Hi Tony, well it sounds like that will be a good step forward.

That part probably will not be ready by this very next beta but probably the one after, for this next beta I'm focused on just setting up the UI within MoI.


> Do Luxology publish info on their formats?

No, not as far as I can tell.

The only SDK that they have seems to be a plugin system for writing File I/O plugins for Modo, and not a file format specification for how to read or write that format from a different application.

Do you know of what differences there are between .lxo and .lwo? It seems that Modo is structured very similar to the .lwo format already, so I'm not quite sure what the differences are.

- Michael

>> That part probably will not be ready by this very next beta but probably the one after,
>> for this next beta I'm focused on just setting up the UI within MoI.

No problem. One step at a time ;-)


>> The only SDK that they have seems to be a plugin system for writing File I/O plugins for Modo,
>> and not a file format specification for how to read or write that format from a different application.

Ah ha, this explains some of the complaints over at the Luxology forum about a lack of SDK for modo.


>> Do you know of what differences there are between .lxo and .lwo? It seems that Modo
>> is structured very similar to the .lwo format already, so I'm not quite sure what the differences are

No sorry, never had Lightwave so don't know how this works.

>> Do you know of what differences there are between .lxo and .lwo? It seems that Modo is structured very similar to the .lwo format already, so I'm not quite sure what the differences are.

Hi Michael,

.Lxo is a complete scene format, storing objects, light setups, camera, animations etc ... while .lwo is 'just' an object format.
In fact .lwo is not used anymore in modo, it's just there for data exchange with lightwave


In lightwave stuffs were splitted into 2 formats, .lws (that can be edited in a simple txt editor) for the scene, and .lwo for the geometry.

Hi PaQ - thanks, that clarifies it some more.

But what about only considering the mesh object data inside of a .lxo file - it seems likely that particular part of the data is pretty much the same as .lwo format object data...

Is there some kind of mesh data that does not survive an export from Modo to .lwo format and back in again for example?

- Michael

>> Is there some kind of mesh data that does not survive an export from Modo to .lwo format and back in again for example?

Nothing as far as I know ... only shading descritpion is lost. (In fact basic texture maps in common slot like diffuse, specular, bump are preserved ... but advanced
settings that is to much different from lw don't work of course)

You can even rename a .lwo into .lxo ... it will load perfectly in modo (I'm not sure it will prove anything :))

*Edit

They are some little stuffs that are still not preserved

- Patch geometry
- UV's are allways stored back to linear

Btw I've renamed a .lxo into .lwo, but the file can't be loaded in lightwave modeler.

I almost forget :

Nice rendering Danny ! Maybe the glass material can be a little bit enhanced ? (adding some refraction ? fresnel on the reflection ? I don't know ... looks just 'transparant' for the moment)