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Author: Debi Taylor

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Animated walk cycles

For anyone who is not a full-time rigger or animator, but has tried to create a simple walk cycle, you'll no doubt remember all the time and effort you put in, only to have your character walk like a zombie. Well,  a fellow MODOnaut, Michael Gass, has created this animated walk-cycle script for ACS rigs that will help you out immensely. Even if it's not perfect, it will get you well on your way!

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Numeric Entry Field Tips

One of the handiest things you can use in your everyday workflow is the versatile way you can approach entering numbers into MODO. Here in this video, James Darknell explains a variety of ways that even many MODO experts are unaware of.

http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/tv/training/view.aspx?id=659

I particularly like the Gang Edit. 🙂

In addition to being able to edit the number fields by typing in numbers, users can gang edit all three fields simultaneously by LMB+Clicking the icon to the left of the mini-slider enabling the feature.

Gang-edit

 

INDEPENDENT - The default is i 'Independent', controls are edited independently.

COPY - The first click changes the field = 'Copy', will make whatever you type into the first field, the same in the other two fields.

PROPORTIONAL - The second click changes to ∞ (infinity) 'Proportional' where value changes are applied proportionally to all like controls.

RELATIVE - The third click changes to + 'Relative', the value change is added to all like controls. For instance if you divided the first field by /2 the other two fields would recalculate dividing by two as well.

When entering numeric values, you can use keyboard equivalents as well, such as;

'Ctrl'+'Alt'+'Enter'for Copy

'Ctrl'+'Enter' for Proportional

'Alt'+'Enter' for Relative

 

Related Images:

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Aligning silhouette people to the Camera

Description

Architectural visualization is often known for its silhouettes of people going about their day. These 2D stencil images can be downloaded from the 'net, or from the MODO asset share site. When it comes to changing camera angles though, it's not necessary for you to go around and tweak each person so that they remain aligned to the camera. Here's a trick I saw Brad Peebler do a few years back.

Step-by-Step

  • Under the Animate tab at the top..
  • in Item mode, select the silhouette Mesh, then Shift-select the camera
  • click on Direction Constrained in the Modifier section

 
Render-Backwards                

You'll notice then that when you move the camera, the 2D Item Mesh will always align to the camera. However, one thing that you probably won't want it to do is, tilt when you move the camera up or down. You just need it to move on the Y-axis only

Render-Backwards
             
  • On the righthand-side, under the Properties tab..
    • click on the Direction Constraint tab
    • click on Add output Options
    • change the Opacity on both the X and Z axes
 
Forum Link http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/tv/training/view.aspx?id=483
Source  Brad Peebler
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How to create condensation

Description

In November 2014, I had the privilege of organising and attending the SWEDEN LOVES MODO event in Gothenburg. I learnt a lot that day, but the one thing I took away and wanted to be able to reproduce when I got back home was an example from a presentation by Paulo Madeira on how to quickly create condensation / water droplets on the outside of an object, like say, on a can of coke. 

Now, if you have tried this exercise yourself before (or using a preset from the Asset Share site), you'll probably recall that it took a lot of resources, and your render times probably went through the roof. Paulo's method takes all those headaches away with a few clever tricks he's come up with. 

Step-by-Step
 

In Paulo's example, he used the Chameleon preset that comes with MODO. So for the purpose of this exercise, we will too and assume you have setup your environment and lighting. 

  • Drag in the Chameleon mesh preset.
  • In the Shader tree, delete the preset textures that came in with the mesh, but keep just the 'Chameleon on Branch' folder.
  • [dcs_emptyspace h="20"][dcs_emptyspace h="10"]Create a new material and set it to a vibrant colour.
  • Right-click and duplicate the Chameleon Item Mesh and rename it Droplets.
  • Apply a white material to the Droplets mesh and call it Condensation.

As there are now two meshes located in exactly the same space, turn off the original Chameleon. You will then see just the droplets material.

  • Inside the Condensation material, go to Add Layer and insert the Pebbles texture (under Enhance:MODO Textures, Noise, Pebbles). The white areas will be where the droplets will appear on the mesh.
  • [dcs_emptyspace h="20"]“Pebbles-Texture"</span></li><li style=" width="“294"
  • " height="“352"
  • " />[dcs_emptyspace h="20"]To resize the droplets, go to the Texture Location tab under properties, and change Size X, Y, Z to 15 mm each.
  • Under the Condensation Material change the Displacement Distance to 2 mm.
  • Change the effect of the Pebble texture from Diffuse Color to Displacement.
The Pebble texture covers the entire mesh, however, you only want the droplets themselves to be visible, so you will need to make those parts that are not actual bubbles, invisible (i.e. the areas which lie flat against the skin).
  • Duplicate the Pebbles texture, Invert it, and then change the Effect from Displacement to Stencil.
  • With the Pebbles/Stencil effect texture selected, under the Texture Layers tab, increase the Bias to 100% to make the transition of the edges of each droplet sharper so that they touch the skin surface.
  • Turn on the Chameleon mesh to view the results so far.
  • To make the droplets transparent, apply a Water preset material (i.e. remove any displacement or bump layers) to the Condensation material. Drag it below the two pebbles textures.
  • Change the Displacement Distance to 2 mm
To make the Chameleon metallic like Paulo did, change the material to 0% Diffuse, check Conserve Energy, Specular 20%, reflections 80%, check Blurry reflections.
URL  https://youtu.be/aOoUJP94QEo
Source (Sergio) Paulo Madeira (Madeira3D)
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Resize the camera icon

If you add an object, sometimes that camera just is a little too big for the scene, especially when getting in close. Or by the same token, if you've got a really large object, your camera is almost invisible; it's too tiny. So under the Display, with that camera selected, there is the Size. This is the view size; it's not the actual size of your renderer or anything else--it's the size of the camera icon. 

Resize camera icon to relative

So you can change that depending on your scene, and what I've often told people is just set it to 0 and it stays relative to your zoom. So notice the camera pretty much stays the same size, whether you zoom in or out, and that's really kind of nice. So I always know where it is. If I zoom out really far, my objects are hard to see, but because I have this size set to 0, I can always find my camera. So, something to think about when you are building larger scenes.

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