[MODO] Stupid MODO Questions

redhonour

Hey,

At the start of this year I decided to learn MODO in order to add another skill to the set. I aim to use it chiefly for modeling as it seems to have an amazing set of tools for creating props and hard surface assets. 

So I think I need a place to ask embarrassingly dumb questions in the name of progress and I trust fellow polycounters will not make fun of me too much. Most of this learning is focused on game art, mostly environment, props, and whatever else looks cool

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I've done a fair bit of digging already and have taken advantage of a few resources that have already helped me grasp the very basics:

Pixel Fondue has a wealth of resources that are intimidating to me as a MODO noob but have helped answer my randomly googled MODO-centric questions with mercifully brief videos.

The Foundry has a great set of tutorials for the beginner and I love that some of them are geared toward users switching from other software packages. (I went with "Using Modo with 3ds Max" since it's the software I use most often on the job)

The MODO User Guide has also been great for me as a searchable online doc. (I f***ing LOVE searchable online docs you don't even know)

Gumroad has a lot of slick looking tuts for sale from artists I know, but I found even some introductory tuts to be too advanced or skip over the extremely basic things I needed to know. Still lots of cool resources when I'm less MODO dumb

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Anyway, I'm generating these questions by attempting my first project in MODO and I already have a batch of stupid questions:



1) Poly selection feels weird because I have to marque around the entire poly to select it. Is there an option to complete my selection by selecting only part of the polygon? If you know 3DS Max, this is referred to as a "crossing" selection as opposed to a "window" selection.

EXAMPLES (in Max): First image is desired (crossing), Next image is MODO default (window)

     

2) Is there a way to use the transform gizmo without having to press escape or spacebar to commit/confirm every transformation? (Forgetting to do that ALWAYS screws me up)

3) Can I create new primitives on the grid in less clicks than the default?

4) Is there a faster way to change/cycle views in the 3D viewport (front, back, left right, etc)

5) Are Maya-like marking menus available in MODO by default? I've seen some but only in what looked like custom scripts. If not, what are alternatives?

6) How can I detect errors in my mesh and other shitty geo? (Flipped normals, stacked verts/edges/polys, non-manifold geo, etc)

SenSayNyu

1. Go to 'System>Preferences...>Input>Selection' and check 'Allow Partial Polygon Selection'

2, This one is tricky. There is no need to drop a tool if you will use other tools after. Like, select polygons>move with W, B for Bevel and R to scale. Also, you can press and hold W (or any other hotkey) and tool will only active while hotkey is pressed. Additionally, many people don't know that Modo have toolpipe modifiers like 'Auto-drop', 'Select through' and 'Auto Activate'. I suggest learning this options and use when needed.

3. Ctrl-click or shift click will create primitive with default parameters in workplane center. For more nuanced tasks there are many scripts or you can record your own macro.

4. Ctrl+space pie menu or numpad hotkeys 0-3 and del.

5) Check this videos from Martin Krol.

6) 'Geometry>Mesh Cleanup' command is your friend. I recommend to bind this to a hotkey or keep it close in pie menu. I, personally, use tab key to check for errors. In subd mode most errors are obvious. Also there is stats panel with very useful info that you can use for errors detection or various operations & selection duties.

redhonour

Thanks for the wealth of information!

1) Thanks for pointing me to this! Though unfortunately I took this info and did a bit more research and experimentation on how to use partial selection and it actually isn't what I want because even though I mainly want this for polys... it seems to be vert based. WEIRD. Basically, you can't make the same crossing selection in my example and it looks like this is simply a thing MODO doesn't quite have? 

EXAMPLE (with partial polygon selection turned on):

 Ohhhhhhh well, more than one way to skin a cat I guess (please don't skin cats)

2) This is a godsend. Obviously I'm only about 2+ weeks into MODO but this made me feel super slow and thick-headed screwing up basic transformations so often. Thanks!

I actually did watch a video about toolpipe stuff but I guess I wasn't convinced of how useful those options were because the examples given were kind of...uninspiring. Love to hear more on how game-changing they can be!

6) Thanks to your tip I found my favorite string of words so far: 

redhonour

So I'm pretty far into the modeling and that's going swell. I've been following Vaughan Ling's awesome set of tutorials creating a Braun HL70. (And I made a motor for for extra credit)



Now I'm into UVs and boy do I need some guidance. I feel super slow here. In Max, I'd typically use a lot of hot-keyed Quick Planar mapping, plus peeling to unwrap a bunch of shells to rectangular strips. I've been using similar workflows in MODO, but there are a lot of things that slow me down:

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Questions, Batch 2

7) Is there any way to straighten a bunch of UV edges at once? Especially when they aren't part of perfect poly loops. I've been doing these one at a time and it is PAINFUL

8) Move and sew seems to default to stretching shells to make a successful sew. How can I make move and sew to "selected" my default?

9) I've been using the vertex normal tools to unwrap by hard edges. Is there a way to constrain these operations to a single mesh element? They seem to always run on the entire mesh item

 

WilliamVaughan

If you're new to MODO this might interest you:
http://pushingpoints.com/v2/the-pushing-points-modo-essentials-book/

Bek

7) Axis Center = Local, Axis = origin. Macro that to a hotkey, I use alt+v. Actually that's the oldschool way, they added an Align button in the UV layout for this, as well as the Rectangle button.

8) bind a key to

uv.sewMove disco true

. I use shift+w in UV editor context.

9) depends somewhat on modo version

redhonour

Thanks for all the answers and resources!

9) I found a good way to do this in my case was to hide everything except the mesh I wanted to unwrap. Probably there are better ways out there, but this worked for me.

Update:

I got to a decent finishing point but with lots of trouble baking a decent normal map using a round edges shader.

 I researched, sat through, and went through around 5 or 6 step-by-step tutorials somewhere in the neighborhood of 50+ times and never got a good bake. I learned a lot of things about the concept of Vertex Maps in the process, which was cool in hindsight and not something I could draw a parallel to in Max.

These were very educational, but in practice my bakes always came out extremely flat and with many bake errors. I figure the problem was somewhere between how to properly prep/clean my model and my lack of knowledge of how the bake system works, things I intend to study further in the next project. I did succeed in baking a rounded edge normal off a simple test prop so that's a win



I LOVE the UV tools! Reminds me a lot of Maya tools, but I never get to use Maya that much at work and they are far more enjoyable to use than Max's. I particularly like that so many commands work on multiple shells like "Orient". In Max, I'd align shells horizontally or vertically one by one using the "Align to Edge". It's hard to go back to that at work! "Rectangle" is also very awesome because unlike Max's "Straighten Selection" it actually seems to work perfectly in one click. These were massive time savers in unwrapping for trims.

(I've kept a bit of a blog on my experiences if you're into that kind of thing: https://www.artstation.com/pittskrieg/blog)

Currently my free trial with MODO is dead so I'm exploring other options.


10) Has anyone had experience using MODO Indie? Reading their page, I'm mostly concerned about the limits attached to Command  panel and 3rd party script access. Would I be locked out of making macros or using cool scripts to expand MODO functionality?

WilliamVaughan

You would have access to Macros but not scripts. 

There are several Modo Indie artists on Warren's Discord channel ... you should join and connect with them
https://discord.gg/8ZavaG