Book excerpt: Most modo books and training videos are marketed by giving the beginner quick results on a project, but this tends to impart a “paint by numbers” knowledge of the software. This book represents a distillation of a number of modo books and tutorials, and describes a set of common basic operations which underlie many modo 3D graphics projects. Keeping in mind that 3D graphics software is NOT as intuitive as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, just realizing how to carry out basic 3D graphic operations, and what parts of the screen relate to others in the process, is often half the challenge for the modo advanced beginner. If you’re an advanced beginner (i.e., have some experience of the basics covered by most modo books), but find many tutorials time consuming to follow and replicate because the experts tend to take the more advanced basics for granted - the essentials laid out in this book have been written for you.