Introduction
Welcome to the Lightwave 7.5 Beginners Guide! This Guide is only an
update from my Lightwave 6.5 Beginners Guide to suit Lightwave 7.5; the
content is pretty much the same, however, a few new additions has been
made in the Tutorial section. We will start out with an introduction to
3D in general, and if you feel that you know the basic concepts
already, you can simply skip this part and dive directly into the
Lightwave Parts. The best way to get to know the Interface and how
tools work is to use them, and tutorials are great for this purpose, so
we will be doing a tutorial as I explain the bits and pieces of
Lightwave.
An Introduction to 3D
Id say that the most important thing you need when you want to
create 3D art is your imagination, a picture in your head of how you
want it to turn out. Your choice of 3D software doesnt really matter,
since it always comes out to the artist and how creative one can be.
All 3D programs are based on the same idea, where you build up your
scenes with Objects, and Objects are built up by Points and Polygons.
Take a look at the two pictures below, its just a box right? Well this
is an object, a very simple one, but still an object.
As you can see in Picture 1, theres a point in each corner of the
box. Picture 2 on the other hand shows the Polygons, and these are the
ones you give materials to, and they are the ones you will see in the
final render. I guess you already knew that 3D stands for 3Dimensional,
and this is what you work with in any 3D program out there. In
Lightwave, these Dimensions are called X, Y and Z, and these could be
described as Left/Right, Up/Down and Near/Far respectively.
Whats the advantage of using a 3D program then? Well, you can
create nice artwork by drawing them in a 2D program, but when it comes
to animating what youve created it becomes a bit harder, and this is
where the 3D program has an advantage. Another thing to mention is that
you can change anything in the pictures you create. If you didnt like
the material on a certain object, or if the light setting was wrong,
just change it and re-render.
Thatll do for an introduction; lets get going with Lightwave!
The Basics of Lightwave
Follow the installation instructions and install Lightwave on your
harddrive. Lightwave comes as two separate programs, Lightwave Layout
and Lightwave Modeler, and from now on they will just be referred to as
Layout and Modeler.
Lightwave Layout
If you start Layout up it should look something like picture 3.
Picture 3: Lightwave Layout (Click to enlarge)
This is where you load objects youve created, give them textures,
edit lights & cameras, animate things and render your final
pictures. As you can see I have added a few descriptions on some of the
items in picture 3. However, we will not start the tour in Layout, but
we will get back to it later on in the Guide.
Lightwave Modeler
If you load Modeler up, it should look something like picture 4.
Picture 3: Lightwave Modeler (Click to enlarge)
The Modeler lets you model all the necessary objects you need for
your scene. You also prepare your objects for Layout here, like
attaching surfaces to them etc. I put a few descriptions on picture 4
as well, and we will get to know the interface better next.
Getting to know Modeler
Well start with a few explanations on how Lightwave is built up,
and then well start the main tutorial and learn the tools we use as we
go along.
The Interface & Workflow
The Workflow is one of Lightwaves stronger areas. If you look at
the Interface, youll see that every Tool or Button is named with text.
No image buttons that takes ages to learn, plus that the interface is
very clean. You also have shortcuts on your keyboard for almost every
Tool in Lightwave. The menus are also configurable and you can create
your own menus to fit your own needs.
Keyboard Shortcuts
If you look at the Box Tool button in the Create Tab, youll
see that in the right side of the button theres an X. This means
that a capital X is the shortcut key for the Box Tool, so if you hit
shift+X on your keyboard, youll see that the Box Tool gets
activated. This is how it works with all the other Tools that have a
key assigned to them as well.
If you would like to assign a shortcut to a Tool that perhaps
doesnt have one, hit alt+F9 on your keyboard and you will get a list
over all the Tools available, and a list over all the keys on your
keyboard. You can also access certain setting panels from the Modeler pull-down menu at the top left of Modeler.
Plugins
Lightwave comes with lots of Plugins that you need to get things
working properly. We will start by installing these in Modeler. At the
top left of the Modeler window, you should see a button named Modeler. If you click this one with your Left Mouse Button, you will
get a small menu with a few sections and options. One of the sections
is named Plug-ins, so click that one and a sub-menu will appear. From
this sub-menu, select Edit Plug-ins.
A Panel will appear and this is where you control your Plugins. If
you didnt install your Plugins already, we will do it now. Click the
Scan Directory button on the right of this Panel, and a browser
window will appear. Browse to your Lightwave Directory (on your
harddrive) and find the Folder named Plugins, simply just mark this
Folder and click OK. Lightwave will now install all the Plugins it will
find automatically. When its done you can simply close down the
Plug-ins Panel.
Display Options
Modeler has got four Viewports by default. Each of these Viewports
can have their own unique settings. Open up the Display Options panel
by hitting d on your keyboard, it should look something like picture
5.
Picture 5: Display Options Panel
The first tab called Layout in this panel contains a few global
settings. This means that if you change something here it will take
place in all of the Viewports. As you can see Ive turned off a few
options here, and this is just my own preference. What we will change
though, is the Top Right Viewport (Perspective View) and how that one
should appear. So to edit just one of the Viewports, click the
Viewports Tab. The first thing to do here is choose which of the
Viewports we want to edit, so click on the TR (Top Right) button to
select that one, then use the options that picture 6 are showing.
Picture 6: The settings for the Top Right Viewport
Once youve entered all the settings here, just click OK to save
it, and if you look at the perspective view now, it should look
something like picture 7.
Picture 7: The Top Right View/The Perspective View
There are a few more things we are going to change in the Display
Options Panel, so hit d once more to bring it up again. Click the
last Tab Units, then use the settings shown in picture 8.
Picture 8: The Units settings
Once youre done with these settings, click OK again to save the changes.
Each Viewport has got a Pan, Rotate and Zoom Tool, and a variety of
render modes, picture 9 shows the Toolbar for one of the Viewports.
Picture 9: Viewport Tools
As you can see on picture 9, this view is set to Top XZ, but you
can easily change it to any of the others by using this pull-down menu.
Just to the right of the View menu you can select what type of Render
Mode you wish to use for that view, such as Wireframe, Smooth Shaded
and so on. The Pan Tool lets you Pan the Viewport, and if you prefer to
use the mouse and keyboard, just hold down the Alt key while you
click inside the view with your Left Mouse Button and drag it around.
The Rotate Tool only works in the Perspective View. In any Perspective
view you have, you can also hold down the Alt key while dragging in
the view, which will work as a Rotate Tool. The Zoom Tool will zoom in
or out using the centre of the view as a target.
Modes & Tools
At the bottom of Modeler, you should see two buttons named Points
and Polygons. These are the two modes of Modeler, and will give you
more control over what you are doing when you model your objects. If
you read the first part of this Guide then you should know what Points
& Polygons are, otherwise, move back and read it. It is essential
that you know what Points and Polygons are if you want to get anywhere
with modelling.
The Tools that come with Modeler, has been nicely categorised under
the Tabs, just above the Top Left Viewport. The Create Tab is open by
default when you load Modeler, and if you click any of the other ones,
you should see that the Tools to the left of Modeler changes. To
activate a Tool, simply click on it once. Activate the Box Tool in the
Create Tab now. If you move your mouse over any of the Viewports now
you can see that the mouse pointer has turned in to a small 3D box. The
same thing happens with the other Primitive Object Tools, the Ball Tool
turns into a small ball, the Disc Tool into a small cylinder and so on.
To Deactivate a Tool simply click it again or hit Space on your
keyboard. We are going to go through the most common tools a bit later
in this Guide, to get to know them better.
The Numeric Panel
Almost every Tool in Modeler comes with a Numeric Panel. This panel
lets you enter exact values of how you want the final result to turn
out. For example, using the Numeric Panel when you have the Box Tool
activated lets you enter exact values of how big the box should be, and
if youre using it when you have the Move Tool activated, you can enter
an exact value as to how much you want to move the object and so on.
Activate the Box Tool and hit n on your keyboard. Once you hit n
the Numeric Panel will come up showing you default values of the Tool
you selected, in this case the Box Tool. Once you activated the Numeric
Panel, a box was created in real-time in the ViewPorts of Modeler, and
as you make changes in the Numeric Panel, it will affect the Box in the
ViewPorts. Close down the Numeric Panel by clicking n once more (or
by clicking the X at the top right of the Numeric Panel window), and
then hit Space on your keyboard to deactivate the Box Tool and to
create the Box. Dont delete this box; well need it later on.
The Hub
The Hub is what Lightwave uses to communicate between the Layout
and the Modeler. When youve finished modelling your objects for
instance, simply send them to layout via the Hub. This increases the
workflow even more, and makes Lightwave more like one program instead
of two. As soon as you start Lightwave up, the Hub will automatically
start running, youll notice a small green icon in the System Tray. If
you dont have enough ram in your machine, and Lightwave tends to get
slow after a whiles usage, then you can turn the Hub off via the System
Tray, its requirements are pretty high.
If you would like to run without the Hub permanently, then do the
following steps. Add two shortcuts to Layout and Modeler in your
Windows hotbar (down where the Start menu is). Right click the Layout
shortcut and select Properties. In the Window that comes up, you should
have a Target string, indicating where on your harddrive the
executables are. In the end of this string, add -0, making it look
something like:
...NewtekProgramsLightwav.exe -0
Do the same with the Modeler shortcut, and the next time you run
either of them, the Hub will not start automatically, saving you lots
of RAM.
Objects & Layers
You can have many objects loaded at the same time in Modeler, and
just above the Top Right Viewport you should see a pull-down menu where
it currently says Unnamed. This is the object you are working on at
the moment, and if you have more than one object loaded in Modeler, you
can switch to which one you wish to work with here.
To give you even more control over your objects while you work with
them, Modeler brings you Layers. Each object can have 990 layers, and
this is more than plenty. Just above the Top Right Viewport you should
see 10 small boxes, and these are the layers. Picture 10 shows the
Layer Tools.
Picture 10: The Layer Tools
The one to the very left is lit up with a yellow colour, which
means that it is active. As you can see theres a little black dot in
this Layer. Remember the Box we created earlier? Well, the little black
dot indicates that this layer has got an object in it.
If you look at picture 11 you will see that each of these boxes is
divided in two. The Top part indicates Foreground Layer, and the Bottom
part indicates Background Layer.
Picture 11: A Closer look on the Layers
One of the new things since LW6.5 are the Layer Groups. Earlier you
could only have 10 layers per objects, but with this feature you can
have 990. 10 Layers per group and a total of 99 groups. Picture 12
shows the Layer Groups.
Picture 12: The Layer Groups
Lightwave Universe
Both Modeler and Layout has something called Lightwave Universe,
and the Universe has got a centre spot. As you can see in the four
views of Modeler, there are two lines in the grid pattern that are a
bit thicker than the others. Where these two meet, thats the exact
centre. The values for X, Y and Z here are all zero.
Working in the Bottom Left Viewport, put your mouse pointer at the
exact centre and watch the Position Window. It should look something
like picture 13.
Picture 13: Closer look at the Axes
The red dot in the middle of the View indicates the centre of the
Universe, and as you can see in the Position window, the values are
both zero there. The picture also shows that each axis has got a
negative and positive side. In my example Im using the Back View, or
the Bottom Left Viewport, and this viewport shows the X and Y axis.
Left of the vertical centre line you have the negative X, and on the
right you have the positive X. Below the horizontal centre line you
have the negative Y, and above you have the positive Y. Does it sound
hard? Well, Ive made a few pictures to ease things up a bit.
Picture 14 shows 4 different positions for the mouse pointer, which
is indicated by the little red dot. Note that the Grid Size is set to
500mm, and therefore each square in the grid pattern indicates 500x500
millimetres of space.
Picture 14: 4 different positions for the mouse pointer (Click to enlarge)
All of the views in picture 14 show the Back View (Bottom Left
Viewport), and you can try this out yourself by just moving your mouse
pointer in the Viewport.
There you have some information on how Modeler is built up and how
things work in general. We will now start the main Tutorial, and while
we go along we will do a few smaller tutorials on the tools we use
etc.
