nhayes

Hi, I am happy to announce the release of my new Arch Essentials kit for modo 10, 11 and 12 series. Arch Essentials gives you two kits for one fabulously low price, - The mARCH Classics Kit comprises 5 re-mastered plugins from the popular mARCH Kit for modo. - The Window Maker Kit includes 3 new highly adjustable window generators, an alignment helper and 3d models. This kit is not just limited to arch-viz type work, though. Tools like poly-sweep, mesh-align, select-by-height/normal can be used for more general tasks in modo and are real time-savers. The kit is available now for just £20 ($26). Show me » Regards, -neil

Hi, I am pleased to announce the release of my new Window Maker Kit for the Foundry's MODO application. The Window Maker Kit comprises of 3 highly versatile, procedural-based, C++ plugins that can be used to generate a huge array of casement, fixed-light, double-hung and sliding window designs. For more details, please visit https://www.thethirdguild.com/ Regards, -neil

Dear CGarchitect community, Visualisation artist Jim Perkins is about to embark on a 5250 mile bike ride to raise funds for Diabetes research. I hope you will join me in providing support for Jim by posting messages of support etc. to help keep him motivated during his 120 day journey. You can follow Jim's progress via his blog here: http://www.bigdummyproject.com/ regards, -neil

I use dxf -> accutrans -> modo, although modo has DXF import I prefer to use accutrans as it has more options. For those that don't have AutoCAD for DWG to DXF one can use use software such as the A9 convertor: http://www.a9tech.com/products/a9converter/ Also, DWG TrueView (free from AutoDesk) is useful for converting DWG from the latest versions of AutoCAD to earlier incarnations. This can help if you're having compatibility issues when using DWG to DXF convertors.

The master bedroom image was around 6 megapixels (2717 x 2303) this took around 2hrs and 50 minutes on a basic quad core (Q6600). Pretty fast especially considering I used more expensive options in terms of render time, such as: 1. Displacement on the rug, throw, blanket and pillows. 2. Area lights with a high number of samples. 3. All materials set to use physically based shading regards, -neil

Sorry for the delayed response as I've been busy working on ther projects. If you're refering to the lighting rig. It look about 5-10 minutes to get the lighting in place and set the correct exitance values. modo has an interactive render preview (iView) so it does not take long to get the lighting where you want it. In terms of the lighting I often use a combination of Area Lights and Luminous Geometry. I use these two light types together (at each location, same size) to get the best of both worlds in that I get smooth highlights from the luminous geometry and great soft shadows from the area lights. This is very simple and fast to setup in modo. -neil

Yes, all lighting and rendering done in modo. Most of the elements (strcuture,fixings, bed, bath, lamps etc.) were modeled to spec. in modo. There are a few modified stock items as follows: Master bedroom: Plant. Bedroom 2: Diary, small clock, sleeping pillows. Bathroom: Flowers, leather wash bag, towel. These images are not that far from finals. Some of the materials need a bit of attention and I want to improve the contrast so will be switching to HDR output and then tone-mapping using picturenaut/photomatrix. regards, -neil

Some interior shots I'm working on at the moment in modo. -neil

I've just donwloaded it from the original download site, but my password does not work with the newer link that I was sent a while back. Did you try download.nextlimit.com ? The link to the manual looks broken though. -n

I'm sure this will be the case. we must remember that we've all had a try of a very early RS2 in the early RC's... just a shame the physicalsky/sun was not working. After reading subsequest posts on the NL forum a while back it emerged that we would get RS1+ by version 1 and that RS2 would likely be in a 1.x upgrade (which we have been told in the past would be free). A while back Mike Verta stated that the RS2 is currently only faster for complex scences versus RS1 so NL would likely give us the choice at rendertime as to which engine to select. Overall the impression has always been that NL would give us RS2 now if it was upto scratch... supported by the fact that they attempted to get it to us with the early RC's. As ever, fingers crossed. -n

i use Camtasia studio for recording from PC, it has some really useful features such as the ability to zoom, it can save out avi, QT, gif, flash etc. add you can easily add on-screen annotation and a watermark... its available for download with a free trial period from techsmith. If you're on mac, I've heard that Snapz Pro is v.good and its a bargin at only $69. edit: I should have also mention that camtasia allows you to record audio and video at the same time, which is great. In terms of your questions: For audio compression I usually choose mpeg layer 3 at 44,100 48 kb/s mono. I think mp4 (AAC) or AC-3 (dolby) encoders are probably the best, but they don't come with camtasia. I previously used the Qmusic2, but the version that comes with camtasia makes it sound like you're talking from inside a submarine (gets the filesize down though). For video I record using the TSCC lossless codec and then save out as mpeg4 medium quality for QT (although I'm going to start using h.264 or sorreson 3 as they are much better). You can normally get away with a frame rate of 5-7 a second. I usually use 7 if I'm recording a modelling tutorial in modo or 5 if I'm just showing some interface stuff. I've found that USB microphones are hard to beat for the price. I have a desktop version that has in-built noise reduction... I prefer not to wear a microphone. 3ivx is also worth a look for a video codec http://www.3ivx.com/download/windows.html -neil

This seems strange ot me. For example, if you have an internal deadline that you know you can't meet why would you keep to it if there was no external pressure from the community to release the product? Oh, well I'm sure some PhD student will write a thesis on such things at somepoint in the future.. -neil

Ernest, I do support your idea of a roadmap with clear boundaries and it would be great if they would give users the opportunity to get a refund if they overshoot their self imposed time limits by a given amount... although, I personally do not recall any other software company offering such a thing. -neil

I was not suggesting it was our fault, despite all the pressure all NL should have just come clean. Nonetheless, the point I was making was that I fail to see how forcing a company to release a product by date X will produce a good outcome. -neil

I disagree, the release of RC1 was in reponse to the huge amount of pressure imposed on NL by the community and look what happened. I accept the fact that the pressure imposed was deserved in response to the lack of communication from NL. I cannot foresee how a a client imposed dealine will work with such a diverse range of customers...who is going to set the date? you or me etc.? I agree with you that a roadmap would be nice to see, but at the end of the day as NL will no doubt have no legal obligation to comply with it, it really will be meaningless. -neil