cinema4d

Looks like they don't have sculpting or rigging (animation)

WOW $2,495.00 for The XL Bundle contains CINEMA 4D Core, BodyPaint 3D, Advanced Render 3, MOCCA 3, Thinking Particles, NET Render

Way to much for what it is..

And dont forget: Each of these top-applications is designed for professionals. So you have to learn a lot. Temporary i have 8 books and 2 e-books about lightwave. And there is no end.

@Ventilator:
Lightwave is dying? I dont think so.

@MaxF:
I have also trueSpace. The interface is ok but rigging and animation was the hell.

Hmm trueSpace offers three animation systems. Old bones from Modeler or trueSpace 6.6 and below are indeed the hell. They are in fact as old as the hell, that's why you cannot really expect anything good from this dinosaurs. I have nevertheless used them for years. Not in conjunction with 3DGS. But nevertheless

There is also Motion Studio. A trueSpace 6.6/Modeler Bones plugin. Freeware. Super easy to use. Unfortunately not exportable. Just good for inside trueSpace. Like render a movie.

The new bones are still WIP and have more than one bug. But promising. They also exports fine to Collada. Which can via Ultimate Unwrap be exported to FBX, then with MED to mdl. Works good.

Biggest plus is the price nowadays. Free. So you cannot do this much wrong with it.

I bought Modo this week and started to learn it with the included video tutorials yesterday. I am very much impressed so far. It is a perfect addition to Lightwave (replacement for LW's modeler), behaves almost the same and uses similar short keys. But you can change the interface to pretend several interfaces (like Max, XSI and so on).

I will give you a review later on after I finished all tutorials.

yeeha! cool. http://www.luxology.com/gallery/video.aspx?id=149

and frank, looking forward to your review!

Ok, I followed many tutorials and messed around with Modo now. Here is a little review:

UI
I simply love it. It makes sense, is easy to read, is not in your way and it is just a suggestion. You can change everything. You can even create your own forms and views. Many ideas look like they are borrowed from Blender but it looks much better.
There are some layouts to switch to and many tabs to offer most needed tools for a certain job (model, paint, uv, animate, render).

Modeling
There are so many well-thought tools that you can model very fast in Modo. I am used to model in many 3d applications. But Modo is the fastest of all of them if you learn it well. Selecting is so easy, modeling is great, uv-maps stay intact if you change the geometry.
You can model the old polygon-way but after this you can sculpt the mesh similar like you do with displacement maps. But this way is very naturally and organic and helps to bring the mesh into shape in a more ergonomic way.

Unwrapping
It is perfect, there cannot be any better uv-toolset. You can unfold a mesh with a blink of an eye. You can create atlas maps and then you can let them find edges to re-connect them automatically to a more consolidated uv-mesh. You can create uv-maps in minutes while you might need hours in other tools for the same result.

Sculpting and Painting
You are not restricted to sculpt the mesh with tools like carve, inflate or push. You can do the same with normal maps (rgb-maps) or displacement maps (grayscale). So you can add very fine details similar like you do in ZBrush and Mudbox. It works fine and fast.
You can use the same tools for sculpting and painting. So you can sculpt with an airbrush, stamp or procedural brush and you can use the same brushes to paint color, textures, images and more. You can paint on images that influence color, bump, spec or any other channel. You can even change the channels at any time.
Every image is just like an own layer and you can blend them if you like with different modes.

Animating
You can animate every parameter of materials, positions and more. There are graph editors to change the curves of these parameters and you can move pivots to have perfect rotation handles.
But it misses bones and IK.

Rendering
The renderer is good and fast. It has not that much features compared to Lightwave as an example but every feature is just a bit better implemented. You can easily create realistic images with realistic lighting.

Comparison to other Tools:
Modo and Lightwave
Modeling and Unwrapping is better in Modo. Sculpting and Painting does not exist in LW but LW has more options for animation (bones, IK, cloth, hair, physics).
Modo has less lighting-tools but the existing lights have more features. The same counts for the render comparison.
But both tools are a perfect symbiosis. They belong to each other. Modo can read and write perfect Lightwave files. It feels similar and it is a good replacement for Lightwaves modeler.

Modo and ZBrush
ZBrush is a giant, a fantastic tool. I have a license of it. But to be honest: If I do sculpting in Modo then I am happy, more happy than in ZBrush. Modo's sculpting is more intuitive, the painting is exactly the same just like mesh-sculpting. You are always only a mouse-click away to change the underlying low-res mesh, to change the high-res displacements and to add textures.

Modo and Bodypaint 3D
I also have a license of Bodypaint. But I am sure I will rather paint in Modo from now. Bodypaint has UV-tools, but Modo's are better and more easy to understand. Bodypaint has layers and can paint in several channels. Modo can do that as well.
I missed nothing while I painted in Modo. Even projection painting to paint over seams is there.
At my mind Maxon should lower the price of Bodypaint with all these competitors in mind (Modo, 3d-Coat, Carrara).

Modo and free / cheap software
If you want to do what Modo can do with free or very cheap software, then you have to use a couple of them. You have to combine something like Wings3d and 3d-Coat or Blender and an additional painting tool, maybe Carrara. You have to switch many tools with different UIs.
Modo wins here. And when you miss bones then you can add Lightwave to it and you have a very similar package with similar handling and key layout.

Summary
At my mind Modo is the best all-in-one modeler out there. I wrote "modeler" because it is not absolutely complete in terms of animation (bones, hair, physics). But if you add Lightwave then you get a set of tools that can rival and even beat expensive tools like Maya and Max (while being more affordable at the same time).
You could also add something cheaper like Fragmotion if you do only game animation.

Modo can export to FBX, OBJ, LWO and some other formats. Images can be of many known formats included layered PSD. There is a plugin to write perfect Collada files. It has been tested with the C4 engine as an example.
If you add Lightwave then you can export animated objects via FBX, Collada or via plugins.

Good review, I love working with modo, don't think I'll buy anymore 3D apps - modo rocks

Fur is coming for 401, plus I hope more animation stuff

Interesting, thanks for that info MaxF. I am looking forward to the next releases of Modo and Lightwave. Both will be great, I am sure.

Modo is a great modeler, that is a fact (as far as I am concerned) and it has become the tool I first turn to for any modeling and UVing needs. As someone has said, the only way to get modo away from me is to pry it from my cold, dead fingers!

However, modo is not perfect! Depending on your PC or MAC set up (and, yes, there is a version of modo for both and you get both when you buy the one!) modo can crash a lot. Some people experience frequent crashes. Others hardly experience a crash. Because of this, I highly recommend getting the demo and giving it a good workout before purchasing it.

Modo can be a bit unorthodox depending on which modeler you have used before. Frank finds it so intuitive because of his Lightwave background (I would assume). The developers of modo had worked for Lightwave at one time and so we see that many ideas from Lightwave made it into modo. In fact, modo was sort of presented (at one time) as the modeler that Lightwave's modeler was supposed to be. But if you come from using a program like 3D Studio MAX, then you may be initially frustrated. For example, the concept of having to drop a tool can make you feel like you are pressing way to many buttons to get a simple task done. I happen to like the modo work flow, but others may find it initially a problem.

3D painting in modo is great and is a lot of fun. However, it is not as full featured as painting in Photoshop or Gimp, so you will still need those tools from time to time. Modo is lacking a painting layering system like Photoshop has and this is essential for decent painting. You can paint on multiple images, but you cannot create layers for the one image (as in Photoshop/Gimp) to help control what you are doing while painting or to combine layers to get affects such as multiply, screen, etc. You do have these blending modes for your brushes, but no layers by which to apply these blending modes.

Modo's sculpting is fun, too. But it does not compare to ZBrush. ZBrush can obviously handle huge numbers of polygons as compared to modo. But with modo you get a traditional modeler and therefore you can move about as you are used to (i.e. you don't have to do things the funky way you have to in ZBrush). Modo sculpting can have some problems along seams, so it is good to be aware of that. Modo does offer some nice sculpting tools for both geometry sculpting and via using an image. General details are normally sculpted via geometry and fine details using an image. This way quality similar to ZBrush can be achieved.

One thing that bugs me about modo with both painting and sculpting is the number of steps you have to go through to get a brush up and running. You cannot just select the airbrush tool and paint, for example. You have to select an airbrush and then choose a brush (smooth, hard, procedural, etc) and you have to do this EVERY time you pick the tool up. In other words, there is no default setting for a brush (like there is in Photoshop) and so picking up a brush is not sufficient to paint. This extra click can get to you after awhile. True, it is only a click, but it has to be done each and every time you drop the tool and have to pick it back up again. Luxology should really set a default for any of the brushes and allow for modo to at least remember the last brush settings you had when you dropped the tool.

UV mapping is awesome and, for the most part, I have no complaint here. Are there tools that do it better? Some would say, "Yes!" and they have been bugging Luxology to further improve UV mapping. However, I much prefer modo's UV tools over the other big modelers (MAX, Maya, etc). One thing that Luxology did that was nice is that you don't have to learn an entire new set of tools to UV map. The move tool works for modeling and for UV mapping, as does scale and rotate. So if you know how to manipulate your model, you also know how to manipulate your UVs. There is very little extra to learn when it comes to UV mapping.

I could go on and on, but I just want to sum up by saying that modo, in my opinion, is a fantastic modeling tool. It is not Nirvana, but it looks like it is heading in that direction. Slowly Luxology is adding features. MaxF posted some shots with fur. Animation tools are slowly being integrated. Modo is evolving and this is great. However, the evolution of modo has been fairly slow. Even so, I cannot recommend this tool enough.

Hi Dan,

thanks for this post. I know you have much experience in Modo. But I did not understand what you wrote about layers.

I just checked it again but I can blend every image just like a layer in Gimp/PS via following modes:
normal, add, subtract, difference, normal multiply, divide, multiply, screen, overlay, soft light, hard light, darken, lighten, color dodge and color burn.

But from experience I know that I need in most cases only multiply, normal, screen and overlay.

Regarding the crashes: Maybe I am one of the happy users. I experienced 2 crashes up to now and I tested it heavily and long. But these 2 crashes were not reproducable.
I know that Autodesk products do crash more often than this (Max and Mudbox). But yes, Lightwave is more stable.

Regarding the interface: Yes, you are absolutely right. I felt home from the first moment because everything is very similar to Lightwave but just a bit better. I can move in 3d views the same way but I also have additional options (trackball rotation or turntable moves).
The tools are more consolidated but with additional options. The falloff tool is great and selecting is a bit better and faster. I can select a loop with just a double click. I can extend selections with the up-key and much more. It is very comfortable.

It really feels just like an evolution of Lightwave's modeler.