Username:

Password:

Fargot Password? / Help

MODELLING

0

Getting rid of weirdness

When you first start out using MODO you are bound to come across some aberrations in your models which you know are wrong, but you have no idea what you did to mess it up, and you certainly have no clue how to fix it. While I certainly cannot predict every problem you'll encounter, as a noob, here are a few that have stumped me.

Intersecting Polys

Intersecting polygons

Initially, when I first encountered this I thought it was a texture problem. Whenever I ran my mouse over it, it would flicker and splutter. It drove me nuts for an hour before I figured out that it was in fact actually two polygons intersecting, or rather overlapping each other along the same plane. Once you know, you can usually figure this out visually, and either move the offending polygon away a bit, or delete it altogether if it's not required.

FBX Normals

FBX Normals

In the second example, I had imported an .fbx file that had previously been exported from Autodesk's CAD application, Revit.  I knew that whatever the problem was, it was something that went wrong in the export process.  So after checking for overlapping polygons, n-gons and any other aberration I'd come across before, I went straight to an expert and asked my mate, Paulo Madeira (Madeira3D) if he could shed any light.

Immediately, he responded and explained that I would need to select all the offending mesh items, go to Lists > Other Maps, select FBX_Normals, right-click and delete them.

FBX Normals

Even though this should have worked, at first it didn't for me. I would select Delete and nothing would happen. So instead, I went to the Vertex Map menu at the top and selected Delete from there, and it worked. Of course (as it always does ;)), the next time I opened MODO and tried right-clicking and deleting the FBX Normal maps, it worked O.o

Vertex Map menu

Vertices that fly into outta space

Errant Vertices

And lastly, this will occur occasionally without you noticing. You'll be working up-close on something and then when you zoom out, you'll see your mesh is messed up because a vertex decided that it didn't want to play with the others. Don't do what I did the first time - and that is, select the 'cone of polygons' and delete them - otherwise, you'll find you've created a big hole in your mesh. Instead, select the single vertex and backspace or delete it, and it should fix itself.

7.3/104votes
Voting statistics:
RatePercentageVotes
1025%1
950%2
80%0
70%0
60%0
50%0
40%0
30%0
20%0
125%1
0

Making facial deformations using weight maps

Video Date March 8, 2006
Area Covered

In repsonse to a question I received today, here's an old video that I found which explains how to use MODO's tool pipe to paint soft selections.

Greg shows how to add a Weight Map to a face, and then paints areas such as the nose and eyebrows so they can be deformed.

Author Greg Leuenberg - Sabpro
1.0/101vote
Voting statistics:
RatePercentageVotes
100%0
90%0
80%0
70%0
60%0
50%0
40%0
30%0
20%0
1100%1
0

Confused by Action Centers?

It took a while until Action Centers sunk in for me, so assuming I'm not the only one that couldn't wrap your head around them, I thought I'd post up this neat .pdf I found some time back.

Read more
9.0/103votes
Voting statistics:
RatePercentageVotes
1033%1
933%1
833%1
70%0
60%0
50%0
40%0
30%0
20%0
10%0
1

Modelling a quick trellis

Description

Creating background assets that aren't the primary focus in a game, can be pretty time-consuming for something that no-one really looks at, but they do add to the atmosphere of the game. Here's a quick way of creating a simple item that could be used as metal scaffolding, a tower or even a simple bridge in less than 5 minutes, using basic polygon modelling tools.

Step-by-Step

As shown in the image above;

    • Create a cube. Select one poly face and under the Polygon tools tab, select Sketch Extrude and drag out from the blue dot for the required length, making multiple, even stops along the way.
    • (Alternatively, simply drag out a cube that is say, 1x1x10)
    • In poly-mode, double-click on the item to select all polygons.
    • Under the Polygon tab, click on the Spikey tool, then click on the object. Each face will be sub-divided into 4 tris.
    • Whilst still selected, click on Bevel (B) (make sure Group Polygons is unchecked), and then drag the red-handle in slightly.
    • Press backspace or Delete to remove the inside polygons.
    • That's it!
    • If you want to add some thickness, whilst still selected, click on the Thicken tool and drag slightly.
Source  You can watch a video that details the process here
Author  Ellery Connell - video2brain.com
8.6/105votes
Voting statistics:
RatePercentageVotes
100%0
960%3
840%2
70%0
60%0
50%0
40%0
30%0
20%0
10%0
1

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:

    9.6/108votes
    Voting statistics:
    RatePercentageVotes
    1063%5
    938%3
    80%0
    70%0
    60%0
    50%0
    40%0
    30%0
    20%0
    10%0
    Pages:12