Just finished up the Lynda.com basic training series for Modo.  Some observations:

1. The course was overall good, but was a little weak on modeling.  There was some basic stuff I had to figure out (like adding edges via loop split to the mesh).  I still don't know how to knit two meshes together (other than parenting).  Often when I do subdivisions, Modo also seems to like to throw in some item curvature, whether I have the "Preserve Curvature" box checked or not.

2. Lynda.com Modo animation went over creating a series of images, but didn't tell you what package(s) you might use to knit them together into an animation.  I have the Adobe Master Suite CS3 and Flash CS4 - it must be in there somewhere?  Any ideas?

3. Someone should write a "Modo Cookbook".  When I looked at the instructors website, there are effects, (e.g., like the transient sun-like glistening of light off of text going by on an introduction to a movie) that I'd have to spend a LOT of time on to come up with.

4. Some of the Modo props import nicely into Poser, but when I import the ones I create, the image map texturing (e.g. a wood surface) is gone.  I'm sure there's a way around this.  On the other hand - my Silo3D wood grained table imported into Poser with no problem.

5. Someone should come up with a basic Silo (and perhaps Blender) training video on par with the Lynda.com one for Modo.  It seems that the Modo training did not get advanced enough, and that the Silo3D training (that I saw on the Nervecenter website) skipped a lot of the basics.  I was surprised that upon revisiting Silo3D the terms and some of the keyboard keys were the same between Modo and Silo3D.  It was only after the Modo training that I was able to select an edge loop, add an edge loop, and delete an edge (both packages use the backspace key to delete).

6. I like Modo and am sure it can do what Silo3D (together with Blender) can do.  But given that Modo is $837. (from Novedge.com), that I still do most of my work in Poser, and that many of the terms (like loop select, etc.) are the same between the packages, I have to revisit Silo (unfortunately, there's no Lynda.com course for it) and perhaps try to learn Blender (which seems to have a Modo-like shader tree and does have a Lynda.com course).

Any thoughts or advice?  - Ken