Foundry ships Modo 14.0
Foundry has released Modo 14.0, the latest version of its 3D modelling, animation and rendering software, and the first of the three linked releases that will form the Modo 14 Series.
The release adds a new markup system for adding drawn annotations directly to the viewport during asset reviews, and new Ghost and X-ray display modes.
The UV system and the new Edge Chamfer tool and mPath renderer also get further updates.
New markup system lets clients or collaborators add notes during asset reviews
For collaboration and asset review, Modo 14.0 adds a new markup system, shown in the video above, enabling users to add annotations to a camera view by drawing directly on the viewport.
It works with animation – users can choose how many frames an annotation should be displayed for – and it is possible to choose the annotation colour, and to pick from five brush templates.
New Ghost and X-Ray modes streamline work on complex models
Other new features in Modo 14.0 include new viewport Ghost and X-Ray modes, intended to help modellers differentiate between the front and back surfaces of a model.
Both display the front surface as partially or fully transparent. Users can customise the colour of the front and back wireframes; and in Ghost mode, adjust the transparency of the front surface.
Modelling: updates to the chamfering and MeshFusion systems
The other changes in Modo 14.0 are largely updates to existing features.
Modellers get further updates to the Edge Chamfer tool added in Modo 13.2, including support for falloffs, and a range of customisable preset bevel profile shapes.
There is also a new Unbevel tool for collapsing bevelled faces, between two selected edge loops.
The Slide tool gets a new Face mode, which enables users to move one vertex of a face across a surface with connected faces and texture adjusting automatically.
The MeshFusion real-time Booleans toolset gets a new system for creating embossed strips on the surface of a model from text or guide curves, including Beziers and B-splines.
Procedural workflows: create vertex maps procedurally
Users can also now create vertex maps procedurally, making it possible to generate weighting values, UV seams and RGBA colour values non-destructively.
It’s listed as a procedural modelling feature in the online documentation, but it should also open up new workflows for motion graphics and even character work.
UVs and materials: new Unwrap & Relax tool, option to scale material groups
Changes to UV workflow include a new Unwrap & Relax tool, which combines the functionality of the existing Unwrap and UV Relax tools, but removes the need to deselect edges before relaxing UVs.
Users can also now scale material groups: by default, automatically preserving the relative scales of all of the constituent texture layers in the Shader Tree.
Smaller improvements to mPath and general workflow
mPath, the new work-in-progress path tracing render engine introduced in Modo 13.2, gets a small update, adding support for AxF materials, and simplifying the names of light path expressins.
There are also a number of bugfixes and workflow updates: you can find details via the links below.
Pricing and availability
Modo 14.0 is available for 64-bit Windows 10, RHEL and CentOS 7+ Linux, and macOS 10.13+. Buying 14.0 grants access to the remaining updates in the Modo 14 Series.
New perpetual licences of the software now cost $1,888, up $89 on the previous release, while rental now starts at $629/year, up $30/year.
Read an overview of the new features in the online documentation
(Includes more demo videos)
Read a full list of new features in Modo 14.0 in the online release notes