All images from The Official Luxololgy modo Guide, Version 301 © Course Technology.

This month, VFXWorld begins excerpting a new series from the Thomson Course Technology book The Official Luxology modo 301 Guide, which will give VFXWorld readers a chance to build, layer, model, animate, texture and render with modo. Skills are taught using projects that take the reader from simple modeling to complex tasks, taking advantage of various tools and options along the way.

Model Preparation
Before getting started, be sure you're using the default modo 301/302 interface setting. Remember, you can find this by going to the Layout menu, then choosing Layouts, 301/302 Default Layout.

The project you'll be embarking upon in this chapter will give you a working knowledge of modo 301/302. What you'll create is simple, but long the way, you'll get a feel for how to approach most projects in the program. Figure 1 shows the final 3D render you'll create in the upcoming pages.

1. Start up modo 301/302 with a default interface. Then make sure you're in the Model tabbed view, with a Perspective viewport.

2. Click the Tools tab on the top left of the interface (see Figure 2).

3. In the Tools tab, select the Cylinder primitive, as shown in Figure 3

[Figure 1] Simple and effective, modo's tools make modeling and rendering an object like this a piece of cake

4. Hold the Alt/Option key, then with the left mouse button, click and drag in the Perspective view to rotate it. Rotate the view so that the Work Plane is set to the Y axis, as shown in Figure 4. You can view this icon in the bottom left of the interface, and this tells modo that the Y axis is the primary axis when you begin building your model. You’ll see this work in the next step.

5. Now that the Work Plane is set to the Y axis, click and drag in the viewport. You should see a flat cylinder.

6. Now before you go any further, take a look at the Cylinder tool properties that appear on the left of the interface (refer to Figure 5). You can see that modo recorded the position, radius, and axis for the newly created disc. Because you’ve not yet turned off the tool, you can still make changes to the model, either interactively in the viewport or numerically in the properties. Go ahead and set the Sides value to 48 and Segments to 24.

Your radius might not be equal, which it should be in this case, because you don’t want to create an oval mug. Maybe you do, but let’s go with an evenly shaped version for this round. In the Radius setting for the Cylinder tool, you’ll notice a small icon to the right of the numbered value. This is not the arrow icon used to adjust the value, but rather, the icon to the left of the arrow. Place your mouse over this value and leave it there for a moment. You’ll see some options appear, as shown in Figure 4.