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Alphageekgirl's - modo magic website \ Archive for category Neat tips

MODO noobs & hobbyists

So, you're an avid part-time MODO user, but you'd still like to be able to keep up-to-date with all the neat tricks and cool ways you can optimize your MODO workflow.

Being a hobbyist sometimes it can be weeks or months before I manage to find some spare time to mess around with MODO, by which time, I've almost forgotten everything. :-/

This site is just as much for me as it is for you. It's a place where all can keep all the tips and tricks I come across, and it's fully indexed, so you should be able to find whatever you're looking for very easily :)

I'm no MODO expert - far from it, but every other month I'd like to be able to present you with a new article that'll become a new string to add to your modo bow.

If you're a longterm 3D artist or professional, then I can't guarantee there'll be much here you don't already know. You can always have a poke around though., or if you are looking for something specific, use the Search menu up the top (and the links with topics, categories and tags underneath) to find exactly what you're after. If you don't have any luck, let me know if there is anything in particular that you're looking for.

- Debi (alphageekgirl)

Recent Posts

Neat tips

Here you'll find a variety of MODO gems & tips I've managed to either figure out myself or collected along the way which hopefully will help improve your workflow. You can never have too many tricks up your sleeve! ;)

1
April 28, 2013 Posted by Debi in All Articles, Grass, Neat tips, Replicators, Step-by-Step

Positioning grass or fur around objects

Description

Replicators are a great feature in modo allowing us to replicate an object multiple times using a fraction of computing resources. When it comes to grass or fur you can sometimes have a problem that is referred to as interpenetration. This is when you have say grass that grows around objects like rocks or pavers. .

Alessandro Masciari has written an excellent, detailed explanation of how to overcome this problem. But in a nutshell...

Note: this method was created during the 601 era. You can see Andy Brown demonstrating this example using procedural tools (at ~18 mins) using MODO 10.1
   
Step-by-Step
    • Place the grass into a Group
    • Create a replicator using the Grass group as Prototype and the ground item as the Point Source.
    • Hide the grass from the renderer by unchecking it under the Group tab
    Group tab
    • Create an Ambient Occlusion Render Output
    • Set the Frame to be square
    • Create a map and bake to render output
    • In the Shader Tree, inside the Ground material group, create a Surface Generator
    • Load the AO image into the same material group and change its effect to "Surface Particle Density"
    SurfParticleDensity
    • Under the Replicator Properties tab, substitute "Ground" with "Surface Generator"
    ReplicatoProperties
    Source http://kroncept.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/grass-around-objects.html
    Author  Alessandro Masciari

    Related Images:

    Boomkin Ducs-Purple-Monster henning-7 Rohan-Dog-Head Tonys-Bear
    9.6/108votes
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    Tags: fur, grass, interpenetration, pavers, visibility
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    March 13, 2013 Posted by Debi in All Articles, Neat tips, Shader Tree, USER INTERFACE & IO

    Searching for missing texture image files on Macs

    Description

    When modo first opens an .lxo file it tries to look for any texture images attached to that scene. If you happen to move your scenes across different machines that have different paths set-up, modo won't always be able to automatically find your texture files. Instead, sometimes it will ask you whether you want to search for them.

    Because modo stores image textures under the \Library\Application Support\Content\Assets\Images,  if you try to locate a file saved here using Spotlight, you'll get no results because that folder is restricted from being searched. Two ways to get around this...
    Step-by-Step
      • Navigate to your Contents folder and then perform the search, narrowing it down by folder and file name. I actually have a link to my images folder in my Finder sidebar
      or
      • In the spotlight search bar, type in  Filename:"brick_bump.png"  
    9.0/101vote
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    Tags: Content, file, images, path, search, textures
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    March 7, 2013 Posted by Debi in All Articles, Asset Share site, LUXOLOGY WEBSITE, Neat tips

    Where do my .lpk's go?

    Around the time modo 601 was launched last year, there was an update to the Asset Sharing site which took advantage of new functionality that was introduced in 601, that supported a new file format called .lpk - which is the Luxology Preset Pack.

    Essentially, you go to the Asset Share page on the Luxology site and you download one or more assets which come down as an .lpk file, and all you have to do is drag and drop it into modo and the files are automatically installed and available from your preset browser.

    Now, depending on where, or how you have your presets arranged on your computer - that is, either, standard - as they came when you first downloaded the supplied Content from the Luxology site, or, in some other configuration. For instance, I created extra folder categories in addition to the standard directories, which of course would not be recognised). By changing a setting in your Luxology Account Preferences, you have the option of either downloading the share assets to their individual standard folders/directories, or, you can have them installed to the root directory of your assets, and from there you can move them yourself to wherever you want them to be permanently stored.

    Luxology Account Preferences

    .lpk is just a .zip file

    A third option might be to extract the files to some other location. The .lpk file format is actually just a .zip format - that is, you can edit the file extension from .lpk to .zip and then extract the files using your regular WinZip or other file compression utility application.

    Download Cart

    And in case you didn't realise, you don't have to download assets from the share site individually. You can also choose to select up to 20 Megabytes worth of assets and add them to your Download Cart, and then when you're ready, you can download them all as one big .lpk file, which, as explained above, all you need to do is drag it onto modo, and all the files contained within will be automatically saved into their own respective category folders.

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    Tags: textures
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    March 2, 2013 Posted by Debi in All Articles, Neat tips, Replicators, Shader Tree

    Textures on replicated items not appearing?

    Description

    Have you ever replicated an item only to find that its textures didn't copy across?
    Step-by-Step
      • Select the texture group in the Shader Tree
      • Under Texture Layers > Group > Item, make sure it is set to All
    Source http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=61680
    Author  Wayne B
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    Tags: textures
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    February 25, 2013 Posted by Debi in All Articles, Colour picker, Neat tips, USER INTERFACE & IO

    Fine-tuning your color picking

    Color Picker

    Now most modo users would already know there are various ways you can select colors, such as dragging left or right in the color field to adjust the colour, or by typing in a specific RGB value, or by clicking in the field and bringing up the colour wheel where you can type in a color using hexadecimal values or simply eyeball a color by simply clicking inside the wheel.

    But what's unique is if you just click and drag inside the color field whilst holding down Shift, Ctrl or Alt you can move around the colour wheel and fine tune your colours.

    • Shift - click and drag - cycles through Hues
    • Ctrl - click and drag - adjusts Values
    • Alt - click and drag - adjusts Saturation

    Color Picker
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    Tags: color wheel, hue, saturation, value
    Pages:123456