Macros & Python Scripting

In my earlier years, I foolishly embraced the idea that there were things I could do and things I couldn’t.

Most of my youth was spent flooding the pages of sketchbooks with doodles and chicken scratch that I proudly referred to as “art”. It didn’t take long for me to believe that art was something I could “do.” It was something I enjoyed doing, and it’s where most of my free time went. Ok, that and countless hours invested in role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons and ShadowRun. That pretty much meant I had to choose between being a geek or an artist, and being an artist just seemed like the more attractive option at the time. Geeks back then didn’t have the same social acceptance they do now.

In high school, I disliked classes such as geometry and algebra and grew to believe it was something I “couldn’t do.” These subjects were boring, something I assumed only accountants and engineers were interested in. I saw no real-world use for math as an artist and spent my class time improving my drawing skills instead of factoring quadratics. This close-minded ideology followed me well into my professional career as a digital artist.  

So, what’s an artist like me doing writing a book about scripting? It’s a fair question and one I would be asking myself if I were you. Like many artists, I truly believed that I simply “couldn’t” write custom scripts. Scripting was something for programmers, not artists…. Right? 

I believed this to my core, until I did the one thing that changed everything. I created my first macro, and then shortly after, I created my first script. This was a much-needed reminder that there are simply things that I do or don’t do. It turned out that creating a script wasn’t something I couldn’t do, I just hadn’t done it before. As someone who has taught 3D to thousands of artists, I should have listened to my own advice. If you are passionate about something and put in the time, nothing is impossible to learn.  

It turns out, creating custom scripts is just another task that requires creative problem solving. Just like 3D modeling, I believe the art of scripting is something anyone can do, so I wrote this guide as a way to introduce artists to the creation of custom scripts.  

When I first became interested in scripting, I found countless examples of Modo scripts online to reference, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of their content. What I was in need of at the time was a primer. Something that truly started at ground zero so that I didn’t feel lost or overwhelmed. I couldn’t find a resource like that, so I decided to write one. 

This is the resource that I wish I had when I was new to scripting, and I believe it will get anyone interested in adding scripting to their arsenal up and running quickly. The information I present in this book is an attempt to share what I’ve learned while creating scripts and kits in the hopes that other artists can add scripting to their skill set.

  Follow this link for more info on the guide: The Pushing Points | MODO Macros & Python Scripting book

Excerpted from Pushing Points | MODO: MACROS & PYTHON SCRIPTING volume 01 . Copyright © 2018.