Modo 801 fronts texturing upgrades for game artists

Modo 801, the latest version of the 3D creation software, has been released by The Foundry and includes improvements aimed directly at game artists.

The Foundry said it has improved almost every element of the 3D workflow and tweaked it in response to user feedback from a wide range of industries, gaming among them.

The new version is said to provides even more “out-of-the-box functionality” with the introduction of large new features like Nodal Shading for complex shader building, and a completely rewritten Referencing workflow for large scene management. There are also big updates to core content creation workflows like animation and particles.

For game artist specifically, the Foundry has upgraded the texture baking tools to be more suited to their needs. Modo is perhaps the most popular toolkit for game creators from the software company, whose other technologies include compositing tool Nuke and 3D editing suite Mari.

The Foundry said UV unwrapping can now be handled with better results in less time when editing complex UV layouts. Performance of the UV selection, camera navigation and paint selection processes have all been significantly improved along with new UV unwrap and relax tools that support an angle-based flattening method. The GL Measures in 801 give artists the ability to expose relevant information in the viewport display, making scenes more readable in a collaborative environment.

“Modo is being used in so many industries now by creative and technical users of every level. The advances in 801 will appeal to users in the design world, and we have specific updates for games customers and great improvements to VFX workflows,” Shane Griffith, Modo product marketing manager at The Foundry.

“With highly intuitive workflows that focus on simplicity and mass usability, 801 will be a delight for artists and designers at every level. With this release we’ve looked closely at Modo’s architecture and re-developed key parts based on what we know users want. This is a massive update for Modo and we can’t wait to let artists and designers get their hands on it.”

Modo 801 other highlights include:

• Powerful node-based texturing with built-in presets to make complex tasks accessible to less technical users
• Enhanced dynamics for large scene handling and destruction
• Improved scattering tools for scene layout and environment creation
• New baking and modelling tools specific for game artists
• Big updates to the animation framework, making it easier for users to animate believable characters
• OpencolorIO integration and improved data exchange with the The Foundry’s Collectives

Find out more about Modo 801 on The Foundry’s official product website.

You can read about the Steam Edition of the tool here, or its previous release, Modo 701, here.