Modo:

Help menu->local Help documents = opens local help documents

The Modo Interface > What is a Viewport > 3D (OpenGL) Viewport >
Navigation
Alt + left-click = Holding the option key, or the ALT key in Windows, will turn your
cursor into a rotating arrow. This will allow you to rotate your 3D view and see your
object, from different angles.
Alt + Shift + left-click = pan the view up down, left or right, without rotating your
current view.
Alt + ctrl + left-click = zoom in and zoom out. This zooming is also mouse
context sensitive, so if you mouse over the top right section and zoom in, you'll
zoom in toward that section.
Mesh is a container for polygon objects. Mesh can contain one or more polygon
objects. An empty mesh is displayed in gray color in the item tab. A new mesh can
be created by selecting Items tab -> Add Item -> Mesh or by pressing keyboard
n key.
In model perspective the panel displayed on the left side of the 3d viewport (visor)
is called Tools panel. Tools panel basic tab has primitive tools. If you press Ctrl
and left-click on any of the primitive buttons, you will create a unit primitive in
the current mesh. It's a simple shortcut to make primitive generation more simple
and quick. By using this method, a standard primitive will be automatically
generated without the need to draw anything. Shift and left-click on any of the
primitive buttons will create a unit primitive in a new mesh.
Left-click = selects a single vertex/edge/polygon/item
Left-double-click = select all the vertexes/edges/polygons of an item
Shift + a = to focus on to a selected item
Delete = deletes the selected item/polygons. If there is only one item in the mesh,
deleting it in item mode also deletes the mesh. If you dont want to delete the mesh
then delete it in polygons mode.bb
right click context menu in the 3d view allows to choose different lasso select styles.
right click + drag to lasso select the specific surface you want to replicate. Except
in wireframe mode, in all other modes this operation selects only the front facing
vertices/edges/polygons. Middle click + drag operation selection works in exact
opposite way to right click + drag, except in wireframe mode in all other modes it
selects even the back facing vertices/edges/polygons.
Tools panel -> vertex tab -> Center/Center All Axis: An axis is the imaginary
line used as a reference for any of the dimensions in a 3D universe. Typically, axes

are named x, y, and z (for width, height, and depth). I use this option very often.
What it does is it takes all the selected vertices and places them in the center of
every axis, which is the same as saying the center of the scene. This is very useful
when I want to center a whole model. Just switch to vertex mode, click on Center All
Axis, and the whole scene will be correctly placed in the exact center. If you use
Center instead, a pop-up dialog will ask you for the axis you want your selection to
be centered on. You choose which one is better for you at any given moment.
Tools panel -> vertex tab -> Join: This option joins two or more vertices to form
a single one. The resulting vertex will be placed exactly in the same place as the
last vertex selected, so the formula will be something like "join a to b".
Tools panel -> vertex tab -> Join average: This is the same as Join, but the
result will be a single vertex placed in the middle of the selection. It is useful for
joining offset vertices.
Tools panel -> vertex tab -> Merge: This option scans the mesh looking for
overlapping vertices (two or more vertices overlapping each other) and then merges
them into a single vertex. It is good for cleaning your models or to automatically
weld parts of the model. You can set a threshold level so only certain distances
between vertices get merged.
Tools panel -> edge tab -> Extend: Select an edge and click on this tool. Then
again click near to the edge so that directional handles get displayed. Now, using
the direction handles, you can control a newly generated polygon born from the
selected edge. It is very useful if you want to grow your mesh from basic to complex
shapes.
Tools panel -> edge tab -> Bevel: Select an edge (or a group of edges) and
make them round with this tool. You can control the roundness of the beveling with
the tool's properties to give it more or less definition. Give positive value for Round
Level Tool property to make the edge round. This is extremely handy if you want to
add details to your model or generate new geometry in an existing mesh.
Tools panel -> edge tab -> Bridge: This generates a polygon connecting two
edges. You select the two edges (or a group of edges), click on the tool, and they
will be bridged. You can also control how the bridge works, if you want it
segmented.
Tools panel -> edge tab -> Slide: Select one or more edges and move them with
this tool without the need to adjust the shape of the mesh. The mesh will be
dynamically updated while you drag the edges. This is a great tool for making fine
adjustments to your model.
Tools panel -> edge tab -> Add loop/Loop slice: These two tools are used to
add geometry based on an edge or a group of edges. You click on Add Loop and
then click on an edge on the visor. It will add a cut generating the geometry.
Another way is using the loop slice tool, which is more flexible and versatile to my
taste. You can find the tool in the upper menu by navigating to Geometry| Slice|
Loop.

Tools panel -> edge tab -> Remove: The best way to get rid of one or more
edges is just by using the Remove button. Select the edge you want to remove and
click on the tool. The edge will disappear, but preserving the mesh involved. It's
different than selecting the edge and hitting the backspace key, since this last
method is destructive (it removes not only the edge, but all the geometry that edge
was forming part of) while the remove method is non-destructive.
Tools panel -> edge tab -> Boolean: The Boolean tool is a very classic operation
too. This tool lets you merge two different objects, forming a single mesh. The
intersecting geometry is removed and a new joining geometry is created. This
option has got many settings, mainly affecting its behavior, so you can make a
subtraction Boolean, Intersect Boolean, adding Boolean, and so on.
Press o to reach 3D Viewport Properties panel visibility context menu tab,
where you can disable workplane, grid.
Left side tabs - Mesh edit -> commands -> subdivide > faceted
Shift + tab = catmull-clark subdivision activates. This algorithm supports edge
weighting with no UV distortion. Properties panel -> surface side menu -> catmullclark. Rather than manually adding more loops to sharpen edges, this provides a
simple solution. Select relevant mesh in Items tab -> Lists tab -> statistics window
-> select edges you want to sharpen and then apply some weight through menu bar
Vertex Map -> Edge Weight Tool. This sharpens those edges.
tab = modos native subdivision algorithm activates. This algorithm doesnt support
edge weighting. Properties panel -> surface side menu -> subdivision
m = displays Polygon set material dialog. Changes in this dialog get reflected in the
right-side shading tab.
Select material in shading tab -> properties tab -> surface normal panel ->
displacement distance
Geometry menu -> freeze
Geometry menu -> reduction tool -> left-side reduct panel -> number //to
reduce number of faces
Geometry menu -> mesh cleanup

//cleans up any faults in the mesh

Vertex map -> set vertex normal //this populates lists->othermaps

Hover the mouse over some geometry in the scene where the Work Plane should
move to, then press Alt+O. The Work Plane retains its orientation, but moves to the
location where the mouse pointer intersects with the geometric element.
Alternatively if you want work plane also to change its orientation to the plane of
the selected polygon then use work plane -> Align work plane to selection.
Once the job is over use work plane -> reset work plane to reset the work plane.

Ctrl + tab = switch between layouts. Modos UI (user interface) is split up into
number of different areas designed for specific tasks. Each layout is a collection of
viewports.
Right-click on the 3d view port top-left corner dot = displays options to split,
duplicate the screen
Ctrl + left-click on the 3d view port top-left corner dot + drag in the direction you
want to split = splits the screen
Ctrl + spacebar = displays context menu with top, down, etc.,
Ctrl + 1 = displays context menu with toggle lights, toggle camera, toggle
wireframe, etc.,
Ctrl + 2 = displays context menu with wire, solid, shaded, etc.,
When working with work plane tool, by default preview check box is on. After
proper aligning directional pointers, turn off preview check box so that work plane
aligns with the directional pointers.
The Preset Browser can be opened as a pop-up palette by pressing F6 in any
layout workspace. Presets can be applied to the scene using a simple drag-and-drop
operation or, in some cases, double-clicking the preset in the browser.
R = scale the item/polygons. Directional lines ending with square blocks are
displayed. Use directional lines for uniform scaling (scaling on both sides from the
origin of the axis) along an axis. Use the circle displayed at the center point where
all the directional lines are converging. Use the centewr circle to scale uniformly in
all directions.
W = move the item/polygons. Directional lines ending with arrows are displayed.
Use them for moving. By default directional arrows aligns in the direction of the
work plane. Directional arrows can be aligned to the selected surface by selecting
action center -> selection. This helps to move the selected surface exactly in its
perpendicular direction and so on. Another way is selecting action center ->
element, thereafter right clicking on any surface displays directional lines aligned
to that surface. This helps to move the selected surface relative to the direction of
another surface. action center -> local would be helpful when multiple selected
things have to move relative to their own local direction pointers.
Shift + up-arrow = if some polygons are selected then pressing these keys
expands the selection outwards uniformly. These options can be found in the select
menu.
L = after selecting two or more polygons, pressing this key selects adjacent
polygons to create loop. If adjacent polygons in different direction are being
selected, then guide it in the wanted direction by pre selecting some more polygons
in the correct direction. These options can be found in the select menu.

Edge side menu -> Add Loop = then put cursor at some point on the edge where
you want to draw a loop. The loop forms from the cursor point through the adjacent
polygons touching for that cursor point.
B = enable bevel tool. Then clicking on a polygon displays pointers. Move those
pointers and experiment. Offset pointer ends with round circle. Move pointer ends
with arrow. To repeat bevel operation use shift key and click. B tool adapts to
polygons/edges based on the selection. Bevel operation spawns new topology
(collection of polygons/edges/vertices) same as the selected topology and displays
pointers to scale and move the new topology in different directions. Extrude
operation is similar to bevel, the only difference is extrude has only move pointers
along all the axis, no scale pointer.
Polygon side menu -> thicken = when item is selected, displays move and scale
pointers on the item. Use move pointer to thicken the item. I had to align work
plane with thickening surface, otherwise the blue handle which has to thicken also
scaling while thickening. In the book this tool has been praised than the extrude as
this tool also corrects any overlapping geometry which can happening while
thickening a complex geometry.
For symmetry to work, the item must be centered at the world origin (0,0,0) location
as the symmetry duty is to ensure for the selected axis both sides from its 0
location is symmetrical. One more restriction for symmetry to work is the item
should already be symmetrical on both sides of the selected axis, then only
symmetry works. To move the item to the world origin use Tools panel -> vertex
tab -> Center/Center All Axis. To turn on symmetry around an axis Edit ->
Symmetry -> select x or y or z
Tools panel -> edge tab -> Add loop/Loop slice always draws a loop. If you
want to create a random shape slice then use Geometry -> Slice -> Edge or
Tools panel -> Mesh Edit -> Edge Slice, this allows to select any point on any
edge and as you keep selecting points a line is drawn through those points joining
all of them. You can also move a selected point along the edge by dragging the
point.
Ctrl-c/ctrl-v/ctrl-x = copy/paste/cut selected polygons. I noticed these controls are
not enabled in items mode. Copied polygons in one mesh can be pasted into
another mesh by selecting the other mesh and pasting the copied polygons.
Item tab -> right-click on a mesh -> duplicate = creates a new copy of the
mesh along with the polygon objects.
Inactive mesh polygon objects are displayed without color. To display inactive mesh
polygons same as active mesh polygons, Press o to reach 3D Viewport
Properties panel Inactive Meshes context menu tab, where you can enable
Make Inactive Same as Active.
Tools panel -> Duplicate -> Array: duplicate the polygons in the active mesh.
Number of duplicate polygons count, offset distance in x, y, z axis can be controlled
using the Array tool properties panel. For each duplicate polygon a new mesh is

created in the items tab. Whether these meshes under items tab should get
displayed as a hierarchy or as a group can be controlled from the Array tool
properties panel -> parent option. If paten option is set to off, then we can select all
the meshes under items tab holding ctrl/shift key then ctrl-g groups them all as a
group.
Tools panel -> Mesh Edit -> Loop Slice = in edge mode, select an edge then
click on the Loop Slice, then a loop cut is displayed along the selected edge. The
loop cut can be moved along the edge using the slider displayed on the top of the
3d view. For moving freely in the tool properties Edit -> Move, Mode -> Free should
get selected.
Right-click on Items displays options Items, pivot, center. Select pivot, then click
keyboard w key to move pivot center to somewhere else. When item is rotated it
rotates around its pivot point. So placing pivot point at right place is desired. Each
mesh and each group has its own pivot point.

Sculpting:
The transform tool is not sculpting tool, but it can be used for very rough, very quick
sculpting like stuff. But if you really want to be creative youve to use sculpting
tools.
Now I am in the paint layout tab. But In fact you dont need that tab at all. It may be
a good starting point because in the lower right part of the screen you can see how
your brush is looking like. And you can adjust the settings of the brush and see what
these settings do. But you can open the sculpting palette anywhere on the program
by pressing the f3 key. That will open little floating sculpting tool palette and you
can access all of the sculpting tools in one.
The first tool we want to have look at is move tool. Because usually you will start by
creating primitive optic on screen and move it into position, move the corner form
move the rough form into whatever you want to create.
Some basic functions that you will constantly need to adjust is size of the brush and
bias. The bias means how sharp the brush will fall off to its corner to its outer rim.
Now you can adjust these parameters from the little head of the display from the
heart in the center of the screen which by the way you can switch on and switch off
by the button in the upper left corner but I think using the right mouse button to
increase or decrease the size of the brush is much more convenient. And if you hold
down the ctrl key on the keyboard and use the right mouse button you can adjust
the bias. Again the bias is for the sharpness or strength of the fall off of the brush.
Now you can see me playing around with the settings brush size as well as bias and
you can watch what settings are doing to my test scene on the screen. But you
should play around with the settings just like in Photoshop you are using your stylus
to draw anything you have to find your own settings for brush size and bias
especially for pressure sensitivity to which we will come later.

Now in the lower right hand part of the screen you can see some optical
representation of the brush. The first is the brush seen from the buff circle the
sharper the circle is the higher the biases. Second part is the brush seen from the
side something to say about that just for moment and you can see how soft how
round the edges will be created. The height of the brush or lets say how much
geometry you are actually editing depends either on the pressure you are applying
or on the offset value. The offset actually means how deep the brush will penetrate
into the mesh or how much of the data downwards from the brush will be effected.
So the height in this lower right hand part or lower right hand display actually was
to the offset. You can adjust offset from the heart or from the head of the display or
you can use the middle mouse button to adjust the offset and Modo will display
some yellow line showing how deep the brush will actually penetrate. Now for me
the offset setting by the middle mouse button often stops. I dont know why Ive to
use the heart from time to time to adjust the offset. It should also be noted that the
offset value only makes sense when you are in adaptive or relative sculpting mode
not in absolute mode. I will talk about that later. Function you will use quite often to
smooth out whatever you have done to even out the geometry. You can access the
smooth brush by holding down the shift key and just left mouse button pen clicking
on whatever you want to adjust. You can actually put the smooth function on other
qualifiers I will show you how that works in a moment but in general you will have it
on the shift key and just smooth out any something you should keep in mind is the
brush size.
The brush size is relative to the screen. That means if you zoom in on the mesh the
brush will actually effect less geometry if you zoom out it will effect more geometry.
It will always effect what you have seen in the red circle of the brush. So keep that
in mind when you are trying to adjust very small parts of your geometry and zoom
out because suddenly your brush will get much more effective. Let me clean up
some of the mess on the mesh that I made here to show you the basic brush types
that are available. I think in most cases you will use the brush with the soft edge
because by just clinking up the bias you actually get a brush with harder edge but if
you want to you can directly use harder edge brush. You can use procedural or
spherical brushes for somewhat sophisticated functions that is another story we will
tell another time.
Related stuffing has an image brush actually loaded in an image alia so let me just
show you this little life rescale and rotation tool that is the second button just right
to the image button. If you use both buttons at the same time you can use the
image button rotated and rescaled on the fly. And the last brush type here is just a
normal text brush you can type nearly any text you want and just stump it on your
mesh or use it as mask and again that is another story and shall be told another
time.
If I recap what we learned about move tool then I would say use the move tool to
get the first basic rough shape of your mesh into form and use the right mouse
button to adjust the brush size you are dealing with and use ctrl and right mouse
button to adjust the bias or sharpness of the brush. You can use middle mouse

button or offset slider on the heart to increase or decrease offset and the offset
defines how much geometry is effected by a brush. The last but not least use the
shift key to smooth whatever youve did.
So lets move onto the push tool. For me the push tool is the most powerful
sculpting brush in Modo. Even prefer to scoff and coff and whatever but those are
different stories we shall be told another time. The only thing we really cant do with
push tool is moving geometry but then again Modo has a move tool for that. Now
the push tool if you activated will just push in or pull out geometry wherever you
press it on the mesh. Just like with the move tool you can adjust the brush size with
the right mouse button and bias or sharpness of the brush with ctrl and right mouse
button. By the way pushing or pulling if you just press down then you are pushing
the geometry because the tool is called push tool. If you hold down the ctrl key then
you are pulling along the normal and we will talk about normal mode in a moment
also you can use the offset to define how deep or how far the brush will penetrate
into the mesh or pull the geometry out of the mesh. The push tool is good way of
showing the difference between adaptive and absolute offset mode. In Adaptive
mode which is standard mode the pressure youve applied to the pen will be
transhot into some relative pressure on the screen and the presented you type with
just middle mouse button for the offset defines if its strengthening your pressure or
its weakening your pressure and how the pressure will be calculated. Push into the
mesh or how far the brush will pull out geometry from your mesh. And you can type
in any arbitrary measurement meters inches defining the maximum value that the
brush will effect. Understanding how the normal mode works is important to get full
control over what your brush is doing to the geometry. The standard mode is
average. Average just means that all the normal of the geometry underneath your
brush will be taking into consideration. And when you press or pull on the geometry
the action will take along this average normal. So as you can see on the screen
average actually follows the contour of the mesh I am working on. But if you want to
create some concave structure very sharp edge average wont help anyway. So If
you switch to lets say screen the normal along which the geometry will be modified
is taken from your actual screen rotation. So actually you brush will push or pull
straight forward from where you look at and that is a very great way of sharply
defining where the geometry is pushed to.
And having understood that the other modes are quite easy to understand this as
well. Brush center of course uses normal underneath the brush center vertex uses
the normal of the every vertex you are running over. Mouse down is little bit tricky
to use because it uses the normal when you start the stroke and carries that along
while you pressing down.
Let us start about the density mode. But first let me clean up the mesh once again
shift key your friend. Density mode is attenuated that means that if you run over
the same area with one brush stroke without stopping the stroke the limit up to
which the geometry will be filled up or pushed or pulled is defined by the
percentage of your offset or by the offset value. But if you switched to additive
mode there is no limit you just keep on pushing or pulling the geometry out or in
depending on how option you run over the same area. Note there is no geometry

added you are just moving vertices up or down. The other two modes take their
limits from the maximum offset amount you have to define just as if you pressed
with maximum pressure or from the maximum value in the displacement map. Now
the displacement map comes into play when you are using subdivision or
multiresolution sculpting that is a different story and will be told another time.
Let us have a look at a standard bush stroke. You can see all those little bumps and
those bumps are created because there is no continuous transfer of positions of the
pen to the editing on the screen. If I increase the interpolation value then even less
positions from my mouse or from my pen are used to create editing blobs. In order
to connect those blobs I can switch on the continuous strokes and that will just join
or connect those single steps those single positions Modo asks from my pen. So its
if you want to create a continuous smooth stroke decrease the interpolation value
and switch on continuous stroke. That may slow down Modo on geometry with lot of
polygons. Of course and there may be times when you actually want to have a set
of very straight lines where you just increased the interpolation and switch on
continuous strokes to get some jaggy lines on your geometry. Now by switching on
nozzle note all you get all those additional controls down here. And that means you
can control what the pressure of your stylus is doing what the tilt of your pen is
doing. The first value interacts with your operating systems sensitivity of your
stylus. So I wont get into detail here. You have to just try it out because your
operation system will have its own setting for sensitivity. The strength will in most
cases be best set to pressure because the harder you press the deeper the brush
will penetrate into the geometry and by combining pressure and size and speed you
can create calligraphy like strokes on the screen which can be quite nice. The
rotation function allows you to align the normals of strokes making to the direction
in which you are moving. You have to actually try that out fair it to the heart.
Now let us move to the topic of multires subdivision sculpting. So far I have been
using non subdivided mesh and the main reason for that is that you can see what
the brush strokes are what the tools are actually doing to the geometry. By simply
switching on multires you are creating an invisible displacement map in the
background that Modo will use to edit subdivision surfaces on your mesh and that
will give you of course a lot smoother control over your sculpt but you dont have
direct control over the polygons or the vertices you are influencing and that is the
reason why so far I am using a nonsubdivided mesh. You can control subdivision
level by pressing one of the two arrows up or down. You can see the actual level in
the multires display but I would always have an eye on the polygon count on the
lower right hand corner of the screen because the multires level is some kind of
abstract.
Finally let us have a look at the masking functions in the Modo sculpting tools. If you
want to use masking you have to use a multires mesh. It doesnt work with non
subdivided non multires mesh. To activate the painting for the mask by just clicking
on the paint function and then you have the standard mouse function with the right
mouse button to adjust the brush size and the bias and just paint on the mask. The
mask you paint it will define what part of the mesh is not influenced by your brush.
If you want invert that behavior if you want to adjust what you paint it on youve to

invert the mask. So its really easy to define what areas of the mesh you want to
adjust and what to not. And since the bias or the fall off at the b of the brush is
respected you get a smooth fall off smooth transition from the masked area to the
non masked area. But beware there is a situation I went into a couple of times so I
am able to give this little warning: sometimes if you clear the mask youve no mask
on the screen, youve nothing visible and you cant adjust your mesh you have no
idea why that is. Have a look if you have invert mask active because that will
actually when everything masked off not adjustable. Just crack that and you are
good to go.

Sculpt tools left side menu tab -> move

Right-click in the view = displays violet-color circle filled with red color. Circle size
indicates the brush size and red color indicates it bias. Circle size can be altered
using mouse pad. The bias means how sharp the brush will fall off to its corner to its
outer rim.
Ctrl + right-click + mouse pad = allow to shrink and expand the red-color inside the
violet circle. The red-color indicates the bias.
Left-click = allows to act using the brush. Keeping it on any vertex and dragging
moves the vertex.
Offset can be changed using either the middle mouse or the offset slider, which
controls how much of the geometry gets effected.
Use shift key to smooth
Sculpt tools left side menu tab -> push = pushes outside. When used with ctrl
pushes inside.

(file:///C:/Program
%20Files/Luxology/modo/902_SP2/help/index.html#help/pages/modo_interfa
ce/ui_conventions.html)
Buttons:
You need to click on a button to select the function. When active, the button
highlights in orange, indicating its selected (active) state. For certain buttons, like
tools, you can deactivate them by clicking the tool button again or pressing the Q or
Esc keys to drop the tool. For state buttons, such as the mode buttons, you can't
deactivate the state, but you can choose an alternate button to change to a
different state.

Button Pop-ups
A button pop-up is a button that displays a secondary list or window. In the toolbox, these
buttons are separated by a small gray arrow pointing toward the lower right hand corner. To
open, right-click on a pop-up button to access this list and make selections from it. You can also
click and hold to open the pop-up as well. The GL Viewport pop-ups which allow for Viewport
Type and Shading choices are special cases. The options list is displayed when you right-click
the buttons in the 3D (OpenGL) Viewport. You can adjust pop-up transparency by navigating to
System > Preferences... > Display > OpenGL > Transparency > Popups on the menu bar and
changing the percentage there.