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

This month, VFXWorld continues excerpting a 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.

The term mask will be used a lot when it comes to modo and the Shader Tree. This section will use one image to mask out another. It's a great way to shape a mesh without actually modeling it.

1. Continuing from the previous exercise and your corkboard object, select the newspaper mesh on the board. You can choose Items mode at the top of the modo interface, and then click in the viewport to select the mesh.

2. Click over to the Images tabbed viewport to the right of the Items tab.

3. Select Load Image and, from the book's DVD in the Chapter 7 folder, within the Projects directory, choose the Newspaper.png image.

4. When the image loads, drag and drop it onto the newspaper mesh. Figure 1 shows the setup.

[Figure 1] Applying a newspaper clipping to the mesh is easy by loading it in the Images tab, then dragging and dropping it onto the mesh.

5. Expand the Render group in the Shader Tree, if it's not already.

6. Expand the Newspaper [TE: mask] group, and then select the image layer that was added by dragging and dropping the newspaper clipping image onto the mesh.

7. In the Properties panel, click on the Texture Locator vertical tab.

8. Change Projection Type from UV Map to Planar.

9. Set Projection Axis to Z.

10. Click the Auto Size button. The newspaper clipping is now mapped, but not aligned. Click and drag the Position Y arrows to bring the image up manually on the polygon. You can also just type in roughly 200mm, as shown in Figure 2.

[Figure 2] Adjusting the newspaper clipping settings in the Texture Locator vertical category of the Properties panel maps it on the mesh.

11. Now you know as well as anyone that newspaper clippings hanging on a corkboard need a ripped edge, right? No one cuts out clippings perfectly. You can see that the image already has rough edges, but the polygons are still showing through. In the Images tab, load the NewspaperMask.png image. This is a 32-bit image with a Photoshop painted rough edge.

12. When the image is loaded, click over to the Shader Tree.

13. Now right-click on the existing image map for the newspaper and duplicate it. Then select the new image within the Newspaper group in the Shader Tree.

14. From the Properties tab, select the Texture Layer vertical tab. Change the image to the Newspaper Mask image. What you've done is duplicated the image map settings you previously applied, merely changing the actual image used. Figure 3 shows the properties. Figure 4 shows the applied image.

15. You're going to make a few more changes, and then you'll see how this all comes together. Select the Newspaper Mask image in the Shader Tree within the Newspaper layer group. Notice that its effect is set to Diffuse Color. This is fine for the actual newspaper clipping image, but the paper mask image is going to be used to cut away the mesh.