Anyone interested in doing an M3,M4 update to the M1 free download, and putting it up for sale?  I'm looking for an 1890's style handlebar mustache.    Thanks!

No, that's pretty good advice.  I noticed a fair amount of reference to ZBrush and digital sculpting tools - whereas I'm at the level of looking at the Modo flashlight and trying to reproduce the techniques and results.

Hopefully this will all seem so basic in a year or two, after I've built up my skills.  As soon as I know where I'm sitting on taxes (I'm self employed and am never quite sure how much will be left after I pay them) I plan on investing in Modo.  Beyond simple Poser artifacts, I will start by using it to redo some of the 3DSMax materials on my kenfreedsoftware.com website (and hopefully improving upon them; most are under the "Web Graphics & Interface Flash" panel, especially that "Mechanical" one).

Past that, I aspire to write a book about the essentials of developing software that most of the books in the field miss (e.g. how computer languages compare to spoken ones when there's a "language war" brewing, how to partition a project, ...), and I hope to either illustrate it, or express it as a story in a graphic novel format.

But all this is ahead of me.  This forum has been absolutely great!  I don't personally know any digital artists, and I didn't have a clue on any of this before I started this thread.  Now I think I at least know how the field breaks lays out.  For me, with limited time on the weekends (as long as my contracts hold out) - the package is Modo.

Thanks to all, you've been great!  - Ken

 Good info, and definitely food for thought.  Please forgive me for waxing philosophical here a bit.  My approach to evaluating software (3D or not) is based on my theory of knowledge:

Met cognition: how to learn anything

1. What are my basic facts (nouns)?

2. What are my basic actions (verbs)?

3. In what order, with what tweaks, do I perform these (grammar, declinations)?

 Works for a foreign language, chemistry, physics, math, 3d software,…

Now for 3D software the question is: given that time is limited, what are the basic things I (as a rookie amateur with aspirations) want to checkout?

For me, for modeling:  (a) Make a cube.  Add and take away polygons.  Round some edges.  Extrude and bevel.  (b) Make a cylinder.  Do the same as the cube.  Then round off the body of the cylinder and make a gear (Silo3D was really disappointing here).

I still have to come up with a set of basic things for those operations beyond the modeling.  Access to systematic training materials and ease of use count.

Any suggestions for what basics to learn and try out to do a (relatively quick) software evaluation?

Mea Culpa!  I rechecked the website, and don't know what I'd been previously looking at.  Blender is free.

STRAW POLL QUESTION: 

At its least expensive, Modo 501 is $837. from Novedge.

If we could get a group together for a group purchase - who might be interested?  Let's shoot for (at a guess?) $450. for Modo 501.

The Modo people have been in contact on my $25. evaluation.  I've copied them on some of the correspondence with the group here, and the Modo people have offered to extend my evaluation for a month for free. 

Any idea whether these updates will be for the free version of Blender or the one you pay for? 

• If the "pay for" one, any idea if the price will go up with these updates?

Finally - how do you know this?  Is there a forum, magazine or newspaper you keep tabs on? 

Thanks!  - Ken

Thanks Uwe.  Do you have a homepage/website?

I have a few more questions, this time on Modo:

1. For (Modo, or any other) animation, which software does one typically use to "knit" together the individual images into a movie?

• I have Adobe Creative Suite CS3 and Flash CS4.  Would one use Adobe Premiere?

1. On the Modo instructor's website, there were some chromed letters going by, with a light (or the sun) glistening off the corner of one of them briefly.  Roughly - how does one produce this transient (blinded by the sun) effect on a chromed or mirrored surface going by?

Thanks,  - Ken

Uwe - got the last one to work as you described it, and got my gear.  I would not have come up with this in a million years.  How on earth did did you know that selecting then unselecting would have an effect on consequent selections?  - Ken

There is an [opt] behind the "Create Cylinder" in the menu, click that for a menu to choose how many spokes you want.

-Super! Obvious once see it.

For a basic gear, create a cylinder with as many spokes you want, select two faces on the rim and "Select Loop", Bevel once, extrude.

• gives square gear teeth sticking out of a (top and bottom) beveled cylinder. Not bad, but was after triangular gear teeth with no bevels (please see the flash at the bottom of www.kenfreedsoftware.com)

Or click one edge on the rim, "Select ring". Then skip that selection and select both the upper and the lower loop around the ring. Cut once. "Undo Selection" to select every second edge in the ring and scale.

• Am OK until the cut once. On a 24 spoke cylinder, get irregular pieces of the cylinder pie missing - but was surprised to see the teeth come through when I scaled.

• This one gives flat space in between the teeth, BUT I can then select those faces and scale them right down to get what I want.

Not as easy as Modo or Max, but definitely workable once one has these recipes.

Ich bedanke mich fuer Ihrer schnell Antworten, es hat mir sehr VIEL geholfen - Many thanks for your quick answers, it helped out a LOT!

Does anyone know how to increase the number of spokes in a cylinder in Silo? (so it's more rounded)

• There are all sorts of tutorials out there, but a lot of this kind of basic is skipped.  I can't figure it out.

Beyond this - does anyone know how to take a cylinder and make it into a gear in Silo?

• In 3DSMax you simply use a star, and adjust the teeth, and inner and outer radius

• In Modo you simply extrude the edges, then adjust their base width via the box on the left.

Can't figure out (nor find) how to do this in Silo.  Thanks!

Thanks Hornet3D.  I'll definitely be checking out your tutorials on the weekend.   - Ken

Thanks folks!  I revisited that 3D Modeling in Silo book last night.  It seemed confusing some weeks ago when I started to go through it, but after the Modo course it's seems to the point and straightforward.  I would have forgotten about it sitting on the shelf hadn't it been mentioned.  Like all other types of learning: I have to go through it on the weekend(s) to get to build up my basic (vocabulary and grammar type) skills in the package, before going on to the more advanced video tutorials.

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

Here's the latest from the Modo people (I only wish the Autodesk 3DSMax people who left me hanging - had been a fraction of this helpful):

Hi Ken, 

Thanks for getting back to me. The learning materials on Lynda.com are really good. 

If you need another 30 days, just let me know and I'll give you a free extension. 

Cheers,

Steve  steve@luxology.com

On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Ken Freed <kenfreed@kenfreed1.com> wrote:

Thanks Steve,

 

Right now, I'm hustling on the weekends to make it through the Lynda.com course on Modo.

 

If I do not complete it before the 30 day expiration, can I just pay another $25. and get another 30 day extension?

 

Sincerely,  - Ken Freed

 

http://www.kenfreedsoftware.com

Interesting - nearly the exact same conversation is going on over at the LinkedIn Technical Illutrators forum:

With all these new software available for Technical Illustrating, what do you use and why?

Why not tell the group, so many on the younger members can understand why the pro use them.

Curtis Sayers • Same workflow as Curt. The modo UI was the deciding factor when I was upgrading 3D software from Strata a few years ago.

Whoa! - folks, once one has the overall big-picture direction, I think they can sort through the advice themselves and come up to speed in the way best for them...

For my part, I bounced around a bit (somewhat) learning Silo3D (I wouldnt even know what retopology is hadn't it been for the Silo3D book), but being a fan of Lynda.com courses, I'm presently making my way through their Modo course on the weekends.

• having done a little with 3DSMax, it's hard not to get totally sidetracked every few lectures and "play" with Modo.  I find that s/w package is downright addictive.

Also glad someone pointed out the C4D alternative (it's ~$1.6K vs. $1K for Modo).  I'm still in my ($25) Modo 30 day eval period.  I'd not like it if I spent the $1K and time to learn Modo - only to find there's something more widely used that's price competitive.

When I hit skulpting, I'll be checking out Blender (there's a Lynda.com course on it) and ZBrush (which gets referred to often)...