Cover the basics of Modeler on desktop so you can jump right in.

We recommend reading this guide if you have already used other 3D modelling applications or prefer to learn by exploring. Most of the topics below are covered in more detail elsewhere in the documentation, if you have questions about any topic follow the links to learn more.

Video tutorials about how to use Modeler on desktop are available here.

Start your first sculpt

On opening Modeler, the Welcome screen appears. The Welcome screen holds some useful links, as well as offering the options to open a Modeler file or create a new scene.

Move around the scene

Before you start creating it's useful to know how to move around the scene.

There are three ways to move the camera through the scene:

The camera always moves relative to the Gizmo, or relative to the mouse cursor.

You can also use the shortcut F to focus the camera on your sculpt or on the gizmo. This is useful if you get lost in the scene.

The interface

When you create a new scene, Modeler should look similar to the image below

Modeler's interface is made up of a few parts:

1. The scene: this is the 3D space in which you'll work with primitives and clay.
2. The Gizmo: When you create a new scene the Clay tool is automatically selected. The Gizmo is set of grabbable controls that allow you to move, rotate and scale objects in your scene.
3. The Palette: This panel is where you can select tools and modify how your current tool behaves.
   1. Select tools.
   2. Change tool parameters.
   3. Select your placement mode.
4. The Color Picker: Pick colors for your clay.

There is one more menu called the Actions menu that you can bring up by right clicking anywhere in the scene. The Actions menu holds a number of context sensitive actions that can help organize and modify your scene. Many of the options in the Actions menu are also available in the bottom bar, referred to as the Quick Actions.

Learn more about Modeler's interface here.

Clay and primitives

Modeler has two primary workflows, the Clay workflow and the Primitives workflow.

• The Clay workflow is similar to sculpting in real life, where you can use the tools in the Pallette to add and remove clay, or sculpt on the surface of clay already in your scene.
• The Primitives workflow allows you to use live boolean operations to combine basic shapes, known as primitives, to create complex geometry. The primitives workflow is non-destructive, so it's easy to make changes to objects you placed hours ago. 

By default, a new scene starts with a clay object created and ready for you to start sculpting. If you would like to try primitives instead:

1. Right click in the scene to open the Actions menu.
2. Click the Add primitive button.
3. Select a primitive shape.
4. The primitive is created and automatically selected. Use the parameters in the Pallette to modify the primitives appearance.
5. Add a second primitive, and move it to intersect with the first. Play with the combine modes to see what results you can get.

When working with Primitives, the order of primitives in the hierarchy is important. You can view the hierarchy of your scene with the Outliner, accessed from right side of the top bar. (You can see the outliner being opened towards the end of the above video).

Placement modes

Placement modes determine how you can position and control tools in the scene.

Learn more about placement modes here.

Layers and scoping

Layers are what Modeler uses to organize content in a scene. At any time, you can right click to open the Actions Menu, and select New to create a new layer.

When you create a layer Modeler automatically scopes in on the new layer. Focus is how Modeler determines what you're working on in the scene. It is only possible to modify layers that are in focus.

There are two ways to change your focus:

• Scope in to focus on a smaller set of objects.
  • To scope in, hover your cursor over a layer and tap S.
• Scope out to focus on a larger set of objects.
  • Scope out with Alt + S.

These two actions allow you to navigate through the hierarchy of your scene.

Learn more about layers and scope here.

Common shortcuts

A full list of desktop shortcuts is available here.