Does anybody here have any experience with work flow from Modo to EI? Ideally, I would want to model and UV map in Modo, animate, light, shade/texture, and render in EI. Specifically, I need to know about:
• Moving models from Modo to EI with UVs intact.
• The best way to handle Sub-Ds - is there a sub-D solution for EI or, would I need to freeze the geometry in Modo first?
Also, to make use of eight cores on a Mac Pro, do I still have to launch eight slaves and run Renderama or is Camera now properly multi-proc aware?
I am an old user of EI starting with version 2.5.2, moved on to 3ds MAX after version 5 (no choice of my own, my employer was a strictly Windoze house that insisted on MAX), have been using Modo for modeling, MAX and now, Modo for animation ande rendering. However, it seems Camera has really caught up in many regards to other renderers and I really do miss EI’s work flow as far as how lights and cameras were handled as well as Camera’s beautiful rendering quality.
Looks like there are no specific answers on this one yet. I do know improvements were made to Modo’s handling of fbx in 301 but, that is something I have not used myself. I guess what I really need is to put down the $50 needed to replace my long lost dongle and get an eval version and see what is what.
Still no real multi-threading? Yuk. That means we are still on one proc for test renders. Does this also mean having to manually allocate RAM for each slave? And having to have eight copies of all relevant files sitting on your hard drive in order to render? Sigh…
One thing I will give to 3ds MAX, it’s Render Monitor and Render Server were very good distributed rendering solutions. No need to manually configure each slave. You just launched each slave, launched the server and everything found each other automatically. Ordering and prioritizing jobs in the cue was very simple. Even assigning specific jobs to specific slaves was straight-forward. There is quite a lot to really not like about MAX but, render task handling was not one of them. Mental Ray is a very good at handling multi-processors (never mind that everything kind of looks like plastic - never quite achieving photo-real). Modo’s own renderer is also very good and efficient with multi-procs - something I do really like.
Despite other renderers I have had experience with, I have never been able to achieve the same “filmic” quality that I did with Camera. To be honest, I am not really sure why. I just know it has always been really good. Sigh…
JK,
As far as ram allocation, you only need to set it once and that applies to all (in OS X a assume for PC as well). And yes there are a bunch of minor gripes about setting up slaves. Once set however they work very well. In OS X you can set up automated folders or scripts to update the slave folders when one is updated. It would be nice if EIAS did this for you.
You should make some suggestions, top five or so, of things you feel would ease your transition back into EIAS. It is always helpful to hear what is missing and what you enjoy. Everyone can learn.
I have used Modo and EIAS together since Modo 2 was released.
You will have to freeze the geometry before exporting. And, from modo you can’t export “visible” or “selected” it exports everything in the scene. If you have any objects in your scene that you do not want to export, you have to create a new scene, copy the export objects to the new scene then export.
I purchased obj2fact with the hope that it would ease the transition. When it works the results are good, but it almost never works. Apparently the problem is with the obj export from Modo. obj2fact only works on the very simplest of models and even on those you really never know if it will work or not. I have had very simple models convert successfully then going back to make a very minor change, export, then have it inexplicably not convert. It consistently gets “unknown keyword” errors. I usually wind up using Transporter 5.5.3 to convert the file, but unless you have the correct set of options selected the model will not smooth shade. Transporter 5.5.4 might also work but it is so slow at converting very large models, I have not been patient enough to see if converts successfully.
I have not yet attempted exporting with uv, Just getting the model converted is complex enough. I would like know how and find a consistently successful workflow.
I wish EITG would be more active on getting other applications to export FACT directly. Modo is a wonderful tool and if it could export FACT it would make things so much easier. It seems like it would be good marketing strategy. If every 3d app exported FACT, I think it could generate interest and get people to try it. EIAS is not complete solution. It needs to work easily with other apps and well, it doesn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, I use Modo and EIAS because they really fit my needs. Modo is a great modeler and EIAS is a great renderer. Modo also works great with vertex maps to generate morph targets in EIAS. Once the models are in EIAS everything looks great. Don’t get discouraged, the results are worth the struggles of getting Modo and EIAS to work together.
Brian,
I’m curious what version of OBJ2FACT you are using, some earlier versions has issues. I have used OBJ2FACT 2.1.1 with great results on models from many sources, all with UV textures. If it is a MODO to OBJ2FACT issue, I bet Ramjac would take a look at what your exporting and get it to work.
We use formZ, which has long had fact export. Still I agree it would be great if EI imported those major model types (obj, 3ds, etc). That would be more likely than getting all the other programs to export.
I wish EITG would be more active on getting other applications to export FACT directly.
It is my understanding that with Modo 301 and up, the SDK is wide open for developing exporters for Modo. Lux are writing a number of them themselves. Seems to me, EI could get the SDK and write an exporter for Modo to Fact taking into account multi UVs per object et all. Here is a link to the SDK info
http://www.luxology.com/whatismodo/developers.aspx
Judging from what Brad Peebler said in one of his “ModCasts” about Luxology actively collaborating with the Rhino guys to produce some Modo-Rhino import/export plugins, I think it would be interesting to approach the company to see if some help could be lend to solve the issue.
I think it’s 2.1 but not sure, I don’t see anything on the ramjac site beyond 2.1
When I first tried to use obj2fact I contacted ramjac and they told me just hit the “continue” button when I got the keyword error. They mentioned these errors were related to the material file exported with the obj. After hitting continue (like a hundred times) it did convert but when imported there were huge chunks of the model missing. Ramjac did say that obj exported from Modo was “not good”.
I also spoke to Luxology and they couldn’t figure why I wanted to export a model from Modo but they didn’t know of any problems with the obj export…
I have tried to submit the issue through the ramjac website, but whenever I tried to upload the file it would get an error saying the upload was unsuccessful. Since I found a way to convert using Transporter, it’s kinda been on the back burner.
Keep your modo project clean, strip all unnecessary stuff, make sure vertices are not present in multiple UV maps and obj2fact will have no problem with the .obj files, OK, besides the problem where obj2fact doesn’t open your .obj file, I mentioned the solution here: http://ramjac.gegenspringanlage.de/forum/showthread.php?tid=8&pid=143#pid143
I noticed there are a lot of Modo & EIAS users, and I still have hopes for a lxo2fact, or .lxo support in transporter, especially since the availability of the modo file format SDK
about Luxology actively collaborating with the Rhino guys to produce some Modo-Rhino import/export plugins, I think it would be interesting to approach the company to see if some help could be lend to solve the issue.
