Chris Offner

Chris Offner

Blender and MODO Addendum: Knife vs. Slice

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Since I only touched on the most basic functionality of Blender’s Knife tool in my last video I want to append an addendum showing its other features and how they compare in particular to MODO’s Slice tool – which is separate from the Edge Slice tool with the buggy “Multi-Slice” option I demonstrated in video #4.

Okay, enough about knives and slicing for now. 😉

EDIT: I was wrong! I have just been informed that MODO also supports CTRL+LMB clicking on an edge for a mid-edge cut. You don’t have to activate the global snapping menu as I described. I never knew.

Blender and MODO Quick Take: Knife vs. Multi-Slice

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Now so far for the most part MODO and Blender have come out roughly even for me. On some things, MODO had the slight edge, on others Blender had the slight edge. But I just encountered a tool where Blender’s implementation absolutely blows MODO’s out of the water – and that is Blender’s excellent Knife tool.

Vertex Bevel Tool in MODO and Blender: Different behaviours but both useful

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In the process of comparing basic tools and workflows between MODO and Blender I came across the different behaviours between MODO’s and Blender’s Vertex Bevel tools.

In MODO, I get this type of nice rounded effect if I use a Round Level of higher than 0:MODO_Vertex_BevelHowever, the resulting n-gons surfaces look artifacty unless I then bevel them in to create some ‘support geometry’:MODO_Vertex_Bevel_SupportGeoBlender’s works differently. You cannot get the same type of rounding effect on the edges as in MODO but the surfaces are clean. Here’s me using Blender’s Vertex Bevel and importing the resulting mesh into MODO:Blender_Vertex_BevelNow on this example, the resulting shape looks just like what you get in MODO with a Round Level of 0. But there is a so-called Profile option in Blender’s Vertex Bevel tool that does make use of the additional subdivisions on the newly created corner surfaces:Blender_Vertex_Bevel_ProfileIt pushes in/out the newly created surfaces. But the edges between the originally selected vertices remain straight.

Personally I find both tools’ behaviour useful and would like to see either tool include the other’s capabilities. If I had to make a choice I’d say that MODO’s tool is probably more versatile though because the nice edge rounding you can achieve with it is something I need more frequently than the bulging in/out effect that Blender’s Profile option does.