what i like about Silo is that when you need something done, you just grab the poly/vert/edge and DO it. its all very slick and intuitive.

i tried the Modo demo the other night and was extremely frustrated with it. first off you cant simply remap the mouse/keyboard keys with a simple GUI interface, you can either load from a short list of presets or you need a programming degree to deal with their keymapping interface.

and then in the actual workflow, there are 'extra steps' for everything. you need to activate modes, toggle buttons, etc. while this doesnt seem like a big deal to someone coming from a program like Max - if youre used to using Silo it all seems extremely clunky.

my biggest pet peeve was with basic functions like extrude. in Silo when you extrude, it automatically spawns an interactive manipulator at the center of the extrusion, and as you drag on it it automatically extrudes along normals. in Modo its just a freeform drag that moves the extruded poly around in 3D space. theres no interactive extrude along normals type gizmo, and if you want more control you need to type in the X/Y/Z distances manually. same goes for bevel, etc. functions like extrude and bevel are the bread and butter of modeling, and you use them hundreds of times per day. if each one takes 3x as long and feels 3x as clunky that adds up to a lot of wasted time. now if Modo has added some sortof improvements to these functions that im not able to find in the docs then my apologies - but i did mess with the program quite a bit and also did extensive google searching for a solution and it seems that the feature just doesnt exist.

its unfortunate that Silo development is not as strong as the development for a major suite by Autodesk, for example. but the beauty of Silo is that its just a simple, straightforward, stripped down modeling tool without all the BS bloat thats in every other 3D suite these days. in other apps i find that at least a third of my effort goes towards wrestling with the interface. in Silo, its almost like there is no interface - just you and your model. i suspect that this is why it has become a popular modeling tool for even industry professionals that have access to Maya, Max, Softimage, etc.