Modo User Guide Tutorial difficulties

#1

I’ve found the User Guide to be very well written and quick to go through. I’m working through the balloon tutorial now and am encountering my first real difficulty:

They want you to use the linear falloff to shape the bottom of a unit sphere into a balloon shape. When I position the falloff widget as per instructions, i get a highly assymetrical effect using the stretch tool. Even when I position the widget numerically with the “Tool Properties” panel, this still happens. Stretching uniformly from the center (light blue) tool handle results in a strange spinning around the Y axis. When the widget is manually positioned in the view port, i absolutely cannot get a vertically aligned result. Stretching then produces a wedge like shape instead of cone like and the more the effect is carried out, the more lopsided the shape becomes. Anyone know what setting I’m missing or whatnot? Thanks in advance.

cheers,
Jazz

#2

Odd. I wrote that one. :slight_smile: Can you post an image or two so we can see what you are seeing? That would help me to figure out what is going on there.

BP

#3

I realized that the strange twisting/torquing effect was a result of the working plane. The scale values were changing on only 2 of the 3 axes, as determined by the orientation of the working plane. Yet I was hauling from the center (light blue) handle, which I thought scaled all 3 axes uniformly. How do I do that?

Also, I’m pretty sure I am moving the ends of the falloff widget correctly (since they move), but is there a way to do so with greater precision? Other than using the numeric inputs of the “Tool Properties” panel? I’m thinking along the lines of a key modifier that performs incremental snaping?

btw, I really do like the overall quality of the user guide. When I first saw how many pages it was I was a little daunted, but then I realized that most of the bulk was devoted to screenshots that were well chosen and eliminated tons of possible ambiguity in the text. The organization was clear and you can really fly through it-- a good balance of theory and practical info, not too much redundancy, or steps superfluous to the concept at hand, and a nice conversational tone.

#4

Couple of things that may help you out: If you use the stretch tool you can scale on 1 axes by hauling or pulling a manipulator handle. If you drag on the blue center of the manip you will be scale in two axes. If you are in an orthagonal viewport you will scale along the two axes displayed in that viewport and if you are in the perp. viewport than the workplane determines which two axes will be scaled. If you want to scale all 3 use the scale tool (shift R or hold ctrl and the stretch icon will change to a scale icon).

I only glanced at the ballon tutorial but here’s a way to do it all in the persp. viewport.

Start in Modo default layout.

  1. turn on >snap>>grid

  2. ctrl. click the sphere primitive to create a unit sphere

  3. select >falloff>>linear

  4. right mouse drag from the top of the sphere to the bottom. The purple triangle denotes your falloff - the geometery near the fat end will be effected. Since you have grid snap active in your tool pipe you don’t have to worry about drawing the falloff at on 'off’r angle while in the perp. view.

  5. press r to activate the scale tool

  6. since you’re in automatic action center the tool defaults to the center of the sphere. Click near the bottom where the falloff tool ends (again, grid snap will keep it centerd while in perp. view so you don’t have to jump to another view.)

  7. now, to get the scaling on the desired axes (x and z) while in perp. view you alt+left cllick rotate ‘above’ the sphere so you’re looking down at it. At this point the workplane will have snapped to the xz plane. Click and drag on the blue handle and you’ve got a balloon. Since the falloff tool is still active in the tool pipe you can grab a handle and drag it up or down on the y to adjust the curvature of the balloon.

keep in mind that the ‘grid’ you’re snapping to isn’t the grid in the viewport, it’s it’s own thing that can be a different size than the viewport grid. (click show grid in the tool properties to see it).

sorry, that was way more info. than you needed. Boredom has set in tonight…

-Greg

#5

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