For those who frequently use The Foundry’s MODO 3D modeling and rendering package, any opportunity to speed up the workflow can be a huge timesaver that can leave more room for actually designing rather than bouncing between tools. If you’ve ever recorded ‘Actions’ in Adobe Photoshop, then the concept will be familiar to you. In a nutshell, Macros (as they are called) are user-created commands that can automate just about anything that you find yourself frequently doing in MODO.

In this new miniseries from industrial design training site cadjunkie, industrial designer and instructor Adam Ohern takes us on a mini-deep dive into not only the why of using Macros but most importantly, the how.

Keep in mind that Macros are extremely simple, which means that they can’t have fancy logic (“if this, then do that…” or “for each this, do that…”), and they can’t include interactive elements like paint selection, tool handles, etc. In a nutshell…you don’t need to be a coding aficionado to automate frequent tasks.

Using a simple ‘Mirror Feature’ command that was created in a matter of minutes, Adam shows you how to add the command to the existing MODO toolbar and save the command for sharing across another computer or another user.

Topics:

Command History

Recording and saving Macros

The MODO “search path”

Running scripts with “@” syntax

For the rest of the series–including how to embed the Macros into your toolbar layout and customize your UI–be sure to head over to cadjunkie’s extensive modo library page and keep an eye out for additional videos in the series every Monday.