Release Notes for Modo15.1v2

Release Date

16 September 2021

System Requirements

Officially Supported Operating Systems

• macOS 10.14.x, 10.15.x, and 11.x

Note: Testing on Apple Silicon (M1) processors is in progress and this statement will be updated when completed.

• Windows 10 (64-bit only)

• Linux 64-bit operating system (CentOS/RHEL 7.6+)

Minimum Hardware Requirements

• Intel processor(s), Core i3 or higher

• 10 GB available hard disk space (for a full Modo and content installation)

• At least 4 GB RAM

• Display with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution

• Internet connection for product activation and online videos access

• The Advanced viewport mode requires an NVIDIA or AMD graphics card with at least 1 GB of GPU memory and drivers that support OpenGL 3.2 or higher.

• AMD AI Denoiser requires a minimum of 4 GB of GPU memory.

Recommended System Requirements

Note: This information is our best recommendation for the average user. Requirements vary by usage, and individual users may have different requirements from those listed here.

• 2.5+ GHz quad-core processor

• 250+ GB disk space available for caching and temporary files, SSD is preferable

• 16 GB RAM with additional virtual memory*

• Display with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution

• An NVIDIA or AMD graphics card with the latest drivers

• 4+ GB of graphics memory

• OpenGL 4.4 or higher support

*The use of virtual memory improves stability and helps prevent data loss on large projects.

Recommended Graphics Driver Versions

• NVIDIA: 461.09 or later

• AMD: 8.982.8.1 or later

Note: We recommend downloading the latest driver version from the NVIDIA or AMD websites

Tested Workstation Hardware

The configurations listed below are those that Foundry have tested with Modo 15.1. Due to the constantly changing nature and wide variety of computer hardware available in the market, Foundry is unable to officially certify hardware. The list below can be used as a recommendation and does not guarantee that it meets your particular needs.

Note: Hardware marked with * (asterisk) was unavailable for QA testing for Modo 15.1 because of office access limitations due to COVID-19, but has been used to test previous releases.

If you encounter any issues, please visit the Support Portal at https://support.foundry.com.

Tested Workstation Hardware
Apple	• Macbook Pro (Retina, 16-inch, 2019) • Macbook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, 2018) • Macbook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, 2017)
Dell	• XPS 15 9560 • Precision 3520
HP	• HP Z600* • HP Z640* • HP Z800
CPU	• AMD Ryzen Threadripper* • Intel i7-7700k* • Intel i7-8700 • Intel i9-9900k • Intel Core i7 10750H

Tested GPU Hardware
AMD Prosumer Graphics Cards	• Radeon Vega RX*
AMD Enterprise Graphics Cards	• Radeon Pro 5300M • Radeon Pro WX 8200 • Radeon Pro WX 7100 • Radeon Pro 560X
NVIDIA Prosumer Graphics Cards	• GeForce GTX 1070 Ti (Linux) • GeForce 1080* • GeForce 2070 Super • GeForce 1080* • GeForce 2070 Super
NVIDIA Enterprise Graphics Cards	• Quadro T1000 • Quadro M4000*

New Features and Enhancements

FBX I/O Embedded Media Option

A new Embed Media option has been added to the FBX I/O preferences. When enabled, any media within your scene is included with FBX exports. This option is disabled by default.

Fixes

File I/O

• ID 485867 - FBX: Exporting an animated mesh with a actor and action resulted in an incorrect initial bind pose.

General

• ID 481751 (61462) - Japanese strings were not supported in the Item List, Shader Tree, or Vertex Map List.

MeshFusion

• ID 468417 - Subtractive meshes stacked on top of themselves caused Modo to crash if they included a large number of vertices.

• ID 473369 - Edge Weight Strips disconnected Skirt Width values.

• ID 482693 (61497) - Certain MeshFusion items disappeared when selecting and deselecting them in Items mode.

• ID 483814 - The New Fusion with Selected Meshes button was occasionally disabled incorrectly.

• ID 484111 - Enabling Fusion UVs with Edge Weight to Strips occasionally caused Modo to crash.

• ID 486678 - Stored OmniHaul settings did not work in a MeshFusion context.

Modeling

• ID 468894 - Canceling Vertex Map tool operations stopped them working until you pressed the Escape key.

• ID 484762 (61567) - Shear did not allow the use of the Ctrl keyboard shortcut to constrain transforms on an axis as expected.

Preset Browser

• ID 486611 - Right-clicking in the Preset Browser caused Modo to crash.

• ID 488123 - Re-loading an image repeatedly in the Shader Tree caused Modo to crash.

Procedurals

• ID 482102 (61477) - Curve Sweep Deform Points Edit did not work as expected in the MeshOps stack.

• ID 483263 - Curve Boolean: The calculation of the first character of a text string did not work as expected.

• ID 483870 (61543) - Dragging and dropping meshes between certain scenes caused Modo to crash.

Rendering

• ID 483270 (61517) - Saving passes as images from the render viewport incorrectly added a period after the filename.

Rigging

• ID 482985 - Opening certain files with Relationship nodes caused Modo to crash.

• ID 484432 - Disabling pause evaluation after closing a scene caused Modo to crash.

Schematic

• ID 480243 - Linking channels was imprecise.

• ID 481868 - The output for Locator to Array did not line up correctly if the inputs were expanded.

Scripting

• ID 484715 - Calling scene.removeItems() removed all references on a texture from other items.

• ID 485637 - Calling attr.popNumeric() without arguments and clicking OK in the dialog caused Modo to crash.

Shader Tree

• ID 422463 (60215) - Shader Tree Group scale ignored distance-based gradients.

• ID 485478 - Opening certain scenes caused all shader groups in the tree to expand unexpectedly.

• ID 486567 - Inverse scale from Gradient Distance was not applied correctly.

• ID 488123 - Reloading an image repeatedly in the Shader Tree caused Modo to crash.

UI

• ID 471044 - Menus did not work as expected until artists clicked in the viewport.

• ID 481223 - Assigning MMB as an OmniHaul preset caused the Clone tool to malfunction.

• ID 481926 - The UV Unwrap & Relax tool did not save default hauling.

• ID 482850 (61500) - There was a noticeable delay creating new scenes.

• ID 483001 - Curve Extrude MOP failed to load default hauling for all subtools on initial creation.

• ID 483109 (61511) - Subform More/Less buttons did not display as expected.

• ID 483111 (61513) - Some viewports did not open as expected.

• ID 483320 (61521) - Certain mini popovers did not display correctly.

• ID 483631 (61528) - Hauling was allowed incorrectly with Pattern channels.

• ID 483652 (61532) - Navigating the Item List using the up and down arrow keys did not work as expected.

• ID 483655 (61534) - Loading default hauling for a tool applied the tool.

• ID 483733 (61541) - Mouse-wheel increment distances were smaller when compared to 15.0v3 builds.

• ID 484382 (61556) - Assigning item.channelHaul() to a Locator caused hauling to behave unexpectedly.

• ID 484635 (61560) - OmniHaul defaults for Thicken had MMB-X assigned to both Scale and Max Angle.

• ID 484637 (61561) - The OmniHaul default for Plane Slice, or Polygon Slice, interfered with repeating tool actions.

• ID 485821 - Certain tool.doApply() calls were incorrectly included in the SelectableToolHaulingDefaults.cfg file.

• ID 486353 - Some popovers did not open as expected.

• ID 486454 - macOS only: More/Less buttons were always present in vtabs.

Viewports

• ID 486667 - The 3D viewport was occasionally out of focus in new sessions.

Known Issues

This section covers some known issues and gives workarounds for them, where appropriate.

Animation

• ID 240321 (53661) - Selecting actions does not always select the correct one. This is caused by copying actions.

Note: As a workaround, manually edit the tags on the broken actions by selecting them in the Groups tab, then save and reload the scene.

• ID 395357 - Deformer Caching doesn’t work.

• ID 423909 - Grease Pencil - Setting image type to JPG results in a black fill over the screen.

Assemblies

• ID 288164 (36452) - Assemblies exported from the Item List context menu result in poor visual layout of nodes on import.

Note: As a workaround, you can save assemblies from the Schematic viewport.

Baking

• ID 293020 (50671) - Baking displacement maps can cause UV seams to be visible, and the baked displacement map to show quilting effects and other render artifacts.

• ID 221481 (49437) - The Bake Channel Swizzling option can’t bake to texture alpha.

Bucket Render

• ID 279848 (55663) - Motion Blur applied on a curve in a Mesh Operation no longer works.

• ID 235368 (53411) - Mesh lights or any direct light too close to a surface can produce fireflies (hot pixels) in some cases.

Note: As a workaround, use a Maximum Radiance higher than 1 W/srm2 to reduce the bias.

• ID 243070 (53793) - Rendering using a Dual CPU with 72 threads was significantly slower than expected.

Note: As a workaround, any machine that has more than 32 cores, performance will be better if you limit rendering to half the number of cores you have.

• ID 292947 (53184) - Value presets created for material Subsurface Scattering samples in Modo 10.1 or earlier now show on the render item instead.

• ID 297021 (52730) - The Vertex Illumination Bake command doesn't work as expected, when the mesh has transform channels.

Note: As a workaround, freeze the transforms in the mesh properties.

Color Management

• ID 221439 (49244) - Windows only: With Perform Color Correction on, setting a default scene to a scene with a mesh that has a position channel crashes Modo at launch.

Note: As a workaround, use System > Reset Preferences to reset to defaults or move/remove the default scene.

Command Line

• ID 289290 (49514) - macOS only: Running modo_cl before running the UI Modo application breaks code signing.

Note: As a workaround, start the UI version of Modo once, before running modo_cl on any system where you later intend to use the UI version.

File and Image I/O

• ID 337523 (56862) - Modo for SolidWorks Kit: Modo crashes when importing the same SolidWorks file twice in one Modo session. This only affects import using the kit, not direct imports (File > Import).

Note: As a workaround, before importing a SolidWorks file for the second time, exit and restart Modo.

• ID 221508 (50198) - Alembic scenes don't export some surface items, including static meshes and procedural shatter items.

• ID 226589 (49728) - Exporting selected layers (from the Item List context menu) to .fbx doesn't export instances, unless the original mesh is also exported.

Note: To resolve this, set the .fbx preference to Export Selection and use Export As….

• ID 220991 (47036) - Color management in .svg images is not currently supported. This is a side-effect of a fix where the largest allowable image size (64k x 64k) was always used when color correction was enabled.

• ID 220975 (46962) - Rendering .svg images used as stencil maps for displacement or for layer masking can be very slow.

• ID 346842 - Alembic import - Drag/drop doesn't import animation correctly.

Note: As a workaround, use File > Import.

• ID 482247 - Dragging and dropping an image from the OS browser onto a mesh in the 3D viewport causes Modo to crash.

Note: As a workaround, drag and drop into the Images (Clips) view or load the image into the Shader Tree before dragging it onto the mesh.

Fur

• ID 288248 (35731) - Fur length textures can’t be edited with the Stretch tool.

Note: Use different fur length drivers, such as hair guides or vector vertex maps.

Input Devices

• ID 226536 (51741) - macOS only: Modo sometimes becomes unresponsive when using the combination of a click-drag in a tree view (for example, when toggling the visibility of two successive items in the Shader Tree), followed immediately by a two-finger scroll gesture on some devices, including laptop trackpads and the Magic Mouse.

Note: As a workaround, change to a 3-button mouse (recommended to fully access all of Modo's features).

• ID 303287 (35856) - Linux only: Plugging in a Wacom tablet while Modo is running can cause undesired movement. This cannot be fixed, due to a limitation of the hardware driver.

Note: To avoid this, plug in the tablet before application startup or restart.

MeshFusion

• ID 316276 (56973) - If a Trim Fusion role is assigned to an object and then it is dragged and dropped onto a Primary, the drop menu does not contain the Trim boolean options.

As a workaround, use either the Fusion Buttons (Tool palette - Set Mesh Role & Apply section) or Pie Menu (Apply SubtractionApply Intersection or ) when initially adding Trims to each Fusion Item (Trims can contribute to multiple Fusion Items). If initially applied with either of those methods, all subsequent Drag & Drop options will be supported.

Modeling

• ID 226970 (32728) - Zooming out with a Space Navigator alters the Work Plane position.

• ID 408278 (60027) - Linear Falloff snaps to object size.

Note: As a workaround, use the right mouse button for an interactive initial linear handle.

Network Rendering

• ID 226363 (48325) - Scenes with image sequences rendered with Full Frames use the wrong image sequence number on worker machines.

Note: As a workaround, use File > Consolidate Scene, then render the scene using a shared network folder (Preferences option under Rendering > Network Rendering).

• ID 226337 (36986) - Workers render hidden meshes. Since mesh hide state is not stored in the scene, when that scene is transferred to the workers, the state is lost. The master respects the hidden state, however.

Note: As a workaround, if the intent is to avoid rendering, toggle the visibility for the item or render or open System > Preferences > Rendering and disable Use Network Render Nodes.

• ID 220955 (30318) - Network Rendering doesn’t support Realflow particles.

• ID 226336 (25636) - Frame passes are not supported.

• Severals - While it apparently worked in Modo 902, in some cases, Network Rendering was not implemented to support baking. Changes to Modo in the 10-series apparently broke what was working for some artists, so the functionality has been disabled.

Note: As a workaround, Modo 10 implemented the ability to Network Bake using Bake Items and an external render controller. For more information, please see the SDK Wiki.

Nodal Shading

• ID 221393 (50642) - Nodal shading does not support UDIMs.

• ID 385250 - Nodal Shading is slower in 13.0 with some modifiers.

Painting/Sculpting

• ID 288461 (41682) - Textures are not always updating in Preview/Render when painting on an image map.

Note: You can save and reload the image to force the update.

Particles

• ID 303192 (34925) - Re-opening scenes saved with large particle caches can cause problems.

Note: To avoid such issues, delete the cache before closing Modo, or export the particles to .csv cache files or Realflow .bin files. You can do this by attaching one of those nodes to the Particle Simulation item in the Schematic viewport, and clicking Cache Simulation.

Preview Render

• If a high poly mesh is not visible, the Preview baking output will be incorrect.

Note: As a workaround, reset Preview to fix the baking.

Procedurals

• ID 305303 (56318) - Procedural duplication of Mesh Ops in a Deform folder creates errant Mesh Ops list.

• ID 305302 (56317) - Duplication of Procedurals does not work with the Select By Previous Operation tool.

Note: As a workaround, manually edit the duplicate's Select By Previous Operation Mesh Ops.

• ID 266469 (54738) - A duplication of any item that is a Merge Meshes Source (For example, a Mesh Item, Procedural Item, or Fusion Item), any duplicates (duplicate or instance) are added to the Merge Meshes Ops List as a source.

Note: As a workaround, remove the unwanted additional Merge Mesh Sources (regardless of the type of source) in the Mesh Ops List using the X icon in that list next to each Merge Meshes source.

• ID 221355 (52149) - Curve Extrude mesh operation: The Path Segment Generator's Align to Normal option doesn't work when using a Bezier with zero-length tangents.

Note: As a workaround, rotate the polygons to point toward the +Z before extruding or make sure there are no zero-length tangents.

• ID 289810 (46512) - When rigged, Rock items and other procedurals do not display correctly in GL. This is a limitation of the feature and will not be fixed.

Note: You can use Preview or RayGL to visualize the variations from rigging.

• ID 388978 - Paving does not work when a Guide curve runs through a paving hole

References

• ID 294394 (44492) - If a scene that already contains references is referenced, the shading of the original references may not persist.

Note: As a workaround, limit scenes with shading to one level of reference.

• ID 220957 (41119) - Reloading a reference after replacing it with the same file can cause Modo to crash.

• ID 309252 (56620) - Modo crashes when closing a scene containing a referenced scene after attempting to revert a reference override.

Note: As a workaround, first close and reopen the scene before attempting to revert the reference.

Rigging

• ID 287584 (27244) - Duplicating joints in a bound mesh retains influences from the original joint chain.

• ID 404238 - Bezier Curves don’t work correctly with the Curve Falloff.

• ID 483457 - Disabling or hiding connections using the H keyboard shortcut causes the stack order to behave erratically.

Scripting

• ID 242545 (53458) - Right-clicking or running a script in the Script Editor can lock up input to Modo.

Note: As a workaround, click in the top window of the Script Editor, use the main menus, or change to another application, then switch back to Modo.

Shader Tree

• ID 299187 (37858) - In the Shader Tree, choosing a group from Add Layer > Image Map > (use clip browser) fails.

Note: To work around this issue, in the Clip Browser, choose a single image instead of the group, and then change to the image group using the Texture Layer's Properties tab.

• ID 288141 (30947) - Layer masking displacement does not work unless you drag and drop the masking layer onto the displacement layer.

• ID 372282 (57874) - Custom Materials that define their own smoothing properties (such as the Skin material), no longer smooth the mesh correctly.

Unreal and Unity Materials

• ID 294747 (50701) - Unreal material Ambient Occlusion does not bake correctly in Modo.

• ID 295862 (50700) - There is no way to visualize the Unreal SubSurface Color effect in Modo.

• ID 221477 (50451) - On some graphics cards, Unity material may cause flickering in the Advanced viewport when used with bump maps and shadows.

UI

• ID 281374 (55759) - Transforming objects can cause the Items Properties panel to flicker.

• ID 277244 (55571) - Resizing the dopesheet in Zen crashes Modo 11.1, but not in Modo 11.0.

• ID 273139 (55185) - Text in the viewport icon buttons is not visible in the Advanced viewport on some Mac OS/AMD configurations.

Note: As a workaround, upgrade Mac OS to 10.13.

• ID 226492 (44496) - macOS only: Disabling Affect System Color Dialog in Preferences > Rendering > Color Management, and using the system color picker caused colors to darken with each use of the color picker.

Note: This is due to an OS X issue, which requires the color profile in both the monitor settings and color picker to be set to sRGB IEC61966-2.1.

• ID 224169 (44896) - Dragging and dropping an image from disk into the Clips list doesn’t work.

Note: If the Clips list is empty, drop the image onto the bar at the top, otherwise drop it above or below other images in the list.

• ID 288714 (43162) (Windows only) -Setting a custom text size affects Modo's text drawing.

Note: As a workaround, go to the compatibility settings by right-clicking the Modo shortcut or executable, and turn off font-scaling for the application.

• ID 333249 (57715) - Selecting items in the viewport does not always update the Properties form.

Note: As a workaround, click the alt key.

• ID 388937 - macOS only: UI form field highlights can appear grey.

• ID 395884 - Mac only - Double-clicking bottom right corner or edge of popover doesn't resize back the popover correctly

Viewports

• ID 310930 (56706) - Unity and Unreal materials are not displayed correctly when first loaded into the Advanced viewport.

Note: As a workaround, enable and then disable the visibility of the Shader Tree textures.

• RGBA textures only draw correctly in the Advanced viewport. In the Default viewport, any unsupported texture effect on an image map is drawn as diffuse color when the layer is selected in the Shader Tree.

• ID 281365 (55816) - Wireframes are washed out on transparent surfaces in the Advanced viewport.

Note: As a workaround, avoid transparency when modeling or doing work where wireframes are needed. Alternatively, use the Default viewport.

• Windows only: Using Raptr can cause GL driver crashes in Modo.

• ID 338374 (58003) - Game Navigation mode (camera rotation) does not work in a floating 3D view (palette or separate window).

Note: As a workaround,use Game Navigation mode only in docked 3D views (views that are part of a Layout).

• ID 338599 (57955) - Clicking on the VR layout tab may crash when using a system with a Radeon WX-series graphics card. This is due to a driver and should be fixed by a AMD in a future driver release.

• ID 289738 (49473) - Projections are incorrect if the projecting camera is set to Vertical film fit mode and the width is less than the height.

• ID 289020 (43771) - Camera projections from non-render cameras show distortion in GL and baking.

Note: To avoid this, make sure that the projection camera has a film width-to-height ratio that matches the main render camera.

• ID 408416 - Gradient (texture layer) renders incorrectly in the Advanced Viewport.

Note: As a workaround, use Preview.

• ID 420733 - Ghost Mode Transparency set to 0% isn't fully transparent.

VR

• ID 218386 - VR is now supported on Linux, but has only been tested and verified working using SteamVR on Ubuntu 18.04.