Polarization, as an intrinsic property applying to optical waves, which can specify the geometrical orientation of the oscillation, has always been an important modulated parameter in optical fields. Compared with traditional scalar optical fields, Vector Optical Fields (VOFs) with non-uniform States of Polarization (SoPs) distributions denote that their geometrical orientations of the oscillation dependent on spatial locations are varying. The early research and manipulation on VOFs were limited to a single two-dimensional (2D) plane and mainly focused on the single modal modulation of SoPs. Later, researchers gradually brought to mind that the characteristics of VOFs, such as spatial geometries, polarization distributions, and the law of propagation, were also influenced by their amplitude and phase distributions. So the independent modulations of amplitude and phase based on the achieved polarization modulation caught people’s views and were accomplished after a short time, which means the generation of multimodal VOFs including these three fundamentally modulated degrees of freedom. More importantly, the deep applications related to multimodal VOFs in many realms, such as optical information transmission, manipulation of focal fields, optical micro-manipulation, have attracted researchers’ attention to the significant improvement of modulation efficiencies and the longitudinal extension of multi-dimensional modulation. Specifically, on the one hand, researchers selected the optical elements with high working efficiency and built reformative VOFs’ generators to reduce the unnecessary energy loss in the generation process. On the other hand, they studied the transmission of properties and modulation mechanism along the longitudinal direction for multimodal VOFs. Proposed active methods could modulate the distributions of different parameters, not only include three fundamental parameters amplitude, phase, SoPs but also other complex parameters such as energy flow, angular momentum, and optical singularities in three-dimensional (3D) space. In this review, we present an overview of the recent advances to spatially modulating multimodal 3D VOFs. Firstly, a brief introduction of three representations for a single SoP based on a polarization ellipse, Stokes parameters, and a classical Poincaré sphere respectively, are arranged. After that other three special representations of Cylindrically symmetric SoPs distributions with new types of Poincaré spheres are added. Secondly, we outline several different types of improved extra-cavity methods to generate VOFs, including highly efficient generators of arbitrary VOFs based on phase-only SLMs, compact polarization converters with high conversion efficiency, and sub-wavelength polarization modulators created by metasurfaces. Their advantages and limitations are comparatively demonstrated for readers. Thirdly, we highlight the principle of generating VOFs according to the superposition of two orthogonally polarized basic vectors and consider the applicable conditions of this principle in 3D space. And three relatively effective modulation methods of 3D multimodal VOFs are mentioned. The first utilizes on-axis modulations of non-diffractive Bessel beams to finish the polarization evolution along an optical axis. The second uses Fourier phase-shift principle to achieve independent modulations of polarization modes on multi-planes. The third develops a vector beam-shaping technique in focusing space. These methods are suitable to apply in different optical processes. Finally, the general application situation of VOFs in optical micromanipulation is illustrated to tell readers a great necessity and importance of modulating multimodal VOFs in 3D space.