its been a long time since i've been here...but if anyone is interested:

the art of avatar book has a great example of SU being used in Film. The Amp Suit on page 85 was designed in ol' SU.

in the shader tree click on environemtn materials - then go below in the properties tab you'll see places to adjust the sky and physcially based sunlight/environment.

switch to an area light. or use a different spread angle with a spot light. the default directional light will give you pretty harsh shadows.

all i can say, is if you get through the modo learning curve, which is relatively short, you will find yourself opening SU less and less. I did not even install SU on my new machine. its a bit sad for this great program, but to be honest, modo is extremely powerful, easy to use, and fast....so there is just no reason to use SU. In addition, as a pipeline tool, SU is almost useless. As a tool to illustrate over, or produce still images and design ideas its great, but if you want to hand the model off to anyone, its more of a headache for them than anything else. Also, no more managing countless brilliant plugins that make SU only half the app. that modo is out of the box.

the content library and new preview renderer are awsome. its new 'slash and burn' work flow is awsome:

http://www.luxology.com/training/video.aspx?id=219

buy it.

great tutorials to get you up to speed from digitaltutors.com

i don't mean to be down on SU. I've loved my SU ride and this community is supportive and great. Its just time to move on.

(edit: i'm not an architect, and am speaking from the view point of someone designing and illustrating a wide variety of environements, vehicles and props.)

those are pretty nice. i would say you need some harder edges to clarify a focal point. some of them feel too soft all over, fuzzy all over.

I'll second stinkie's recommendation. downloaded 'intro to modeling in modo' and started watching. very thorough...much more so that the stuff from Ablan.

stinkie,

i was checking out the digital tutors stuff. do you recommend any?

andeciuala,

any chance of an english translation?! the videos look really interesting...

in the glass rendering thread there was some discussion of modo and rendering...

for anyone interested in modo, the book by dan ablan is great. its designed for a complete modo newbie and is very basic/straightforward. I've also used the watch tutorial by andy brown and some of the coursework from 3d Garage (more Dan Ablan) and have found them very good. I'd start with Dan's stuff if you're really green (like me) with more coplex 3d apps. they are friendly and clear. if you've already got a decent handle on subdivision surface modelling, start with Andy Browns stuff. He assumes you already have basic concepts established.

boof-

how are you liking modo? nice renders!