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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! ;)

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How to stop 'selecting through'

Description

On the odd occasion I have experienced modo deciding all of a sudden to want to select-through my mesh when I don't want it to. So how do I fix it?

Step-by-Step
    • Under Preferences > Input > Selection > Polygon Selection
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How to tell whether you're in Poly, Sub-D or P-Sub mode

Problem

Have you ever been modelling and you accidentally hit the tab or shift-tab key changing your model from regular faces, to Sub-D, or Pixar-SubS without realising it?

If half your model was in P-Sub and the other half, in Sub-D, could you tell which was which?

Well there is a way, even if it is very subtle.

Face SubD PSub 590
Solution

Just run your mouse over the affected polys and you'll see that when you pre-select the different types of subdivision surfaces that, sub-d is shaded purple, regular faceted polygons (faces) are shaded blue, and P-Subs are shaded green.

I wish they were a little more pronounced though.

    • Sub-Ds - Subdivision Surface smoothed polygons.
    • Faces - regular standard unsmoothed polygon faces.
    • P-Subs - Pixar Catmull-Clark smoothed polygons.

Edit: As I mentioned earlier, the colors are quite subtle. But when I went to change them from their default settings to much darker colors, via > Preferences > Display > Colors >Selection Rollovers, you can still barely discern any difference.

ColorPreferences
 colors changed

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modo file locations on a Mac

So, this article is more for me than for you, because about once a year I have to go delete my 'config' file because something gets messed up in modo, and I end up looking all over the place for them via the Finder when I could have easily found them from within modo.

Now, I realise that most of you will have encountered this at some point or other, but unlike me, I bet you'll remember where the files are located. It's not that I have a bad memory, it's mainly because on my Mac, the folder where my preference files reside is hidden and I send myself nuts looking for it.

For those modo users who are not aware and have not had to do it before... If your modo ever messes up, the standard procedure is to go and delete your config files (they are actually called preferences - configs are something totally different which adds to the confusion). Then the very next time you open modo, Voila!, it will regenerate a new preference file and hopefully everything will be back to normal. 

As a reminder for Mac users... below are the paths to the various files/folders used by modo.
Configs (plist & modo601)

> YourMachineName > Users > You > Library > Preferences > com.luxology.modo.plist

> YourMachineName > Users > You > Library > Preferences > com.luxology.modo601

How to access them from within modo if they are hidden in your Finder

> System > Open User Folder and then navigate up the tree to the Preferences folder

Scripts and Configs (.pl, .py & .CFG)

How to access them via Finder

> YourMachineName > Users > You > Library > Application Support > Luxology > Scripts

> YourMachineName > Users > You > Library > Application Support > Luxology > Configs

How to access them from within modo

> System > Open User Scripts   or  Open User Configs

Content (.lxl, .lxp, .lxe, .lxf etc.)

> YourMachineName > Library > Application Support > Luxology > Content

However, most of this can be accessed quickly via the Preset Browser.

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Rendering out a sequence of images using Photoshop

Photoshop > File > Open Photoshop File Open Dialog box
Description

Okay, so this is not actually MODO-specific, but the other day I rendered out a sequence of images in MODO. .You're right, I could have rendered them out as a movie. But if for some reason you have to shut down your machine, or it crashes - you lose EVERYTHING! - so individual images, though slower, is often a more reliable way..

Later I needed to quickly render them out as a .mov file. Of course I could have used After Effects, but I found it much quicker to do it in Photoshop.[/dcs_p]
Step-by-Step
    • Make sure that your files names are numbered sequentially with no gaps.
    • > File > Open
    • Check the Image Sequence box. That's all there is to it!
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Rendering animation sequences backwards

Description

I was just reminded of something that I discovered last year whilst rendering out my final animation assignment. I had around 1500 frames to render out, and I was fortunate to have two machines to work on. It was late, and I wanted to set them up and go home. But if I started one machine at frame #1, how could I guess whereabouts to start the second machine from to ensure all frames were covered? Simple. Start from the last frame and render out the image sequence in reverse order

Step-by-Step
    • Shader Tree > Properties > Render > Frame
      • Start = last frame number
      • Last  = 1
      • Step -1
Render-Backwards
Forum Link (Old Luxology Forums - no longer exists)
Source  James Darknell (Mutant Pixel)
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