to keeping a fairly consistent upgrade price through the years. For the last three or four releases the upgrade price has been relatively the same.
We really want to be disruptive in the marketplace and come to market not only with something that’s a next generation content creation platform but also do it in a way that is extremely approachable across the spectrum of users. We have a number of freelance and independent users, so we need to have something that’s priced appropriately for them.
That said, with the price changes we’ve seen we’re moving toward a place that might be a bit more difficult for those types of professionals, and as a company we’re exploring what works with some other business models for those freelancers and independents. That includes what we’ve done with MODO indie, where it’s as low as $15 a month to get started.
We’ll continue to press along those lines to make the product as accessible as possible for individuals and for massive companies.
Getting the product in more people’s hands has to be the key factor for you in terms of the disruption you mentioned, isn’t it?
MODO is a tool that’s kind of like a fine wine. It might take a little bit to get into, but after you get going you begin to appreciate all sorts of things that weren’t apparent in the beginning. So things like trials help us get it into people’s hand and start that process, and of course, that appreciation is never realized unless they take that first step. Once they try things out for themselves they can develop their own processes which influences their approach and the people they work with, no matter how large or small that number might be.
When we talked with Chris Kennessey about the recent ownership change, one of the things he mentioned was that professionals need to take another look at The Foundry in terms of your identity. Does that concept extend to MODO?
MODO is definitely a key piece of expanding that horizon for the entire company. There was some strategic thinking when we acquired MODO and around how we could broaden the entire scope of the company.
There’s a convergence of all types of workflows, and that includes product design, gaming, media & entertainment, architectural rendering, advertising…and the list goes on. All of these things are converging to workflows and processes that are a lot more real time in nature and more what you see is what you get.
The output is also a huge factor, because it’s not always going to be the same. Even on the film side, something isn’t always going to be seen on the big screen, but also on everything from TVs to mobile phones to projectors. All of these things tie together in terms of changing the landscape and needing to influence that change, and we certainly see MODO was a key part of that story.
