IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi! I am Dan Ablan, and I would like
to welcome you to LightWave 10
| | 00:07 | Essential Training.
| | 00:08 | In this course, we are going to
cover navigation through both LightWave
| | 00:11 | Modeler and Layout.
| | 00:13 | You will see how to model with both
polygons and subdivision surfaces and use
| | 00:16 | the Surface Editor to apply materials.
| | 00:18 | I will show you real-world lighting
setups, and you will see how to set up scenes
| | 00:22 | with multiple lights and objects and
then animate them using keyframes while
| | 00:26 | editing motions in the Graph Editor.
| | 00:28 | Beyond the basics, you will see how
to create particle animation, set up
| | 00:31 | collisions with motion dynamics,
and deform objects with hierarchies using bones.
| | 00:36 | Finally, we'll take a look at how to
render animations for various playback media.
| | 00:40 | I have been using LightWave since 1.0
way back in 1990, and I am thrilled to be
| | 00:44 | able to share my knowledge with you
in LightWave 10 Essential Training.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you have access to the exercise files,
I want to show you how those are laid out.
| | 00:03 | I am going to open up the Exercise
Files folder, and what you are going to
| | 00:06 | see are three folders within here: one called
Scenes and one called Objects, one called Images.
| | 00:12 | I strongly recommend you watch the
content directory video that is going to
| | 00:17 | show you how the structure of
LightWave works to pick up all the necessary
| | 00:21 | files when you load a scene.
| | 00:22 | That being said, if you don't have the
exercise files, I am going to show you
| | 00:26 | how to create those. But before I do,
let's take a look inside some of these.
| | 00:30 | It's important to know that not every
example has a scene file, so you might
| | 00:35 | find a few blank folders in here.
| | 00:37 | Some of the Image folders we hadn't
gotten into that yet, so Chapter 4 has some
| | 00:42 | images but Chapter 3 does not.
| | 00:43 | So if you see a few blanks in there,
don't worry about it. But that structure is
| | 00:47 | there that if you do have the exercise
files and you want to save something, you
| | 00:50 | can save them in those
appropriate chapter folders.
| | 00:53 | Now to set up your own content
directory, just create a new folder on your
| | 00:57 | Desktop or on your hard drive, and
you can even call it Projects or Files,
| | 01:01 | whatever you'd like.
| | 01:02 | Then within that, you want to create
three new folders: one called Scenes--
| | 01:07 | not Scene but just Scenes, make sure they
are exact--Objects, and then one called Images.
| | 01:14 | And this is a typical LightWave structure.
| | 01:16 | We are going to set up the content
directory to point to this, so the next video
| | 01:21 | I am going to strongly
recommend that you watch that.
| | 01:23 | It's very important because that's
going to help you load your scenes, your
| | 01:26 | objects, as well as your images, in LightWave 10.
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| Working with projects and setting the content directory| 00:00 | If you learn nothing else when
working with LightWave, at least learn
| | 00:03 | the content directory.
| | 00:05 | Hopefully, you will learn a
little bit more than that.
| | 00:07 | I am going to press D on the keyboard.
It calls up the Preferences, and if you
| | 00:11 | go into the Paths tab, you have this
big nice panel of preferences you can set.
| | 00:17 | This is one of the most important things to
learn when you start working with LightWave.
| | 00:21 | It's one of the things I get emails on mostly.
| | 00:23 | People load up a scene and
they say, "The scene is broken.
| | 00:25 | I can't find everything."
| | 00:27 | This is why: if the content directory is
not set up properly, your scenes cannot
| | 00:32 | find their objects and the
objects cannot find their images.
| | 00:35 | You have to remember that when you
save an object that's what saves all the
| | 00:38 | textures. When you save a scene
that's what saves all the objects and light
| | 00:43 | positions and motions.
| | 00:44 | So, just keep that in mind.
| | 00:46 | To set the content directory, just hit
the Content Directory button and point
| | 00:50 | to whatever that folder is. And in
this case, if you have access to the
| | 00:54 | exercise files, set it there.
| | 00:56 | If you've created your own
directory, such as Projects, set it there.
| | 01:01 | So when I go to set one like that
and I click Open, LightWave knows where
| | 01:05 | to look for things.
| | 01:06 | With Auto-Detect on, if I choose to
load a scene from a different content
| | 01:10 | directory, it will automatically
switch for me, making things a lot easier.
| | 01:14 | You've got a lot of custom paths you
can use here, but I don't recommend them
| | 01:17 | unless you are working with a bigger
network of computers and you have to have
| | 01:21 | images on a certain hard drive and
you've got objects on a certain hard drive.
| | 01:25 | But I always like to keep things within the
same folder, especially when it comes to backup.
| | 01:29 | It's very easy to take that one exercise
file folder and move all the folders within it.
| | 01:34 | So once that's set, I can say Load Scene,
and when I hit Load Scene all of those
| | 01:39 | chapters come up within that Scenes folder.
| | 01:42 | I don't have to go searching through my
hard drive, and if I come to a scene and
| | 01:45 | I click Load, it's going to load
properly, and that is because the content
| | 01:49 | directory is set up properly.
| | 01:51 | So, reference that.
| | 01:53 | If you get errors, make sure you go back
and look and make sure everything is in
| | 01:56 | the right place and that that content
directory is set appropriately so that your
| | 02:00 | scenes load exactly the way you want.
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1. Getting Started in LightWave 10Understanding the LightWave 3D interfaces| 00:00 | When you start LightWave, you are
going to be presented with three programs.
| | 00:03 | The first and main program is LightWave Layout,
and we are going to refer to this as Layout.
| | 00:08 | Now, a little later we are going to
cover this entirely, but just to give you an
| | 00:12 | idea, what you do in this portion of
LightWave is you build your scenes.
| | 00:15 | This is where you are going to set up
your lights--and I am just clicking on
| | 00:18 | that to activate it--
| | 00:19 | you are going to set up your cameras, and
this is where you are going to render from.
| | 00:23 | You are going to build
surfaces through the Surface Editor.
| | 00:27 | You can load images, place them in the
background, and do compositing--and all of
| | 00:31 | that we are going to cover in this course.
| | 00:33 | But in order to create a
scene, you need some objects.
| | 00:36 | The objects come for Modeler, and up here in
the top-right, you can see there is Modeler.
| | 00:39 | Y can also press F12.
That will jump you into Modeler.
| | 00:43 | And this is where you build your 3D models.
| | 00:45 | Now, if you have imported models
from other programs, you can do that all
| | 00:48 | through Modeler as well, and
convert them to LightWave format.
| | 00:51 | If I hold the Alt key, or the Option
key on the Mac, I can click and drag my
| | 00:55 | rotate and rotate around
here in the perspective view.
| | 00:58 | But each one of these views can be
anything I want, and we are going to describe
| | 01:01 | that in an upcoming video.
| | 01:03 | But in here we can very simply just
create elements, boxes, balls, and whatever
| | 01:08 | else--and of course model more complex objects.
| | 01:10 | But the way that these objects
get into Layout is through the Hub.
| | 01:14 | So that is this other little program
that runs, whether they are on a PC or on
| | 01:17 | the Mac, and the Hub is what
connects both programs together.
| | 01:21 | So, we are going to have a whole
video on this, explaining what this does.
| | 01:24 | You are not going to need to go into
it too often, but this is what runs
| | 01:28 | automatically and connects the two programs.
| | 01:31 | So, wrapping up, we've got
three portions to LightWave:
| | 01:34 | the Hub, which connects Modeler and Layout;
| | 01:37 | Modeler, where we build all our objects;
| | 01:39 | and then Layout, which you can get to
just by clicking F12 or switch to Layout
| | 01:43 | right up here on the top-right corner--
and Layout builds our scenes, lights our
| | 01:47 | scenes, and surfaces.
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| Exploring the Hub| 00:00 | The LightWave Hub is what connects
LightWave Modeler and LightWave Layout.
| | 00:03 | When you build a 3D object, it gets
set to LightWave Layout via the Hub.
| | 00:07 | Now, this is all done automatically,
and the Hub runs automatically when you
| | 00:11 | start LightWave Layout or Modeler.
| | 00:12 | There are a few things in here, however,
that you should be aware of, such as
| | 00:17 | processes showing how
certain things are running.
| | 00:20 | These are something you
shouldn't really ever mess with.
| | 00:22 | So, we are going to close those.
| | 00:23 | However, what you can adjust are some
of the customized color settings. And if
| | 00:28 | you open up the Options down here,
number 6, click that, you can see here's
| | 00:32 | all the default colors for LightWave.
| | 00:35 | Now, a lot of people like to change
this based on visual appeal, their
| | 00:39 | environment, or sometimes
just the way their eyesight is.
| | 00:41 | They like to change these colors
to make them a little more bold or a
| | 00:43 | little more subtle.
| | 00:45 | For this video, we are going to
keep everything all the same,
| | 00:47 | all default, so that we are all working
on the same page, but it's just one area
| | 00:51 | where you can go ahead and change.
| | 00:54 | When you do this, you want to set
your color for an action, a dialog, drag
| | 00:58 | button, tool, click OK and you are
going to have to actually quit LightWave,
| | 01:03 | the Hub, and Modeler and then restart.
That data is then written to the preferences file,
| | 01:08 | so when you restart, your
new colors will be adjusted.
| | 01:11 | The last thing you could set in
the Hub is the Automatic Save.
| | 01:14 | What this allows you to do, if you
just click on it, is set an automatic save
| | 01:17 | for 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15, 30, or 1 hour.
| | 01:21 | Now, this is something I usually
don't do, simply because if I'm making an
| | 01:25 | object, scene, setting up some lights,
and I make an error, it suddenly may
| | 01:29 | automatic save kicks in,
well, I just saved my error.
| | 01:32 | It also forces me to remind myself to
always save my object, always save my
| | 01:37 | scene, and not rely on
something to do automatically for me.
| | 01:41 | This is certainly something you can set,
but for this course, we are going to
| | 01:43 | actually keep this set to Never.
| | 01:45 | So, that's pretty much the Hub.
It connects LightWave and Modeler, linking
| | 01:48 | your object doing both.
| | 01:50 | It allows you to set a few
different options for your system.
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| Understanding 3D space| 00:00 | As we get into LightWave Modeler, I want to
talk a little bit about X, Y, Z, and 3D space.
| | 00:05 | I've got this shoe loaded and I just
press the A key to bring it to view.
| | 00:08 | This is on your Chapter 1 Exercise folder.
| | 00:12 | And don't worry about loading this up right now.
| | 00:14 | I just want to show you little bit about
how I can help you throughout this course.
| | 00:18 | I am going to go to the
Modify tab and press the Move tool.
| | 00:22 | And when I click and drag up and down
with the left mouse, I am moving on the Y axis.
| | 00:27 | And you can see the offset down here
at the bottom-left information panel.
| | 00:30 | I am going to hold the Alt or the
Option key on a Mac, rotate around, and
| | 00:35 | if move left and right, I am moving on the
X axis, and then the Z is forward and back.
| | 00:41 | Now I have this really stupid way for
you to remember, so don't make fun of me.
| | 00:44 | If you think of crisscross, like if
you're crossing your arms or hugging
| | 00:48 | somebody, that's the X.
| | 00:49 | Kind of put your arms left and right.
| | 00:51 | That's the X. Stand your hands up and
down, kind of like you're doing the YMCA
| | 00:56 | dance. Well, that's up and down, Y.
And of course think of a Zorro with a whip
| | 01:01 | slashing it out in front
of you. That's the Z axis.
| | 01:05 | Okay, so just a little easy way to
remember and use those views when we get to
| | 01:09 | all of our four quadrants working in Modeler.
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| Working in Modeler| 00:00 | LightWave Modeler is where
you build your 3D objects.
| | 00:03 | Now, when you first open up the program,
you are going to be presented with an
| | 00:06 | interface with four quadrants like you see here.
| | 00:08 | You are also going to see a
ton of tools and panels and tabs.
| | 00:12 | And people tend to get overwhelmed by all
of these buttons and panels and what they do,
| | 00:17 | but I am going to help you demystify
that and really break it down for what you
| | 00:20 | are really going to need to do on a daily basis.
| | 00:23 | But first, let's talk about the four quadrants.
| | 00:24 | Now, these are typically set up in
orthogonal views such as the Right view,
| | 00:30 | the Back view, the Top view, and to explain
this further, let me just load up an object.
| | 00:34 | Over here under the Create
tab, there is Primitives.
| | 00:38 | If you click the More dropdown, you can
load up a couple of different primitives
| | 00:42 | here such as Gear, Wedge, a torus, a capsule.
| | 00:46 | Let's just load up the capsule, and I am
going to click and drag and draw this out.
| | 00:49 | I am going to explain how to build all
of these tools in a little, but first,
| | 00:54 | with this object, I am going to hold
the Alt or Option key and click and drag,
| | 00:59 | and now you can see I have got an
object and you can see it in all three views.
| | 01:02 | So you are not going to work
with four different objects.
| | 01:04 | You are working with one
object and have four views of it.
| | 01:07 | This view by default is set to Perspective.
| | 01:09 | We can change this to a top view if you
would like, which matches the one on the left.
| | 01:14 | However, this one is set to Wireframe,
so we can change this to a Smooth Shaded
| | 01:18 | view and it now matches.
| | 01:19 | This one then could be a Sketch view or
Wireframe, a Color Wireframe, and so on.
| | 01:25 | But I'm going to go back to the typical
Smooth Shade and Perspective, and we will
| | 01:31 | change this back to Top and Wireframe.
| | 01:35 | In using these views, a lot of times
you might feel the need to change them, and
| | 01:39 | if you do, how do you know
which view looks down which axis?
| | 01:43 | Well, if you look at the right side of
each one of these, it says Right and then ZY.
| | 01:48 | What that means is the Z and the Y
are the axes that you can control.
| | 01:53 | And if you look very closely, right here
on the left you can see Z and here is
| | 01:57 | the Y. This means you are
looking down the X axis.
| | 02:00 | That's what's not included there,
and you have control over the Z and the Y axis.
| | 02:05 | In the back view, you are actually
looking towards the back of an object.
| | 02:09 | Or better, towards the back of a
scene because when you get to Layout,
| | 02:13 | you are going to be in a 3D
environment like a 3D scene,
| | 02:16 | you will be looking
towards the back of your scene.
| | 02:18 | So that's why that says Back view.
| | 02:20 | It comes from old video production
days and this was set up around those
| | 02:25 | production values. So you are not
really looking at the back of an object;
| | 02:28 | you are looking towards the back of the
scene. So you've got to keep that in mind.
| | 02:32 | This view XY means we are looking down
the Z axis, and we can control our model
| | 02:37 | on the X and on the Y. And by the
same token, we can do it with the Top.
| | 02:41 | X and Z means those are the
axes we have control over.
| | 02:45 | I will just press the T key,
which is a Transform tool.
| | 02:48 | It's also under the Modify tab.
And I can move this on the Z or on the X.
| | 02:55 | So pretty simple. In the
top-right, I can click and move.
| | 02:58 | Now, a lot of people want to click
this and then kind of click like this, and
| | 03:02 | what you are doing is moving the model.
| | 03:04 | Instead, you want to click,
hold your mouse, and move.
| | 03:09 | Click and hold your mouse
onto Zoom and you can zoom.
| | 03:12 | But notice there is no rotation.
| | 03:13 | That's because we're working only on
the X and the Z. Over in the Perspective
| | 03:18 | view, however, we can click and hold on
the rotation and rotate the view around.
| | 03:23 | So, pretty easy to navigate.
| | 03:25 | Lastly, you can click and expand by
clicking either one of these top corners
| | 03:30 | here, and then you can zoom in.
| | 03:31 | So now you have got a big full 3D view.
So if you have got a nice big monitor,
| | 03:34 | it's very easy to control and
manipulate your model in a nice 3D view.
| | 03:39 | And of course to get back,
just click that again.
| | 03:42 | And to fit your model to view--this is
a keyboard command we are going to use
| | 03:45 | quite a bit--press the A key for Fit All.
| | 03:48 | That's under the View tab, by the way, if
you need it, over here on the left, Fit All.
| | 03:52 | A few last things you should know:
down at the bottom are Points, Edges, and
| | 03:56 | Polygons, and we are going to talk about
that in a little bit, and these are the
| | 03:59 | elements that make up your 3D model.
| | 04:02 | There's also Symmetry, so you can work
on two axes at one time. By controlling
| | 04:06 | one axis, the other axis will mirror.
| | 04:10 | Different modes which we are going to
use throughout the course, this is how
| | 04:13 | your mouse is controlled
between Origin, Pivot, and Selection.
| | 04:17 | And then you've got Sub Division Types;
a Numeric panel, which will pop up as we
| | 04:23 | are building our models to be more specific;
| | 04:25 | a Statistics panel, and this is quite
useful for getting into specific numbers
| | 04:31 | of polygons, points, or edges,
and we'll use that throughout the course;
| | 04:35 | an Info panel and this is really
geared towards point information;
| | 04:41 | a Surface, this is when we are going to
generate a surface for our model and we
| | 04:46 | will call that back up; and finally,
our Make button for creating polygons.
| | 04:51 | These buttons down here, the weight,
texture, morph, create a vertex map, and a
| | 04:55 | selection set are more advanced
specific controls and as we get a little more
| | 05:00 | further into advanced modeling,
we are going to use these.
| | 05:02 | These all relate to different
elements that are going to be controlled
| | 05:06 | in LightWave Layout.
| | 05:07 | Lastly, I want to show you
up here all of these tabs.
| | 05:12 | If you take a look as I click through each one
of these, these seven buttons all stay the same.
| | 05:19 | Those are always the same no matter
which tab I am in. What does change,
| | 05:23 | however, is the categories beneath.
| | 05:25 | And for the majority of projects you
are going to do, you are going to work
| | 05:28 | within the Create tab.
| | 05:31 | You are going to modify what you have created.
| | 05:32 | You are going to multiply what you have
created, sometimes, and you are going to
| | 05:37 | construct what you have created.
| | 05:39 | Very rarely will you get too much
into the Detail, Map, Setup, Utilities.
| | 05:44 | These are commands that you use
infrequently. The majority of controls are up here.
| | 05:50 | These categories are set up for you to
just work your way through, so you're
| | 05:55 | going to create a model with primitives.
| | 05:58 | You can create text models.
| | 06:00 | You can build points.
| | 06:02 | You can create polygons or build curves.
| | 06:06 | You can modify those by
dragging them and moving them.
| | 06:09 | You can rotate them and
transform them, sizing and stretch.
| | 06:13 | You can multiply them, so you can build
a curve for instance, and then you can
| | 06:17 | lathe it, which is this tool right here.
| | 06:19 | It's also known as a rail extrusion.
| | 06:23 | You can also do smooth shifts. Sometimes Lathe
| | 06:26 | I believe in other programs it's a loft.
| | 06:28 | You can duplicate with mirroring.
| | 06:30 | So it's very simple to work your way through.
| | 06:32 | You just need to think about what you're
doing and work through it one step at a time.
| | 06:37 | So LightWave Modeler allows you to
create models, edit models. Very easy to
| | 06:42 | access the interface from different
angles and different shading views, make your
| | 06:47 | modeling quite easy.
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| Working in Layout| 00:00 | LightWave Layout is where
you assemble your scenes.
| | 00:03 | I've gone ahead and loaded up the shoe
object from the Chapter 01 folder, and
| | 00:06 | you can also see that the default
light and camera are also in here.
| | 00:11 | Now, you can have as many cameras as you want,
and I have just clicked on it to select it.
| | 00:15 | You can have as many lights as you want.
| | 00:16 | And as we build our scenes throughout
this course, you will see that we will use
| | 00:20 | multiple lights and even multiple cameras.
| | 00:22 | But I want you to consider Layout as a
virtual TV studio, with your lights, your
| | 00:27 | cameras, and your actors being your objects.
| | 00:31 | Now, navigating through here is quite easy.
| | 00:32 | I am just holding the Alt or Option key--
| | 00:35 | Option on the Mac, Alt on the PC--
but I can also do that up here in
| | 00:39 | the top-right corner.
| | 00:40 | If I click and hold on this
second icon, I can move around.
| | 00:45 | If I click and hold on the third, I can
rotate, and click and hold on the fourth is my zoom.
| | 00:52 | But what's this first button do?
| | 00:54 | Well, this one I don't
actually click and hold on.
| | 00:56 | This one you just select and it
automatically locks, and what that does is it
| | 01:00 | automatically centers whatever is selected.
| | 01:03 | So, I just click the light
and it automatically centered.
| | 01:06 | If I click the camera,
that automatically centers.
| | 01:09 | It's a great way to
navigate to a more complex scene.
| | 01:13 | So I've got a quite a big scene here, and I
need to get in close on an item. I can select it.
| | 01:19 | It will center it automatically for me,
and then I can click and zoom in,
| | 01:22 | making it very easy to see, check my
textures, check lighting, and so on.
| | 01:28 | And I can click it just to unselect.
| | 01:30 | Up at the top, you've got Items, Modify,
Setup, Utilities, Render, View, and Modeler.
| | 01:38 | Modeler tools we are going to cover
a little bit later, but I want to talk
| | 01:42 | about the Items and the Modify tabs.
| | 01:44 | Over here, these tabs, very
similar to LightWave Modeler,
| | 01:47 | control loading objects, adding items
to the scene such as lights and cameras,
| | 01:54 | and then once those are loaded, you
are going to modify them in some way.
| | 01:57 | You are going to translate, a move.
| | 01:59 | You are going to rotate, transform.
| | 02:02 | You can size and stretch.
| | 02:05 | If you go to Setup, this is going
to get into our bones for character
| | 02:08 | deformations, and then we are going to
jump to Utilities for different LScripts
| | 02:12 | and Plugins for additional tools.
| | 02:16 | But for the most part, we are
going to work between these two tabs.
| | 02:19 | So, just like in Modeler, you shouldn't be
overwhelmed by all of the buttons and tabs.
| | 02:23 | We are going to spend most of
our time in these first two.
| | 02:26 | But notice as I go through each
of these tabs, this whole series of
| | 02:30 | buttons stays the same.
| | 02:32 | So, once we learn these, that's just
a lot less you have to worry about.
| | 02:36 | We are going to use like a lot of
keyboard equivalents for navigating, making
| | 02:40 | things a lot simpler for us, but I'll
also show you where all of those buttons are.
| | 02:45 | Down at the bottom is an area we are
going to cover quite a bit, and we are
| | 02:48 | going to work in this throughout the course.
| | 02:50 | This is our Timeline, and this
is how we create animations.
| | 02:55 | By default, we have 60 frames, which
is 2 seconds at 30 frames per second,
| | 02:59 | starting at 0, ending at 60.
| | 03:01 | When we get to our Preferences, I will
show you how to change that and make a
| | 03:06 | default longer scene.
| | 03:08 | In the bottom-right corner, you've
got your play controls from going to the
| | 03:11 | beginning of your animation to going
to the end of the animation or to just
| | 03:16 | simply hitting the Play button.
| | 03:20 | In the middle, we've got our area for
creating keys and deleting keys, and this
| | 03:23 | is what sets an object in motion over time.
| | 03:27 | And then to select certain items if you
don't want to simply just click on it in Layout,
| | 03:31 | you can use the dropdown--and often you
are going to have to do this when you
| | 03:34 | have a very complex scene.
| | 03:36 | So, you would say I want to work
with objects and I select the objects.
| | 03:39 | I want to work with lights and
you would select your lights.
| | 03:42 | Whichever component mode you are in--
Objects, Lights, or Cameras--you can
| | 03:47 | then click Properties or press the P key to
open the properties for that selected item.
| | 03:53 | Press P key again to close it.
| | 03:56 | Lastly, down here--and it's very hard to see.
| | 03:59 | It's a little tiny button off
to the right of the current item--
| | 04:02 | if you click and open that, you are
going to get this nice little panel that you
| | 04:05 | can actually leave open.
| | 04:06 | If you are working with a dual monitor
setup, it's actually something nice to
| | 04:09 | put off onto another screen.
| | 04:11 | This is your current item selector.
| | 04:13 | Now, I generally use this when it
comes to objects, and I will click Objects,
| | 04:18 | open that up and I'll close this camera one.
| | 04:20 | We don't need that.
| | 04:21 | And when I have a lot of objects in my
scene, it's a very easy way to select
| | 04:25 | simply by clicking on those
particular objects I need.
| | 04:28 | You can filter, you can change the
way selections are handled, and you have
| | 04:33 | different actions for sorting a full
list of objects. Quite handy, and we will
| | 04:37 | use that in the course as well.
| | 04:39 | So, LightWave Layout, where we are
going to do all our animations, create up
| | 04:42 | our scenes, our lights, our
textures, and render out animations.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Selecting elements| 00:00 | One of the first things to know about
working with models is how to work with
| | 00:03 | selections. Well, what are you selecting?
| | 00:05 | You are going to select points, edges, or
polygons and that's these three buttons
| | 00:09 | down here at the bottom of the screen.
| | 00:11 | Well obviously you need a model to do that,
| | 00:12 | so let's load one up.
| | 00:14 | Go to the File dropdown menu,
and one thing I should point out:
| | 00:17 | you doesn't need to click
right on the little dropdown arrow.
| | 00:19 | You can actually click anywhere on the button.
| | 00:21 | So click and then choose Load Object and
from your Objects folder in Chapter 01,
| | 00:27 | load the Shoe, and you'll see that that
shoe loads right up, and you press the A
| | 00:33 | key. That will fit all.
| | 00:35 | So here is our shoe.
| | 00:36 | Well, what would you select
and why would you select it?
| | 00:39 | Well this model is pretty much done,
but let's say you want to modify it because
| | 00:43 | the guy has a really big foot.
| | 00:45 | So, you need to stretch it in some way.
| | 00:49 | Well, if I came over here to my Modify
tab and I came down and chose let's say
| | 00:55 | Stretch and I click and
drag, I can stretch it out.
| | 00:58 | Well, that's not quite the look we want.
| | 01:00 | He is not really a clown, so I'm going to
do a Ctrl+Z on the PC, Command+Z on the Mac.
| | 01:06 | So I am going to come down to Points,
and I will select that down at the bottom
| | 01:10 | and that tells Modeler I want to
work with the points of the object.
| | 01:13 | Well, points make up polygons.
| | 01:14 | It's kind of like connect-the-dots,
and I want to select the points all in this
| | 01:20 | toe area, down here at the bottom-right.
| | 01:22 | But something is going to happen.
| | 01:24 | This is set to Smooth Shade.
| | 01:25 | So now I hold my right mouse button--and
if you're on a Mac and you only have one
| | 01:30 | button mouse, go out and get a two
button mouse and if you don't have one right
| | 01:34 | now, hold your Command key down,
and then you could select a Lasso
| | 01:39 | selection like that.
| | 01:40 | But look what happens.
| | 01:42 | Because I am in a Shaded mode, only
those points visible to me get selected.
| | 01:46 | If you look up here in the Perspective
view or even in this Wireframe view, only
| | 01:51 | those front points gets selected.
| | 01:53 | So I am going to press the Question Mark/Slash key on
the keyboard to deselect, and now it's
| | 01:57 | going to work universally
with edges and polygons.
| | 02:01 | So keep that in mind.
| | 02:01 | I am going to change to Wireframe
view, and then I am going to select
| | 02:06 | these points like this.
| | 02:08 | Then if you notice, points are
selected all the way through.
| | 02:11 | When I come over and go to Modify and Move,
now I can actually move just that selection.
| | 02:19 | Clearly that's not something you are
going to want to put your foot into, but
| | 02:24 | my point here is showing that instead
of stretching the whole object, you can
| | 02:28 | select different elements--an element
being a point, an edge, or a polygon--and
| | 02:32 | adjust those accordingly. So think of this.
| | 02:36 | When you have nothing selected like this,
whatever you do applies to everything.
| | 02:42 | So if I hit the T key, well,
everything is going to move.
| | 02:45 | I will do Command+Z to undo.
| | 02:49 | If I have something selected,
whatever I do is going to apply only to that.
| | 02:56 | So the process is, select, perform an
action, deselect. It's that simple.
| | 03:04 | Just try not to get overwhelmed,
and do things one step at a time.
| | 03:08 | Now when you're using these tools, you can
select it just like that with your mouse.
| | 03:13 | You can then press the Spacebar to
turn it off. And if you look down here at
| | 03:18 | the bottom, if you press your Spacebar, you
will cycle through Points, Edges and Polygons.
| | 03:24 | Up in your top-right, you are
going to see a row of buttons.
| | 03:27 | These are your layer buttons.
| | 03:29 | I am going to click the
second one creating new layer,
| | 03:32 | just so we have a new workspace, and I
am going to draw out a box just like
| | 03:39 | that, and then I will click
the tool again to turn it off.
| | 03:46 | Under Points, if I click and mouse over,
I am selecting points, and I am holding
| | 03:52 | the mouse down as I do that.
| | 03:54 | But what happens if you press your forward slash to
deselect and then decide well I do want
| | 04:00 | to select those after all?
| | 04:01 | I will click on a point.
I will let go over the mouse.
| | 04:04 | Well if I go to click now on the
other point, I can't select it because I
| | 04:09 | have let go the mouse.
| | 04:10 | Selections and de-selections toggle,
which means as soon as I select something,
| | 04:14 | let go the mouse, then
click again, I deselect.
| | 04:18 | Let's jump to the Polygons down at the bottom.
| | 04:20 | Polygons are going to be created
when points are put together.
| | 04:25 | So we had four points that
now have created this polygon.
| | 04:28 | If I click up here in the Shaded
view, you can see that polygon is
| | 04:31 | highlighted and selected.
| | 04:32 | I have let go the mouse. Then I click again.
| | 04:36 | I deselect. So, that toggles.
| | 04:39 | So what happens then if you need to add
to your selection? Hold the Shift key,
| | 04:44 | and then I could add to that selection.
| | 04:47 | By the same token, I can
hold the Ctrl key and deselect.
| | 04:51 | It's a very easy to do without much
effort. Control, deselect, and Shift to
| | 04:58 | select. Or simply hold down
the Question Mark/Slash key to deselect all.
| | 05:06 | If you click and hold your mouse and run it
across, you can select everything as well.
| | 05:10 | Now this will make more sense as we
start building an object, and I will
| | 05:14 | reinforce this with your commands.
| | 05:16 | So selection and de-selection are
something you are going to do throughout your
| | 05:20 | modeling process, whether you are
building objects, converting objects, building
| | 05:24 | text, working with curves;
| | 05:26 | you're always going to be selecting or
deselecting points, edges, or polygons.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Identifying the elements of a 3D model| 00:00 | So when we talk about a model, you are
probably wondering, what actually is a model?
| | 00:05 | Well, let me show you.
| | 00:06 | If you come over to the Create tab,
under the Primitives category you have got a
| | 00:10 | Box, a Ball, a Disc, and a Cone.
| | 00:12 | It's very simple primitive objects.
| | 00:14 | Under the More dropdown there is
Capsule tool as well as some other solids
| | 00:18 | that you can work with.
| | 00:19 | Let's choose the torus, also called
Toroid, and what happens as you get this
| | 00:24 | nice little numeric panel that comes
up and you can choose the number of
| | 00:26 | sections, number of sides, the radius
of this torus, start angle, end angle.
| | 00:31 | So we are pretty much going
to keep this as its default
| | 00:35 | full 360-degree rotation so that it looks like that.
| | 00:38 | Not something too useful, but it
will work for our example here.
| | 00:42 | If you're building this more for a
real project, you would want to add more
| | 00:46 | segments and more sections to
it so that it has more detail.
| | 00:50 | These days with the power of
computers you don't need to have simple
| | 00:53 | primitives like this.
| | 00:54 | In years past you had to in order for your
system to keep up, but these days you can
| | 00:59 | actually do a very nice detail object.
| | 01:01 | But if you take a look at this wireframe,
you will see that there is number of
| | 01:04 | lines as well as points.
| | 01:06 | Now let me expand this by clicking the
top-right corner here of the top quadrant.
| | 01:11 | That expands that to a single view,
and then I will click and drag on my Zoom
| | 01:14 | tool just to zoom in a bit.
| | 01:15 | So you can see here that there's a point
in between each of these lines and then
| | 01:20 | lines connecting each one of those.
| | 01:21 | But what those are,
| | 01:23 | there are points, also known as vertex.
| | 01:26 | These vertices connect in between each
one of these lines to create a polygon.
| | 01:33 | So four points have edges between them,
and I will jump to Edge mode here just
| | 01:38 | by clicking at the bottom
and then selecting my edges.
| | 01:42 | Each of those together makes up
polygons, and I am going to expand my view back
| | 01:47 | to a quad view, and a polygon is what
you end up with. And I will do Shift+A on
| | 01:53 | the keyboard to bring that selection to view.
| | 01:56 | Also, you can go to the View
tab and Fit All and Fit Selected.
| | 02:01 | So what we normally do is a,
| | 02:03 | Fits All. Fits Selected
brings what's selected into view.
| | 02:08 | So points make up polygons, and as I mentioned
earlier, it's kind of like connect the dots.
| | 02:13 | What happens though, if
you take out one of these?
| | 02:16 | So if I have this polygon selected and
perhaps I go to Edit > Cut, you get a hole.
| | 02:24 | It's just removed.
| | 02:25 | But notice that's there is nothing inside there.
| | 02:29 | The reason for that is that polygons
are one sided, and if you take a look, well
| | 02:34 | how do you know that that's
really facing the right way?
| | 02:37 | Sometimes a polygon might not be deleted.
| | 02:40 | It might just be facing the wrong way.
| | 02:43 | That can happen from time to time when
you're importing models, connecting parts
| | 02:46 | of models with other points and edges.
| | 02:49 | For instance, I am going to
rotate around here so you can see.
| | 02:52 | We will hold Alt, Option key,
Alt on the PC, Option on the Mac.
| | 02:57 | Select one of these and if you press
the F key for flip, it flips the polygon.
| | 03:03 | So while it looks the same as this
polygon being removed, it's really not.
| | 03:08 | It's actually just flipped inside.
| | 03:11 | So, how can you tell?
| | 03:13 | Well you can do that by
showing the surface normal.
| | 03:15 | So if you press the D key, you will
get your Display Options, and there are a
| | 03:20 | number of different panels in here,
but in this very first tab called the
| | 03:24 | Layout tab, you can turn on Show Normals.
And when I do that--I will just close this panel here--
| | 03:31 | you can see a little dotted line come
out from the polygon and that shows which
| | 03:36 | way the polygon is facing.
| | 03:38 | So if you take a look in this Top view
here, you can see that it's facing inward.
| | 03:42 | There actually is a polygon there.
| | 03:44 | So knowing that, I can press F
to flip it out the other way.
| | 03:48 | So that's something to keep in mind just
when you're working with these polygons,
| | 03:53 | to know which way your surface normal is facing.
| | 03:56 | Now if you had a model that had a hole
in it for some reason, you accidentally
| | 04:00 | deleted it a polygon,
how would you reconnect that?
| | 04:03 | Well I am going to press the right
corner here and expand this view.
| | 04:06 | I am going to work in Point mode, so I
will select Points at the very bottom of
| | 04:10 | the screen, and that allows me to select points.
| | 04:14 | Notice that I still have points
selected over here from earlier when I was
| | 04:17 | just talking about them.
| | 04:18 | I am going to press the Question Mark/Slash
key on the keyboard to deselect those,
| | 04:23 | hold the Alt+Option key to rotate
around and then with the Point mode on, I am
| | 04:29 | literally going to hold my mouse
down and run across these points.
| | 04:35 | Now something has happened here other than
selecting four points I have selected five.
| | 04:38 | I can tell that because number one,
I can just see it right there.
| | 04:42 | But down here at the bottom-left, look how
it says Sel. That means selection. It says 5.
| | 04:46 | Five what? Five points. That's what I have selected.
| | 04:50 | So by holding the Ctrl key, and clicking on
the point I don't need, I can deselect that.
| | 04:54 | Now that I have got the four points
selected, I can make a polygon by pressing P
| | 04:59 | for polygon, and now I have reconnected.
| | 05:01 | I will expand back to a quad view,
come out, and my object is whole again.
| | 05:08 | So just a simple explanation of how
these elements are built, whether it's
| | 05:12 | something you're going to build on
your own or whether it's a primitive you
| | 05:16 | views from the included shapes.
| | 05:18 | Either way, points, edges, and polygons
are what make up your model and what you
| | 05:23 | are going to be using in our upcoming videos.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Numeric panel| 00:00 | Every once in a while when you're
building a model you want it to be more specific.
| | 00:04 | So for instance if I came to the
Create tab and in my Primitives category I
| | 00:08 | say let's just draw out a ball here.
And I am drawing out the ball and okay,
| | 00:11 | that's pretty good,
| | 00:12 | but I don't know if that's
really 100% even on all sides.
| | 00:16 | I can see my position and rotation
and everything down here on the left,
| | 00:21 | but what if I wanted it to be more accurate?
| | 00:22 | Well, the way to do is with the Numerics,
and that's right down here at the bottom.
| | 00:25 | You can also press the N, as in
Nancy, called the Numeric panel.
| | 00:30 | In this panel, I can set the number of sides.
| | 00:32 | So let's say I want it to be a little
more detailed. I'll say 48. And I'd like to
| | 00:35 | hit the Tab key between sections here.
| | 00:38 | One thing in LightWave, you want to make
sure that you Enter or Tab out of these
| | 00:43 | boxes; otherwise that value won't take.
| | 00:46 | For Segments, I'll double that as well, 24.
| | 00:48 | There you can see that I've got a nice
quad mesh all the way around the model,
| | 00:53 | but it's a lot smoother
than it was by its default.
| | 00:57 | But the center is off.
| | 00:58 | I want it to be perfectly
centered on the X, Y, and Z axis.
| | 01:01 | So I'll press 0 for the X.
| | 01:03 | That moves it over. 0 for
Z, and that moves it over.
| | 01:08 | But there is my issue with the Radius.
| | 01:10 | See I visually couldn't draw it
out even, but now numerically I can.
| | 01:14 | So I can say 100 millimeters, Tab,
100 mm, Tab, 100 mm. That's it!
| | 01:24 | Perfect even ball, 100 millimeters in
size, and then I can turn off the Ball
| | 01:29 | tool, and notice that the Numeric goes blank.
| | 01:32 | Now a lot of people what they like
to do is place their Numeric panel on
| | 01:35 | another monitor, or they can scale
their interface over like this, and they
| | 01:42 | leave their Numeric open.
| | 01:43 | So as you're working, that panel can be there.
| | 01:46 | I don't typically do that.
| | 01:47 | I just usually press the N key and call
it up when I need to, but the option is
| | 01:51 | there if you like just the same.
| | 01:53 | Now if I go to the Box command for
instance, and I draw a little box here, and I
| | 01:57 | want this to be exact, I can press
the N command, open up my Numeric, and
| | 02:02 | again, go through and you'll see that
now I have a little bit different setup.
| | 02:05 | I still have Width, Height, Depth,
number of segments for instance.
| | 02:11 | If I want to make a little bit more
detail, I can just click and hold and drag
| | 02:15 | and create segments.
| | 02:17 | The reason I would create segments on
this box was let's say I was making a
| | 02:20 | building and I wanted to put windows
in. Or perhaps, if I wanted to bend this
| | 02:25 | box, you can't bend it if
it doesn't have any segments.
| | 02:28 | So think of a solid wood door for instance.
| | 02:31 | If you try to bend that door, it would crack.
| | 02:33 | That's kind of what would
happen to your polygons;
| | 02:34 | it would just break apart
and wouldn't work right.
| | 02:37 | But think of a screen door that's
made up of a number of different segments
| | 02:40 | like this, kind of like a ball--more malleable
for instance--it would actually bend smoothly.
| | 02:45 | The more segments you have, the
smoother you can bend and manipulate an object.
| | 02:49 | But there is a balance;
| | 02:50 | you don't want to over-build an object either.
| | 02:52 | So as we build models in this course,
we'll definitely go ahead and show you
| | 02:57 | what's the proper usage:
| | 02:58 | not too much, not too little,
somewhere right in the middle.
| | 03:01 | But using Numerics can really help you
get precise models, precise position, and
| | 03:06 | setting the right values
for any object you create.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using layers| 00:00 | Now you have probably asked yourself
when working in Modeler, what the heck are
| | 00:03 | these buttons up here?
| | 00:05 | Well, those have been in LightWave
since the very early days back in 1990,
| | 00:09 | a long time ago, and they've always
worked the same, but they work even better
| | 00:13 | now with version 10.
| | 00:14 | What these do, it's similar to
Photoshop, where you can create layers for
| | 00:19 | an individual object.
| | 00:20 | So what I'm going to do is actually
just build a very small simple object and
| | 00:24 | show you how those work.
| | 00:25 | So we're going to start with a box,
just select that from the Create tab, and
| | 00:30 | we're going to build the most
awesome race car. You'll see.
| | 00:33 | I'm just going to center this out,
and this is remembering the segments I had
| | 00:38 | set in the Numeric panel, so that's fine.
| | 00:41 | And I'll turn that box off.
| | 00:42 | When I build this, we've a small
white dot that appeared up in number one.
| | 00:48 | We are in layer one.
| | 00:49 | That little dot means there
is geometry in that layer.
| | 00:52 | Now, I want to create a wheel and
later on when I get to Layout, I want that
| | 00:57 | wheel to be able to animate.
| | 00:59 | If I build it in the same layer as the
body of the car, which is what this is
| | 01:04 | representing, it's not
going to animate separately.
| | 01:06 | So it needs to be in its own
layer to animate separately.
| | 01:09 | So we'll click a new layer.
| | 01:11 | Now our object is not deleted and it's not gone.
| | 01:15 | You can see there is still a dot up
in that layer right there, in layer 1.
| | 01:17 | We are just in layer 2.
| | 01:20 | To make layer 1 visible so we have a
reference, you click beneath that slash.
| | 01:24 | You see that half slash right there?
| | 01:27 | That is now a background layer.
| | 01:28 | We're going to refer to those in other projects.
| | 01:31 | So the solid layer is our foreground.
The background is the slash, the bottom half.
| | 01:37 | So with that now set up, I can go to my
Disc, I can click and drag, and just drag
| | 01:44 | out a wheel, and go to my Top view and
drag out that way and turn off the tool.
| | 01:49 | Now remember, when I turn off
the tool, my object is created.
| | 01:53 | I cannot turn the tool back
on and manipulate this more.
| | 01:56 | I end up creating another object entirely.
| | 01:59 | So you just have to be aware of
that that once that tool is off,
| | 02:02 | your model is built.
| | 02:03 | You can edit it, but you can't go back
and use the original tool to recreate it.
| | 02:08 | I'm going to press the T key, which is
the Move command from a Modify tab, and I'm
| | 02:14 | going to move that over.
| | 02:16 | And this is the advantage
of having a background layer.
| | 02:18 | Now, I know where to place that model.
| | 02:20 | So what about the other tires?
| | 02:22 | Well, we can copy and paste. And if
you're on a PC, you can use Ctrl+C.
| | 02:27 | If you are on the Mac, you could do
Command+C. Go to New layer, Command+V or
| | 02:34 | Ctrl+V on the PC, to Paste.
| | 02:37 | But how do I know where to place this?
| | 02:39 | Well, if I click the background, I can
see the background of the other wheel.
| | 02:43 | How do I select two of them?
| | 02:46 | Just hold the Shift key and now
you can see two background layers.
| | 02:51 | And with the Move tool still
selected, I can move this over.
| | 02:54 | But I still have one copied in my system memory.
| | 02:58 | I can go to the next layer, paste it
down, hold the Shift key, and select
| | 03:04 | these background layers,
| | 03:06 | move this to the other side, and then do it
one more time. Layer 4, copy this to layer 5,
| | 03:15 | hold the Shift key, and I
can just move this over.
| | 03:20 | So now I have five layers. Each one
of these can be animated separately.
| | 03:26 | But when I get the Layout and I move
this car, the wheels will not move with it.
| | 03:31 | They are all independent objects, which
brings me to this little dropdown here.
| | 03:37 | It says 'Unnamed' with a little asterisk.
| | 03:39 | That means my object is not saved.
| | 03:41 | So let's do that and say File > Save Object.
| | 03:45 | I'll go to my Exercise Files >
Objects > CH01, and we'll call this SimpleCar,
| | 03:53 | and now the saved object is right there
and that saved object has five layers.
| | 03:59 | Now I'm going to press F7 and what F7
does is brings up my Layers palette.
| | 04:05 | You can also access this
from the Windows dropdown.
| | 04:09 | This gives me control over my layers,
and if I open this up, you'll see here are
| | 04:14 | the five unnamed layers.
| | 04:16 | And top is the object itself that we just saved.
| | 04:20 | If I select one of these, I can
choose quickly that particular layer.
| | 04:24 | So if you've got a very large object,
you can easily get to any layer you want
| | 04:28 | just by clicking on it,
rather than clicking on these.
| | 04:32 | The number one up here means
this is the first set of 10 layers.
| | 04:35 | You click this little arrow.
Now you're in the second set of 10 layers.
| | 04:39 | So you could have unlimited layers.
| | 04:41 | So I want to name this.
| | 04:43 | I'm going to double-click it and
I'll call this 'CarBody' and click OK.
| | 04:48 | Now that layer has a name.
| | 04:50 | Double-click this, and let's
say the car is facing to the left.
| | 04:54 | We will call this PassRearTire.
| | 04:59 | But I want this tire to
be parented to the CarBody,
| | 05:03 | so right there I can say parent to the CarBody.
| | 05:06 | And what parenting means is that when the
body goes, the wheel will follow with it;
| | 05:10 | it is the child of the CarBody.
| | 05:14 | Click OK and we can see it's named.
| | 05:18 | Double-click this one, PassFrontTire.
| | 05:22 | Let's do it with two S's, and parent that to the CarBody.
| | 05:28 | Double-click this one,
and actually I take that back:
| | 05:30 | this should be passenger. I mislabeled these.
| | 05:32 | PassRearTire, I'll rename these, and that
is the advantage of doing it this way.
| | 05:41 | And this one is now the Passenger
Front and parent it to the CarBody.
| | 05:48 | So let me go back here to this one,
double-click, and this is the DrivRear.
| | 05:56 | So very easy to make changes in
case you mislabeled something.
| | 06:00 | You can't do this in Layout.
| | 06:02 | And this is what's good about
parenting and getting all these together in the
| | 06:05 | Layers panel in Modeler.
| | 06:07 | So now I've a SimpleCar with the CarBody and
five layers total for the SimpleCar itself.
| | 06:14 | Now, I want to resave this because
notice there is an asterisk right there
| | 06:17 | that had popped up.
| | 06:18 | So I can just do Ctrl+S on the PC or
Command+S on the Mac and the asterisk goes
| | 06:23 | way, meaning I just resaved my object.
| | 06:26 | One last thing with the numerics is
that you can see the numeric numbers.
| | 06:30 | Their order doesn't
necessarily matter; their hierarchy does,
| | 06:33 | meaning how they are parented.
And there is a little arrow right here which a
| | 06:36 | lot of people don't notice, but if you
click it you, can say List or Hierarchy.
| | 06:40 | And when I choose Hierarchy, now I can
actually see that okay, the four tires
| | 06:45 | are parented to the CarBody.
That's why they are indented.
| | 06:49 | The last thing is this eyeball,
and what that does, it turns off the visibility.
| | 06:55 | Well, I just clicked it and you
can still see the object, right?
| | 06:58 | The reason is what this will allow
you to do is send this object to Layout
| | 07:04 | and let's say I turn the driver rear and the
passenger rear tires off, and I save this object--
| | 07:13 | let's just choose this bottom one, Send
Object to Layout--those two tires are missing.
| | 07:20 | If I jump back to Modeler by clicking
the button here, all of my tires are
| | 07:24 | still there, and if I hold the Shift key and
select all these layers, I can see them all.
| | 07:29 | Well, the Visibility, this relates to Layout only.
| | 07:32 | Your object will always have the model,
unless of course you delete the layer.
| | 07:36 | But this Visibility on or off will
allow you to turn off the render in Layout
| | 07:43 | for that particular object.
| | 07:44 | So, it's quite handy if you're using
models just to build, if you are using
| | 07:47 | models just to cut holes and things and
you don't want to delete them, but you
| | 07:51 | want them part of the object.
| | 07:52 | You can keep it simply by
turning off the visibility.
| | 07:56 | So the Layers panel is very handy, very useful.
| | 07:58 | Front and Back is the F and B, so you
can choose right there to put whichever
| | 08:03 | layer you want in the front or the back.
And you're going to use this simply to
| | 08:07 | animate different layers.
| | 08:09 | It's also good to protect models.
| | 08:11 | Let's say you built a very big lamp
and you've got the light bulbs and the
| | 08:15 | lamp is very intricate.
| | 08:16 | You could use another layer to build
the light bulbs and just keep that clean,
| | 08:20 | so you're not destroying
what you have already modeled.
| | 08:21 | It's just a very smart way to work whether
you are animating or creating still objects.
| | 08:27 | So the Layers panel is very useful, very
informative like your Numeric panel and
| | 08:31 | something you should be aware of, and
use it often so you can control your model
| | 08:34 | and name them properly and
set the proper hierarchy.
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| Using the Statistics panel| 00:00 | Every once in a while you need to
specifically select a point, an edge, or a
| | 00:04 | polygon in a model--sometimes so
much so that your mouse can't get to it.
| | 00:08 | So let me load up an object that we've used.
| | 00:11 | So I am going to come here to the
File menu, choose Load Object, and we're
| | 00:14 | going to load the OneLeftShoe from the
Project folder. Press the A key to fit that to view.
| | 00:19 | Let's say for some reason I want
to select the purple around here.
| | 00:26 | I can just click and drag my mouse to
select these polygons, and you can see
| | 00:31 | it's kind of a pain.
| | 00:33 | So what's a better way to do that?
| | 00:35 | That is where the Statistics panel comes in.
| | 00:37 | That can be found right here at
the very bottom of the screen.
| | 00:40 | Just click that button or press the W command;
| | 00:44 | that will open up panel as well.
| | 00:47 | What this panel do is allow you to see
the total number of polygons, points, or
| | 00:52 | edges depending on which mode you're in.
| | 00:54 | Since we're in Polygon mode--you can
see that down at the very bottom of the
| | 00:57 | screen--the Polygon Statistics come up.
| | 01:00 | If I choose Points, the Point
Statistics will come up, and so on.
| | 01:03 | We have 1987 Polygons making up this model.
| | 01:06 | We can see that it does not have any
curves or subpatches, and we'll talk about
| | 01:11 | subpatches or subdivisional
surfaces a little bit later in the course.
| | 01:15 | But if we move down we can see that
there's a number of polygons that are made
| | 01:19 | up of three vertices.
| | 01:20 | Vertices, of course, are points.
| | 01:22 | So it's 335 of them that are made
up of 3. They are somewhat triangulated.
| | 01:28 | Then we can see that we have
quite a few that are non-planer.
| | 01:32 | Now what non-planer means, if I click
this plus, you can see that the majority
| | 01:36 | of the shoe gets selected.
| | 01:38 | Non-planer means that they are moved
beyond the normal plane--the plane being
| | 01:44 | an X, Y, or Z axis.
| | 01:45 | That doesn't mean it's bad, but it could lead
to some render issues a little bit later on.
| | 01:50 | But we're not going to worry about that at
the moment because the shoe is looking okay.
| | 01:54 | But what if I wanted to select that purple?
| | 01:56 | Let's go back to that.
| | 01:58 | Here under the Surface dropdown if I
click the arrow, here is all the surfaces
| | 02:03 | that make up that model.
| | 02:05 | I can very simply choose one, such as
TopTrim, and then I click the plus.
| | 02:14 | Now, all the purple is selected,
allowing me either to edit it, remove
| | 02:19 | it, anything I want.
| | 02:22 | But it saves me all the hassle of
going in and trying to select it by hand,
| | 02:25 | which number one, I could select something
wrong, or number two, not select what I need.
| | 02:30 | To deselect, I can just click the minus.
| | 02:32 | If I had created different parts for the
object, I can do the same thing as well.
| | 02:37 | So that is why the Statistics panel is
often very good to use to really help
| | 02:41 | your workflow and speed things up
as you're working through your model.
| | 02:45 | Try and use it once in a while when
you're specifically trying to select,
| | 02:49 | color, or change a model.
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| Working with menu and keyboard configurations| 00:00 | LightWave Layout and Modeler have
their menus and keyboard equivalents
| | 00:04 | pretty well worked out.
| | 00:06 | For instance under the Surface Editor,
you can see there's F5, for keyboard
| | 00:09 | equivalent F6. The Create menu has a
nice organization, but every once in a
| | 00:14 | while you might feel the need to customize that.
| | 00:16 | You can do that pretty easily.
| | 00:18 | So here in LightWave Modeler I am
going to go up to the Edit dropdown.
| | 00:21 | I'll click that and choose Edit Menu Layout.
| | 00:24 | You get this very nice
Configure Menus panel that pops up.
| | 00:27 | Here you can literally see the entire
layout of menus and tabs as they're set up
| | 00:32 | currently as the default.
| | 00:33 | But let's say you wanted to add your
own button for some other tool that you
| | 00:36 | might feel the need to use pretty often.
| | 00:39 | So what I'll do is I'll come down
here to let's say the Main menu.
| | 00:42 | Here is my Image Editor.
| | 00:43 | That's this button right here.
| | 00:45 | And I want to add something right beneath it.
| | 00:47 | So I'll select that Image Editor,
and then I'll come over and find a new tool,
| | 00:51 | and these are all the tools in
Modeler, organized pretty well.
| | 00:55 | Let's say I just wanted to center something.
| | 00:57 | So what I'll do is I'll
come over to Modeler Tools.
| | 01:00 | I'll expand that and you can see all
the different Modeler tools in there.
| | 01:03 | Now these are mostly ghosted because
they have keyboard equivalents already.
| | 01:07 | That doesn't mean you can't assign a new one.
| | 01:09 | So I am going to select Center
1D, meaning 1 dimension, 1 axis.
| | 01:15 | With that selected, plus the
Image Editor selected, I can say Add.
| | 01:19 | And it adds it right beneath the Image Editor.
| | 01:22 | It doesn't add it to the Image Editor button,
| | 01:24 | it adds beneath it.
| | 01:25 | Certainly you can click and drag this
around if you like, but we just want
| | 01:29 | to put it right there.
| | 01:30 | But let's say you wanted it to separate.
| | 01:32 | So I can say I'll select Image
Editor and say give me a new divider.
| | 01:37 | That puts a divider in there to help me
organize, and then I could say even a new group.
| | 01:42 | I can drop that into my new group.
| | 01:45 | Select the new group and I can say Rename
for instance, and I'll call this Dan's Tools.
| | 01:53 | Now I have my own dropdown menu of tools
that work just for me. It works pretty well.
| | 01:59 | So, very easy to set this up.
| | 02:00 | If you feel the need to go back, you
can go to the Presets and choose Default,
| | 02:06 | and everything will go back to where it was.
| | 02:09 | You can also choose a studio
production style and you can see that the whole
| | 02:14 | interface completely changes.
| | 02:16 | You can choose a 9.6 style for a
previous version of LightWave or even go back
| | 02:20 | to the old 6.0 from the year 2000,
which is a very minimalistic approach.
| | 02:26 | For this course we're going
to keep everything Default.
| | 02:28 | But for those of you that like to
modify, that's a really good way to do it.
| | 02:32 | Along those lines, if you go back to Edit,
you can choose Keyboard Shortcuts and
| | 02:37 | in here working very similarly the way
you did with the menus, you can create
| | 02:41 | your own keyboard shortcut.
| | 02:43 | So let's go ahead and set one up.
| | 02:45 | On the Mac, I like to change my Function keys.
| | 02:49 | On the PC, they're already set for you.
| | 02:51 | So if you press F2 on the PC, your
object will automatically center.
| | 02:56 | On the Mac, it's not quite as easy
until you change those Function keys back
| | 02:59 | in your system preferences. But instead of
doing that, I can just reconfigure that Center tool.
| | 03:05 | The way I am going to do it,
see the Center Data, mapped to F2?
| | 03:10 | I can actually map that to
a different key if I want.
| | 03:14 | But I don't know where it is,
| | 03:15 | so I am going to hit Find.
| | 03:17 | When I did that, it automatically found where that
command is on the left side. It's under Modify.
| | 03:23 | Well then I can select an empty
keyboard equivalent, such as F10, and hit Assign.
| | 03:29 | Now I've got it in two places.
| | 03:31 | I'll click Done, and let's just say I
go to a little ball off scale here and I
| | 03:38 | want to center it, I'll press F10.
| | 03:42 | That automatically centers
with my new keyboard equivalent.
| | 03:45 | When I create keyboard equivalents you'll
actually see them listed to the right of the tool.
| | 03:50 | So you can create one for the Disc,
the Cone, Text Layers, and so on.
| | 03:55 | Most of the basic initial functions have
them already assigned, but if there are
| | 03:58 | other tools you use, you
can set them up yourself.
| | 04:01 | So, configuring menus and keyboards are
quite easy to do and help you customize
| | 04:05 | so you can have a much better workflow
working with LightWave Modeler or Layout.
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|
|
2. Modeling with PolygonsWorking with geometric shapes| 00:00 | When I started using LightWave about 20
years ago, geometric shapes were simple
| | 00:05 | objects, nothing more than
this, and they still are today.
| | 00:09 | However, the promotions always said
that you could build just about anything
| | 00:12 | with these, and well, while
that sounded great on paper,
| | 00:16 | when I really got to it, I
really didn't know what to do.
| | 00:19 | As I've learned though, and what I'm
going to show you, is how these simple
| | 00:22 | shapes can really be turned into
some very nice-looking objects.
| | 00:26 | So I just did a Command+X,
Ctrl+X on the PC, to cut those away.
| | 00:31 | I'll press the A key to fit,
and that kind of resets my view.
| | 00:34 | What we're going to start with is a disc.
| | 00:35 | We're just going to build a simple credit
card, and we're going to use a disc to do it.
| | 00:39 | All right! So, I'm going to draw out a little disc,
and I'm going to press N for Numeric.
| | 00:44 | The reason I'm going to that is
because I want to make sure that my radius is
| | 00:47 | equal on those two axes,
the X and the Z which they are,
| | 00:51 | X and Z working in the top view.
| | 00:54 | It's 250 mm, and that's fine.
I'm going to close that out and turn off the tool.
| | 00:59 | I'm going to press the A
key. That fits it to view.
| | 01:03 | Now here's a new tool that I've not
shown to you yet. It's called Kill.
| | 01:07 | I'm going to press the K command, which
is K on your keyboard, and it kills the
| | 01:11 | polygons so that you can adjust the points.
| | 01:14 | What's nice about that is that allows me to
use those points to create something else.
| | 01:18 | So in Point mode down here at the
bottom, I'm going to use my right mouse to
| | 01:24 | Lasso+Select pretty much like 45 degrees, 45
minutes you should say if it's a clock if
| | 01:31 | you're looking at it. I just want to keep this
top-left quarter. And I'll press Command+X on the Mac,
| | 01:37 | Ctrl+X on the PC, to cut those away.
| | 01:38 | Then I am going to go to Multiply,
and choose Mirror, and right about here,
| | 01:44 | it doesn't necessarily matter, just cross
the axis even, I'm going to click and
| | 01:48 | drag up and let's move over, so we can see it,
and I've just mirrored across the X axis.
| | 01:53 | Let me do it one more time so you can see it.
| | 01:57 | I'm going to Undo, which is Command+Z
on the Mac, Ctrl+Z on the PC, and just
| | 02:02 | right here on the center Z axis I'm going to
click and drag up, and that mirrors that over.
| | 02:07 | Earlier I mentioned about the
Numerics and if you click the Numeric button,
| | 02:10 | you can see that you can control which axis
you're mirroring across right here as well.
| | 02:14 | I'm going to turn off the Mirror tool,
and you'll see that now I have two sets of
| | 02:19 | these, and I can very easily mirror
those again just by clicking and dragging to
| | 02:24 | the right, and now I've mirrored
that double set back over the Z axis.
| | 02:28 | Well, it doesn't look like much, but what
I can do with these points is connect them.
| | 02:34 | So with Point mode selected at the
bottom of screen, I'm going to click and hold
| | 02:37 | my mouse down, and in order--now this
is important--click in order, because if
| | 02:42 | you go out of order, this
won't connect correctly.
| | 02:45 | It's kind of like connect the dots, and you
need to connect in order to make the final shape.
| | 02:51 | So I'll just select like that, then I'll
press the P key, which means make polygon.
| | 02:56 | What I've done is created a nice shape
with rounded corners just from a simple disc.
| | 03:01 | Now this looks like a cool modern
business card, but let's say we want it to be
| | 03:05 | more of a credit card.
| | 03:06 | Well what I can do then is use my right-
mouse button around one group of points,
| | 03:10 | go to Modify, select the Move tool, and
holding the Ctrl key, I can constrain my
| | 03:15 | movement and just move those over.
| | 03:19 | Turn off the Move tool, click the
Question Mark/Slash key to deselect.
| | 03:23 | And remember, I had pressed F10
as a keyboard equivalent to center.
| | 03:27 | I had set that up in a previous video,
and you can also press F2. And now I've
| | 03:32 | centered that out perfectly on the 0 axis.
| | 03:35 | Now it's a little bit too round to
be a credit card, but that's okay.
| | 03:38 | We can adjust that.
| | 03:40 | So I'm going to zoom back out, and I'm
going to press Shift+H, which is also the
| | 03:45 | Size tool down under the Transform
category, and I can click and drag and size
| | 03:50 | this up, just to make it a little bit bigger.
| | 03:52 | Turn off the Size tool, and zoom
back out, and we've got our shape.
| | 03:57 | Now from here we can extrude, we can
bevel, and even create more detail in this.
| | 04:03 | The advantage of using geometric
shapes is that we can create a basic point
| | 04:07 | structure to build something else upon it.
| | 04:10 | When you have certain corners that need
to be perfectly round, it's very hard to
| | 04:13 | line those up on their own, but by
using a disc, using the primitive we can use
| | 04:17 | that structure to build something more complex.
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| Using Extrude| 00:00 | One of the most common tools in
LightWave Modeler is the Extrusion tool.
| | 00:03 | You're going to use this for all kinds of
things, from buildings to text to
| | 00:07 | perhaps credit cards.
| | 00:08 | So let's go ahead and extrude
an object to build a credit card.
| | 00:13 | I'm going to go to the File menu
and choose Load Object, and from the exercise
| | 00:17 | file, we're going to choose
the 02_02_CreditCardBegin file.
| | 00:21 | This is a flat object that we're
going to adjust and make into a credit card.
| | 00:26 | Now, the corners are a little bit
too round to be a normal credit card.
| | 00:29 | It's good for maybe a business card or
a plaque or sign of some sort, but let's
| | 00:34 | say you wanted to change
this. How would you do it?
| | 00:37 | Well I want to scale down the corners.
| | 00:39 | So what I'm going to do is just
right-mouse around these points, and I'm in Point
| | 00:43 | mode down here at the very bottom of the screen.
| | 00:46 | I'm going to go to Modify and then
choose Size, and paying very close
| | 00:50 | attention to this bottom-left quadrant down here,
this bottom-left corner, I want to watch my Scale.
| | 00:56 | Now look what happens.
| | 00:57 | When I move my mouse, look at
the scaling towards my mouse.
| | 01:00 | That's not really what I want.
| | 01:01 | You can also see that down at
that bottom corner there it says 58%.
| | 01:05 | So I want 50% scale on these.
| | 01:07 | However, I don't want to move when I do it.
| | 01:10 | So I'm going to Command+Z to undo on
the Mac, or Ctrl+Z on the PC, and then under
| | 01:16 | modes at the very bottom of the
screen, right now it's set to Mouse.
| | 01:19 | What that means is when my computer
mouse was centered in the screen, or wherever
| | 01:23 | it was, the action was going towards
the mouse, and in this case I want to it stay
| | 01:28 | based on the selection.
| | 01:30 | So when I choose that,
| | 01:31 | Action Center set to Selection, I'm
just going to click and drag, and now it
| | 01:35 | stays put no matter where my mouse is.
| | 01:37 | You can see that that stays in place.
| | 01:40 | With my Action Center set to Mouse,
that action will move towards the mouse.
| | 01:44 | So in this case we're going to move it
down and scale it 50%, taking a look at
| | 01:48 | the scale in the bottom-left corner.
And then I'll turn off the scale with the
| | 01:52 | Spacebar, press the forward slash to
deselect, and then I'll do the same to these.
| | 01:58 | Select the Size tool and I can scale
50%. Spacebar turns off the tool,
| | 02:04 | forward slash, right mouse
around those, press the Size.
| | 02:09 | Now sometimes a lot of these
movements become a little mundane, but
| | 02:13 | unfortunately that is part of modeling,
but there are a lot of little tedious
| | 02:17 | things to do, but not too bad.
| | 02:20 | So I'll right-mouse around these to
select, Shift+H gives us our size, and then
| | 02:25 | we will scale it down 50%.
| | 02:27 | Now I'm going to resave this,
| | 02:29 | forward slash to deselect
those, and I'm going to say File > Save
| | 02:34 | Object As, and we'll call this Extrude, and
this will be the one that we're going to extrude.
| | 02:42 | So from the Multiply tab,
we'll choose the Extrude tool.
| | 02:46 | When I click and drag I
literally can just extrude that up.
| | 02:49 | Let's take a look at it over
here in the Perspective view.
| | 02:52 | I'll click and drag my rotate.
| | 02:54 | Now, look what happens.
| | 02:55 | It looks like it's inside out, doesn't it?
| | 02:58 | Well that is going to happen from time to time.
| | 03:00 | There are two ways to fix that.
| | 03:02 | I can either pull my extrusion the
other way which fixes it, or if for whatever
| | 03:07 | reason I needed it to stay up here like this,
| | 03:09 | I can turn off the Extrusion and then press
the F key, and that's going to flip the polygons.
| | 03:15 | The polygons only have one side, and
by selecting it you can see that the
| | 03:19 | surface normal faces up.
| | 03:21 | Well, when it was flipped in,
that surface normal faces down.
| | 03:26 | So that's all we need to do;
| | 03:27 | just press F and flip those polygons outward.
| | 03:30 | So that looks pretty good, but well, it's
kind of a thick credit card, and I don't
| | 03:34 | have that much credit.
| | 03:35 | So let's go back to Points, and then
let's right-mouse all the way around just
| | 03:40 | the top row of those points.
| | 03:42 | To get more precise, we're going to
move to center that out and then click and
| | 03:47 | hold on the zoom, and we'll just
zoom in with this Back view down here.
| | 03:51 | Press the T key, which is the Move tool
under the Translate category in the Modify tab.
| | 03:56 | Hold the Ctrl key down.
| | 03:58 | That will constrain and we're
just going to bring those way down.
| | 04:01 | Now notice it's kind of
just snapping a little bit.
| | 04:03 | Let's say I don't want it to snap. I want
to have little more control. Press the D key.
| | 04:08 | It opens up your Display Options.
| | 04:10 | Over in the Units tab, you can change
Grid Snap to None, because right now it's
| | 04:16 | snapping to that grid behind it to
a simple 1-millimeter measurement.
| | 04:20 | Now with the snapping off, look how
much more precise I can move this.
| | 04:25 | The snapping is good if you're doing
architecture, some very precise things,
| | 04:29 | and not that this isn't precise,
but it just gives us a little more
| | 04:32 | flexibility in its movement.
| | 04:34 | I'll turn off the Move tool
by clicking right on the tool,
| | 04:37 | I'll zoom back out, and let's press the
Question Mark/Slash key to deselect, and
| | 04:41 | now I've got this nice thin credit card
with a very simple extrusion, surfaces
| | 04:46 | around the edges, polygons on top and
bottom, that we're ready to add a little
| | 04:51 | more detail to and then
eventually put some surfaces on.
| | 04:54 | So last, I want to say File,
and Save Object. That's all set.
| | 04:59 | So the Extrusion tool can be used for
simple objects like credit cards, use it for
| | 05:03 | buildings. In combination with editing
some points, very simply you can create a
| | 05:09 | much more detailed object.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building with Bevel| 00:00 | When we talk about bevel in LightWave
Modeler, a lot of people think that it's
| | 00:03 | more just for construction-type
things, like buildings, more hard surface
| | 00:08 | models. But in reality it can be used
for so many things, and it's another way to
| | 00:13 | offset an object, a polygon, or even an edge.
| | 00:17 | So let's go to the File menu and
let's load up, from Chapter 2,
| | 00:22 | the CreditCardBevelBegin file.
| | 00:24 | And what you can see here is a very
thin nice credit card, but if you zoom in
| | 00:28 | close, those edges are pretty hard.
It's kind of like a razor, and everything in
| | 00:34 | the real world, just about
everything, has some sort of bevel on the edge,
| | 00:37 | even if it's very minute.
| | 00:39 | And not only is it going to help the
object look a little more realistic, it's
| | 00:43 | going to allow you to create some very
nice shading on there when it comes to
| | 00:47 | lighting it in LightWave Layout.
| | 00:49 | So the way we're going to bevel this
is with an Edge Bevel. So, down at the
| | 00:52 | bottom of the screen, we'll select Edges,
and that means we're going to work with Edges.
| | 00:57 | Now to select this edge you can just
go and click on it, but that could be a
| | 01:00 | little tedious, so the way we did a
lasso-select with the points, we're going to
| | 01:06 | do that also with the edges.
| | 01:07 | So let's press the Question Mark/Slash key to deselect.
| | 01:10 | I'm going to zoom out a little bit, and I'm
going to come over here to my Right view.
| | 01:15 | I can click right in the center the
screen and I can just move that over.
| | 01:18 | Just click, hold your mouse, and drag,
and that kind of opens that up a bit.
| | 01:22 | Click and hold on the Move tool over
here, and then click and zoom, and then
| | 01:29 | I am clicking on my right mouse button
and get right in the center of this, come
| | 01:33 | all the way around, and just to there,
and then I can let go over the mouse, and
| | 01:38 | then all of those edges are selected.
| | 01:40 | You can see it right
there. It works out quite well.
| | 01:42 | From that point, I'm going to go to
Multiply, and I'm going to choose Edge
| | 01:48 | Bevel. Now notice that
the other tools are ghosted.
| | 01:52 | Modeler knows that I'm working with
edges and turns off the initial Bevel tool,
| | 01:56 | which is more for polygons.
| | 01:58 | Edge Bevel, however, if I click that,
you can see the objects suddenly just
| | 02:02 | flattens out like that.
| | 02:03 | It's not quite what we want,
but that's just quickie default setting.
| | 02:07 | So I'm going to zoom in a little bit,
then I'm going to click with the
| | 02:09 | left mouse and just drag, and you can
see that now I'm beveling this edge
| | 02:14 | quite easily. All right.
| | 02:16 | Turn off the Bevel tool, and that
looks okay, but what about the bottom side?
| | 02:21 | Well, I can go ahead and
do the same thing to it.
| | 02:23 | I can undo this one if I wanted,
and still in Edge mode, zoom out a little
| | 02:31 | bit, and the reason I'm going to do
this with the lasso is because I don't
| | 02:37 | want the side edges beveled.
| | 02:39 | That would sort of make like a little
Hershey bar but not be quite what we want.
| | 02:43 | So we are going to hold the Shift key
and then again with the right mouse button
| | 02:46 | lasso-select just those bottom edges,
and I'm going to move over and zoom in to
| | 02:51 | this corner so you can see what's happening.
| | 02:53 | Then we can choose Edge Bevel, and now we
are beveling just the top and bottom edges.
| | 03:00 | So, it works out quite well.
| | 03:01 | We will turn off the bevel, then press
the Question Mark/Slash key to deselect.
| | 03:05 | And now what happens is we've got a
nice lip on there, and you can see that that
| | 03:09 | even on a simple model like this, just
that little highlight on the edge helps
| | 03:13 | to add some realism to it.
| | 03:14 | It just gives it a little less fake
appeal and works quite well for what
| | 03:19 | we're trying to build.
| | 03:20 | So I'm going to move this over.
| | 03:22 | We'll center this out. Now edge
bevels can be used for all kinds of things.
| | 03:26 | They work really well on more hard
surface models, like a credit card, like a
| | 03:30 | lamp, more geometric shapes like that,
and we're going to use them as needed
| | 03:35 | throughout the course.
| | 03:36 | For right now, the Edge Bevel works
quite well for creating just a little bit of
| | 03:40 | highlight ledge to this credit card and
can help us later when we get to Layout
| | 03:44 | for all of our surfacing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with Polygon Bevel| 00:00 | When beveling in Modeler, you can
bevel edges or you can bevel polygons.
| | 00:04 | And the advantage of
either depends on your model.
| | 00:08 | So in this case we've got our
hard-edge model of our credit card from the
| | 00:12 | previous exercise, and it works okay
for this, the Edge Bevel, but the problem
| | 00:16 | with this is that it only creates a
very simple sharp edge, and when it's something
| | 00:21 | this thin it can work out just fine.
| | 00:23 | I'm going to go zoom in here on this Back view
| | 00:25 | and just expand this so you can
see it. And I just click the top-right
| | 00:28 | corner there to expand.
| | 00:30 | So it only creates just one slight
sharp edge like that. On a very thin
| | 00:34 | object, it works fine.
| | 00:35 | But let's say if we have something
larger and you need that bevel to be a
| | 00:38 | little more rounded.
| | 00:39 | Okay, so let me click the
top-right corner here to bring this back.
| | 00:43 | Let's close this--
| | 00:44 | we don't need that one anymore.
| | 00:47 | And let's create just a simple box,
and I'm going to open up my Numeric by
| | 00:53 | pressing N and let's turn the segments--
click and drag--to one for each X, Y, and Z axis.
| | 00:59 | We don't need anything more than that.
| | 01:01 | So we've got a box here, and let's say
you want to bevel up at the top of this.
| | 01:05 | So what I'm going to do is work with polygons.
| | 01:07 | So we're going to be in Polygon
mode down to bottom. Click on the top.
| | 01:11 | And if we did a normal edge bevel,
you'd get just a sharp edge like I'd just
| | 01:14 | shown you, but for a polygon
bevel we can do a lot more.
| | 01:18 | So I'm going to press the B key, and that's
the Bevel tool right under the Multiply tab.
| | 01:24 | And I'm going to go come close into this
corner so you can see what we're doing.
| | 01:28 | And I'm going to click and drag.
Now, a lot of times people when click and drag
| | 01:31 | they kind of like get this nonsense
going with bevel, and it gets very confusing.
| | 01:35 | But I'm going to show you a little
trick to help you understand how to bevel.
| | 01:39 | Click with the left mouse and drag up and
down, straight up and down with the mouse.
| | 01:45 | That's your shift.
| | 01:46 | Left and right is your inset. That's it.
| | 01:47 | If I press the N key, this is
one I'm doing: Shift and Inset.
| | 01:52 | That's all there is to the tool, okay.
| | 01:55 | Now this randomization, the plus and
minus, I'll show you that momentarily.
| | 01:59 | But for right now, what we want to do is
just create a nice little rounded top to this.
| | 02:03 | So I'm going to just kind of a
combination of shift and inset, so that it just
| | 02:08 | comes up just a little bit.
| | 02:10 | Now I want the bevel again, so I'm
going to right-click just one time, and that
| | 02:15 | resets my bevel, and then left-click
continues it, because remember, the Bevel is
| | 02:20 | under the Multiply tab, so whatever
you do happens to whatever's selected.
| | 02:24 | In this case, I'm multiplying my
selected polygon with a bevel, and I'll
| | 02:29 | right-click one more time to reset the bevel
and start beveling again with the left mouse.
| | 02:34 | And so now, if you look at that
corner, it's very nice and round.
| | 02:38 | I'll turn off the Bevel tool, click on
the polygon, and now I've got a very nice
| | 02:42 | rounded top, which then later I
can smooth with shading and so on.
| | 02:47 | So the Polygon Bevel using it multiple times
really works well for nice, smooth shapes.
| | 02:54 | But what about that
randomization I just showed you?
| | 02:56 | Let me show you how to do that.
| | 02:58 | Let's go to the File and hit Close All Objects.
| | 03:01 | We don't to save that.
| | 03:03 | We're going to select the Box tool.
| | 03:06 | I'm going to drag it out like this,
and in Numeric, I'm going to press N. We're
| | 03:10 | going to create some more segments, so
I'll create a few segments this way, and
| | 03:14 | I will click and drag the mouse, and a
few segments on the Z. We'll click and
| | 03:17 | drag the mouse that way, something like that,
and we will square it out just a little bit.
| | 03:23 | Close Numeric and turn off the tool.
| | 03:26 | So now I've got this box with all these segments.
| | 03:30 | And I'm just going to click, holding your
shift key, just a few of these, just randomly.
| | 03:36 | And one reason I'm clicking in the
Shaded Perspective view is because when you
| | 03:40 | click in a Wireframe view, you have to
click right on the edge of a polygon to
| | 03:44 | select it if it's a wireframe, and in
that time when you do it, you might only
| | 03:48 | be able to select two.
| | 03:49 | If I specifically want one, I can click
in the Shaded view. So, Shaded view let's
| | 03:53 | me click directly on the model;
Wireframe I have to select an edge.
| | 03:59 | So now I've got just random polygon
selected like that. Under Multiply, I'll
| | 04:05 | select Bevel, hit Numeric, and that
activates the tool, and now interactively I
| | 04:10 | can shift these. Or I can punch in an
amount, such as--I don't know, 3 meters,
| | 04:20 | and the reason I know 3 meters is
because I look at the very bottom-left corner
| | 04:24 | of the screen. See it says Grid: 500 mm?
| | 04:28 | What that means is every grid
you see here is 500 mm in length.
| | 04:32 | Okay, well, two of those are one meter,
so I went up six grids with 3 meters,
| | 04:37 | and that's the LightWave default.
| | 04:39 | But let's say I need this little
landscape here to look a little different.
| | 04:44 | Well, I can use randomization of about 1 meter.
| | 04:47 | I'll make sure I click in here
and hit Return and watch what happens.
| | 04:52 | Now I've just randomized that bevel by
1 meter, and I can do the same with the
| | 04:56 | inset if I want or not inset at all.
| | 04:59 | And I think that's the thing that
happens with bevels: people always think of it
| | 05:02 | as beveling your edges, making more
construction-type objects, whereas you can
| | 05:08 | use bevel for things like this,
making an instant skyscraper.
| | 05:11 | You can make this perhaps .3, so 300 mm,
just a little bit, or you can make it 2
| | 05:18 | meters and get a much greater detail.
| | 05:20 | So I'll select that by clicking Bevel
turn it off, and I'll press the forward
| | 05:26 | slash to deselect.
| | 05:29 | And there is our randomized bevel.
And then you can take this a step further
| | 05:34 | and maybe even go into these
corners and edges and bevel them,
| | 05:37 | select the tops of buildings perhaps.
Shift+A to bring that to view, press the B
| | 05:42 | key for bevel, and bevel this a little bit.
| | 05:46 | And what's happening there is that that
is actually--I'm so tiny on the screen
| | 05:50 | that it's hard to get precise--so
that's where numeric will come in, do that a
| | 05:54 | little more precisely.
| | 05:56 | But very easy to use the Bevel tool
to create all kinds of unique shapes,
| | 06:00 | randomized shapes,
and create even a city landscape.
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| Editing polygons| 00:00 | After you've made a model in LightWave
Modeler, sometimes you need to edit it,
| | 00:04 | and that's very easy to do. Let me show you.
| | 00:06 | If you load the file called 02_05_
EditPolyBegin, this is a little beveled
| | 00:13 | skyscraper scene, quite easy.
And let's say you need to create some windows
| | 00:17 | in here and add a little more detail,
but you only need them at a certain
| | 00:20 | point, perhaps the top.
| | 00:21 | So what I'm going to do is use the Knife tool.
| | 00:24 | This is a way we can actually slice the object.
| | 00:27 | So all you need to do is come under the
Multiply tab right at the top, and down
| | 00:32 | at the bottom under
Subdivide you are going to see Knife.
| | 00:34 | Select that and literally drag across
your model just like that and you end
| | 00:39 | up slicing it, and what that allows you to do
is very easily select just those top polygons.
| | 00:45 | If I didn't have that slice, what would happen?
| | 00:48 | Let me just undo and I'll show you, okay.
| | 00:50 | I want to do that slice.
| | 00:52 | Well, what happen is that the whole thing
gets selected, and I only want the top selected.
| | 00:56 | So by slicing across it you actually
create an additional segment, and that
| | 01:02 | allows you to select just that area.
| | 01:05 | I can bring that forward
with the Shift+A command, fit all.
| | 01:10 | With this top part, I can bevel this if
I wanted, do some crazy things like that,
| | 01:15 | I can extrude it some more, or
maybe perhaps create some windows.
| | 01:21 | So what I'm going to do is take just
this front polygon and I'm going to
| | 01:24 | subdivide it a little bit.
| | 01:26 | I'm going to press Shift+D, which is
Subdivide Polygons, and with this panel I can
| | 01:31 | subdivide based on a flat
object which is faceted.
| | 01:35 | If it were more round, I would choose
Smooth. Or if it was more organic, I
| | 01:39 | could choose Metaform.
| | 01:40 | But we're flat, so we're going to
choose Faceted and the Fractal, the
| | 01:43 | randomization we don't need,
and we'll subdivide that.
| | 01:46 | So now we've actually got four polygons
just for that one selection. And guess what?
| | 01:51 | I can do it again.
| | 01:51 | Shift+D, click OK, and
now we've subdivided again.
| | 01:56 | With that subdivision now selected, I
can press the Bevel tool and I can Bevel
| | 02:01 | these, but my Randomization is
still on from an earlier project.
| | 02:05 | So I'll press N for Numeric.
| | 02:07 | Let's turn that Randomization off by
pressing 0, and then let's just shift these
| | 02:13 | just a little bit, and then
let's inset them just a little bit.
| | 02:19 | Now, I've created little windows in there.
| | 02:21 | I can right-click to reset my Bevel.
| | 02:24 | You'll see that zeroes that out.
And then I can simply just perhaps choose
| | 02:28 | inset a little bit more, and then right-
click one more time to reset my bevel,
| | 02:33 | and then I'll shift a negative value to
pull those back in, and then I can turn
| | 02:39 | off the Bevel tool by clicking right
on it, and I'll press the Question Mark/Slash
| | 02:42 | key to deselect, and what I've
done just by subdividing is created just
| | 02:48 | some little window boxes.
| | 02:50 | Now, this certainly could be anything else.
| | 02:52 | It could be grates on an air conditioner vent.
| | 02:54 | It could be a vent on the
side of a piece of electronics.
| | 02:59 | But by beveling just the selected
polygon, you very easily can edit it and
| | 03:04 | create whatever you want.
| | 03:05 | Editing polygons is relatively easy.
| | 03:07 | You can come into the Construct tab.
| | 03:10 | You can reduce points or reduce
polygons if you have too many.
| | 03:13 | We're going to use the Booleans in an
upcoming project to cut holes in your polygons.
| | 03:17 | So you don't have to have
everything set initially when you model it.
| | 03:21 | It's very easy to go back and edit
a polygon after you've created it.
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|
|
3. Modeling with SubdivisionsUnderstanding subdivisional surfaces in LightWave| 00:00 | You might have heard the term 'subdivisions'
before, but not quite sure what they are.
| | 00:04 | It's something that you can do in
Modeler that can really help you create some
| | 00:07 | very fine detailed models.
| | 00:09 | So let me show you how to do that.
| | 00:10 | I'm going to come over to the Box tool
here, and I'm going to click and drag this out.
| | 00:13 | And while I am doing this, I
actually want to show you a little trick.
| | 00:17 | As I'm drawing this out, I can press
the N key for Numeric and create a very
| | 00:20 | even box, making it even on all sides,
but there is a little simpler way.
| | 00:25 | I am going to turn off the Box tool, and
I'm going to press Ctrl+X to cut that away--
| | 00:29 | Mac or PC, same command--select the Box
tool again, and then I'm going to hold
| | 00:33 | down the Ctrl key and click and draw
out from the Top view and then go to the
| | 00:38 | bottom view, and click and draw out, and I
create a very even box on all axis. Press the N key.
| | 00:43 | You can see that it's exactly the
same with the width, height, and depth.
| | 00:47 | So just a quick little tip
to create a nice even box.
| | 00:50 | You can also do that same tip with a ball, a
disc, a cone, anything else, a unit primitive.
| | 00:55 | So we've got this box right here.
| | 00:56 | And for the most part it's got
six sides and kind of boring.
| | 01:00 | You can do a lot with it, especially
if you press the Tab key, and that turns
| | 01:03 | on the subdivisions.
| | 01:05 | The subdivisions take each one of
those polygons and subdivide it a
| | 01:09 | certain number of times.
| | 01:11 | To determine what amount it's
subdivided, press the O key and you'll see here
| | 01:16 | that in the General Options tab
the Subpatch Divisions is set to 6.
| | 01:21 | If I change this to 2, let's say, press
the Enter key, and then click OK, you'll
| | 01:25 | see that that subdivision now is 2 on each side.
| | 01:30 | So what that means is each polygon--
that's a polygon right there--is subdivided 1, 2,
| | 01:34 | 1, 2, and then this one is subdivided 2 times,
and this one is subdivided 2 times, and so on.
| | 01:41 | So I'll press the O key again,
and let's change this to maybe 4, kind of a
| | 01:45 | common value that you might use often.
| | 01:48 | If you change this Flat Shade to
perhaps Smooth Shade, you'll see that you have
| | 01:52 | a much smoother object,
but what can you do with this?
| | 01:56 | Well, let me give you an example.
| | 01:58 | If you come over and you select this
top polygon, and then you press the B key
| | 02:01 | for Bevel, and then you
click and you bevel this,
| | 02:04 | well, what you end up with
is a very nice smooth object.
| | 02:07 | We're doing this very simple just to begin.
| | 02:10 | But you can see you can create some very
interesting shapes all just from a simple box.
| | 02:15 | If I hit the Tab key to turn off the
subdivision, all you're left with is just
| | 02:21 | kind of a strange-looking box. The Tab key
then smoothes that out by subdividing each
| | 02:26 | one of those polygons.
| | 02:28 | So what happens is a lot of people
think that subdivisions are only good for
| | 02:31 | short, small, blobby little
characters, maybe perhaps like this.
| | 02:35 | They're really useful for household
items, electronics, automotive parts,
| | 02:39 | because you can create all the fine
detail right inside there without adding a
| | 02:45 | lot of extra geometry.
| | 02:46 | The subdivisions translate into Layout.
| | 02:49 | So if I set this to Layout, what
will happen in here is that Subdivision
| | 02:55 | value will still hold,
| | 02:57 | and when we render we'll be able to
create all the fine detail we need in the
| | 03:02 | edges to create smooth sides and so on.
| | 03:06 | As this course goes on, we'll be using
the subdivisions quite a bit, and we will
| | 03:10 | model more a complex object.
| | 03:12 | But subdivisions allow you to create
more detail in an object without building a
| | 03:17 | lot of extra geometry.
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| Comparing Subpatch with Catmull-Clark subdivisions| 00:00 | As you're working with
subdivisions, you hit the Tab key--
| | 00:02 | everything's grandiose, working fine, great.
| | 00:06 | But what happens if you have a model
that has some extra polygons in it?
| | 00:11 | So, take a look here.
I've got a second layer here.
| | 00:14 | I've just clicked layer2, and I'm
going to change my view mode here to a
| | 00:18 | Textured Wire, allowing me to see
the actual wireframe of the mesh as
| | 00:23 | well keeping it solid.
| | 00:25 | And you can see that I've
got four polygons on the top.
| | 00:29 | If I look back here at my original
subdivision--I'll hit the tab key, turn that off--
| | 00:35 | you can see that, okay,
I've just got six polygons.
| | 00:38 | Layer 2, I've got 6, 7, 8, 9, so, not quite
the same. What happens if I hit the Tab key?
| | 00:47 | I get an error.
| | 00:49 | This was a common problem for a lot a
years, because every once in a while when
| | 00:52 | you're making a detailed model, you're
not going to have every model end up with
| | 00:57 | a perfect quad mesh--
| | 00:58 | a quad mesh being a
polygon made up of four points.
| | 01:02 | Triangles will work, so for
subdivisions to work, you need triangles or quads.
| | 01:07 | Polygons need to be made up of three or
four points. Very simple. But every once
| | 01:11 | in a while I've got polygons here that are
not made up of three or four. So what you do?
| | 01:16 | Well, if you hit it, you hit the Tab
key, you kind of get an error like that.
| | 01:21 | So hit the Tab key to turn that off,
and down to the very bottom of the
| | 01:24 | screen, it says SubD-Type.
| | 01:26 | If you click that, there is
another type of subdivision called the
| | 01:29 | Catmull-Clark, and these are two very
talented, smart programmers, and what
| | 01:35 | they've created is an algorithm that
allows you to create subdivisions based on
| | 01:38 | N-gons, N meaning any.
| | 01:40 | So any type of polygon of any size, you
hit the Tab key and the subdivisions work.
| | 01:45 | Now, I don't recommend using Catmull-
Clark subdivisons for everything simply
| | 01:49 | because they can start getting a
little slower than a regular subdivision.
| | 01:53 | Think of it more as a backup in case you
have a model that you just can't change.
| | 01:58 | But the Catmull-Clark subdivisions will
allow you to create subdivision surfaces
| | 02:02 | on models that are made up of
more than three or four vertices.
| | 02:05 | So it can work out quite well
for those more complex models.
| | 02:08 | So either way, subdivisions with your
typical standard subdivision or your
| | 02:13 | Catmull-Clark subdivision can truly
help you create a very fine, detailed model.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a basic model| 00:00 | Modeling with subdivisions is a
lot easier than you might think.
| | 00:03 | You can start out with a very primitive,
simple shape and extend it to something
| | 00:07 | more complex, especially when
you have subdivisions to work with.
| | 00:10 | So we're going to start out with a disc.
| | 00:12 | I'm going to hold the Ctrl key
and drag out in the Top view.
| | 00:15 | Now we don't need to add any more
segments to this. If I press the N key for the
| | 00:20 | numerics, normally if you're going
to build the disc for something, you'd
| | 00:23 | probably double the side at least.
| | 00:24 | If it's going to be extended, you
would add some segments to it, but because
| | 00:28 | we're going to be using subdivision
surfaces to add to this geometry, this basic,
| | 00:33 | simple shape is all that we need.
| | 00:35 | But before I turn off the tool, I'm
going to just extend this up at the bottom
| | 00:39 | just a little bit by clicking and
dragging right in the center of it, and then
| | 00:43 | I'm going to click on the Disc
tool itself just to turn it off.
| | 00:46 | All right, so we've got a very simple,
little disc, and what we're going to do is
| | 00:50 | build a nice coffee cup.
| | 00:52 | Let's just move our screen a little bit,
and I'm going to pull this down because
| | 00:56 | we're going to work in the Back view
down here in this bottom-left corner.
| | 00:59 | What I want to do now is select this
top polygon, and I'm going to press the B
| | 01:04 | key which is the Bevel tool,
also found under the Multiply tab.
| | 01:07 | And I am going to click and drag.
| | 01:09 | Now, if I drag my mouse up and down, I shift it.
| | 01:12 | If I go left and right, I inset.
| | 01:14 | So all we want to do is
just come up about yea big.
| | 01:17 | We don't need to do a super-size
cup, but a medium size is good.
| | 01:23 | Now I want to bevel again, so I'm just
going to right-click one time, and that
| | 01:27 | resets the bevel. Now you won't
see anything happen, and that's okay.
| | 01:30 | Then just click the left mouse and
you'll see that that that bevel continues.
| | 01:34 | And all we're going to do is
come in just to create that lip.
| | 01:37 | We're going to right-click one more.
Time that resets the bevel. And if you look
| | 01:42 | at the very bottom-left corner
of the screen, look at Bevel,
| | 01:44 | it says in the Information panel 0, 0.
That's how you can tell if the bevel has been reset.
| | 01:49 | And with the left mouse, I'm
just going to drag this back down.
| | 01:53 | All right, now I am going to turn off
the bevel and I'm going to click right on
| | 01:58 | this polygon to deselect it.
| | 01:59 | I'm going to expand my Perspective
view by clicking in the top-right corner
| | 02:04 | here and zoom in so you
can see this nice and big.
| | 02:08 | So, it looks like you've got cup from 1985.
| | 02:12 | Well, hit the Tab key and suddenly it
smoothes out and looks a lot better
| | 02:17 | because of subdivisions.
| | 02:19 | Now this cage that you see around here
represents the polygons, and you can see
| | 02:23 | pretty much our initial
shape before the Tab key.
| | 02:25 | If you don't see that, press the O key--
not the zero key, but the O, next to the
| | 02:30 | P key--and get your General Options tab.
| | 02:33 | You'll see subdivisions set to 4,
and that's about what you want.
| | 02:37 | We are not using Catmull-Clark at this point.
| | 02:38 | We're just using subpatches.
| | 02:40 | Then cancel that, press the D key,
and then in here, in the Layout tab, make sure
| | 02:48 | Show Cages is on, and let me move to the side.
| | 02:51 | You can see what happens.
| | 02:53 | That shows the cage, so if you can't
see it, it is just the display option that
| | 02:57 | may be on or off, and feel free to turn
that on or off if it starts to get
| | 03:01 | in the away for you.
| | 03:02 | It doesn't necessarily need to be on.
| | 03:04 | You can show guides as well, and that
shows which way the polygons are working
| | 03:07 | for you, but not really too much of
an issue right now for this project.
| | 03:12 | So we've got initial cup but look at the inside.
| | 03:15 | It looks kind of funny, doesn't it?
| | 03:17 | Well, we need a little more geometry for
that subdivision to sharpen out for us,
| | 03:22 | so just click right in the center there.
And we're working in Polygon mode down
| | 03:25 | here at the very bottom of the screen.
| | 03:26 | Select the Bevel tool again, press
the B key or click right on it, and just
| | 03:31 | click just bevel. That's it.
| | 03:33 | You don't even have to drag,
just click right on it.
| | 03:35 | And what it does is adds more
geometry to that bottom-inside polygon.
| | 03:40 | Turn off the Bevel tool by clicking
on it, then click on the polygon to
| | 03:43 | deselect it, and then I'm going to
click the top-right corner here to bring my
| | 03:47 | view back to the quad view.
| | 03:49 | And if I go to the bottom, and I'll
press the Tab key to turn off the
| | 03:53 | subdivisions, what I've done is added
an extra bit of geometry right at that
| | 03:57 | inside bottom, so the subdivision now
instead of subdividing all the way around
| | 04:02 | and smoothing this out, it stops at
that one edge and then subdivides again,
| | 04:07 | helping us create that nice edge.
| | 04:10 | So, very simple to do with
a complex-looking object.
| | 04:15 | Now, you're not saying it is
complex yet, but it will be.
| | 04:19 | So the subdivisions allow you to take a
very simple object like a sphere or disc
| | 04:23 | and build it into something
much more complex and detailed.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Beveling with subdivisions| 00:00 | Adding detail to subdivision models is
relatively easy when using the Bevel tool.
| | 00:06 | What we're going to do is take this
model and add a little more detail to it.
| | 00:10 | Let's hit the Tab key to see what this looks
like with a subdivision surface put on.
| | 00:15 | You can see that, well, it looks okay,
but it's a little sharp at the top,
| | 00:19 | not quite what we want.
| | 00:20 | We need a little more detail there.
| | 00:21 | So to make it a little clearer, I'm just
going to hit the Tab key to turn off the
| | 00:24 | subdivisions for right now just
so you can see what we're doing.
| | 00:27 | And that's something to point out is
that when you're working with subdivisions
| | 00:30 | you can very easily turn them on and off.
| | 00:32 | It's not a permanent state.
| | 00:33 | I'm going to take the top polygon just
by clicking on it, and then I'm going to
| | 00:37 | hold the Shift key and select the next one.
| | 00:39 | I want to select all the way around,
and rather than manually doing it, I'm
| | 00:43 | going to come over to my Select
dropdown to the left side of the screen and
| | 00:46 | choose Select Loop.
| | 00:49 | What that will do is continue my
selection. But again it's important to select
| | 00:54 | in order where you want to go.
| | 00:56 | So I'm going to do one,
two, and then Select Loop.
| | 01:00 | If you only select one like that, it's not
going to necessarily select the way you want.
| | 01:07 | You can see in this case it
went all the way down around.
| | 01:10 | So you kind of have to give
it a little bit of direction.
| | 01:12 | So I'll press the Question Mark/Slash
key to deselect, select two in this
| | 01:16 | order, and Select Loop.
| | 01:18 | Just a nice quick way to work.
| | 01:20 | Then what I want to do with this is bevel it.
| | 01:22 | But here is a little problem.
| | 01:24 | The Bevel in LightWave will turn
this into a Hershey bar and that's not
| | 01:27 | quite what we want.
| | 01:28 | You might hurt your lip if
you drink that cup of coffee.
| | 01:31 | So I'm going to undo with the Ctrl+Z,
and what I'm going to use under the
| | 01:35 | Multiply is Multishift,
and that's right here on the left.
| | 01:39 | Multishift essentially is
a bevel for group polygons.
| | 01:43 | But when I do it, it still looks the same.
| | 01:45 | We'll press the N key for Numeric and
in the Numeric panel you'll see a little
| | 01:49 | section called Group Polygons.
| | 01:52 | Click that and that ring
of polygons now becomes one.
| | 01:56 | So when you're beveling,
you're beveling that entire group.
| | 01:58 | So we could use bevel like that.
| | 02:00 | Let's turn off the Multishift, press
the Question Mark/Slash key on your
| | 02:04 | keyboard to deselect, and now
we've created a very nice little edge.
| | 02:07 | But what happens when we hit the Tab key?
| | 02:10 | It looks much better.
| | 02:12 | We've got a very nice sharp edge there
without cutting your lip, and it's not all
| | 02:16 | thin and pointy like it was initially.
| | 02:19 | So by adding just a little bit of
geometry, we've really cleaned that up.
| | 02:23 | You can do the same on the inside
bottom as well if you want, but I think
| | 02:26 | that's looking okay.
| | 02:28 | Let's go ahead and rotate and then
click and hold on this top Move button to
| | 02:32 | just move down, and take a
look at the very bottom.
| | 02:35 | I'm going to hold the Alt+Option key on
the keyboard--Alt on the PC, Option on
| | 02:41 | the Mac--and I'm going to select this
bottom polygon, just press the regular
| | 02:45 | bevel, and I am going to bevel this and
then move my mouse up and down to shift
| | 02:49 | out, and left and right just to inset it a bit.
| | 02:53 | Notice the bevel on the very
bottom-left corner of the screen
| | 02:57 | when I did that, the numbers there.
| | 02:58 | Now when I hit the right-mouse button,
that resets the bevel and if you look
| | 03:02 | down at the very bottom-left, you'll
see Bevel 0, 0 in that Information panel.
| | 03:06 | That means the bevel has been reset, and
I'm going to click and drag in a little
| | 03:09 | bit more, and then I am going to pull
my mouse down to bring that back up.
| | 03:13 | I'm going to right-click one more
time to reset the bevel, and then I'll
| | 03:18 | left-click just to kind of pull that like that.
| | 03:21 | Then I'll turn off the Bevel, click on
this to deselect, and what I've done now
| | 03:27 | is created a nice little bottom lip.
| | 03:31 | Now it might be a little bit
too round, but that's okay.
| | 03:34 | That will work for us now.
| | 03:35 | It looks a lot better than it did
before, and I don't think this coffee
| | 03:37 | cup will topple over.
| | 03:38 | So beveling polygons with subdivisions
makes life a lot easier when creating the
| | 03:45 | fine details that you need
without a lot of extra geometry.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding detail to models| 00:00 | When working with subdivision surface
models, even though you can bevel to add
| | 00:03 | more detail, sometimes you need to
have a little bit more refinement.
| | 00:07 | So I've loaded the 03_05_CupBegin file,
and this is a nice little disc that we
| | 00:12 | extruded and beveled to create a
good-looking little coffee cup.
| | 00:16 | But if you look down at the bottom,
even though we had beveled to create this
| | 00:19 | nice little lip at the bottom, we
might need a little more detail.
| | 00:22 | That bottom might be a little too round.
| | 00:24 | The way I'm going to do
that now is working with edges.
| | 00:27 | But if you look closely, we don't
really have any edges to work with.
| | 00:30 | I'm going to hit the Tab key
to turn off my subdivisions.
| | 00:33 | I've got one edge right
here, but I need some more.
| | 00:35 | Well, what's the best way to do that?
| | 00:37 | Well, there are two ways.
| | 00:39 | First, I can actually slice
across it using the Knife tool.
| | 00:42 | So I can go to the Multiply tab at the
top of the screen, and then down under
| | 00:46 | the Subdivide category select Knife,
and just below that initial polygon line
| | 00:52 | I'm just going to click and drag, and
you can do this from the Back view or
| | 00:56 | from the Right view.
| | 00:57 | The biggest thing is that you do it
from one of these views, because if you
| | 01:00 | look, now it cuts all the way through.
| | 01:03 | If you did it from the Top view,
well you'd be slicing the wrong way.
| | 01:06 | I am going to turn off the Knife tool and
you can see I've got another edge right there.
| | 01:10 | Now, what I can do is select
that edge and manipulate it a bit.
| | 01:15 | I'm going to go to the Edge mode
down at the very bottom of the screen.
| | 01:17 | Then I'm going to select two edges.
| | 01:20 | But you need to be careful that you don't
select the edges behind it, which I just did.
| | 01:24 | I'm going to hold the Ctrl key, make
sure I deselect these extra edges on the
| | 01:29 | outer edge, and that I only have two selected.
| | 01:33 | The way to tell that I have two
selected, if you look at the very bottom-left
| | 01:36 | here you see Select 2, and that way
I know I've got two edges selected.
| | 01:41 | Then I can go to Select dropdown and
choose Select Loop, and that loops that
| | 01:46 | selection all the way around.
| | 01:49 | Now that I have that entire bottom edge
selected, and you can see right here in
| | 01:53 | the Perspective view, I can bevel that.
| | 01:56 | So we'll go back to Multiply tab and
choose Edge Bevel and just click and
| | 02:00 | drag, and that extends that edge and
essentially bevels it, creating another edge for you.
| | 02:08 | When I said there was two ways to
actually add more detail, the edge bevel
| | 02:12 | was the second way.
| | 02:13 | I could have very easily instead of slice gone
to this top edge right here and beveled that.
| | 02:18 | So the choice is yours.
| | 02:19 | It depends on how the model is working,
what's easier to select, and so on.
| | 02:24 | So now let's take the center edge that
we just created, and I'm just going to
| | 02:28 | select two like this and make sure I
hold the Ctrl key and deselect whatever
| | 02:33 | happens through, and the reason it selects
through is because I'm in a wireframe mode.
| | 02:37 | If you find that to be a problem,
you can make any of these views perhaps
| | 02:42 | a textured wire and when you select, it's only
going to select what's right in front of you.
| | 02:47 | So that works really well, too.
| | 02:48 | All right, so, forward slash to deselect.
| | 02:54 | I can select two polygons and then
from Select dropdown, choose Select Loop.
| | 02:59 | Now, I can do Shift+H, which is also
Size from the Modify tab, and I want to make
| | 03:06 | sure that my mouse is set to selection.
| | 03:09 | Now notice that when I size, when I click
and drag, it sizes straight down evenly.
| | 03:15 | So down here at the very bottom of
screen under Modes, my mouse Action Center
| | 03:19 | is set to Selection.
| | 03:20 | If your Action Center is set to Mouse
and you click and drag over here, well,
| | 03:24 | it's going to size that way.
| | 03:25 | That could be good depending on what
you're trying to model if you're doing some
| | 03:29 | unique organic shapes.
| | 03:30 | So, Ctrl+Z to undo that.
| | 03:33 | So just make sure your mode of your
Action Center for your mouse is set to
| | 03:36 | Selection, and I'm just going to size
this in just a little bit like that.
| | 03:41 | That's all I need, just a little bit,
and you can see it at the bottom.
| | 03:44 | Turn off the Size tool, forward slash to
deselect and then hit the Tab key
| | 03:49 | and now look what happens. Only
faces with three or four vertices can be
| | 03:52 | converted to SubPatches. Well, why is that?
| | 03:55 | That is because this model at the very bottom
has one big, large polygon made up of 24 points.
| | 04:03 | The 24 points came from the
original disc that we created.
| | 04:07 | While the model looks okay,
I'll hit Tab key to turn it off,
| | 04:11 | that bottom polygon does not necessarily work
for us with a normal subdivision. And that's okay.
| | 04:17 | We can do a couple of things for that.
| | 04:18 | We can change our SubD-Type to Catmull-Clark.
| | 04:22 | But in order to make this a little
more efficient, what we'll do is go to
| | 04:25 | Polygon mode, select that bottom
polygon, press the B key for bevel, and I'm
| | 04:31 | going to click and drag in, right-
click once to reset the bevel, and bring it
| | 04:36 | in a little bit more. And not only will this
add more detail, it will keep that quad mesh.
| | 04:42 | So right-click once to reset the bevel,
bring it in a little bit more, and I'm
| | 04:47 | just going to leave that.
| | 04:48 | Press the Spacebar, turn off the bevel,
and then click on that to deselect.
| | 04:51 | The reason you need to deselect is
because if you still had this polygon
| | 04:55 | selected--I know it's tiny, so I'll move
that in--and you hit the Tab key,
| | 04:59 | well, you're only going to subdivide
that tab, and that's not what you want.
| | 05:03 | So you turn that off and it goes
back to one of our first rules.
| | 05:06 | If nothing is selected--and in this
case nothing is selected--whatever you do
| | 05:11 | applies to everything.
| | 05:12 | So when I hit the Tab key, my
subdivision is going to apply to everything.
| | 05:17 | If something was selected, the subdivision
would only apply to just what was selected.
| | 05:21 | So now you've got the Subdivision on,
and although it gave you the error, it's
| | 05:26 | only that tiny little center right at
the very bottom, so much so that you can't
| | 05:31 | even see any issue with it all.
| | 05:33 | So that's a really good way
to fix any subdivision errors.
| | 05:37 | Of course, the other way--and I'll hit
the Tab key to turn that subdivision off--
| | 05:41 | is just to go to Catmull-Clark
subdivisions, hit the Tab key, and there will be
| | 05:46 | no error at all given to you.
| | 05:47 | So let's hit the expand viewport like that.
| | 05:51 | I'm going to press the D key and turn
my grid off and make that a little bit
| | 05:56 | easier for you to see, and I'm also going
to turn off Show Cages. We'll close the panel.
| | 06:02 | This way you can see your
model a little bit cleaner.
| | 06:04 | So now we've done, just by
adding an edge at the bottom,
| | 06:07 | we've created a nice little detail,
something very intricate, without much effort at all.
| | 06:14 | And we have a very even
base for the bottom of the cup.
| | 06:17 | If we take a look at the very, very
bottom, you can see we still have that nice
| | 06:21 | molded look, but we don't have a lot
of geometry, and that's the beauty of
| | 06:25 | working with subdivisions.
| | 06:28 | So from beveling to edges, adding
subdivisions, whether it's Catmull-Clark or a
| | 06:33 | standard subdivision surface, you can
create a lot of fine detail in any kind
| | 06:37 | of model you choose.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Deforming and shaping objects| 00:00 | Creating subdivision surfaces is very
easy to do for things like lamps, laptops,
| | 00:06 | or even coffee cups.
| | 00:07 | But sometimes you have more organic, more
fun things to create, not so hard-shaped.
| | 00:12 | So what I'm going to show you how to do
is build just a simple cactus, and how
| | 00:16 | easy it can be to create kind of a unique
shape like that with a simple box and subdivisions.
| | 00:20 | So from the Create tab, I'm going to
choose my Box, and I'm going to click and
| | 00:24 | drag out in the Top view like this.
| | 00:26 | Now I've got some segments here already,
| | 00:28 | but an easy way to create segments
without opening the numeric panel is use your
| | 00:31 | up arrow and your right arrow.
| | 00:33 | You can remove those by hitting the down
arrow and the left arrow on your keyboard.
| | 00:37 | Just a quick easy way to create some
segments without a lot of effort and numerics.
| | 00:42 | So I'll turn off the Box tool,
| | 00:43 | I'll click and rotate to see my
little flat polygon here, and I'll select
| | 00:48 | that center polygon.
| | 00:51 | Make sure here then in my Back View, I'm
going to click and just pull that view down a bit.
| | 00:54 | So I'm going to go to Multiply,
choose Bevel, and then I'm going to click
| | 00:59 | and drag up, and then move my mouse to the
right a little bit, just to kind of expand this.
| | 01:04 | I'll right-click one time to reset the
bevel, then left-click to pull it back
| | 01:07 | up, right-click again to reset,
and pull it back up. And we'll right-click one
| | 01:14 | more time, and then left-
click just to kind of pull it in.
| | 01:17 | This will create that
initial shape we're looking for.
| | 01:19 | Then I'm going to click on
that top polygon to deselect.
| | 01:22 | Now I want to bevel out the
sides. I want to curve them a bit.
| | 01:26 | But what's going to happen is
I need to do it on both sides.
| | 01:29 | So instead of doing twice the
work, why don't I put on Symmetry?
| | 01:33 | So I click Symmetry, and it says +Y.
| | 01:36 | Well, what that means is the Symmetry
mode is going to work on the X axis.
| | 01:41 | So if I click on the right,
the left should automatically go,
| | 01:45 | but the problem is my object
is not 100% even on both sides.
| | 01:49 | So I'm going to press F2,
which is a default center.
| | 01:53 | Now here is a thing.
| | 01:54 | If you are on a PC, that
should automatically center.
| | 01:56 | If you are on the Mac, it might not.
| | 01:58 | You might have to hold your function,
your FN key, and hit F2, because there is a
| | 02:03 | system preference in your keyboard
settings in your Mac system preferences that
| | 02:07 | says use all function keys as standard programs.
| | 02:10 | So you might want to turn that on.
| | 02:12 | It's off by default. Or again,
simply just hit function key and then F2.
| | 02:17 | It's also under the View tab
as well. You can hit Center.
| | 02:21 | So what I should do now is click
on one side and then I'll rotate
| | 02:24 | around, click on the other.
| | 02:25 | When we bevel, we're going
to be beveling both sides.
| | 02:33 | But I don't want to go out too far.
| | 02:34 | I want to go out just a little bit like
this, and then I'm going to right-click
| | 02:38 | to reset the bevel, and then bevel again.
| | 02:42 | Now what I want to do is press the Y
command for rotate, and I'm going to rotate this.
| | 02:48 | Then I can press the T
key to move it a little bit.
| | 02:49 | Then press the B key for bevel.
| | 02:51 | What I'm doing is actually shaping this as I build it.
| | 02:55 | And I'm going to right-click again.
| | 02:59 | Now what I want to do is, no
matter where I rotate from, notice it's
| | 03:03 | rotating based on selection,
| | 03:05 | so down under modes, I'm going to
change that to Mouse for my Action Center.
| | 03:10 | What that allows me to do is place my
mouse anywhere I want and rotate from that
| | 03:14 | pivot versus a center pivot,
and that helps give us the shape we want.
| | 03:19 | In this way, I can actually Shift+H for
Size and click and size this down a little bit.
| | 03:26 | Press the T key for Move, and I can move it.
| | 03:29 | Press the Y command, and I can rotate it a
bit and so on. So, very easy to shape those.
| | 03:34 | Let's press the B key again for bevel
and let's just bevel that out a little
| | 03:38 | bit more. So, Spacebar to turn off the Bevel,
and let's just click on those to deselect them,
| | 03:44 | press the Tab key, and what you end up
with is this very nice smooth shape that
| | 03:49 | somewhat looks like a cactus.
It kind of looks more like a ghost.
| | 03:52 | But then, I can very easily
turn off my Symmetry tool,
| | 03:55 | come in here to this top polygon, press
the T key, pull that up, press Bevel, and
| | 04:03 | click and bevel that up some more.
| | 04:07 | Then I can deselect that, and now
we don't want these perfectly even--
| | 04:11 | perhaps you mark on from the other side--
| | 04:14 | so here is something you can do.
| | 04:15 | You can select this polygon, and hold your
Shift key to press your Right Bracket key.
| | 04:21 | That's two over from your P key.
| | 04:23 | What I'm doing is expanding my selection.
And then with that expanded, press the
| | 04:28 | T for Move, and then I can move that down.
| | 04:31 | Now don't not worry too much about the
wireframe being a little offset there.
| | 04:36 | It doesn't matter for the final model.
But that what you have just a little
| | 04:39 | bit of a variation;
| | 04:41 | Spacebar to turn that tool off,
and then forward slash to deselect.
| | 04:46 | Now you can take Point mode, and let's
go back to a wireframe here, and then
| | 04:50 | you can right-mouse around these
points and manipulate them quite easily.
| | 04:56 | Press the Y key for rotate.
| | 04:59 | You can deselect the points you don't
want to Ctrl, then rotate some more.
| | 05:03 | You can use your Stretch tool, which
is H. These are all under the Modify tab.
| | 05:08 | Stretch that down to size it out and so on.
| | 05:11 | By having a very simple model like
this, you have a lot of flexibility in
| | 05:15 | controlling the movements.
| | 05:18 | Another tool that's terrific for this is
Drag, and that's right here under Translate.
| | 05:22 | You can click and drag this Translate
around, literally clicking on any of
| | 05:26 | these points and shaping.
| | 05:29 | So while I'm not building the
greatest looking cactus in the world,
| | 05:32 | I think a little more time and skill
from you can create something pretty unique.
| | 05:37 | But just by building this basic shape
from a box, and even just kind of pulling
| | 05:43 | these in or offsetting it a bit,
| | 05:44 | you can create some really interesting shapes.
| | 05:46 | Now it's still kind of flat.
| | 05:48 | So what I can do, again using this Drag
tool, is just take these points from the
| | 05:53 | front and pull them forward, and I
can do this right here in the Perspective
| | 05:56 | view as well and shape that out.
| | 06:00 | So, very easy to do.
| | 06:02 | You can also even bevel some
more, and then you can bend this.
| | 06:06 | Let me show you how the Bend works.
| | 06:08 | I'm going to right-mouse around these
top points--and again I'm in Point mode--
| | 06:12 | go to Modify, and choose Bend. And with
my modes set to Mouse, my bend action is
| | 06:18 | going to happen from wherever my mouse is.
| | 06:21 | So I can very simply, in the Right view
here, put my mouse kind of about right
| | 06:25 | here, and I can bend those either way I want.
| | 06:28 | I can bend it from the front
or the back, whichever I like.
| | 06:33 | So just to a create more of a unique
shape, and I can right mouse around these
| | 06:39 | deselect, pull this out,
and let's deselect that one.
| | 06:43 | So while we start it out
pretty organic and pretty uniform,
| | 06:47 | now we've got something that's just a
little more diverse and not quite as
| | 06:51 | perfect as a cup or a piece
of furniture or electronics.
| | 06:57 | So by using some of the standard
Modify tools--Move, Drag, Shear, Magnet,
| | 07:02 | and some of the others, a simple Box--you
can create some really unique organic shapes.
| | 07:06 | Add to this some textures and
shading and you can create some really
| | 07:10 | unique objects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Recapping subdivisions| 00:00 | I want to go ahead and recap
everything we've learned about subdivisions, and
| | 00:03 | we're going to do that by
building one more part to this cup.
| | 00:07 | We're going to click over to layer 2,
and then I'm going to click beneath the
| | 00:10 | slash to make our foreground empty
and our background visible, and you can
| | 00:17 | determine that by the black outline.
| | 00:19 | Whenever you see black outline like
that that means that object is in
| | 00:21 | the background layer.
| | 00:22 | And what we're going to do now is
come over to Create tab, select a disc,
| | 00:27 | I'm going to hold the Ctrl key, and in
the Top view, I'm going to draw out a cap
| | 00:34 | that's just slightly larger than the cup itself.
| | 00:37 | This is why it's important
to look at in the Top view.
| | 00:39 | If you look at it in the Back view,
you're going to think it's too large.
| | 00:41 | But don't forget, it's going to
be placed up here at the very top.
| | 00:44 | I'm going to turn off the Disc tool,
and I'm going to press F2 to center--and
| | 00:49 | that works the same on both Mac and PC.
| | 00:51 | Again, if you're on a Mac and
you've not set up those keyboards in your
| | 00:54 | preferences, you hold the
Function key and then press F2.
| | 00:57 | Then I'll press the T key for move,
and holding the Ctrl key down, I can
| | 01:03 | click and drag this up.
| | 01:05 | So, that perfectly centered it, and you can see
it encompasses the top of the cup quite well.
| | 01:09 | Let's click and hold the Move tool here
for the Viewport, and we'll rotate around.
| | 01:15 | What we're going to do is just use
the same techniques from beveling to
| | 01:19 | working with edges all the way
through creating the fine little details to
| | 01:23 | create the cap for this cup.
| | 01:26 | Actually, you know what? I am going to
pull this down just a little bit, because
| | 01:28 | it's going to overlay just a little.
| | 01:29 | Now we're going to turn off the Move tool.
| | 01:32 | Select this top polygon.
| | 01:34 | To do that, we need to go to Polygon
mode at the very bottom of the screen.
| | 01:36 | It tells Modeler we want to
work with polygons. Click on the cap.
| | 01:40 | We're going to go to Multiply and
choose Bevel, and then I'm very simply
| | 01:45 | going to drag up a little bit--and I'm going
to zoom in, so you can see this little closer.
| | 01:50 | Then I'm going to right-click to
reset the bevel, and then we're going to
| | 01:55 | inset it slightly, right-click to reset the
bevel again, and we're going to come back out.
| | 02:01 | Just like that. Right-click the
bevel again, and we'll come up.
| | 02:06 | Right-click once more and we'll slide
that in by just moving our mouse to the left.
| | 02:11 | Right-click again.
That resets the bevel.
| | 02:13 | We're going to pull this up.
| | 02:14 | Let me think, about there it's good,
and then right-click once more.
| | 02:18 | We'll pull that in with
left movement on the mouse.
| | 02:23 | We'll right-click once more and
we'll pull this down. Okay.
| | 02:28 | Click the Bevel to turn it
off, then deselect that cap.
| | 02:32 | Press the Tab key, and you create
that very nice-looking smooth cap.
| | 02:37 | But it's a little soft.
| | 02:38 | It almost looks like it was melted.
| | 02:39 | So let's add a little more detail,
and we are going to do that with bevels.
| | 02:43 | Select the top polygon, press the
Bevel tool again, and then click, and you
| | 02:48 | could see how much sharper that
looks, and I can pull that it in.
| | 02:52 | But if I want to add even little more detail,
| | 02:54 | what I can do is come over here to the
Modify tab, choose Rotate, and making
| | 03:00 | sure that my mode Action Center is set to Mouse--
| | 03:04 | that means I can rotate from my mouse position--
| | 03:07 | I can come over here to the very
left side of that selected polygon,
| | 03:11 | I can click and drag, and then rotate
that down. And what that will allow me to
| | 03:17 | do is create a little spout
where the coffee can be sipped.
| | 03:23 | Then I can press the T key, or just
select Move, hold the Ctrl key to constrain
| | 03:28 | my movement, and I can move that up slightly.
| | 03:31 | Then I'll turn off the Move
tool and click right on that.
| | 03:34 | That way, instead of it just being a flat inset,
it actually has a little bit of an angle to it.
| | 03:41 | We can cut a hole in there or just
put an image map on of a little spout.
| | 03:47 | That'll add a little more detail in this area.
| | 03:50 | That way we can work with edges.
| | 03:52 | So to make it a little clearer, I'm
going to press the D key, and I'm going to
| | 03:55 | turn off Show Cages, and that just
shows a representation of where the
| | 04:00 | original polygons were.
| | 04:01 | It doesn't change the object at all.
| | 04:04 | Then I'm going to go to Edge mode
at the very bottom of the screen.
| | 04:07 | From Smooth Shade, I'm going
to change that to Textured Wire.
| | 04:12 | That way I can see my wireframe.
| | 04:13 | I am going to select two edges,
and I'll hold the Ctrl key and click on
| | 04:19 | any edges I don't need.
| | 04:21 | I just want two in order, because
that will allow Modeler to extend with a
| | 04:25 | select loop, just like that.
| | 04:28 | Again, if you press the
Question Mark/Slash key to deselect and you select only
| | 04:31 | one edge, Modeler doesn't
know which way that loop goes,
| | 04:34 | So you can go ahead and say
Select Loop, and in this case it does.
| | 04:38 | If you do it on a polygon,
it might go the lengthwise.
| | 04:41 | So it's always a good idea to do two in order
to tell the system which way you want to go.
| | 04:47 | Then I'm going to go to Multiply > Edge
Bevel, and then click and drag, and we
| | 04:54 | can tighten up that edge just by beveling it.
| | 04:58 | Turn off the Edge Bevel and Question Mark/Slash
key to deselect, and now we've
| | 05:03 | added even more detail.
| | 05:05 | You can do the same with this very bottom
edge right here, making sure we're in Edge mode.
| | 05:10 | That's the advantage of working with your
Spacebar is that while it turns off your tool,
| | 05:15 | it also cycles through your
Point, Edges, and Polygon mode,
| | 05:18 | so, something to be conscious of.
| | 05:20 | So I'll select two edges right here,
Select Loop, and then we'll do an edge
| | 05:29 | bevel, and we'll just pull that in like
that, and it makes a very tight little edge.
| | 05:36 | The tighter these edges,
the more detail you can have.
| | 05:39 | So press the forward slash to deselect.
| | 05:41 | Let's look at this as a Smooth Shade
again, and now I've got a much tighter edge
| | 05:46 | right there as well as on the top of this fold.
| | 05:50 | If you want to bevel the
polygons, you can do that.
| | 05:52 | Sharpen up the top, just the way we
did with the top of the cup itself.
| | 05:57 | Go to Polygon mode, select two polygons in
that order, Select Loop, select Multishift.
| | 06:07 | And Multishift, if you press N, it
allows you to group polygons, and then
| | 06:12 | we'll click and drag.
| | 06:15 | Click Numeric to turn it off, turn off
Multishift, and then forward slash
| | 06:20 | to deselect, and now you've got
that sharp edge at the top of the cup.
| | 06:25 | So all the same principles we used to build
the entire cup you can do to build the cap.
| | 06:30 | If I hold the Shift key and select that
front layer, you now have the top part
| | 06:35 | of the coffee cup built as well as the
bottom, all with the exact same tools.
| | 06:40 | So subdivisions with bevels, edges,
and extrusions all can create a very nice
| | 06:46 | unique shape that's very uniform and clean.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Other Modeling MethodsWorking with EPS files| 00:00 | As you learn more and more about
LightWave, you're going to find that you might
| | 00:04 | need to create some text files--
perhaps a flying logo, client animation
| | 00:08 | something like that.
| | 00:09 | Every once in a while, if you're lucky,
the client will have an EPS file.
| | 00:13 | EPS and an Illustrator file often are
the same thing when it comes to LightWave.
| | 00:18 | This is a file designed in Adobe
Illustrator that can create a little bit more
| | 00:22 | than just a simple text file.
| | 00:23 | So I've created one here
for you that you can load up.
| | 00:25 | All you need to do is go to the File
dropdown menu, choose Import, and use the
| | 00:31 | EPSF Loader,
Encapsulated PostScript File Loader.
| | 00:35 | This loader is a little bit
older but will still do the job.
| | 00:39 | However, there's one little caveat to it.
| | 00:41 | When your artist is exporting out an
EPS file or if you're doing it yourself,
| | 00:45 | make sure it's Illustrator 8 or less.
| | 00:48 | The new CS4, CS5 versions won't actually import.
| | 00:52 | It's something to be the aware of.
| | 00:54 | The Curve Division Level:
| | 00:55 | Superfine, Fine, Standard, and Rough.
You're probably going to want to set it to Fine.
| | 01:00 | You're going to convert it to
Closed Polygons and PolyLines.
| | 01:03 | In the EPS file, simply hit the
right arrow and choose the file.
| | 01:07 | So we'll go to our Exercise Files, Images
folder, in Chapter 4. There's an ant.ai.
| | 01:15 | Select that one, leave Auto Centering on,
and leave everything else set to default.
| | 01:20 | We're going to do this twice
so you can see the variation.
| | 01:22 | When you click OK, that EPS file is
loaded, and that's a shape that might have
| | 01:26 | been pretty hard to make normally in
LightWave, but with an Illustrator file
| | 01:30 | where you've got all the controls and
the tools to build a nice curve like that,
| | 01:33 | you can very easily import it.
| | 01:35 | Once it's imported, you can extrude it,
bevel it, put surfaces on it, and render it out.
| | 01:41 | Let's close that by hitting Close All Objects.
| | 01:44 | Let's import again.
| | 01:45 | Import > EPSF Loader and
let's choose something else.
| | 01:49 | Well here it says Convert to Close
Lines and Polygons, PolyLines that is.
| | 01:53 | Here you can choose Closed
Polygons or Spline Curves.
| | 01:56 | Let's do that and see what happens.
| | 01:58 | It looks kind of the same down here
but notice up here that there is not a
| | 02:02 | polygon that renders.
| | 02:03 | It's actually a curve. And if I come
to my Modify tab and choose Drag for
| | 02:08 | instance, we can actually take one of
these points and you'll see that it's
| | 02:11 | a nice curved font.
| | 02:14 | It's not something that you
necessarily will render directly.
| | 02:17 | You're going to have to freeze this,
meaning you're going to have to turn it
| | 02:19 | into a polygon in order for
LightWave Layout to render it.
| | 02:23 | The reason you would import with a
curve like this, however, is to further
| | 02:26 | manipulate the shape.
| | 02:28 | So it's very easy to import these as
curves and control them a little bit more.
| | 02:31 | Let's do one more thing.
| | 02:33 | Let's close all objects from
the File menu. Don't save it.
| | 02:36 | Then from File, choose Import > EPSF
Loader > Convert to Closed Polygons, and
| | 02:42 | PolyLines, and this time turn
on Auto AxisDrill, click OK.
| | 02:47 | What happens is that the center of
the A is now cut out automatically.
| | 02:51 | So let me do that one more time: Import > EPSF.
| | 02:54 | If I have Auto AxisDrill off,
that A would actually be solid.
| | 02:59 | That doesn't mean you can't use it.
| | 03:00 | You can actually select the polygon,
put it on another layer, and then cut a
| | 03:04 | hole, but that's a little bit more work.
| | 03:06 | Instead, click Auto AxisDrill on
importing and anything like an A or an O will
| | 03:11 | have that polygon cut out automatically.
| | 03:14 | So EPS files, a great way to import
custom logos, client-specific fonts, or
| | 03:20 | just any particular shape you
might have from Adobe Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting EPS errors| 00:00 | I've gone ahead and loaded
up the 04_02_FontBegin file.
| | 00:05 | This is an Illustrator file that has
been imported, and you can see that it's a
| | 00:09 | very nice clean object.
| | 00:11 | It's flat, however;
| | 00:12 | it doesn't have a backside.
| | 00:14 | And of course, we're working in a 3D
animation program, so we want to be able to
| | 00:17 | fly into it and put some bevels on it.
| | 00:19 | So let's take this flat
object and make it a 3D file.
| | 00:22 | And the way I am going to do
that is go to the Multiply tab.
| | 00:25 | I am going to come down and
choose Extrude, and in the Top view,
| | 00:28 | I am just going to click and drag back.
| | 00:31 | Easy enough, got a nice 3D
file but still a little bit plain.
| | 00:35 | So I'll just click the
Extrude tool to turn that off.
| | 00:37 | Well, I want to bevel this.
| | 00:38 | I want to give it some life because now
that we do have a back and we have sides,
| | 00:42 | well that's terrific, but we need to
give it just a way for it to be highlighted
| | 00:47 | as the light crosses in front of it.
| | 00:49 | So what I am going to do is in Polygon
mode here at the bottom of the screen, I
| | 00:52 | am going to click the polygon
faces of each one of these objects.
| | 00:56 | I am holding the Shift
key as I click these faces.
| | 00:59 | Okay, the next thing I am
going to do is select Bevel.
| | 01:01 | I am going to make sure that if I
press D for Display Options, under Units I
| | 01:06 | want my Grid Snap set to None.
| | 01:08 | You want to have very specific control
over how our bevel works and if Grid Snap
| | 01:11 | is on, it's going to snap that
bevel and not give us this much control.
| | 01:15 | And remember, up and down shifts your
bevel, and left and right insets it.
| | 01:20 | Okay, so we want to just give it just
a slight little bevel about like that.
| | 01:23 | Then I am going to click the Bevel
tool, and then I am going to press the
| | 01:27 | Question Mark/Slash key,
and our bevel looks kind of okay.
| | 01:31 | But it's okay in the fonts.
What about the big ampersand, big symbol
| | 01:36 | there? What's happening?
| | 01:37 | Well, what happens here is that the
bevel might be good enough for the fonts,
| | 01:41 | but because we have these tight
little areas right here--and here's a little
| | 01:44 | trick, by the way.
| | 01:45 | I am going to move my mouse down to this
corner of the font, press the G key, and
| | 01:50 | that centers that area where my mouse was,
and then I can hit the Period key on
| | 01:54 | the keyboard to zoom in.
Just a little quick tip.
| | 01:57 | So what happens is that because this
corner, each one of these corners, are very
| | 02:01 | thin, the big bevel that I put on made
those polygons overlap, and basically it
| | 02:07 | kind of turned that polygon inside out.
| | 02:09 | So what do you do about that?
| | 02:10 | Well, you can do two things.
| | 02:12 | You can, of course, undo and re-bevel,
but what might happen is that that bevel--
| | 02:18 | Ctrl+Z to undo right there.
| | 02:20 | Press the B key to bevel again and then
if you just watch that very carefully,
| | 02:24 | even a tiny little bevel
starts to give it some issues.
| | 02:27 | So I'll tell you what. Let's do this.
| | 02:29 | Let's keep the bevel the
way we want, and let's fix it.
| | 02:32 | If you can't make the smaller bevel, then
you fix that one, and it's very easy to do.
| | 02:36 | So here's what we're going to do.
| | 02:37 | We're going to come down to this
Back view, expand the view by clicking
| | 02:40 | the right corner there,
| | 02:42 | move my mouse over this corner, press
the G key, period, a couple of times to move
| | 02:47 | in, and there's my issue right there.
| | 02:49 | Very simple to fix!
| | 02:51 | Come down to the Points so
we're working in Points mode.
| | 02:53 | Use your right mouse button, and we're
going to select all of these and then very
| | 03:00 | simply, all we have to do is weld them together.
| | 03:02 | So from the Detail tab, select Weld.
| | 03:05 | It says 4 points welded. And then you
can press Modify and drag and just kind
| | 03:11 | of tweak that a little bit back up there.
| | 03:14 | Now click and hold my Move tool over here
and I'll move up to the top-left corner.
| | 03:19 | That's okay.
| | 03:21 | In the bottom-left corner, it
looks like it has a little issue there.
| | 03:25 | So I will select these two points and
then go back to Detail and choose Weld.
| | 03:29 | Now one thing Weld will do, it will
pull the weld to the last-selected point.
| | 03:35 | So I'll click Weld, 2 points welded,
and you can see it joins them together.
| | 03:40 | Let's pull back out.
| | 03:43 | Let's expand back to a Quad
view and look what happens.
| | 03:46 | Our geometry is fixed.
| | 03:48 | No more holes in that one.
| | 03:50 | And that's all you have to do.
| | 03:51 | I know it's a big issue with a lot of
people for EPS files, or Illustrator files,
| | 03:55 | when they bring them in and some people feel
that you can't actually use them. But you can.
| | 04:00 | It's just you have to remember,
| | 04:01 | when you bevel, some of those tight
corners cross over. Let's do one more.
| | 04:07 | Point mode, right mouse to select
those, click Weld from the Detail tab, 5
| | 04:15 | points welded. And of course, you can
use your Drag from the Modify tab to just
| | 04:20 | center that back out a bit.
| | 04:23 | Click and hold the Move tool to come
down to the bottom-left here, and you can
| | 04:27 | also see this on font as well, not just
Illustrator files, because this is not
| | 04:32 | really an Illustrator thing;
| | 04:33 | it's more a small-font thing and a bevel thing.
| | 04:36 | It just so happens that we have fine
details with bevels in Illustrator files
| | 04:41 | like we brought in here,
| | 04:42 | so that can happen.
| | 04:44 | So Weld, also Ctrl+W is the Weld
command on the keyboard, and then we'll go
| | 04:48 | back to Modify and drag, and we'll swing that
over, and I think there's one more right here.
| | 04:55 | So move your mouse over this area,
press the G key, period key to zoom in,
| | 05:00 | Spacebar to turn off the Move tool,
and then we will right-mouse around these.
| | 05:04 | Ctrl+W is Weld. Click OK. Ctrl+T is drag,
and that's the same on the Mac or the PC.
| | 05:15 | And then I believe that is all of them.
| | 05:18 | I think there's one more right here.
| | 05:20 | So I'll press the G key for
that area. Let's zoom in a little bit.
| | 05:23 | You've got two more areas right here.
| | 05:25 | So within minutes even with
explaining it, we can fix these pretty quickly.
| | 05:31 | So I'll select these, Detail tab > Weld,
and then select these and then Weld and
| | 05:38 | then Ctrl+T is my Drag tool.
| | 05:40 | And I can click right on the point and drag it.
| | 05:43 | So let's bring our quad view back
by clicking the top-right corner.
| | 05:46 | Let's press the A key to fit, and now
our ampersand, our & symbol, is all fixed.
| | 05:52 | Bevels look really good, and what's nice about
this is that we can zoom right up on top of it.
| | 05:57 | We haven't even put any smoothing or
surfacing on it yet, but you can see that
| | 06:00 | the objects are very clean
and the bevel is very legible.
| | 06:03 | So it works very well.
| | 06:05 | So, fixing bevels, working with small,
thin fonts, or EPS, or Illustrator files,
| | 06:11 | very easy to fix with the Weld tool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating 3D text objects| 00:00 | If you are not fortunate enough to have
an EPS or an Illustrator file to build a
| | 00:03 | text object, it's not a problem.
| | 00:05 | LightWave Modeler has quite a few text
controls that you can use to build your
| | 00:09 | own text, fonts, logos, et cetera.
| | 00:12 | So from the Create tab, down under the
Text category, and you can see there are
| | 00:16 | five different options to choose from.
| | 00:18 | The make_text button allows you to
import a text file. So if you have a long
| | 00:22 | string of text, you wanted to create
your own Star Wars-like introduction, you
| | 00:26 | can load that up and it will
automatically generate that into fonts for you.
| | 00:29 | But more often or not, you are going to
create something with the Logo or the Text tools.
| | 00:33 | The Logo Maker, just type in anything
you want such as 'My Logo'. It's good.
| | 00:39 | Extrusion depth could be 500 mm, and then you
can choose a font. Come down and choose Arial.
| | 00:44 | If you click OK, it automatically
just makes a quick easy logo for you.
| | 00:48 | Kind of basic, but it works.
| | 00:51 | Now sometimes I like a little more
control over things, so I am going to
| | 00:54 | Ctrl+X to get rid of that.
| | 00:55 | The Multi Text is big, massive tool that
you can use, and I just put some text in here
| | 01:01 | I took off from Wikipedia, and what this
is allows you to come down, again, we'll
| | 01:06 | just choose Arial,
something a font everybody has.
| | 01:09 | Alignment could be Left,
Center, or Right. We choose Left.
| | 01:12 | You can load a text file, you
have Sharp Corners or Buffered.
| | 01:16 | You can center it out, scale it and so
on. Kerning, for in between the letters,
| | 01:19 | and I'll show you that in a little bit.
And of course you can have
| | 01:22 | multiple lines of text in here.
| | 01:23 | As soon as you click OK, it generates that.
| | 01:26 | Let me expand this view right here to a
long string of text, whatever I put in there.
| | 01:30 | And for the most part this one works
pretty well. It does a nice clean job.
| | 01:34 | So, you can use the fonts--and I've
done this for quite a few projects--
| | 01:38 | I used fonts as elements.
| | 01:40 | They don't always have to be as bold as
"here is a logo right in front of you
| | 01:44 | that's the title of a company."
| | 01:46 | It can simply be an element.
| | 01:47 | In fact, a company logo, the majority
of the design is a series of different
| | 01:52 | script fonts all blended together.
| | 01:54 | You don't really know what they are
until you took a closer look at it.
| | 01:57 | So let's do Ctrl+X to cut that.
| | 01:59 | The next option is Text Layers, and
similar to the Multi Text this one will
| | 02:04 | create layers for you.
| | 02:06 | So again, I'll do My Logo, go to Font,
and I'll choose Arial again. Easy enough.
| | 02:11 | Then what you can do, you have
Font Spacing, Font Scaling, Extrusion.
| | 02:16 | This one, however, will bevel for
you, which saves you a little bit of
| | 02:19 | time, which is very nice.
| | 02:21 | You can jump over to Surfaces and
this will create three different surfaces
| | 02:25 | for you, from the size of the fonts to the
bevel and to the face, and there's a reason for that.
| | 02:31 | You'll often want to put the
reflections on the bevel a lot shinier than
| | 02:35 | perhaps on the side.
| | 02:36 | The side of logo might actually have a
smoother surface than the face, where
| | 02:40 | it's going to be flat, and of course,
you might even just want different colors.
| | 02:43 | Then you can have multiple layers.
| | 02:45 | You can set it up per
Word, Single, or per Letter.
| | 02:48 | Meaning these layers up in the top
right corner, this Text layers command will
| | 02:53 | separate through those layers if you want it to.
| | 02:57 | Finally, you can say where to create
this object, and it will build the scene for
| | 03:01 | you that you can load directly
in Layout, so it's quite nice.
| | 03:03 | So I am just going to click OK, and I'll
press the A key to fit, and this is the
| | 03:07 | only issue that you might have once
in a while, depending on your font.
| | 03:10 | Now the font is fine, and this is
something that you might see from time to time.
| | 03:14 | This has to do with the video card
display, just OpenGL, and I'll show you how to
| | 03:18 | fix this in a minute.
| | 03:19 | You can see that the logo is built.
| | 03:21 | It actually has a nice bevel to it, and
if we jump to the Surface Editor, which
| | 03:25 | we haven't covered yet, you will see
that there are actually three surfaces
| | 03:29 | that we can put on there.
| | 03:30 | So, that works out quite well.
| | 03:31 | You'll also notice that we have all the
letters separated into different layers,
| | 03:37 | and the reason you would want that is
to perhaps you want all these letters to
| | 03:41 | tumble in when you get to Layout.
| | 03:42 | So if you are animating this, you
need each one of those letters to be on a
| | 03:46 | separate layer in order to animate.
| | 03:47 | If you're animating the logo as a whole,
you can still parent it to a null object
| | 03:51 | just a information channel,
and have that animated as well.
| | 03:54 | Let me show you what happens here to
fix this M. Now normally when this happens,
| | 03:59 | and if you look your font in the
wireframe is fine, but your OpenGL view, the
| | 04:03 | shade view, doesn't look right.
| | 04:05 | So from the Modify tab there is the
Drag tool right there, and all you need to
| | 04:09 | do is just take one of these points and if
you just adjust it, often you can fix this font.
| | 04:18 | See how that changes? And it's these
points right here that are causing the issue.
| | 04:23 | So similar to an EPS file where the
bevel overshot and crossed over, this is one
| | 04:28 | where these corners just extended too long,
and this essentially turn the face inside out.
| | 04:34 | So don't get too alarmed
when you see things like that.
| | 04:36 | Just really pay attention to the
wireframe and the shape of your model. And in
| | 04:40 | that case, it works out okay.
| | 04:42 | So Ctrl+X to cut that.
| | 04:43 | We don't need that one. Let's do one more.
| | 04:45 | So under the Create tab, choose just
the Text tool, and you'll get a little
| | 04:49 | cursor that comes up.
| | 04:50 | I am going to click right here in the
Back view, and the reason I like the Back
| | 04:53 | View is because when I get to
Layout this will be facing my camera.
| | 04:56 | My camera will see this font directly
in the middle. And I'll type in My Logo.
| | 05:01 | Easy enough, we've been doing that.
| | 05:02 | I am going to press the Numeric button
down at the bottom, and here are the Text
| | 05:07 | Tool Numeric controls.
| | 05:08 | I don't like this font at all. And we've
been using Arial, but let's go ahead and
| | 05:12 | do something a little bit nicer, like
Book Antiqua, and that's a font that's
| | 05:16 | pretty common on PCs and Macs.
| | 05:18 | You can see that before I've even
finished this the fonts automatically change
| | 05:22 | right in front of me.
| | 05:23 | I've got scaling and kerning in here
that I can do, and really all I want to do
| | 05:27 | in here is just press 0 for the to
Center X, 0 for the Y, and 0 for the Z, and
| | 05:32 | that brings that cursor
right to the center zero.
| | 05:34 | Alignment could be Left, Centered, or
Right, and that alignment is left, center, or
| | 05:39 | right of the text cursor.
| | 05:41 | I usually do it left.
| | 05:42 | It gives me a little more control.
| | 05:45 | Then the last thing I could do is
when I zoom in I can kern, and there is a
| | 05:50 | little tiny line right there on this
tool, and if I click and hold my mouse on
| | 05:55 | there, I can actually scale this in or out.
| | 05:58 | Sometimes you'll need to do this more
often than not. Certain fonts just
| | 06:03 | don't line up properly,
| | 06:04 | so you might want to do it manually.
| | 06:05 | For instance the o is little close to
the L. The y might not be close enough.
| | 06:10 | That's because each font has its
own unique bounding box that the
| | 06:13 | computer understands.
| | 06:14 | It's just kind of an invisible
boundary, and that's what it sees when it
| | 06:18 | brings these together.
| | 06:19 | So for instance an A, let me just do
this Shift+Backspace, we'll remove that.
| | 06:24 | If you type AV, that's what happens:
you get that very big space in between.
| | 06:28 | You should be aware that you
should never let a font look like that.
| | 06:31 | The reason it does that is because if
you envision a box around this font and a
| | 06:36 | box around this font, look where they
line up, right in between A and the V.
| | 06:40 | So you always want to kern those to get
those little bit closer together, okay.
| | 06:45 | So Shift+Backspace will get rid of those.
| | 06:48 | Type in My Logo again, and then let's
kern them out. And then if you grab the top
| | 06:54 | handle, you can actually
size the full logo itself.
| | 06:57 | Turn off the Text tool, and now you can
use just your regular modeling tools.
| | 07:03 | You can go to Multiply, choose Extrude,
click and drag from the top, turn off
| | 07:08 | Extrude, press the A key to fit, and
we'll zoom in, and just like that, we've got a
| | 07:13 | very nice font logo that we can work with.
| | 07:16 | Remember, these are all individual polygons.
| | 07:18 | So you can select one, then if you press
the bracket key two over from the P key,
| | 07:23 | that will select everything connected
to what you just selected, and then you
| | 07:26 | can move that around.
| | 07:28 | Press the T key for instance, and you
can move this up like this, and then you
| | 07:32 | can press the Question Mark/Slash key
to deselect. Click on this one, press the
| | 07:37 | Right Bracket two over from the P key, T
key for Move, and that's just the Modify >
| | 07:42 | Move, and you can move this down.
| | 07:44 | So, without much effort--
we'll click to turn off the move--
| | 07:48 | you can create a very unique
logo just with some simple fonts.
| | 07:52 | So the text tool in LightWave Modeler
quite powerful, quite a few that you can
| | 07:55 | use, whether you want it fully
automated or just a manual setup, the choice
| | 07:59 | is yours.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building objects with curves| 00:00 | Working in LightWave Modeler with simple
primitives is one way to start building
| | 00:04 | just about any kind of object,
| | 00:05 | but every once in a while
| | 00:06 | you need to build
something a little more specific.
| | 00:08 | And in that case you can actually use a curve.
| | 00:11 | If you look at the Create tab down at
the very bottom-left, there is the Curves
| | 00:15 | category and you can start with a
sketch where you can literally click and hold
| | 00:18 | your mouse and sketch out a
curve. And this is in 3D space,
| | 00:22 | so that curve right there
can be used for all kinds of things.
| | 00:25 | So in an upcoming video you are
actually going to see how we can use that to
| | 00:29 | build and clone other objects.
| | 00:31 | So let's do Ctrl+X to get rid of that.
| | 00:33 | For you artists and designers there is
also the Bezier, and you can click and
| | 00:37 | pull the curve out like that,
and then you can pull right on these little
| | 00:40 | handles here and shape this out. And if
you open the Numeric panel, you can change
| | 00:45 | the subdivisions, so how much detail--
| | 00:47 | less or more--is in that
curve. So, a nice way to work.
| | 00:50 | But one of my favorites is the Spline
Draw, and with this I can actually just
| | 00:55 | build a very nice controllable curve.
And any of you that have ever worked in
| | 00:59 | Illustrator or have done curves in
Photoshop, you know that if you have more
| | 01:03 | points closer together you can create
sharper turn, and if they are farther away
| | 01:07 | you can create it smoother.
| | 01:08 | So it is a very nice way to work.
| | 01:11 | So what I am going to do is actually
show you how to build an object based on
| | 01:15 | an image with a curve.
| | 01:16 | So let's Ctrl+X to get rid of that.
| | 01:19 | Press the D key and under the
Backdrop tab in the Display Options, you can
| | 01:23 | control what your viewport looks like.
| | 01:25 | So we have our Top Left, Top Right,
Bottom Left and Bottom Right viewports.
| | 01:30 | Well since we want our camera to look
at this when we get into Layout, we want
| | 01:34 | the Bottom Left, or the Back view,
| | 01:37 | looking towards the back of our scene.
| | 01:39 | And from that Image dropdown right
there, we can click and say load image, and
| | 01:44 | from the Chapter 4 Images folder,
you load the genericbottle.jpeg.
| | 01:50 | That puts a nice little diagram that I
have put in there for you, which is just a
| | 01:53 | simple bottle, but kind of
hard to see at this point.
| | 01:55 | So we are going to do two things:
| | 01:56 | we are going to take this size and
bring it up to about 6 m, and then we are
| | 02:00 | going to change the Image
Resolution from 500 k to let's say 2000.
| | 02:06 | That makes it much cleaner.
| | 02:07 | So don't worry about this Image Resolution.
| | 02:10 | It has nothing to do your
final model or anything else.
| | 02:12 | It actually is just your display resolution.
| | 02:15 | Now, if we start building a curve over this,
it might actually be kind of hard to see.
| | 02:18 | So we want to bring the Brightness down
on this, and you could see how that works.
| | 02:23 | You can also bring the Contrast down.
| | 02:25 | You just want to just kind of ghosted
back there, so it makes putting your curve
| | 02:29 | over it little bit easier.
| | 02:30 | Depending on your model, you can hit
Invert if that's easier for you to see, but
| | 02:34 | for the most part that's going to work okay.
| | 02:36 | We can close this out, and I am going to
expand my back view by hitting this top-
| | 02:41 | right corner here and I can zoom in a
little bit and what we are going to do
| | 02:45 | then is change the Curve to Spline Draw,
and we are going to start right here at
| | 02:50 | the center cursor right here.
| | 02:52 | We are going to put right on that Y axis.
| | 02:54 | I am going to click right there,
and then we are going to move over to this next
| | 02:58 | end right here, and that creates that
long flat curve right there, and then you
| | 03:01 | are going to click kind of about over here.
| | 03:03 | Now as I start adding more points, you
could see that affects the curve behind it.
| | 03:07 | So it's really pretty easy to create the
shape now because I have a reference to
| | 03:12 | work with, and that's the beauty of
putting an image in the background.
| | 03:15 | Now just don't worry about it not being
super-precise at this point because you
| | 03:19 | can go back and tweak this once it is done.
| | 03:21 | Biggest thing with laying down curves
like this and I am just clicking away is
| | 03:26 | that you can come back and
zoom in and create more detail.
| | 03:31 | But you also want to make sure that
get these down as evenly as possible.
| | 03:35 | That's always a good thing.
| | 03:37 | I am going to zoom in a little bit so
we can get to the neck of bottle and make it
| | 03:39 | a little bit cleaner for us.
| | 03:41 | Now, if I click too close to this,
what will happen is that I end up
| | 03:46 | grabbing the same point.
| | 03:48 | So the little trick I always do is I
kind of click over here and then I pull it
| | 03:51 | back in. And generally just want
like two points around the corners.
| | 03:55 | So I am going to come in like this.
| | 03:58 | I am not going to worry about the cap just yet.
| | 04:00 | We will come up to the neck of the bottle,
and then we'll do the cap in a separate layer.
| | 04:03 | And I will just come up like this, and
very quickly you can see that it doesn't
| | 04:10 | take too long to do.
| | 04:12 | Now, similar to other projects, you
can come in and create this straight and
| | 04:18 | bevel out these edges or
polygons little bit later on.
| | 04:22 | But if are taking the time to do
this with a curve, it's always fine
| | 04:25 | just do it manually like this. Not a big deal.
| | 04:30 | And I try to come up with something
that is a little simpler for you to use and
| | 04:34 | this is a pretty good bottle that has
a good bit of realism to it once it is
| | 04:37 | done because of all these nice little curves.
| | 04:39 | All right, so two points on each corner,
and then we are not going to go to the other side.
| | 04:44 | We are just going to go right
back to the middle. And that's it.
| | 04:46 | So I am going to turn off the Spline
Draw, and I am going to come in and then
| | 04:51 | press, from the Modify tab, my Drag tool.
And with drag now I can come in and tweak
| | 04:57 | any of these points.
| | 04:58 | Now let me press the D key, and I am
going to take this image and click none just
| | 05:02 | to turn that off for the time
being so you can see how this looks.
| | 05:06 | Okay. And from here what I can do is just
smooth out this curvature and just line it up.
| | 05:13 | Okay, now we are just going to rough it
out, but you can see that without much
| | 05:17 | trouble you can very easily come in and
click and drag and take these shapes and
| | 05:21 | make them look nice and even, And if
you feel the need to remove one, you can
| | 05:25 | select the point and just simply hit Delete.
| | 05:29 | Down here, I want to pull
that curve in just a little bit.
| | 05:33 | The next thing to do is to lathe this.
| | 05:36 | It is also called loft is some other programs.
| | 05:39 | But first thing I want to do is select
these two points, and I am going to press
| | 05:43 | the V key, and the V calls up my set value.
| | 05:46 | What that means, it is going to actually
move those points to wherever I tell it.
| | 05:49 | So if I put it to let's say -1, it is going
to shoot those all exactly to -1 on the X axis.
| | 05:55 | All right, but I really want it at 0.
| | 05:59 | My axis is my left and right, and
we built right on that axis there.
| | 06:03 | So I am going to press 0, and now I know that
those two points are exactly at the 0 axis.
| | 06:08 | And the reason that's important--I'll
just come back here to a full view--
| | 06:12 | the reason that's important is because
when we come to the Multiply tab and we
| | 06:15 | choose Lathe and we hit N for Numeric,
the default starting angle is 0, and
| | 06:23 | automatically as soon as I activated
that tool you could see how it just
| | 06:26 | revolves around that curve
and makes that bottle for us.
| | 06:30 | But before I turn this tool off, I can
actually set the amount of sides I want.
| | 06:35 | I can say 48, for instance, and get a
much cleaner bottle. Or I can also use our
| | 06:40 | subdivision surfaces.
| | 06:41 | So I am going to do that instead. That gives
us even more control for the smooth bottle.
| | 06:45 | So 24 is fine. I will turn off the Numeric and
turn off the Lathe. And if we take a look at the
| | 06:51 | Top Down, we will see that it is solid.
| | 06:53 | If those points were not set at 0 and I
lathed around 0, I would have a little
| | 06:57 | bit of a hole right there.
| | 06:59 | So that's kind of important to
make sure those points are lined up.
| | 07:02 | But you see that we've got a lot of nice detail.
| | 07:05 | We haven't adjusted the bevels at all.
| | 07:07 | If I come here to the Smooth Shade and
just quickly I am going to jump into the
| | 07:11 | Surface Editor and turn on Smoothing
and we will close that, and I will press D,
| | 07:17 | go to our Layout and turn off Show Grid,
| | 07:21 | just to give you a little
bit better view of this.
| | 07:24 | So here is the simple bottle with a
nice complex top, with a very nice shape at
| | 07:29 | the bottom, all from one curvature.
| | 07:31 | So while you can do a cup like we did
with bevels and working with edges and
| | 07:34 | subdivisions, working with a curve and
then using the Lathe command can actually
| | 07:39 | create quite a nice shape.
| | 07:41 | Let's quickly go to layer 2 by
clicking layer right up here, and then let's
| | 07:44 | expand down here at the bottom-left.
| | 07:47 | Let's zoom in and let's create that cap
in the same way, help reinforce this, and
| | 07:51 | finish off the bottle.
| | 07:53 | So we will select Spline Draw, start
right in the middle, come to the end, and we
| | 07:57 | want two points around the corner,
and we will pull this one up here.
| | 08:01 | I can going to pull these in just a
little bit and probably three around this
| | 08:05 | top curve and then one in the center.
| | 08:09 | Turn off the Spline Draw, and let's
press D, go to Backdrop, and turn off the
| | 08:15 | bottle so we can see our curve.
| | 08:18 | Select two points, press the V key--
| | 08:21 | that's our Set Value command--and
set them both to 0 on the X axis. Question Mark
| | 08:26 | key to deselect, and we will come
back here just so you can see this.
| | 08:31 | Press the D key again.
| | 08:32 | If that view pops up, just make sure
you turn that off, and then what we will do
| | 08:37 | is from the Multiply, select Lathe, hit
N for Numeric, and it looks like I have
| | 08:43 | an extra hole in there and that is because I
think my point didn't line up at the bottom.
| | 08:48 | And that's okay because we are
actually going to open up the cap.
| | 08:51 | So, click Lathe to turn that off,
and that's the bottom of my cap.
| | 08:57 | So what I want to do is just select
those polygons and we are going to actually
| | 09:01 | make this a little more transparent.
| | 09:03 | So we will jump over to Polygon mode,
and I am just going to mouse around these
| | 09:07 | bottom ones like this. I am just
holding down the mouse and circling around.
| | 09:14 | We are actually just going to delete
these because we don't really need them.
| | 09:17 | And then Shift+Right Bracket will expand my selection.
| | 09:22 | I will do it one more time to
that edge and Ctrl+X to cut those away.
| | 09:28 | And now we've got our cap that
can be placed right over our bottle.
| | 09:31 | I will press the A key if I want to
turn this up. And so later when we get
| | 09:39 | the surfacing we can put a
transparent surface on the cap, so you could see
| | 09:42 | the detail underneath,
| | 09:44 | but we still have a nice curvature
all at the bottom here and it lines
| | 09:48 | perfectly up with the bottle.
| | 09:50 | So working with curves is a great
way to create shapes likes bottles,
| | 09:54 | things that revolve.
| | 09:56 | You could do banisters.
| | 09:57 | You could do baseball bats.
| | 09:58 | You could do tools.
| | 09:59 | All of those things are very easily
done if you bring in a background image and
| | 10:03 | trace over it with a Bezier curve.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring Rail Clone methods and uses| 00:00 | Another thing you can do with curves
in LightWave Modeler is use them to
| | 00:04 | create other objects.
| | 00:06 | So while we used a curve to actually
build a 3D model, you can then take that
| | 00:10 | model and make more of them from a curve.
| | 00:12 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 00:13 | We're going to go down to the Curves
section here under the Create tab, and we're
| | 00:17 | going to choose Spline Draw.
| | 00:18 | I am going to expand out my Top view
here, and I am just going to start down at
| | 00:23 | the bottom. And I'm just going to very
simply just create kind of a little
| | 00:27 | curvature like this.
| | 00:29 | I'll circle this all the way in, just like that,
and I'll bring this view back to quad view.
| | 00:38 | Turn off the Spline Draw.
| | 00:39 | All right, it looks pretty good,
but what can you do with it?
| | 00:42 | Well, let's go ahead and load up another object.
| | 00:45 | So I am going to say Load Object,
and from the object files, I am going to
| | 00:49 | choose 04_05_RailCloneBegin. And this
is a simple bottle built also with a
| | 00:55 | curve, and I am going to take this
model and put it along with the curve.
| | 01:00 | Now, when I load this model,
it loads as its own project.
| | 01:04 | In this dropdown up here on the top-right,
I can have as many objects loaded as I want.
| | 01:09 | Each object contains as many layers as I want.
| | 01:13 | Well, I need this object to be
into this object. How do I do that?
| | 01:18 | A simple copy-and-paste can work.
| | 01:20 | So Ctrl+C to copy on your keyboard,
| | 01:23 | select the next object,
and I'll choose a new layer--and this is
| | 01:26 | important--Ctrl+V to paste.
| | 01:29 | The way this is going to work is that
these layers are going to talk to each other,
| | 01:33 | the first and the second layer.
| | 01:35 | So I want the curve in the background layer,
| | 01:37 | so I am going to click beneath that
little slash right there. And let's go back
| | 01:41 | to our RailCloneBegin and
then say File > Close Object.
| | 01:46 | So it's important to understand
| | 01:48 | you don't actually delete
an object to get rid of it;
| | 01:50 | you can close it--just as you would
a Word document or a Photoshop file.
| | 01:55 | You're closing a project,
| | 01:56 | you're not necessarily deleting it.
| | 01:58 | You can delete the contents if you hit Delete.
| | 02:01 | So we've got our bottle.
The background layer has this curve.
| | 02:05 | What can I do with this?
| | 02:06 | I'll come down to my Multiply tab. Down
under Duplicate, there's the Mirror
| | 02:11 | tool, an Array, a Clone, but under More,
if you click that, there is actually
| | 02:16 | one called Rail Clone.
| | 02:17 | So we're going to choose that, and a
simple panel comes up where we're getting
| | 02:21 | Uniform Lengths, Automatic, or Uniform
Knots, that is going to place something in
| | 02:25 | each one of these points.
| | 02:26 | Let's just choose Automatic and click OK.
| | 02:28 | Well, this object has a
little bit of detail to it, so
| | 02:31 | it's just going to take a second to come up.
| | 02:33 | But what it will do, it will actually
take this bottle and replicate it all the
| | 02:37 | way around this curvature.
But look at the way it did it.
| | 02:39 | It's not quite exactly lined up right.
| | 02:41 | It's kind of neat and we got so many
bottles lying around--or maybe that's a bad
| | 02:46 | thing--but let's Command+Z or Ctrl+Z to
undo, Ctrl on the PC, and then let's go
| | 02:52 | ahead and move this.
| | 02:53 | I am going to hit Modify > Move.
| | 02:56 | We are going to put this bottle right
in front of the spine curve, like that,
| | 03:04 | and Shift+A to fit.
| | 03:05 | The other thing I am going to do is I am
going to make sure that my subdivisions
| | 03:08 | are off, hitting the Tab key,
which they are, like that.
| | 03:11 | So you see the actual facets.
| | 03:13 | That's going to help make
things a little bit smoother for us.
| | 03:16 | I'll go back to Multiply and then from
the More dropdown, we're going to choose
| | 03:20 | Rail Clone > Automatic, and it will
clone all the way around that curvature.
| | 03:27 | Or I've created, let's say I have a
highway I've built, and I have a streetlamp.
| | 03:31 | I'm able to actually make
streetlamps all the way down very easily.
| | 03:36 | I don't have to actually copy and paste it.
| | 03:38 | So now, all of those bottles, although a
little bit too large, follow that curve precisely.
| | 03:46 | The reason they're following it
precisely is because we have that first bottle
| | 03:50 | starting where the curve starts.
| | 03:52 | Okay, so I am undoing here, just a
Ctrl+Z to undo, and what I am going to do is
| | 03:56 | this one more time, but we're
going to control how many are in here,
| | 04:00 | simply going to Rail Clone, and then
we're going to choose Uniform Lengths, and
| | 04:05 | let's just do ten of them, and click OK.
And you'll see it happens a lot faster
| | 04:10 | because we're not replicating as many.
| | 04:12 | So now I've told it to use that rail
as a guide to create ten replicates.
| | 04:17 | So it looks pretty nice.
| | 04:19 | Now you can use this for all kinds
of things, like I said streetlamps.
| | 04:23 | You can use it for ornaments.
| | 04:24 | You can use it for decorations. And that
curvature doesn't have to live just in a flat plane.
| | 04:30 | I'll do this one more time.
Here's a little quick tip.
| | 04:32 | Hit the Single Quote
key, that's two over from the L on your
| | 04:35 | keyboard, and it'll instantly reverse
your layers, making your foreground your
| | 04:39 | background and your background your foreground.
| | 04:41 | If you go to Modify and choose Drag,
you can click any of these points and move
| | 04:47 | them on the other axis.
| | 04:49 | So your curve doesn't necessarily need to be flat.
| | 04:52 | So now I've got this crazy curve, and if
we reverse layers again with the Single
| | 04:57 | Quote key, and we'll come back to
Multiply > Rail Clone, and click OK, now that
| | 05:03 | clone actually happens all
the way around that curvature.
| | 05:06 | So, kind of a neat thing.
| | 05:07 | It's a great way to create an array of
objects but be a little more precise
| | 05:11 | based on the curvature.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring Rail Extrude methods and uses| 00:00 | Working with curves in
LightWave Modeler is pretty powerful.
| | 00:03 | You can create simple shapes, from text
objects to bottles with more intricate designs.
| | 00:09 | You can actually create cloned objects
with a simple curve. But you can also
| | 00:13 | extrude with a curve.
| | 00:15 | I've gone ahead and loaded up the 04_06_
RailExtBegin file from the exercise files.
| | 00:20 | And what this is simply just a
flat disc. You can see it right there in
| | 00:24 | one layer, layer 2.
| | 00:26 | And layer 1 has a curve, and this curve
was just drawn out using the Spline Draw
| | 00:32 | right here from the Create tab.
| | 00:34 | And making sure that the flat disc
is in one layer and the curve is in
| | 00:39 | a background layer,
| | 00:40 | I can actually use that
curve to generate an extrusion.
| | 00:43 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 00:43 | Under the Multiply tab, we're going to
come down to Extend, and under the More
| | 00:49 | dropdown, there's Rail Extrude.
| | 00:52 | It's also Ctrl+R as a shortcut.
| | 00:55 | If you click that, you'll get a little
panel that pops up and it says Automatic,
| | 00:59 | Uniform Lengths, or Uniform Knots.
| | 01:01 | Something like this I think Automatic
would be just fine, so I'll click OK.
| | 01:04 | And what happens is that disc
is now extruded along the curve.
| | 01:09 | Now lines up pretty well, and the
reason it does is because I made sure that
| | 01:14 | when this is lined up that disc at
the curve's start--I always tell people
| | 01:18 | it's like a needle and thread--
| | 01:20 | you want that curvature going
straight through the very front of that disc;
| | 01:25 | otherwise, if it's on an angle you're going to
get little bit of a weird turn in it too soon.
| | 01:29 | The other problem with this is that it
looks okay, but the polygons are flipped inside.
| | 01:34 | Now depending on what you're
building, that could be a good or bad thing.
| | 01:38 | For a lot of things I do on a daily
basis, something like this works for me.
| | 01:42 | For instance, I often have to create
body parts and travel through and maybe put
| | 01:47 | blood cells in there.
| | 01:48 | So here we can have a vein and now we
can actually travel through this very
| | 01:53 | easily because the polygons are flipped inside.
| | 01:56 | And that curve allows me to
actually model that the way I need.
| | 02:00 | If I press F, I flip the polygons outward.
| | 02:04 | And so let's say you're making a
Cheez-It, or you're making frosting on a cake,
| | 02:09 | or just even chords, or tubes for electronics.
| | 02:12 | You could do it very simply with
just a rail extrusion like that.
| | 02:15 | And again, the smoothing, even through
we're in Smooth Shade mode, comes from the
| | 02:19 | Surface Editor when Smoothing is on.
| | 02:22 | Let's say Font Shading. It's just a
shading technique which we're going to talk
| | 02:25 | about in our surfacing videos.
| | 02:27 | But that's what curves out those little facets.
| | 02:30 | So the Rail Extrusion is very powerful
and very useful for chords, for arteries,
| | 02:37 | and all kinds of little designs that you
might need that are probably a little too
| | 02:41 | organic and too specific to model on your own.
| | 02:44 | But by setting up just a rail
extrusion, you can do it quite easily.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modeling with Array| 00:00 | Every once in a while you need to
create a model that is really nothing
| | 00:03 | more than a series of copies of an
existing model, and while you can use the
| | 00:08 | Rail Clone to create multiple copies,
sometimes you need it a little bit more ordered.
| | 00:12 | Let's say you are creating a field of
trees: an apple orchard, or an orange farm.
| | 00:17 | Well, let's load up a tree and try that.
| | 00:19 | So from the File dropdown menu, I am
going to say Load Object, and in the Chapter
| | 00:23 | 4 folder, we are going to load the
04_07_Tree object from the Files folder.
| | 00:28 | This is just a simple old palm tree.
| | 00:30 | What we're going to do is clone this,
but rather than a simple clone, we are
| | 00:35 | going to use the Array tool.
| | 00:37 | So from the Multiply tab, we'll select Array.
| | 00:39 | A nice little panel comes up, and you can
choose to do a rectangular array or radial array.
| | 00:45 | You can choose the Count.
| | 00:46 | So how many copies you want on
the X axis. Let's just do 6.
| | 00:49 | We don't need any on the Y at this point
because, well, the trees aren't going to
| | 00:53 | grow in the sky, so we are
just going to keep that to 1.
| | 00:56 | The Z count, we are going to set to
maybe 8, and then we can jitter it a little
| | 01:01 | bit if we want, so it just offsets it
slightly to maybe 0.2, 200 millimeters.
| | 01:08 | And then we can do the Offset Type set
to Automatic or Manual. Perhaps we can
| | 01:12 | make it 1 meter on each.
| | 01:14 | Let's leave Y at 0, and then let's
just click OK and see what happens.
| | 01:18 | And at the very bottom of the screen, you
might see a Progress come along.
| | 01:22 | But because my Offsets was set
to Manual, look what happens.
| | 01:26 | While it creates a really neat-looking
thing, the trees are kind of all
| | 01:29 | overlapping each other. All right!
| | 01:31 | So let's do a Ctrl+Z to undo.
| | 01:33 | I'll click Array again and
then go back to Automatic.
| | 01:36 | The reason they overlapped is because my
Offset set to Manual was only at 1 meter.
| | 01:41 | So how do I know what that is?
| | 01:43 | Let me move this to the side.
| | 01:45 | My grid, you can see right down here on
the very bottom-left, is set to 2 meters.
| | 01:50 | That means every square is 2 meters in length.
| | 01:52 | Well, I only had it set to 1 meter, so the
tree was here and then it was about here.
| | 01:57 | So what I need it to be really is
about 1, 2, 3, at least 4 meters.
| | 02:04 | So I can do Automatic or just tell it
4 meters for each of those axes that I
| | 02:09 | want, click OK, and now you can see
that they are not overlapping. Press the A
| | 02:14 | key to fit them to view, and let's expand this.
| | 02:17 | The only problem with this is that they
look all the same. Just kind of all random
| | 02:22 | is what we really wanted.
| | 02:23 | And really the only true way to do
this is to make a few, set the array for a
| | 02:28 | few more, then clone those
with an array, and so on.
| | 02:31 | But you can manipulate this group a little
bit just to create a little bit of a difference.
| | 02:37 | So, I am going to go to the Modify tab.
| | 02:38 | I am going to use the Magnet tool, and
then with the right-mouse button I am
| | 02:43 | going to click and drag out this circle.
| | 02:46 | What this circle determines is the
range of influence this Magnet tool will
| | 02:50 | have. And then in the bottom view I am
going to drag it out a little bit, too.
| | 02:54 | I can click right on the center, again
just using the right-mouse button to
| | 02:58 | encompass just this one area, and maybe
I'll scale it back just a little bit.
| | 03:01 | So what's going to happen
here is that this is like a drag.
| | 03:05 | I am able to drag the group of points,
but it's going to be stronger in the
| | 03:09 | middle and it's going to fall off
towards the edges, and outside of this ring,
| | 03:13 | nothing is going to happen. So watch!
| | 03:17 | See what happens?
| | 03:18 | I can actually just pull this around
in here and shape it, and now I can
| | 03:24 | actually make it a nice tall little cluster.
| | 03:26 | Then I can use my right mouse button,
move it down here, and I can push these
| | 03:31 | this way a little bit if I wanted, use
my right mouse button to move it over
| | 03:34 | this way, and change the size of it,
maybe pull these back this way. And so
| | 03:41 | with a little bit of work,
| | 03:42 | I can actually create a little bit more
variation to this without having to do
| | 03:48 | too many more arrays.
| | 03:50 | I'll just do one more over here, and
we'll pull this back like that.
| | 03:55 | So I'll click the Magnet tool to
turn that off, expand this out.
| | 04:01 | And so just by varying that, you can see
that all those leaves now have a little
| | 04:06 | bit more randomization to them.
| | 04:08 | So if you were going to do this again,
perhaps go ahead and use a straight tree,
| | 04:13 | and then you can use the Magnet tool to
bend it, but it's a great way to make a
| | 04:17 | series of bushes, a series of
leaves, trees, even simple products.
| | 04:23 | If you were going to do a big bowl of
M&Ms, you can make one and you can set an
| | 04:26 | array for all of those using the
radial array versus the rectangular array.
| | 04:31 | So Array, Clone, they are all
really great tools to create all kinds of
| | 04:35 | things for medical to
architecture to very simple medical animations,
| | 04:40 | anything you can think of.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Symmetry| 00:00 | As you work in the LightWave
Modeler further grows, you are going to be
| | 00:03 | building things such as human heads,
airplanes, cars--things that are
| | 00:07 | symmetrical on either side.
| | 00:09 | So you can use the Symmetry tool
to help you with your modeling.
| | 00:13 | Let me show you how that would work.
| | 00:15 | I am going to create a box.
| | 00:16 | I am going to do some very simple here.
| | 00:17 | We are just going to build out just
kind of a long tube like this. And in this
| | 00:22 | Top view I can use my up arrow and my
down arrow to create and remove segments,
| | 00:26 | and I can drag one to the right
by just hitting my right arrow.
| | 00:29 | In the Bottom view make sure you have
your up arrow hit twice so that you've got
| | 00:33 | three segments on the Y axis like that.
| | 00:36 | I'll turn the Box tool off.
| | 00:37 | Now the biggest thing to understand
when using symmetry is that whatever you
| | 00:41 | have on the positive x axis, on the
right side, has to be equal on the negative X
| | 00:47 | axis, on the left side.
| | 00:49 | Symmetry only works on the X axis.
| | 00:51 | So what you need to do is center this out.
| | 00:54 | So under Modify under the
Translate, there is the Center button.
| | 00:58 | Earlier in the course we had reprogrammed
that to F10, but by default it's set to F2.
| | 01:03 | If you're on a Mac and you've not
changed your F keys, your function keys, you
| | 01:07 | can hold down your Fn key and hit F2.
| | 01:10 | Or if you've reprogrammed
it you can do that as well.
| | 01:12 | But look what happens when I do that:
the whole object kind of disappeared.
| | 01:16 | And the reason that happened is because at the
bottom of my screen I already have Symmetry on.
| | 01:20 | So what happened there is that my
action only happens on the positive X and you
| | 01:25 | could see that right there is +X,
positive X. So you got to be really careful
| | 01:30 | with symmetry and only
put it on when you need it.
| | 01:33 | So now when I hit Center, the entire
object centers, not just the right side.
| | 01:38 | So now we could put Symmetry on, and what
happens is that when I click on the one
| | 01:44 | side, the opposite side
automatically selects with it.
| | 01:47 | From there, I can say Bevel and go to
Multiply, hit Bevel, and I can click and
| | 01:52 | drag and start building,
| | 01:54 | well, I don't know, wings for a poorly
looking airplane. And I'm just using my up
| | 01:58 | and down mouse just to shift,
and then we'll hit right-click one time, which
| | 02:03 | creates a new bevel and resets it, and
then up and then moving my mouse to left
| | 02:08 | and right I can shift that a
little bit just to inset it.
| | 02:12 | I'll click Bevel turned off,
and then we'll just click on that to deselect.
| | 02:16 | And when I hit my Tab key for
Subdivision surface, we very easily created some
| | 02:20 | little wings there.
| | 02:21 | But what's great about the Symmetry
tool is that I can use something like Drag
| | 02:26 | from the Modify tab, and whatever I do,
again, on the positive X, on this right
| | 02:30 | side of the Y axis will
automatically be mirrored on the left side.
| | 02:35 | So now I can very easily shape out my
little airplane here. I can come to
| | 02:39 | my right view and just shape this
out as well, flatten out the bottom.
| | 02:44 | If you have created this with less
segments, you might have a little less to
| | 02:47 | work with and it might work little
better for you. Just a good example here.
| | 02:53 | So now you can see that I've shaped
out that box pretty easily only moving
| | 02:57 | just the points I need without too
much effort. And let's say you wanted to
| | 03:02 | create a back wing.
| | 03:03 | I'll turn off the Drag tool.
| | 03:05 | Make sure I am in Polygon mode and
Symmetry mode is still on. And then what I
| | 03:08 | could do is just come down here and
even select those back polygons like that,
| | 03:12 | hold the Ctrl key to deselect anything
I don't want, press the Bevel again, and
| | 03:18 | then click and extend that out.
| | 03:19 | But because those are angled, because
I've already used my Drag tool on them, I
| | 03:23 | need to change them a little bit.
| | 03:26 | So make sure your mode, your Action
Center of your mouse is set to Selection at
| | 03:30 | the bottom of the screen there, and then
press the Y command, which is your Rotate
| | 03:34 | tool over here on the left.
| | 03:36 | That allows me rotate from
wherever my mouse position is.
| | 03:39 | So I can just rotate that based on the
mouse position right there, and I can
| | 03:43 | select Move and I can move that out just a bit.
| | 03:46 | Then I could choose Stretch
and I can shrink that down a bit.
| | 03:52 | Then choose Rotate again and rotate
right from here, and then I can choose from
| | 03:58 | Multiply > Bevel, and we can
Bevel that out and then Stretch.
| | 04:06 | Again, press the H key. You can stretch that
down and this creates some fun crazy wings.
| | 04:13 | So I know a lot of guys that are
really into spaceships and they love to
| | 04:17 | create things like this.
| | 04:19 | So Spacebar, turn off the Bevel
tool, and just click to deselect.
| | 04:24 | And so with just a few clicks you can
create some really interesting shapes and
| | 04:28 | then using technique shown earlier in
the course to add detail to bevel, such as
| | 04:33 | creating those edges and creasing them
with a little bevel, you can very easily
| | 04:37 | create something more complex and not
worry about both sides of the object, just
| | 04:41 | work on one at the same time.
| | 04:43 | However, sometimes you're going
to need even more complex things.
| | 04:46 | So I am going to load up an object here.
| | 04:49 | Load Object, and it's called 04_08_HeadBegin.
We are going to load that.
| | 04:54 | This is an old head object that I
created a long time ago. I'll press the A key
| | 04:58 | to fit and you could see that without
Subdivision Surfaces on it's just kind of
| | 05:03 | chunky, so I'll hit the Tab key
and you can see it smoothes that out.
| | 05:06 | Notice it's only half a head.
| | 05:08 | Well that's because a lot of times when you
model human heads you do want to do just one side.
| | 05:14 | It makes a lot more work creating both sides.
| | 05:17 | You build just one side of this,
and then you can go to Multiply, choose Mirror,
| | 05:21 | hit the Numeric key and make sure
you mirror over the 0 Y axis.
| | 05:29 | And that way I know that this
is perfectly even on both sides.
| | 05:32 | Now a human face really isn't exact
on both sides. Nobody's really is.
| | 05:37 | But when you are coming into 3D
animation and 3D modeling it's often good to
| | 05:42 | start that way and then use your Symmetry
tool to offset and change it a little bit.
| | 05:48 | So let's come down here to Modify.
| | 05:50 | I can use my Drag tool, and as I drag on
one side of the face--and in fact, let me
| | 05:55 | come up here, let me expand my Shaded
view just to show you how this looks.
| | 06:00 | It looks like my center is
just a little bit off there.
| | 06:03 | We just need to merge those points.
| | 06:06 | I can click on any of these points
here and what I do on the right side
| | 06:09 | happens on the left.
| | 06:10 | So it makes is very easy to
manipulate a face after the fact.
| | 06:14 | So you build half of it, mirror it over,
and then using Symmetry you can change
| | 06:21 | your design. It works quite well.
| | 06:24 | However, if you want to create
something little different, turn off Symmetry,
| | 06:29 | and then you can just simply manipulate
one side of the face and not the other.
| | 06:34 | The only problem with doing that
though is that once this data does not equal
| | 06:39 | this data, when the left side data,
the -x, does not equal the right side, +x,
| | 06:43 | this symmetry will no longer work.
| | 06:47 | So just be organized with that.
| | 06:49 | The last thing is that line in the middle.
| | 06:51 | When I had mirror that over, I needed
to make sure that my points are exactly
| | 06:56 | equal on that zero axis.
| | 06:59 | So if undo a few times,
I'll show you how to fix that.
| | 07:02 | I'm just going to undo back to the
point before I mirrored over, and we are
| | 07:08 | going to make sure with Point mode that
all of these points right here, all the
| | 07:14 | way down the center.
| | 07:15 | I'll press the A key to fit.
| | 07:16 | We'll hit Select Loop, just select
all the way around and if a few x's get
| | 07:21 | selected that's okay, you can just hold
the Ctrl key and just even right-mouse
| | 07:28 | around those ones you don't want select, okay.
| | 07:31 | Then I am going to press the V key, Set
Value x to zero, and then we'll click a
| | 07:38 | little blank area here to deselect--
another way to deselect rather than the
| | 07:41 | Question Mark/Slash key--and then
we'll come to Multiply > Mirror, hit the
| | 07:47 | Numeric key, make sure Merge Points is
on, and then turn off, and now you can see
| | 07:53 | that that line down the center of his
head is gone. Very important that those
| | 07:57 | points get lined up exactly right.
| | 07:59 | So the Symmetry tool is great for
modeling simple object, modeling spaceships
| | 08:04 | and aircraft and things that are same
on both sides, but it's also terrific for
| | 08:08 | doing characters and humans where you
need to have the same thing happen on both
| | 08:12 | sides of your model.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Creating SurfacesUnderstanding the Surface Editor| 00:00 | After you've created a model, you are
going to need a surface on it, that is of
| | 00:04 | course if you want just a flat gray model.
| | 00:06 | But you'll see the surface that
are in both LightWave Layout
| | 00:10 | right here on the top-left--
you can press F5 to open it--
| | 00:13 | but you'll also see it in Modeler.
| | 00:14 | So if I click over here in the top
right to jump in LightWave Modeler, you'll
| | 00:18 | also see the Surface Editor here.
| | 00:19 | This is the exact same panel in both programs.
| | 00:22 | I am going to show you how to work
through this Surface Editor and how to create
| | 00:26 | surfaces, but we are going to
do it mostly in LightWave Layout.
| | 00:30 | So let's click the dropdown in the
top-right and say Switch to Layout.
| | 00:32 | So let's work out way
through the Surface Editor.
| | 00:36 | What I am going to do is load up a file here.
| | 00:38 | I am going to say Load Object from the
File dropdown menu. And from the Chapter
| | 00:42 | 5 folder, I will open up the 05_01_Balls scene.
| | 00:46 | Now it is just a series of balls on flat ground.
| | 00:48 | You will surface this yourself shortly.
| | 00:53 | But what you will see when this comes
up is a number of different surfaces.
| | 00:56 | These were all set up in LightWave Modeler.
| | 00:59 | You've got a surface for the ground, the red
ball, the yellow ball, the blue, and the green.
| | 01:03 | So let's just work with one of these.
| | 01:07 | In the Surface Editor, it kind of looked
overwhelming at first, but it's really not.
| | 01:10 | Let's start over here.
| | 01:13 | The Edit by > Object or Scene will allow
you to look at editing of your surfaces
| | 01:18 | when you've got a much more complex scene.
| | 01:21 | So for instance, right now we
have this set up to edit by object.
| | 01:24 | If you choose by scene, you will get a
warning that says, "Surfaces with the same
| | 01:28 | name will be edited as a single surface,"
and we will say yes, we want to proceed.
| | 01:32 | And what this will do is show
you every surface in your scene.
| | 01:36 | So how does that compare
to an object-based edit?
| | 01:39 | Well, what that means is if you've got
multiple objects that are the same in your
| | 01:43 | scene and they have the same surface
name but different surface properties,
| | 01:47 | you can kind of get yourself in a
little bit of trouble by naming it Scene, by
| | 01:52 | setting Edit by to Scene,
| | 01:54 | because the same surface
will be edited together.
| | 01:57 | So the way to avoid that is
to name everything accordingly.
| | 02:02 | So if this is the red ball 1, it would
be red ball 2 for another one, for a copy,
| | 02:08 | red ball 3, and so on.
| | 02:10 | So you never want to name something
exactly the same, even if it's in multiple
| | 02:14 | parts in the scene, and then
you will avoid Edit by altogether.
| | 02:18 | If you have got a very large scene with
a ton of surfaces, you can say Filter by,
| | 02:22 | and say let me see surfaces with
textures, or let me see ones with just shaders
| | 02:26 | on, or let me see ones that
just have their own preview.
| | 02:29 | For the most part, you are
not going to use that too often.
| | 02:32 | Also, if there is a pattern, if I have
let's say a ton of geometric shapes likes
| | 02:36 | squares, triangles, and so on, I want to
see the surfaces just with the name 'ball'.
| | 02:42 | That will show me those, and if you notice,
the ground surface is not visible anymore
| | 02:46 | when you have a scene that is
very large and has a lot of surfaces.
| | 02:50 | So over in the top-right, you
can see most of the main controls.
| | 02:53 | This little guy right here will
actually shrink your panel down a little bit if
| | 02:56 | you don't want to see your surface list.
| | 02:58 | You can load and save a surface.
| | 03:01 | You can rename a surface.
| | 03:02 | You can also display any
version of the surface you want.
| | 03:06 | For the most part, we are always going
to keep this on Render Output, and that
| | 03:09 | shows right here in this icon.
| | 03:12 | You can change and look
just at the Color channel only,
| | 03:14 | the Luminosity channel.
| | 03:16 | So if we had Luminosity up,
you would see just that.
| | 03:21 | But for the most part Render Output is
what's going to be your most common.
| | 03:24 | Let's work our way down.
| | 03:25 | This Basic tab is going to give you all
of the main surfacing tools you'll need.
| | 03:30 | The Edit Nodes we are going
to cover in the next video.
| | 03:34 | From there, you've got the color of your surface,
the luminosity, which is like a self-brightness.
| | 03:39 | So if you bring this up, the object
becomes self-bright like a light-bulb.
| | 03:43 | Diffuse tells the surface how
much light to take from the scene.
| | 03:47 | When I bring it down, you could see it
gets much darker. And you are going to
| | 03:50 | vary this Diffuse value based
on the lighting in your scene.
| | 03:53 | If you have got very, very bright lights,
| | 03:55 | well you can tell the
surface, don't accept as much light.
| | 03:58 | Specularity is how shiny it is, and you could
see a little hotspot come up when I increase that.
| | 04:03 | The Glossiness, if it is a low gloss, now it is
going to be more like a plastic ball.
| | 04:10 | If it's a high gloss, it
will be more like glass
| | 04:11 | and you have a very
tight hotspot right there.
| | 04:15 | So high gloss and low gloss.
| | 04:16 | If it has reflections, and we will set
Reflections with another tab in just a
| | 04:21 | moment. Transparency, if you are going
to make transparent objects like glass.
| | 04:26 | And when your Transparency is on the
Refraction Index becomes available.
| | 04:30 | Light refracts or bends as it
goes through transparent surfaces.
| | 04:33 | So when you look at a glass just on
your desk, for instance, or through window,
| | 04:38 | the light, what you see through it,
bends, and looks somewhat distorted.
| | 04:43 | That's what refraction will do.
| | 04:44 | Translucency is different
than Refraction and Transparency.
| | 04:48 | Let's say you have a piece of
paper you hold up to a light.
| | 04:51 | You can see through it.
| | 04:52 | If you put your hand
behind it, you can see a shadow.
| | 04:55 | But if you turn away from the
light, the object looks solid.
| | 04:58 | Well, that's a translucent object.
| | 05:00 | It is different than transparency.
| | 05:01 | Consider a thin piece of paper as translucent
but a thin piece of cellophane as transparent.
| | 05:07 | Bump Maps, if you are going to put them on,
| | 05:09 | normally set to 100% by default, and
you'll do that with the Texture Editor,
| | 05:13 | which is right here. And Smoothing,
which is one of the most important things
| | 05:17 | with a lot of your objects.
| | 05:18 | So I am going to zoom in here just to see this.
| | 05:20 | This pink spotlight right here, I am
just going to click on that, and we are
| | 05:23 | just going to move that out of the
way for the time being so it doesn't
| | 05:25 | interrupt. Smoothing, let's
take the big red ball over here.
| | 05:29 | We will select that surface, and that tells
the Surface Editor that's we are working with.
| | 05:33 | We will click on Smoothing, and you can see
that all of those polygonal facets disappear.
| | 05:38 | This is called a Phong Shader.
| | 05:40 | There is a number of different shading
types in 3D, but this smoothing value
| | 05:44 | uses a Phong shading.
| | 05:45 | I am going to get set this to 0, and if I just
click and drag this up, you'll see the surfaces.
| | 05:52 | See how that changes?
| | 05:54 | So sometimes you don't need it at its
full default 89%; sometimes you only need
| | 05:58 | it at about 20% or 30%.
| | 05:59 | This is very important when it
comes to fonts and things like that.
| | 06:03 | Vertex Normal Maps, this is
something you would set up on your points, or
| | 06:06 | your vertices in Modeler for other
types of image mapping, and this would go
| | 06:10 | along with it if you can exclude it
from the vertex stack. And sometimes your
| | 06:14 | objects are double-sided.
| | 06:15 | If you have a polygon, let's say like a
piece of paper that is very flat and you
| | 06:19 | want to see both sides,
| | 06:20 | you hit Double Sided.
| | 06:22 | Lastly, you can set a nice comment:
| | 06:23 | Red Balls Are Great.
| | 06:25 | And this is really good if you trying
to remember what you set this for, what
| | 06:28 | clients it was, how they
liked, things like that.
| | 06:30 | Just a little note.
| | 06:32 | In the Advanced tab, you can change the
Alpha Channel so that you can key this over.
| | 06:36 | You can drop it over on other image later on,
| | 06:39 | perhaps in Photoshop.
| | 06:40 | Special Buffers are used to record
different settings, which we will set later in
| | 06:45 | the Image Editor, which is
under the Windows dropdown.
| | 06:48 | You can set a Glow property for the surface.
| | 06:51 | You could tell it when it renders to
render just the outlines and choose the
| | 06:54 | size of those outlines.
| | 06:56 | You can set a vertex color map, and this is
again something to set up with the vertices,
| | 07:00 | the point of the model in LightWave Modeler.
| | 07:02 | And then you could do
things like color highlights.
| | 07:05 | Let me show you how that works.
| | 07:06 | If I put Specularity on and put a nice
and high and a little gloss. You can see that
| | 07:10 | that hotspot right there on that red ball,
| | 07:13 | it is white because the light is white.
| | 07:16 | If I go to Advanced and I bring up the
colored highlights, it colors the highlight the
| | 07:22 | color of the surface.
| | 07:24 | So certain properties, like a plastic ball for
instance, wouldn't often have a big white hotspot;
| | 07:29 | it might have more of a colored hotspot,
| | 07:31 | a bowling ball for instance.
| | 07:32 | Certain things like that
would have colored hotspots.
| | 07:35 | You can have a colored filter you put on.
| | 07:37 | Additive Transparency is going
to be used for, honestly, planets.
| | 07:41 | There is not a whole lot more that you
are going to use that for. And what that
| | 07:44 | will do is allow you to diffuse
sharpness, and you will get this nice, very sharp
| | 07:50 | falloff and that's really
designed for planets, these two settings.
| | 07:53 | And then you have a Bump Dropoff so
that your bump maps can fallback a little.
| | 07:57 | And your Compatibility, if you are
working with older LightWave programs such as
| | 08:01 | 8.5 or 9.3.1, certain surfaces won't
have some of these properties so you can
| | 08:05 | set a compatibility.
| | 08:06 | Back in the Basic tab, when you set
Reflections, you have to reflect something,
| | 08:11 | and a reflection is based on the environment.
| | 08:13 | So if you go to the Environment tab,
this is the area where you can set
| | 08:16 | reflection options, such as reflect
the Spherical Map, meaning that anything
| | 08:21 | I reflect is mapped spherically in this
LightWave 3D world, in this little virtual TV studio.
| | 08:27 | So that object would
reflect everything around it.
| | 08:30 | But if I put Ray Tracing, it is going
to reflect what's next to it: other geometry.
| | 08:34 | So we will do that in a minute.
| | 08:36 | Then you can choose what the Reflection Map is.
| | 08:38 | It is great for putting metals on.
| | 08:40 | You could put fractal noise images in
there and reflect, have some shine to it.
| | 08:45 | Then you could change the
angle of that image map.
| | 08:48 | You also have Refraction options that
work very similarly to the Reflection options.
| | 08:52 | Under Shaders these are additional
properties that you can put on that
| | 08:56 | are computer generated.
| | 08:57 | So very easily you can put on a snow
shader, or you can put on a water shader,
| | 09:03 | and these will show up as you render.
| | 09:05 | Lastly, is your options up here, your
preview options, and that just changes
| | 09:10 | your icon up here, whether you want to
look at it as a cube, background black
| | 09:13 | or checkered, or to see what is in Layout,
and we need something else in there to do it.
| | 09:19 | Antialiasing to clean up those edges,
so it is a little bit cleaner, and then a
| | 09:23 | Refresh Rate could be Automatic or Realtime.
| | 09:25 | I generally like to leave it at
Automatic because what it will do is allow me to
| | 09:29 | make a change and then it ill update.
| | 09:32 | If you have it set to Realtime, as I
make changes you will see that change, and
| | 09:38 | that could be little more taxing on your system,
| | 09:39 | so I kind of like to leave it at Automatic.
| | 09:42 | The last thing you are going to see here
are these E buttons and these T buttons.
| | 09:46 | The E button means envelope.
| | 09:49 | So if you are thinking about animating,
think of the word E. I know it doesn't
| | 09:53 | make sense, but in olden times,
E would go to an envelope.
| | 09:58 | You are technically enveloping a value.
| | 10:00 | Okay, but E opens the Graph
Editor so that you can animate.
| | 10:04 | That makes sense, doesn't it?
| | 10:05 | So we are going to close this Graph Editor.
| | 10:07 | We are going to talk about
that in a whole other video.
| | 10:09 | If you accidentally turn on one of these,
hold the Shift key and click on it to get it off.
| | 10:14 | But the E buttons will allow you
change that value over time, and I'll show
| | 10:18 | you how to do that. The T button is the Texture
Editor and there is a whole another panel you have
| | 10:24 | to learn, but it will make a lot of
sense when we work our way through it.
| | 10:27 | This allows you to put
textures on objects. And that's it.
| | 10:31 | That is the Surface Editor.
| | 10:33 | So it's not as bad if you think.
| | 10:34 | I just want you to remember to
work your way down one step at a time.
| | 10:38 | Don't just get in there and start
clicking buttons and hoping for a change.
| | 10:41 | Just do one element at a
time, and you'll be fine.
| | 10:43 | So the Surface Editor allows
you to create all the surfaces
| | 10:46 | you need for all of your polygons in your scene.
| | 10:48 | It works very well with the Node
Editor as well as the Image Map Editor and
| | 10:54 | the Texture Editor.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Comparing the Surface Editor and the Node Editor| 00:01 | When we talk about the Surface Editor
in LightWave, there's another portion to
| | 00:05 | the Surface Editor that
you might be interested in.
| | 00:06 | It's called the Node Editor.
| | 00:08 | So what I'm going to do in the Surface
Editor is click on the Nodes, but I can't
| | 00:11 | do that until I actually have
some geometry with the surface on it.
| | 00:14 | So from the File dropdown, we're
going to load an object and we're going to
| | 00:18 | load the 05_02_Balls and just four
colored balls on a flat ground. And let's
| | 00:25 | just work with the Red_Ball. We'll select that.
But let's click the Edit Nodes button
| | 00:30 | at the top of the Basic tab in the
Surface Editor, and what you're going to see
| | 00:33 | is this very nice panel--
| | 00:34 | I will close the Surface Editor in the
background--that resembles a nice working
| | 00:41 | environment for a Surface Editor,
but it's different than your basic Surface
| | 00:46 | Editor. And you're not going to use
this new Node Editor all the time.
| | 00:50 | Some people very much like it and use
it only as their surfacing; others like
| | 00:54 | the basic Surface Editor.
| | 00:55 | I use a combination of both,
but why would you use this Node Editor.
| | 00:58 | Well the Node Editor is a network, and it
allows you to derive different portions
| | 01:04 | of your surface through other properties.
| | 01:06 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 01:08 | Right now, we have a default surface.
This is what feeds the render engine.
| | 01:12 | Okay, so this is always in here this,
basic surface, and this is driven from the
| | 01:16 | surface I created for my materials in
LightWave Modeler. And I'll show you how
| | 01:21 | to do that coming up.
| | 01:22 | But what I want to is add a node, and
we will does take a 2D texture, perhaps
| | 01:27 | bricks, and what this does, it adds another
node. So, what I can do with this brick
| | 01:32 | surface--and this is a computer-
generated surface just one that's built in
| | 01:35 | LightWave--I can take any portion of
this, the Color, the Alpha, or the Bump and
| | 01:40 | drive it to the red ball surface.
| | 01:43 | So perhaps I take the bump and I click
and drag and hold and put that on the
| | 01:47 | bump, and what happens is that my
surface now has a bump map. Pretty easy, but
| | 01:52 | then I can do more to it. I can take
the color of this, and I probably wouldn't
| | 01:56 | do much luminosity.
| | 01:58 | But you can see that the black-and-
white, computer-generated brick map here now
| | 02:03 | pushes the luminosity up.
| | 02:05 | Let's add another one.
| | 02:06 | You can see there's all kinds of them
down here: one for hair, one for different
| | 02:10 | materials, different types of shaders
for reflections, different diffuse values--
| | 02:17 | diffuse being how much light
your surface takes from the scenes.
| | 02:19 | So this can get very, very deep, but a
lot of times you want something simple
| | 02:22 | just like fractal noise.
| | 02:26 | This is great for landscapes.
| | 02:28 | So what can I do with this
| | 02:29 | now that I have this brick surface in
here? Well, if I click this little arrow, I
| | 02:33 | can collapse that bricks, so I can
pull that down out of the way. I can take
| | 02:37 | this fractal noise and I take the color
and drop that to the color, but it sort
| | 02:43 | of overrides everything. What if I
took that color then and put it to the
| | 02:47 | diffuse? What would happen?
| | 02:49 | What happens is remember diffuse
value tells the surface how much light to
| | 02:53 | take from the scene.
| | 02:55 | This black-and-white principle in
LightWave--the white affecting more, the black
| | 02:58 | affecting less--you can
see it here with the bricks.
| | 03:01 | This principle is used throughout all
the surfacing, so what's happening here
| | 03:06 | is that the white of this computer-
generated fractal noise is allowing more
| | 03:11 | light to be hit on the surface.
The Black is allowing less to hit the surface.
| | 03:16 | Pretty simple, but you're not taking each one
of these nodes and dropping them to the surface.
| | 03:21 | You can actually use one of
these nodes to derive another node.
| | 03:25 | So for instance, to remove this, just
click and pull that off and let go the mouse.
| | 03:29 | I can take the Alpha channel of the
multi-fractal, the transparency map of it,
| | 03:35 | and I can drop that into
the Opacity of the bricks.
| | 03:39 | So now my bricks have a whole
different appearance on my surface.
| | 03:43 | Let me just add one more. Come to
Add Node, and then we can come down to
| | 03:47 | Displacement if we wanted, different
math functions. We can come down to shaders.
| | 03:53 | Let's take Diffuse, and let's
choose do an occlusion shader.
| | 03:56 | Some of these are relatively simple,
but they have a strong math function.
| | 04:01 | I could take the output of this into
the increment of the multifractal, and
| | 04:06 | suddenly that changes how that appears,
which then feeds the bricks, and now you
| | 04:11 | can see just a very slight
variation of the diffuse values.
| | 04:15 | One more thing to know about these:
| | 04:17 | to get rid of them if you select just
any node, press Delete on your keyboard.
| | 04:21 | That will get rid of it.
| | 04:22 | You can also double-click any of
these and get a full-surface properties.
| | 04:26 | Now each one of these would vary
depending on what node you are using, but I can
| | 04:29 | change then the color of this fractal,
which just gives me whole another range of
| | 04:34 | possibilities. And this is terrific for
planets and landscapes, things like that.
| | 04:39 | There is not necessarily any kind of
function to follow. A lot of these are
| | 04:44 | simply just kind of work with it and see
what works best for you for the type of
| | 04:48 | scene you're creating.
| | 04:51 | So, different values of noise, and again,
just all math functions. It's all built
| | 04:54 | into LightWave, and then you can
multiply these by adding them up and
| | 04:59 | blending them all together.
| | 05:01 | So this network of the Node Editor
works quite well for any kind of surface.
| | 05:06 | You don't need to use it.
| | 05:07 | It just there if you want to create
more organic, more advanced surfaces.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating surfaces for polygons| 00:01 | You've seen how the Surface Editor can
work help you create some really amazing-
| | 00:04 | looking surfaces and lots of
colors, specularity, reflections.
| | 00:08 | But if you look at the Surface Name
list, how do you get these in here?
| | 00:12 | Well, that all starts in LightWave Modeler.
| | 00:14 | So let's hit the Modeler button in the top-
right corner, jump into LightWave Modeler.
| | 00:17 | What's going to happen here is that
because this object was loaded in LightWave
| | 00:22 | Layout, it automatically brought it over.
| | 00:24 | That's what the LightWave Hub does.
| | 00:26 | Let's go ahead and say File > Close All Objects.
| | 00:28 | We don't need to save those. And then
from the exercise files, we're going to
| | 00:32 | load the 05_03 BallsBegin, and that is a
similar scene without any surfaces at all.
| | 00:38 | It just has your one default surface on there.
| | 00:41 | So how does surfacing work?
| | 00:43 | Well, what you're going to do
is identify a set of polygons.
| | 00:47 | The system is going to remember.
| | 00:48 | You're going to tell it this
set of polygons is this color.
| | 00:52 | This set of polygons is this color.
| | 00:54 | The way you do that goes back to kind of
what we talked about in the very beginning.
| | 00:57 | If you select nothing,
whatever you do applies to everything.
| | 01:00 | So if I just pressed Surface down here
at the very bottom of the screen, the
| | 01:04 | Change Surface requester comes up.
| | 01:07 | I could say Nothing.
| | 01:08 | When I do that, when I type in this
surface--and we don't want it to be default,
| | 01:12 | so uncheck that--and we set an initial color--
| | 01:16 | let's just say a big pink color--
| | 01:18 | we can say OK, and what happens?
| | 01:20 | That's going to apply to
everything because nothing was selected.
| | 01:24 | The same principle that works
with all kinds of things.
| | 01:27 | Well instead, we want to select just
particular items and give those unique surfaces.
| | 01:31 | Let's go to layer1. We'll jump to Polygon mode.
| | 01:34 | I'll hit the Spacebar.
| | 01:35 | That allows me to click right on
this ball right here, and then I'll hit
| | 01:38 | my Right Bracket key to select everything
connected to that. It selects the whole thing.
| | 01:42 | But because this is on its own
layer, I really don't need to do that.
| | 01:47 | So it's just something to keep in mind.
| | 01:48 | If you've got one large object that has
multiple parts, you need to select that
| | 01:54 | individual item to put surfaces on there.
Then you need to select this one, put
| | 01:59 | surfaces there, and so on.
| | 02:01 | But because these are already separated
into layers, that principle can work for
| | 02:04 | us that if nothing is
selected, it applies to everything.
| | 02:08 | Everything in here is just one ball.
| | 02:09 | So we'll press the Q key, which is also
just a shortcut for the Surface button
| | 02:14 | at the bottom of the screen, and we'll say red
ball, give it an initial color, and we can say OK.
| | 02:23 | But before I do this, I want
to talk about this panel here.
| | 02:25 | This is very confusing for a lot of
people because here's what's going to happen.
| | 02:29 | You're going to see the
Surface Editor in the very top-left.
| | 02:32 | You're going to confuse that with
the Surface button at the bottom.
| | 02:35 | Think of this as while it says Change
Surface, it's really Identify Surface,
| | 02:39 | and I've talked about this in other
forums, and it's really important to
| | 02:42 | understand that you're
changing or identifying a surface.
| | 02:45 | You're not necessarily modifying it here.
| | 02:48 | You're creating a surface.
| | 02:49 | We're going to say Red Ball. Click OK.
| | 02:52 | Now, you don't have to color it.
| | 02:54 | What happens is people do that and say, "Oh!
| | 02:55 | I didn't want it red."
| | 02:57 | They hit the Surface button and they
click this, and they say, "Control is
| | 03:00 | disabled," and then they
email me, and say, "What's wrong?"
| | 03:03 | Well, again, you are
creating a surface in this panel.
| | 03:06 | Well, the surface called Red Ball is
already created, which means I can't adjust it.
| | 03:12 | That's okay. All you're doing is identifying
a surface. To adjust the color,
| | 03:16 | that's where the Surface Editor comes in.
| | 03:18 | I'll select Red Ball, and then I
can change it to any color I want.
| | 03:23 | If I felt like renaming, I can, like that.
| | 03:28 | So I just want to make that clear.
| | 03:29 | You're just telling these polygons
what surface name to identify them.
| | 03:34 | So we'll go to layer2, we'll press the Q key,
and we'll call this Green Ball. And because
| | 03:40 | this is a surface that hasn't been
created yet, my color is available.
| | 03:44 | I don't need to set the color, but I
like to, because that helps me identify that
| | 03:48 | I've created a surface for this set of polygons.
| | 03:52 | Lastly, if you wanted to create
multiple surfaces, you can do this.
| | 03:56 | We'll select a couple of polygons like
this, go to Select, and say Select Loop,
| | 04:02 | press the Q key, and we'll say Stripe.
| | 04:06 | Then you can create a different set of
polygons right on the object like that.
| | 04:10 | Press the Question Mark/Slash key to deselect.
| | 04:13 | That's all you need to do to create
surfaces, but they have to be done
| | 04:17 | in LightWave Modeler.
| | 04:18 | When you save this, that's what will
be brought into LightWave Layout to
| | 04:23 | apply your surfaces.
| | 04:25 | Lastly, I should mention that the
Surface Editor here in LightWave Modeler does
| | 04:30 | work the same as it does in LightWave Layout.
| | 04:32 | But there are some advantages, some
big advantages of using Surface Editor in
| | 04:36 | LightWave Layout--mostly in terms of previewing.
| | 04:39 | So while I can do things in here, such
as Diffuse, Luminosity, Specularity,
| | 04:44 | Smoothing, and so on, the problem with that
is that I don't get to see all of my lighting.
| | 04:50 | Lighting is a very key component
of working with surfaces in 3D.
| | 04:54 | So for the most part, I don't use the
Surface Editor in LightWave Modeler.
| | 04:57 | I like to do it in Layout because it
takes into account my reflections, my
| | 05:00 | surfacing, my lighting, and the
entire environment that I'm working in.
| | 05:04 | But the surfaces need to be created in
LightWave Modeler, and once you do that,
| | 05:08 | you can do all the fun
stuff in LightWave Layout.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing surfaces| 00:01 | Once a surface has been created in
LightWave Modeler, it's often good to go into
| | 00:04 | LightWave Layout to
actually apply those surfaces.
| | 00:07 | So I've prepared a scene that you can work with.
| | 00:09 | Go to the File dropdown and instead of
loading an object, this time load a scene,
| | 00:14 | and from the Chapter 5 Exercise
Folder, load the 05_04_BallsBegin scene.
| | 00:19 | .lws is a LightWave scene.
| | 00:21 | The difference between a scene and an object:
| | 00:24 | the objects live within a scene,
but the scene holds the camera position,
| | 00:28 | lighting position; the
objects hold the surfaces.
| | 00:31 | So what I want to do now is
put some surfaces on here.
| | 00:34 | So let's hit the Surface Editor.
| | 00:37 | I am going to move it over just a little
bit, and let's start putting some surfaces on.
| | 00:39 | Let's first take the ground surface.
| | 00:41 | So we'll select that.
| | 00:42 | That's what we want to work with.
| | 00:43 | I want the ground to be a
little more robust than this.
| | 00:46 | So I am going to put a little Specularity on,
about 30%, and Glossiness, about 40% is fine.
| | 00:53 | But what's really going to help
this is give it some reflection.
| | 00:56 | So we will make the Reflection about 20%.
| | 00:58 | But notice I don't see it
here, nor do I see it in my view.
| | 01:01 | Well, there are a couple of reasons for that.
| | 01:03 | Number one, the normal OpenGL
view, you're not going to see this.
| | 01:07 | You will see it, however, if you go to--
I am going to slide this out of the way
| | 01:11 | for a moment--up here at the top of
your viewport if you click dropdown, change
| | 01:17 | the VPR mode, and what VPR
mode is is a Virtual Preview Render.
| | 01:22 | This is a wonderful new thing in LightWave 10.
| | 01:25 | Well, right now it doesn't look like much,
but you will see in a minute that you
| | 01:28 | are actually seeing a real-time
render directly in your LightWave Layout.
| | 01:32 | Well, the reflection is still
not working. Well, why is that?
| | 01:35 | You need to tell LightWave's
render engine to calculate the rays.
| | 01:38 | Well, what are rays?
| | 01:39 | Rays are bounced rays of light.
| | 01:42 | So for reflection it has to
actually calculate that ray of light being
| | 01:46 | bounced to show up.
| | 01:47 | So from the Render tab, click Render
Globals under Options, and then there is
| | 01:52 | another Render tab within there and
you can say Raytrace Shadows, meaning
| | 01:57 | calculate shadows,
and suddenly you see them come on.
| | 02:00 | There is also Raytrace Reflection.
| | 02:02 | When you click that, you can see those come on.
| | 02:04 | So let's close that.
| | 02:05 | So now when we make our surface changes
we will be able to really get a feel for
| | 02:08 | what they are looking like.
| | 02:09 | So our ground is looking okay.
| | 02:11 | Later on we are going to come back and
we're going to add a little bit more to this.
| | 02:14 | Let's go to the red ball
since we can see that right away.
| | 02:17 | The first thing I want to do is hit the
Smoothing button. It changes all those polygon facets.
| | 02:23 | Red is fine.
| | 02:24 | We don't want it luminous, but we
might want it to be reflective as well.
| | 02:28 | So let's pull this back down about 80%.
And you are thinking well, why would you
| | 02:31 | bring the Diffuse Value down?
| | 02:33 | Why would you not want it to
have more light in the scene?
| | 02:35 | The reason is I am going to add some
reflection and what happens too often than
| | 02:41 | not, people put reflections on, which is
going to add to your surface brightness.
| | 02:46 | And if you have 100% diffuse, if your
surface is taking all the light from the
| | 02:51 | scene, well then you have reflections
at it, it's going to be overly bright.
| | 02:55 | So you typically want to balance
diffusion and reflection to equal about 100%.
| | 03:00 | It's not a steadfast rule, but kind
of a good starting point for you.
| | 03:05 | We'll put a little Specularity on,
about 24%, 25%, and we will make it a little
| | 03:09 | bit higher gloss, about 60%.
| | 03:10 | Now you can see it's
reflecting the green ball next to it.
| | 03:14 | Well what if you like this and you want to
keep all those properties for the other ones?
| | 03:19 | Well, there is an easy way to do that.
| | 03:21 | If you right-click on the
surface name, you can select a copy.
| | 03:25 | Then I am going to go to the green ball,
right-click and paste, and all of those
| | 03:30 | properties are copied.
| | 03:32 | But you're thinking, well,
wait a minute. I don't want red.
| | 03:34 | I want it green. That's fine!
| | 03:36 | My thought process in this is that
it's a lot easier to copy all the specific
| | 03:40 | properties and make one simple
change back to green than it is to add
| | 03:45 | everything right in.
| | 03:46 | Now then I could do the same for the blue ball.
| | 03:50 | Right-click, paste my settings,
and change the color to blue, and that's how
| | 03:55 | simple it is to create
surfaces in LightWave Layout.
| | 03:58 | Let me do the yellow ball, right-
click and paste, and change this to yellow.
| | 04:05 | Make sure you just click right into your
Layout to activate. Make sure that updates.
| | 04:12 | So let me close this panel out.
| | 04:14 | So you can see that with little
effort, you can put reflections, shading,
| | 04:19 | shadows, and this is all with one default light.
| | 04:23 | Very simply you can create a nice smooth
surface all with the LightWave Surface Editor.
| | 04:27 | Surfaces are created in LightWave Modeler.
| | 04:30 | In LightWave Layout you can apply all
the color, texture, specularity, and
| | 04:33 | glossiness that you need--
| | 04:35 | a great way to start
creating terrific looking surfaces.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the Texture Editor| 00:01 | Adding surfaces to objects with the
Surface Editor is pretty straightforward.
| | 00:05 | It allows you to create basic
surfaces like you're seeing here with the
| | 00:07 | Viewport Preview Render.
| | 00:09 | But what if you wanted to add
a little more interest to this?
| | 00:12 | Well, you could use the Texture Editor.
| | 00:15 | Let's open up the Surface Editor, and we're going
to start with our red ball. We'll select that.
| | 00:20 | You might have noticed these little T
buttons next to all of these surface
| | 00:24 | properties, and you're also going to
notice these T buttons throughout LightWave
| | 00:28 | when it comes to things like
displacement maps for the object. Rendering.
| | 00:33 | There's all kinds of places you can put this.
| | 00:36 | So it's really important
to learn the Texture Editor.
| | 00:39 | So let's select the Color texture.
| | 00:41 | So I am just going to click the T
button next to Color, and this opens up
| | 00:44 | the Texture Editor.
| | 00:45 | I'll close out our Surface Editor, keep it
clean, and I am going to move my view over.
| | 00:50 | Now the way I am going to move my view
is because I'm looking through my camera,
| | 00:54 | I need to actually move my camera over.
| | 00:56 | So I'll select Camera at the bottom of
the screen and then press my T key for
| | 00:59 | move, and then I can just click
and drag to move my camera shot over.
| | 01:03 | That way, you can see everything.
| | 01:05 | Back in the Texture Editor,
let's work our way down.
| | 01:08 | A lot of people kind of just click all over.
| | 01:10 | I've seen it happen quite a few times.
| | 01:12 | What you really want to consider is that this
is applying a texture to the color of the ball.
| | 01:18 | Now, where you click this texture is
what really makes a difference, and I'll go
| | 01:22 | back to that in just a minute.
| | 01:23 | The Texture Editor has layers, so you can
layer up as many different textures as you want.
| | 01:28 | What is a texture?
| | 01:29 | A texture can be an image map.
| | 01:31 | It can be a procedural or a gradient.
| | 01:32 | Well, gradient will be like a transition,
a procedural is a computer-generated,
| | 01:37 | and an image map of course,
| | 01:38 | well, that's an image.
And that could be a photograph.
| | 01:42 | It could be a reflection.
| | 01:44 | It could be a piece of wood.
| | 01:45 | It could be a scan from something you
went to the lumberyard and took a picture of.
| | 01:50 | You can layer those up just by simply saying Add
layer, and choose which type of layer you want.
| | 01:55 | You can copy a layer,
paste a layer, or remove one.
| | 01:58 | Pretty straightforward.
| | 02:00 | Let's go ahead and put a
procedural on top of our red surface.
| | 02:03 | If I placed an image map on there,
that would overwrite our red surface.
| | 02:07 | We just want to add to it.
| | 02:08 | So we're going to choose the
procedural, and you could see right away in
| | 02:12 | the Viewport Preview Render that it
automatically is updated for us, which is terrific.
| | 02:16 | But this default Turbulence, it's just
a noise, just a fractal noise pattern.
| | 02:21 | I can click and color this to
anything I want and add to that.
| | 02:25 | I can play with the scale and the
size of it just to create all kinds of
| | 02:30 | interesting shapes. But this
procedural type has quite a few different things,
| | 02:34 | and one I like a lot is Crumple.
| | 02:36 | Let's say I had played with these values here.
| | 02:39 | I am going to click Automatic Sizing.
| | 02:41 | Automatic Sizing resets and
looks at the geometry for me.
| | 02:44 | Here, we can see I've got nice even values
here, but I want to see it a little bit more.
| | 02:48 | So I am going to select in the X. I am
going to press 2 on my keyboard, hit the
| | 02:53 | Tab key, press 2, hit the Tab key, and press 2.
| | 02:55 | That way, I've evenly sized that all down.
| | 02:58 | I could see it a little bit better.
| | 03:00 | So the Texture Editor allows you to put
Procedural Textures, Image Maps, as well
| | 03:04 | as many other things, like a gradient.
| | 03:07 | A gradient will allow you to change
values over the course of your object.
| | 03:12 | So this little bar right here is called a key.
| | 03:15 | I can click to add a new key, and with
that selected, I can change the color value.
| | 03:21 | I'll make it orange.
| | 03:23 | But notice it doesn't really change much.
| | 03:25 | That has to do because of the way this
key is right here in the Input parameter.
| | 03:31 | So the Input parameter is
based on the previous layer.
| | 03:34 | We don't have any other layers.
| | 03:36 | We can add one if we want,
or we could change to Slope.
| | 03:40 | What slope does, it actually
looks at the curvature of the object.
| | 03:43 | So now you can see the representation of
this orange key fading to the white key
| | 03:49 | right there on our ball. Pretty simple!
| | 03:52 | I can select this key and take the
Alpha to 0, and what happens is I see the red
| | 03:57 | color from the base surface beneath.
| | 04:00 | So the gradient comes from a solid
color and fades to transparency, allowing
| | 04:04 | the surface underneath.
| | 04:05 | So you can see how this can get quite
complex if you start layering these up.
| | 04:09 | I am going to change this back to a
procedural texture, and then I am going to
| | 04:14 | copy this, Copy > Selected Layers,
and then I'll say Use Texture.
| | 04:17 | Then I am going to open my Surface
Editor, select the red ball, and you can see
| | 04:22 | that the texture is on. It's clicked.
| | 04:24 | I am going to go down to
Bump map and click the T button.
| | 04:29 | Look at this panel.
| | 04:30 | It's exactly the same. A few minor
differences, a few variances, but it's
| | 04:35 | exactly the same as the color texture.
| | 04:38 | But what can you do in here?
| | 04:39 | Well, the fact that this Texture
Editor is set for Bump, it has a whole
| | 04:43 | different effect. And I am going to
paste down, say Add to layers or Replace
| | 04:48 | Selected Layers and look what happens.
| | 04:51 | That same procedural texture is pasted
down, but because the texture is set as a
| | 04:55 | bump we now actually have a nice bumpy surface.
| | 04:59 | So, it works pretty well.
| | 05:00 | With the Viewport Preview Render, we
can actually see what's happening there.
| | 05:04 | You can bring the Texture value down to
say 20% and have less bump, or you can
| | 05:10 | bring it up to 200% and have a lot
more bump. And that's set to Turbulence.
| | 05:16 | These are the same size and
parameters that we'd set in our color.
| | 05:19 | I'll bring this back down
to default of about 80%.
| | 05:22 | I could do one more thing.
| | 05:24 | I can copy this selected layer, the Turbulence.
Then I can go to Specularity and add a texture.
| | 05:31 | Again, the same Texture panel comes up.
| | 05:34 | So where you apply your
texture makes all the difference.
| | 05:36 | Once you learn this panel,
you can apply it anywhere.
| | 05:39 | So we'll paste this down
and replace selected layers.
| | 05:42 | What I've done now is I've told the
system to only place the specularity where
| | 05:47 | these white parts are.
| | 05:49 | And by the same token I should mention
that you can click and drag around this
| | 05:52 | little preview just to see
how the full texture looks.
| | 05:55 | This is just a computer-generated texture.
| | 05:57 | I'll click Use Texture, and so now
what's happening is that the specular
| | 06:01 | values, the shiny values, are only being
applied where the surface has a white appearance.
| | 06:07 | Where it's dark, we are
not getting any specularity.
| | 06:09 | What that's going to do is really help your
realism for any kind of surface you create.
| | 06:14 | So the Texture Editor is great way to
add image maps, procedural textures, and
| | 06:19 | fine details to a basic surface.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Looking at image map textures| 00:01 | A very important part of texturing
has to do with applying image maps.
| | 00:05 | You've seen how we can apply basic
surface, how we can put a procedural texture
| | 00:09 | on an object, but what about putting
an image map on? What would you use that
| | 00:13 | for, and how is it done?
| | 00:14 | I've loaded up the 05_06_imagemapBegin file.
| | 00:19 | I am going to select the green ball surface.
| | 00:21 | I am going to click the Texture button
for Color and the Texture Editor comes up.
| | 00:26 | When we had used Procedural Texture
before to create a procedural texture on an
| | 00:30 | object like we did with the red, in this
case, I want to use image map, and what
| | 00:34 | that allows me to do is
place an image on the surface.
| | 00:38 | So here the Projection is set to Planar.
| | 00:39 | I am going to just change that to
Spherical because my object is a sphere. Easy
| | 00:43 | enough, but what image?
| | 00:45 | Well, if you hit Load image, click
and drop that down, say Load image,
| | 00:48 | in the Chapter 5 folder,
there is bricks and clouds.
| | 00:53 | I am going to select the bricks, and you'll
see that that actually gets applied there.
| | 00:57 | But I need to do something.
| | 00:59 | I have to tell it what axis.
| | 01:01 | So in this case, I am going to use the Y axis.
| | 01:03 | The reason is I want it
to wrap around the object.
| | 01:05 | So the Y is up and down.
| | 01:07 | So it's kind of like
wrapping it around the pole.
| | 01:09 | I click Automatic Sizing, and then you
can see how that perfectly wraps on there.
| | 01:14 | Pixel Blending allows that image to not get
pixelated if I zoom in really close to it.
| | 01:18 | This is a pretty high res image, so I
don't have to worry about it too much.
| | 01:22 | And that way I'll keep the
Mipmap quality set to High.
| | 01:26 | The Texture Axis if we place on the X,
it will wrap around the X axis, which is
| | 01:31 | left and right, and the Z of course it will
wrap around the Z, which is forward and back.
| | 01:35 | But I like it on the Y.
| | 01:37 | We don't have a Reference, but we can
place something there like a null object
| | 01:41 | so that we have access to it
later on when we are in Layout.
| | 01:44 | A null object is just a
reference point that we can add.
| | 01:47 | Automatic Sizing fixed it quite well, so we
don't really need to change any of the size.
| | 01:51 | You can play with the position
if you wanted, move it up or down.
| | 01:55 | You can work on the rotation a little
bit if you wanted to angle at it slightly
| | 01:58 | and you can make it
falloff so it just fades away.
| | 02:02 | It only gets applied to a portion.
| | 02:04 | So for instance, if I did a 50% fade here,
you will see that the bricks now fade
| | 02:10 | from that center line,
| | 02:11 | that Y axis that it's wrapped around, fades to
the green surface beneath it. It's pretty neat.
| | 02:18 | What it can also do with this is say
copy the selected layer just like it did
| | 02:21 | with the procedural.
| | 02:22 | I'll say Use Texture to keep that one.
| | 02:25 | I can go down to Bump map, hit Texture,
same panel appears, but it's a bump
| | 02:29 | instead of the color texture,
and paste the bump map down.
| | 02:34 | What I end up with is a bumpy brick surface.
| | 02:37 | I get a little bit more texture in
there rather than just a flat image.
| | 02:42 | When you place this, you can change
the Width Wrap Amount, how many times it
| | 02:45 | wraps around, so I could say wrap it
around three times for both the width and
| | 02:48 | the height. And then I could take the
Texture Amplitude, which is how much bump,
| | 02:53 | and you could see as I increase that it gets
even a little bit deeper as far as the grooves.
| | 02:59 | I can bring this back down to one, keep
it little more simple, and then I can
| | 03:03 | copy this layer, Use Texture, go to my
Specularity, and paste it down as well.
| | 03:09 | So we are taking that same texture we
applied one time and we'll click Use Texture,
| | 03:14 | and we've applied it now in three places.
| | 03:16 | So we've set the image map once,
and determined all the sizes with an automatic
| | 03:20 | size, and then we placed it on the
bump and the Specularity as well.
| | 03:24 | So image mapping can be very powerful.
| | 03:26 | Let me do one more quick thing.
| | 03:28 | We'll go to the Yellow_Ball and
for Reflection, we have set to 20%.
| | 03:33 | Well, it's reflecting what's around it.
| | 03:34 | You can see the ground.
| | 03:35 | You can see a little bit of
the green ball right there.
| | 03:37 | I'm going to go to Environment, and notice that
we had it set to Ray Tracing and Backdrop.
| | 03:41 | Well the backdrop is black.
| | 03:43 | You can see it reflected there.
| | 03:44 | The ray tracing is picking up the floor.
| | 03:46 | Let's change that option to
Ray Tracing and Spherical map.
| | 03:50 | The spherical map we'll
use could be something else.
| | 03:53 | We'll say Load image and from that
Chapter 5 folder, we'll load the clouds.
| | 03:57 | Now what happens is this yellow ball is
reflecting clouds in the environment as
| | 04:02 | well as what's around it.
| | 04:04 | So, quite an easy way to put some nice
reflections in, and you could think of the
| | 04:08 | possibilities of putting in metal and
bricks and rocks and clouds and even
| | 04:13 | faces, even pictures of rooms can be
reflected all in your surfaces, very simply
| | 04:17 | by putting a reflection map in.
| | 04:19 | So image mapping is great for bricks,
textures, any kind of picture you want on
| | 04:23 | a surface, a label on a bottle,
or a reflection map in a surface.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using procedural texture options| 00:00 | Sometimes when you've placed an image
map on a surface it looks great and you
| | 00:04 | can take that same image map and
make it a bump map, such as a brick wall.
| | 00:08 | But sometimes you want to go little
bit further with it, and that's where a
| | 00:10 | procedural texture comes in.
| | 00:12 | So I've briefly touched on that, but I
want to show you a little bit more, and I
| | 00:16 | want to compare the traditional
Surface Editor, which is right here in the top-
| | 00:19 | left of Layout, with the Node Editor.
| | 00:21 | So we're going to do a little project
that shows setting up the same kind of
| | 00:24 | surface in both and the variations.
| | 00:27 | So from the File dropdown, go to Load,
and we are going to load an object, and the
| | 00:31 | 05_07_BrickWallBegin object is really
nothing more than a flat polygon, just
| | 00:36 | with a surface named BrickWall.
| | 00:38 | So if you don't have the exercise files, you
can simply make a flat polygon and bring it over.
| | 00:44 | From there, I want to
actually place an image on there.
| | 00:47 | So for the texture, for Color, we'll
hit the T button, and we want the layer
| | 00:52 | Type to be an Image Map.
| | 00:54 | We want it blend normally.
| | 00:55 | The other blend modes are Additive,
Subtractive, very much like Photoshop.
| | 00:59 | So you can blend those different modes.
And the way the blending is going to work
| | 01:03 | is based on what other layers you have
in or what color you have on the surface.
| | 01:08 | But for right now we want it just Normal.
| | 01:10 | The Projection is set to
Planar, meaning it's flat.
| | 01:13 | The Image, we'll hit Load Image, and I
want bricks, and this is from the Chapter 5
| | 01:19 | exercise files. And by default you could see
that it comes on very tiled. It's very tiny.
| | 01:25 | Now, this is a good thing for some
textures that you want to just repeat, but
| | 01:29 | this brick image wasn't designed to
repeat, and what you can see is that it just,
| | 01:34 | well, has a nice pattern to it that
normally we wouldn't see on a brick wall.
| | 01:38 | If however you are doing something
like tiles or little plaques that could
| | 01:41 | repeat, that works really well.
| | 01:43 | So the Width Tile and Height Tile you
can set to not repeat by choosing Reset,
| | 01:49 | and you will see that it's
just mapped on the center there.
| | 01:52 | But because we're flat on the Z
axis, we can just hit Automatic Sizing.
| | 01:57 | I know it's the Z axis because if you
look down towards the back of the Layout
| | 02:02 | you can see Z right there.
| | 02:03 | I'll click Automatic Sizing and it
scales to fit, so that's pretty easy.
| | 02:09 | Well that's all we are going to do
with the image map, but we will copy it.
| | 02:12 | Selected Layer, hit Use Texture.
| | 02:15 | For Bump map, we'll hit Texture and we
will select Replace Selected layers--
| | 02:21 | although Selected Layer is none,
so we are just going to override it.
| | 02:23 | And that way we get a little bit
of a bump map on there as well.
| | 02:26 | It helps getting a little more depth.
| | 02:29 | But I want to just add a little dirt to it.
| | 02:32 | So back in the texture for
color we can add another layer.
| | 02:36 | So at the very top-left we'll say Add
layer and choose Procedural, and that puts
| | 02:42 | a Procedural turbulence layer above the bricks.
| | 02:45 | Okay, and if you look here in
Layout, not much is happening and that's
| | 02:50 | okay, because I can come over here
under the dropdown, I can choose Viewport
| | 02:57 | Preview Render, the VPR, and what you'll
see is now that procedural texture is
| | 03:03 | what was the bump maps all being
applied right there directly in Layout, and
| | 03:07 | give it a second to redraw.
| | 03:08 | So let's jump back into our Texture Editor.
| | 03:11 | The Texture Color is set to white.
| | 03:13 | Let's change this to just kind of a dirty brown.
| | 03:16 | I kind of like that. And then click
into the Layout just to update it and you
| | 03:20 | could see that really changing.
| | 03:21 | From there, I can play with the scale of this.
| | 03:24 | So let's stretch it out on the y, so
it looks like something rust has dripped
| | 03:28 | down the top of the wall.
| | 03:29 | But I don't want the whole wall covered,
so I am going to go to Falloff and I am
| | 03:33 | going to make it fall off on
the Y a little bit, like that.
| | 03:37 | But notice where it falls off
from--right down the center.
| | 03:40 | The reason being--and I am
going to do a little trick here.
| | 03:43 | Press the Tab key and you'll instantly
hide your panels that are open, which is
| | 03:47 | kind of the quick way to see your Layout.
| | 03:49 | If I go back to a bounding box, what
you are going to see is that the object is
| | 03:53 | dropped center in the scene, and that's fine.
| | 03:57 | But this X zero axis right across there,
that 0, 0, X, Y, Z is right there on the center.
| | 04:03 | So the falloff right here in the
Texture panel is based off of that value.
| | 04:10 | So it's falling off from the zero axis,
and that's why it falls off the top and bottom.
| | 04:15 | That's not a problem.
| | 04:16 | All we have to do is go to Position in
the Texture Editor and move that Texture
| | 04:21 | value up, and now it drips down from the top.
| | 04:25 | And then if I wanted to, I can scale it
some more on the y just to make it drip
| | 04:29 | down a little bit more.
| | 04:31 | So pretty easy to set up, but how
would you do this in the Node Editor?
| | 04:35 | Well, I am going to remove this texture, and
we have just a base yellow wall that it was.
| | 04:39 | I am going to hold the Shift key and
click T for bump map, just to turn that
| | 04:43 | bump map off, and then
let's click the Node Editor.
| | 04:45 | Let's first check it to turn
it on. Jump to the Node Editor.
| | 04:50 | Here is our rendered node.
| | 04:51 | This is the basic surface that feeds the render.
| | 04:53 | What do we want to do?
| | 04:54 | We want to place an image map.
| | 04:55 | So we go to Add Node, and from
the 2D Textures, choose Image.
| | 05:01 | Double-click the Image node.
| | 05:03 | A nice panel comes up
allowing you to load an image.
| | 05:06 | Well our bricks were already loaded in the
LightWave from before, so we'll select that.
| | 05:10 | Then down at the bottom I can choose
the Z axis flat Planar, Automatic Sizing.
| | 05:15 | We'll just kind of click in the
Layout to see it, but you can't, right?
| | 05:19 | The reason is this node that you've set
up, even though that has a texture, needs
| | 05:24 | to be plugged into the surface.
| | 05:26 | So the color of the texture we'll drop in
there and you could see it apply easily.
| | 05:30 | I also want a bump map. Drop it on there.
| | 05:33 | So you could see right away, setting up
a bump map was even simpler than it was
| | 05:37 | in the Surface Editor.
| | 05:39 | What about that procedural?
| | 05:40 | We'll go to Add Node then we want a 3D
Texture, and then we can choose the same
| | 05:45 | MultiFractal or Turbulence.
| | 05:47 | I can double-click the Turbulence icon,
and up here I can set in the Background
| | 05:52 | color that same kind of dirty brown.
And for the Foreground color, we can leave
| | 05:57 | that the same, or vice versa, whichever you like.
| | 06:00 | You can do an automatic
sizing and then close the panel.
| | 06:03 | Well right now we can't see anything
because it's not fed into our image.
| | 06:08 | Well, you can feed this into the bricks
and it will determine how those bricks
| | 06:11 | are fed into the surface. Or you can
simply drop this right on top of the color
| | 06:17 | and override that, just like that.
| | 06:19 | But I think instead what we'll do,
| | 06:20 | I'll show you how you
could feed it into the bricks.
| | 06:22 | We'll take the color, we'll drag
and drop Color to Background Color.
| | 06:26 | We are going to take the Bump
map and drop that to Bump map.
| | 06:30 | And again, this is the
procedural noise feeding all of this.
| | 06:34 | We'll take the Alpha, meaning the
transparent channels, and feed that in as well.
| | 06:39 | If I double-click Turbulence now and I
play with the Scale, and maybe perhaps
| | 06:44 | I will make this 2 m and
2 m, something similar to before,
| | 06:49 | we've got a nice streaked texture on
there as well as the bump maps. Those dark
| | 06:53 | areas are bumping out.
| | 06:54 | We can now set a falloff just like we
did in the regular Surface Editor, and
| | 06:58 | then I can move that position up and
we'll set it manually to about one meter.
| | 07:02 | What I'll do for the background color,
| | 07:05 | I'll change this to white and I'll
make the foreground color our dirty brown,
| | 07:12 | and that reverses that texture on there.
| | 07:14 | So you could see without much effort
it's very easy to use the Node Editor.
| | 07:19 | Even though it looks complex, it's
actually very easy to apply different
| | 07:23 | procedural textures.
| | 07:24 | You can apply bump maps, you can layer
them up, and you can use one procedural
| | 07:29 | texture such as a
turbulence to do multiple things.
| | 07:32 | So the Node Editor works quite well in
conjunction with the Surface Editor to
| | 07:36 | create simple or complex surfaces.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding bump maps for realism| 00:01 | Every once in a while you
need an object to not be so flat.
| | 00:04 | That's always something important.
And typically the way to do it is with a bump map,
| | 00:09 | and a map being an image map that you
bring in, like a brick wall, to make
| | 00:12 | something bump, make it not so flat.
But you can go further with it with
| | 00:17 | something called the displacement map.
| | 00:18 | Now, let's set up
something and show a comparison.
| | 00:21 | What I am going to do is open the
Surface Editor, and we have this simple flat
| | 00:25 | polygon made up of multiple segments,
with a surface named Ocean, very simple.
| | 00:29 | I am going to go down to Bump Map and
hit the T button to open up my Texture
| | 00:33 | Editor, and instead of an image map
like a brick wall, we're going to use a
| | 00:36 | procedural texture, a
computer-generated texture.
| | 00:39 | And I also want to make sure that in my
Layout, from the very top of Layout, I
| | 00:44 | want the Viewport
Preview Render to be available.
| | 00:47 | That will allow me to see my bump maps.
| | 00:49 | And right away I can see that this
turbulence is creating a nice bump on there.
| | 00:53 | You can look at things like
Crumple. It creates even a nicer look.
| | 00:56 | You can look at things like ripples
and marble like that, create little waves.
| | 01:01 | But the problem with this,
I will go back to Crumple.
| | 01:04 | This is the problem with a bump map,
for most things like a brick wall, little
| | 01:08 | fine details, Crumple works great--
all the bump maps work great.
| | 01:14 | But here is the trick.
| | 01:15 | If you come around--and I am just going
to rotate my view--there is no depth.
| | 01:23 | It's completely fake, so while the
advantage of a bump map is that you can have
| | 01:27 | a very simple object look very complex,
the disadvantage is that certain angles,
| | 01:32 | it's truly not bumped at all.
| | 01:34 | It's a visual fake.
| | 01:36 | What's the best way to work with these?
| | 01:37 | Well, what I am going to do is make
sure this object is selected, and I am going
| | 01:41 | to press the P key, the Object
Properties panel. And for this current object,
| | 01:46 | the 05_08_Ocean, I am going to go to
the Deform tab, and right there in the
| | 01:52 | center of the panel there is another T button.
| | 01:54 | So earlier in the course when I told
you about the Texture panel, and it's used
| | 01:58 | throughout LightWave.
| | 01:59 | This is once of those places.
| | 02:00 | If you click it, it's that exact same
panel. But now it's being applied as a
| | 02:05 | displacement map, not a color map or a bump map.
| | 02:09 | So what I can do then is take this
layer type and I'll set it to Procedural, and
| | 02:13 | look what happens. The object is completely
disformed, all based on a procedural noise--
| | 02:22 | procedural meaning computer-generated.
| | 02:24 | Well, that's great because now I can
make landscapes and mountains and oceans.
| | 02:29 | So if I come back to the Crumple
texture which I had earlier, you can see I
| | 02:33 | have got something pretty nice
looking, but may be a little too much.
| | 02:37 | So what I can do then is change it to
perhaps fractal noise, see how that looks.
| | 02:41 | Now, you don't have to keep these values
all the same, things like the Grid or a
| | 02:47 | Honeycomb texture. All this can be
very useful for many different things.
| | 02:51 | You can do icicles.
| | 02:52 | You can do landscapes.
| | 02:54 | You can do mountains.
| | 02:55 | You can do crazy oceans.
| | 02:57 | So what we are going to do is more of a
simplistic ocean, and we're going to do
| | 03:00 | that with Turbulence.
| | 03:02 | But I am going to bring this value down,
and that's right here, Texture Value,
| | 03:05 | bring it down about 0.2. And then if
you move your scene over and you zoom in
| | 03:11 | and take a look and you rotate, now
not only do you have physical bumps with a
| | 03:18 | displacement, you've got very
tiny little bumps with a bump map.
| | 03:23 | Let's click Use Texture and close
out that Object Properties panel.
| | 03:27 | We'll reopen the Surface Editor, and
I want to make sure Smoothing is on.
| | 03:31 | That's going to smooth out those facets.
| | 03:34 | So now take a look.
All these tiny little lines in here,
| | 03:37 | that's the bump map.
| | 03:38 | Let's make that a little bit smaller.
| | 03:40 | So I am going to go into the Texture
Editor for Bump Map, and the Scale, we're
| | 03:44 | just going to bring that down.
| | 03:45 | I am going to say 0.2, hit the Tab
key, 0.2, hit the Tab key, and 0.2.
| | 03:52 | So now I have got this very complex-looking
surface, and it wasn't complex at all to set up.
| | 03:58 | I am going to bring the Texture Value
down to about 30%, and that just softens
| | 04:03 | it just a little bit.
| | 04:05 | We'll click Use Texture.
| | 04:06 | So what we've done is we've created a
displaced object from a flat polygon to
| | 04:13 | make it look physically bumped like an
ocean, and then we've used the bump map
| | 04:19 | on top of it to create tiny
little wrinkles and ripples.
| | 04:22 | You can use bump maps for things like veins
and skin and imperfections in a surface.
| | 04:28 | You can use a displacement map to
create larger types of bumps, such as oceans
| | 04:33 | and mountains and landscapes.
| | 04:35 | Use them combined and you've got
some really great-looking surfaces.
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| Enhancing surfaces with specularity and glossiness maps| 00:00 | Part of learning 3D also means
understanding the real world and how things
| | 00:04 | react to their environment.
| | 00:06 | An ocean perhaps might have a lot of
different properties, such as transparencies
| | 00:12 | and glossiness and specularity for shine.
| | 00:15 | So let me show you how
we're going to set that up.
| | 00:17 | I've loaded up the 05_09_OceanSpecBegin file.
| | 00:21 | This is an ocean file from Video 8, and
what we're going to do is change this
| | 00:26 | view to a Viewport Preview
Render just by selecting VPR.
| | 00:31 | And here's the ocean object with a
displacement map and a bump map applied.
| | 00:34 | That looks pretty flat.
| | 00:36 | There's not much we can do with it,
but what's going to really give us some
| | 00:38 | realism is putting specularity,
| | 00:40 | putting some shine onto it.
| | 00:41 | So I am going to open up the Surface Editor
and I am going to select the ocean surface,
| | 00:47 | and we're going to add some specularity.
| | 00:48 | Just going to drag that
up and look what happens.
| | 00:51 | You suddenly get this nice
highlight all the way down.
| | 00:55 | It looks really nice, but at the same
time, it's affecting the whole surface.
| | 01:01 | And really, if this were truly bumped
out, which it is for some parts of it, but
| | 01:05 | the small little tiny bumps are fake.
| | 01:08 | Remember it's a bump map.
| | 01:09 | So we need that light to fall
in and out of those grooves.
| | 01:12 | And the way to do that
is with a specularity map.
| | 01:15 | So from the Bump map channel, I am
going to click the T button. It opens up our
| | 01:19 | Texture Editor for bump.
| | 01:21 | I am going to copy this crumpled layer.
| | 01:23 | We say Copy Selected layers.
| | 01:25 | Then we'll click Use Texture just to close that.
| | 01:28 | And then for Specularity, we'll click Texture.
| | 01:32 | Again, the same panel pops up, but it's
going to have a different effect because
| | 01:35 | it's on the Specularity channel.
| | 01:37 | And we're going to paste that copied layer down.
| | 01:39 | And we'll click Use Texture.
| | 01:42 | From there, we're going to go to the
Glossiness channel and do the exact same thing.
| | 01:46 | We're going to paste that
channel down, and look what happens.
| | 01:51 | Now that light affects more at the
surface, but it also falls in and out of
| | 01:55 | those grooves, giving it even more realism.
| | 01:58 | From there, we can just kind of tweak
the Glossiness a little bit, making it a
| | 02:03 | little bit stronger like that.
| | 02:05 | So a higher gloss for the water.
And it also richens it up and gives it a
| | 02:09 | little bit of contrast.
| | 02:10 | And then the Specularity, the brightness,
we can turn that down just a little bit.
| | 02:16 | And then we can go back our color
| | 02:17 | and just tweak that a little bit.
| | 02:20 | So, by doing these bumps and
specularity maps and glossiness maps, the color,
| | 02:26 | the environment all play a role.
| | 02:27 | A lot of times reflection is a
role too, so we'll cover that.
| | 02:32 | But you should consider
the real-world environment,
| | 02:34 | consider the specularity, consider
the bump maps because the light falls in
| | 02:39 | and out of those grooves, and that's
always going to help you create that
| | 02:41 | realism in your surfaces.
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| Creating a reflective surface| 00:01 | Bump maps, displacement maps,
specularity maps, glossy maps, kind of starts
| | 00:05 | building up to a more complex surface.
| | 00:08 | But what's really going to set this
ocean apart is a reflection map, and in
| | 00:13 | order to do that, we need to change two things.
| | 00:15 | We need to change the Surface
Properties for the ocean to give it some
| | 00:18 | reflections and tell the ocean to be reflective,
| | 00:21 | but then we need something for it to reflect.
| | 00:24 | So let's do this first.
| | 00:25 | Our background right here is just black,
| | 00:27 | so I am going to go to the Windows
dropdown and choose Backdrop Options.
| | 00:32 | Here in this Effects panel there are four tabs:
| | 00:34 | Backdrop, Volumetrics,
Compositing, and Processing.
| | 00:37 | For right now, we are
going to use Backdrop Color.
| | 00:40 | You can set this to any color you want,
such as a bright green, and you'll see
| | 00:45 | that change. Or click the Gradients and
the gradient essentially works with the
| | 00:50 | 3D sphere that encompasses your scene.
| | 00:52 | Now it's an invisible sphere,
but think of it as a little world around
| | 00:55 | your virtual TV studio.
| | 00:57 | So the zenith is the very top part of
that sphere, the sky, and of course, you
| | 01:02 | can see right there, and then
there's just somewhat fake horizon line.
| | 01:06 | That's what a ground plane is.
| | 01:08 | Well in order to get rid of that, what
you need to do is make the ground color
| | 01:11 | the same as the sky color.
| | 01:13 | So what I'll do is I'll click the
little blue icon here, click the color swatch
| | 01:16 | for the sky, and I'll
just copy that right there.
| | 01:19 | If you are on a PC, you can do that
the same way you can copy your surface.
| | 01:22 | I'll close that and then for the
ground color, I'll select that same.
| | 01:26 | Close that out, click into the Layout
to update it, and you can see that that
| | 01:30 | ground plane now disappears.
| | 01:31 | The nadir is the very bottom of the
little virtual sphere that encompasses the
| | 01:35 | world, so I'll just make it a little orange.
| | 01:38 | Now what you can do is you can
actually squeeze that up if you want,
| | 01:42 | just increase that value, and what
happens you can see, see it just coming up there?
| | 01:46 | Sort of like a little sunset value,
and you can do that with the top or the
| | 01:49 | bottom, pull that down. It squeezes
that, gives it more of a nice appearance.
| | 01:53 | Sometimes I like to make this top part
all white and give it kind of a foggy look.
| | 02:00 | But for the first part here we'll
just keep this just a nice dark blue.
| | 02:04 | So we've got our backdrop. That's one aspect.
| | 02:07 | Let's open the Surface
Editor again for the ocean.
| | 02:09 | Now let's tell the ocean
to be reflective. How much?
| | 02:12 | Well, that depends on your taste.
| | 02:14 | I am going to say 30%. And what's it reflecting?
| | 02:16 | Well, the environment.
| | 02:18 | It suddenly got much brighter,
but let's take a look at the environment.
| | 02:21 | So I'll go to the Environment tab.
| | 02:23 | It's set to Ray Tracing and Backdrop.
| | 02:25 | Well ray tracing means it's
going to reflect anything around it.
| | 02:28 | So if we had a boat on the water, for
instance, you'd see a reflection of the boat.
| | 02:32 | The backdrop, we just
made to this backdrop color.
| | 02:35 | The other options in here are
Spherical map, Ray Tracing, and Spherical map.
| | 02:40 | So now I can say if unless I didn't
want that color backdrop, I can do this.
| | 02:44 | I could say Load Image and from the
Chapter 05 folder, I've got some clouds in there.
| | 02:48 | You can open that up and now your
backdrop is actually reflecting those clouds,
| | 02:52 | and it's picking up that color.
| | 02:54 | So I can come in here, and I'll bring
my Diffuse value down to about 70%.
| | 02:58 | It has a whole different appearance to it.
| | 03:01 | I can come back to Environment, change
it to Spherical map only, or I can change
| | 03:05 | it to Backdrop Only, or a combination.
| | 03:09 | So the choice is yours.
| | 03:10 | You can use either one of those.
| | 03:12 | Another option, just to take this
step further, is to actually take the
| | 03:15 | Luminosity channel and apply texture map.
| | 03:19 | So you've used texture maps for
specularity, glossiness, bump.
| | 03:23 | How would it affect luminosity?
| | 03:24 | Click the T button. Again the
same Texture Editor panel opens.
| | 03:28 | Place an image map flat, which is planar--
| | 03:31 | the image being those same clouds.
We'll map them on the y axis and click
| | 03:36 | Automatic Sizing and click Use
Texture, and look what happens.
| | 03:41 | Now you get this really neat-looking
cloud picture mapped within this surface.
| | 03:46 | If you reopen the Luminosity texture,
you can bring this value down, say maybe
| | 03:52 | 30%, and now you've got a very nice-
looking reflection in there. It almost looks
| | 03:56 | like patterns in the water
that you'd see in the real world.
| | 03:59 | So while the cloud image you might think
would be strong clouds, it actually can
| | 04:03 | be used for other things.
| | 04:05 | I always want you to think
about any kind of image map you used.
| | 04:07 | Don't think of it literally.
| | 04:08 | Think of it how it can be used for
something else. And in this case, our cloud
| | 04:12 | image is used on the water, and it
creates just another surface variation.
| | 04:15 | It changes the Luminosity values of the water.
| | 04:18 | So some parts are little brighter than
others, giving it a completely different
| | 04:21 | look, and helping that ocean with it's realism.
| | 04:24 | So specularity maps, glossy maps,
reflection maps, luminosity maps, all of them
| | 04:29 | can be put together to
create one great-looking surface.
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|
|
6. Setting Up a SceneBuilding 3D scenes| 00:00 | Once you've built a model, and then
you've textured it, what do you do with it?
| | 00:04 | Well, you put it into a 3D scene.
| | 00:06 | A 3D scene is comprised of objects.
| | 00:09 | You can see here I've got this cup loaded.
| | 00:11 | It's comprised of lights, which
you can have as many as you want.
| | 00:15 | And it's comprised of cameras.
| | 00:17 | And the cameras are very important,
because not only can your camera show you
| | 00:21 | what you want in a wide format, in a zoom,
| | 00:24 | it also can show you what's going to render.
| | 00:26 | While we can see everything in the
Viewport Preview Render like this,
| | 00:31 | it's truly the camera that renders.
| | 00:35 | We're going to talk about
cameras in a little bit.
| | 00:37 | But if I pressed F9 right now, notice
that it's a completely different view than
| | 00:43 | what I am seeing in my Viewport here.
| | 00:45 | And because everything we
do renders from the camera.
| | 00:48 | So that's very, very important to your scene.
| | 00:50 | So we're going to set up a full scene.
| | 00:52 | We're going to setup a camera,
we're going to setup multiple lights, and
| | 00:55 | we're going to do it all on a nice
textured object that was built in one of
| | 00:58 | our earlier projects.
| | 01:00 | A LightWave 3D scene can be anything from
a simple product shot to complex animation.
| | 01:06 | There's no limit to what you can set up.
| | 01:09 | The 3D universe in LightWave is kind of like
a virtual TV studio, so it could be infinite.
| | 01:15 | Your lights can travel, your cameras
can travel, there's no wires, there's no
| | 01:19 | electronics holding you down.
| | 01:20 | You can pretty much set up whatever you want.
| | 01:22 | So think if it is your
own virtual TV playground.
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| Importing, loading, and working with objects| 00:00 | So we're seeing is a virtual TV studio.
| | 00:03 | Your objects are like your actors.
| | 00:05 | You have your cameras and you have your lights.
| | 00:07 | So to begin, let's load up some objects.
| | 00:10 | I am going to go to the File menu, hit
Load, I'll say Load Object, and in the
| | 00:15 | Exercise Files I've got two objects,
| | 00:17 | a Ground and a CupBegin.
| | 00:19 | We'll select both of these, click
Open, and you'll see two objects loaded.
| | 00:26 | And the one object,
the Cup, actually has two layers.
| | 00:29 | So what you're going to see down
here now is three different items.
| | 00:33 | So it's important to know that an
object can have multiple layers.
| | 00:37 | So the Cup has two layers whereas
the Ground is an object all on its own.
| | 00:42 | Well, if I select the Cup layer
1 and I move that, what happens?
| | 00:46 | Well, the cap stays put.
| | 00:48 | So I did a Ctrl+Z just to undo that.
| | 00:50 | I want to make sure that that
cap stays connected to the cup.
| | 00:53 | So I'm going to click on it to select.
| | 00:56 | Then I'm going to press the M key.
| | 00:58 | That is the Motion options for that
selected object, in this case the cap.
| | 01:03 | I want the parent item of
the cap to be the Cup layer 1.
| | 01:09 | And what that means is
whenever layer 1 moves the child,
| | 01:12 | the cap, will move with it.
| | 01:14 | So we'll select the cup and we'll
move that and now we can move that along.
| | 01:18 | So what's the point of having two
objects then if you have to parent one?
| | 01:21 | Well, the point is that I can come now
back to this cap, go to Modify, select
| | 01:26 | Move, and I can move that cap
off if I want in an animation.
| | 01:30 | It could be a separate piece that I can animate.
| | 01:32 | So that's the first part in setting up a scene.
| | 01:35 | Now what if I wanted two or three cups?
| | 01:37 | Well, let's take a cup like this and
we'll just click and drag right on this
| | 01:40 | blue handle to move it forward,
and then I want to duplicate this.
| | 01:44 | Well, how do I duplicate
both of these? Pretty easy!
| | 01:48 | All I have to do is go over here to Items
and instead of just Cloning, which will
| | 01:53 | clone just the selected item, I want
to choose CloneHierarchy, meaning the
| | 01:57 | parent-child relationship.
| | 01:58 | I'll click that and then what you'll see
down here in your current item, now you
| | 02:04 | actually have two more of those items.
| | 02:07 | But if I select the version 2, you
could see a number is automatically
| | 02:10 | added there for me.
| | 02:11 | Here is version 1, here is version 2.
| | 02:15 | Now I have a second cup copied and with
this one I can choose my Rotate command
| | 02:24 | and just click on the heading and
just kind of rotate that like that.
| | 02:27 | And then maybe if I want to do
another one, I can come over back to Items,
| | 02:31 | choose CloneHierarchy, and then down in
my list I could see now I have a version 3.
| | 02:39 | And with this one, let's
lay this one down perhaps.
| | 02:43 | Somebody was not being very
nice and littered with their cup.
| | 02:47 | Go to Modify, select Move, and I'm
just going to move this up and down.
| | 02:53 | In part of working with a scene, you
have to consider your grid space and what
| | 02:57 | that means is if you notice that
see as I am moving it's kind of snapping
| | 03:01 | around a bit, and that's not a snapping
issue as it much as it is a size issue.
| | 03:05 | My cups are relatively small, they
are not that big, but they are small in
| | 03:10 | comparison to the grid space.
| | 03:12 | Well down here Grid is set to 10 meters.
| | 03:14 | That means every square you see in
my View layout is 10 meter in size.
| | 03:20 | I can change that simply by pressing my
Left Bracket key and what happens is it
| | 03:24 | looks like I zoom in but I really don't.
| | 03:27 | It actually changes the world measurements.
| | 03:29 | So I'm going to click and hold on to Zoom
tool and pull back out and look what happens.
| | 03:34 | All of those grids now are 1 meter in size.
| | 03:36 | You can see down here in the bottom left.
| | 03:38 | If you press D for Display Options,
there's the Grid Square Size right there.
| | 03:44 | The Left and Right Bracket keys
are simply shortcuts for this.
| | 03:49 | Think of this as your world measurement,
and a really good example of this, if I
| | 03:53 | press the Zoom tool and I
zoom out and I see my camera,
| | 03:58 | my camera is all the way over here, really tiny.
| | 04:01 | If I have a very large zoom with the
Grid Square and I go back up to say 10
| | 04:07 | meters, look what happens.
| | 04:10 | See how my objects actually shrink?
| | 04:11 | Well, I'm not really shrinking my objects.
| | 04:14 | I mean I know this is a little bit
confusing, but you have to understand that it
| | 04:16 | is your Grid Square that's changing.
| | 04:18 | The world measurement is changing here.
| | 04:21 | And what that will allow you to do is change
relationship of your camera to the objects.
| | 04:26 | So for instance, if you loaded up a
cup like this and then you loaded up a
| | 04:29 | really big object like a building, suddenly
your camera would be very tiny and hard to see.
| | 04:36 | Or by the same token, if you had a
large building and you loaded up a tiny
| | 04:39 | little bug on the street,
your camera would overpower it.
| | 04:43 | It wouldn't actually be able to
select that camera and move it in close.
| | 04:46 | So you have to always consider the grid,
| | 04:48 | the world measurement of your scene.
| | 04:50 | Then when I get back down into my close
view by just clicking and dragging the
| | 04:55 | zoom and I select this object, look how
much more precisely now I can actually
| | 05:01 | move that, because I have that much more
detail to work with as far as my world measurement.
| | 05:06 | I'll press the Y command. That changes
me to Rotate and I'm going to rotate this
| | 05:12 | just like that a little bit.
| | 05:14 | Click the Move tool and let's set this
cup down just so it rests right on the
| | 05:17 | ground, then we'll move it over and
actually we'll put it kind of back here like this.
| | 05:24 | That's fine!
| | 05:25 | So that's one part of setting up
a scene is loading your objects.
| | 05:29 | The next part, something I
usually do, is I set up the camera.
| | 05:32 | So I'm going to select the camera down
here at the bottom that tells LightWave
| | 05:36 | that I want to work with cameras, and
then I'm going to change to the Camera view.
| | 05:40 | So my camera is default
all the way back and front.
| | 05:44 | I want to do two things.
| | 05:45 | I want to actually push in, so I'm going
to select Move from the Modify tab and
| | 05:50 | I'm going to just click and push my mouse in.
| | 05:53 | Now what I've seen a lot of
people do is pull like this,
| | 05:56 | thinking they are looking at a
2D view and they want to get closer.
| | 05:58 | You got to remember, you're looking through a
camera as if you're holding it on your shoulder.
| | 06:03 | And I'm just going to push it.
| | 06:04 | Now notice how long it takes me to get in.
| | 06:06 | That is because I have a very tiny the Grid
Square that I'm working with. That's okay.
| | 06:11 | If you've a larger Grid Square,
you would zoom in much quicker.
| | 06:13 | And once I get close, I'm going to jump to
Rotate, and then click and drag to Rotate.
| | 06:19 | If I use my right mouse
I can actually bank the camera.
| | 06:22 | It kind of gives you a little look like that.
| | 06:24 | And as my background looks a little
short, I can actually click right on it to
| | 06:29 | choose that automatically.
| | 06:30 | See there's my ground. And I'll choose
Size for the Transform tab under Modify,
| | 06:37 | and I'm just going to size
that up, let it fill the view.
| | 06:39 | I want to make sure though, I'll press T
for Move, that it hits the bottom of the
| | 06:45 | cups, which it does.
| | 06:47 | And at this point I always save
my scene. Very important to do.
| | 06:51 | File, we'll say Save Scene As and I'll
save this as a working version, but you
| | 06:58 | save over for the final.
| | 07:00 | I'll call this 06_02_CupSetup
and you can load that if you want.
| | 07:08 | I can press 4 to get back to the
Perspective view, but now I know that my camera
| | 07:12 | is set in place and you
could see it right there.
| | 07:14 | So that's what my camera sees.
| | 07:16 | That is really important, because
that's what is going to render in an
| | 07:19 | animation or a still image.
| | 07:21 | Lastly, the thing I want to
do is put a light in place.
| | 07:24 | So here is my light, the default right
at the center of the scene, and typically,
| | 07:28 | what I like to do is, very much like a camera,
| | 07:30 | we're going to choose a Light View.
| | 07:33 | And this is what my light sees and now
I can select Move and click and drag and
| | 07:38 | now I'm moving my light directly from view.
| | 07:40 | It's like I'm standing on a
ladder just positioning my light.
| | 07:44 | I can use the right mouse button to
move it up and down, and then I can select
| | 07:48 | Rotate just like I did with an object
or the camera and rotate my light around.
| | 07:53 | I'll jump back to Camera view.
| | 07:56 | I'll hit Save Scene just to save my
changes and I'll change to Viewport Preview Render.
| | 08:05 | So far that's what we have.
| | 08:07 | Looking pretty good.
| | 08:08 | You put some surfaces on the ground,
but I think our lighting is a little dull.
| | 08:12 | So we need to enhance that a bit.
| | 08:14 | But before we do, let's take
a look at what we just did.
| | 08:17 | We have loaded an object.
| | 08:18 | We've cloned an object.
| | 08:20 | We've adjusted an object with size and scale.
| | 08:23 | We've set up a camera position and we've
set up a light, all the basic elements
| | 08:27 | of setting up a scene.
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| Organizing a 3D scene| 00:00 | Setting up a simple scene like this
doesn't require too much organization, but
| | 00:05 | the organization process of a 3D scene
is always important, no matter how big or
| | 00:10 | small a scene can be.
| | 00:12 | Let's open up the Scene Editor.
| | 00:14 | So over here on the very left and it
doesn't matter which tab you are in,
| | 00:16 | you are always going to see the Scene Editor.
| | 00:19 | When you click this, you are going to see
Open, New Instance ,and Classic Scene Editor.
| | 00:23 | Let's start with the Classic.
| | 00:25 | This is the one I use most.
| | 00:27 | What this does, it gives you an overview
of your scene as well as your timeline.
| | 00:31 | I am going to expand this out. And what
this will allow you to do is organize
| | 00:35 | your scene in a variety of ways.
| | 00:38 | First of all, we can see
the hierarchy of our scene.
| | 00:40 | We can see here is our Ground object,
and we can slide this around if we want
| | 00:43 | and move it and parent it to
other items simply by dragging it.
| | 00:47 | I can open and close the hierarchy of items.
| | 00:50 | So you can see here that we've got our
first cup and the cap that belongs to it,
| | 00:55 | the second cup that we've cloned and the
cap that belongs to it, and the third cup
| | 00:59 | and the cap that belongs to it.
| | 01:01 | Our Light, our Camera, everything else.
| | 01:04 | The checkmark here will determine what renders.
| | 01:07 | So if you've got something in your
scene such as maybe that center cup right
| | 01:11 | there and you don't want it to render,
you can just uncheck it and you can see
| | 01:14 | it just disappeared right there.
| | 01:15 | It doesn't mean you deleted it. Just it
turns off the visibility, because don't
| | 01:19 | forget this Virtual Preview Render that I am
showing here is an actual render of your scene.
| | 01:25 | This little eyeball icon, that will
actually turn on a different kind of view for
| | 01:31 | each one of your items.
| | 01:32 | So I can say this one I want as a
bounding box, this one I want as
| | 01:36 | wireframe, and let's take our scene
to a Shaded Solid, you could see what
| | 01:40 | I am talking about here.
| | 01:41 | So now I have got bounding boxes, and
this is really great if you've got a much
| | 01:46 | more complex scene that you are working with.
| | 01:48 | Sometimes a full wireframe might be too
much data and you want just a bounding box,
| | 01:53 | meaning just a representation
of that to show up in your view.
| | 01:59 | Sometimes just a Wireframe, and you
can change it to Shaded Solid here or
| | 02:04 | Front Face Wireframes.
| | 02:06 | Everything you do in here, it all
depends on how complex your scene is and how
| | 02:11 | much or how little is in your scene as well.
| | 02:14 | The Timeline here cannot be organized.
| | 02:16 | Now we have not yet talked about
animation but here you'll actually see
| | 02:19 | the keyframes, meaning the time-in-space
the motion path for each one of these items.
| | 02:25 | You can select all objects in here, all cameras.
| | 02:29 | You can choose different favorites,
you can create a set, and all these are
| | 02:32 | different ways to organize your scene.
| | 02:34 | We could take different
colors, just to organize it as well.
| | 02:39 | And this is especially great if you
are doing any kind of character work.
| | 02:42 | So I can say all the base items of our models
are blue and perhaps all the caps are white.
| | 02:48 | Our ground we don't want to see
it that much. Maybe it's a black.
| | 02:53 | So whenever it's not
selected, it is going to be dark.
| | 02:56 | So what I will do is change to my camera
and you'll see that now I've got a ground.
| | 03:01 | And let's just change the
color here for the Ground object.
| | 03:04 | We will make this black so that when
it's not selected, that wireframe is black
| | 03:10 | and kind of gets out of the way a little bit.
| | 03:12 | So these are just visual things.
| | 03:14 | They don't actually have anything
to do with how your scene renders.
| | 03:16 | The only thing that will is that checkmark.
| | 03:19 | These visibility things right here all
determine how you look in your OpenGL.
| | 03:25 | Lastly is the Audio.
| | 03:27 | Here you can load an audio file and use
this as a timing base for your animation.
| | 03:33 | Let's close out the Scene Editor.
| | 03:35 | The other Scene Editor is a newer one.
| | 03:38 | A lot more complex.
| | 03:40 | This one is more of a spreadsheet format
and also if you have ever heard term
| | 03:44 | dope sheet, you will see that here as well.
| | 03:46 | This is greatly use for character
animation, so that you can really move
| | 03:50 | your timing around.
| | 03:51 | Select Sections, right-click, and
you can do a lot of different offsets.
| | 03:56 | You can erase keyframes, put
in gaps, delete, cut, and so on.
| | 04:00 | So if you have got a more complex
animation and if you had series of keyframes
| | 04:03 | that run throughout, you can
use the Dope Sheet to edit those.
| | 04:08 | You can also look at the Property tab
and any of your animations or objects
| | 04:12 | that have certain variables set up, you can
copy and paste those all within the Property tab.
| | 04:17 | So if you look, you can click this top
value here, you can see there are all
| | 04:21 | kinds of options that you can choose from.
| | 04:23 | You can view different channels, look
at basic surfaces, look to the alpha
| | 04:27 | channels, look at
different effects or resolutions.
| | 04:31 | All of that's controllable in here.
| | 04:33 | Again, this is not one that I use
personally too often, but it will work great
| | 04:37 | if you are doing a lot of character
animation and it's one that you can use as well.
| | 04:40 | You can do the surfaces in
your scene and what are their names.
| | 04:44 | So we have a Coffee_Cup, Coffee_Cup_Lid.
Those are the surfaces for that object.
| | 04:48 | We can look at the Ground surface
and we can look at the motion channels.
| | 04:52 | Every channel has an X, Y, and Z
position, heading, bank and pitch for the
| | 04:56 | rotation, and a Scale X, Y, and Z.
You can look at each one of those and if
| | 05:01 | there's keyframe setup for the motion, you
will see those in here and you can edit them.
| | 05:05 | So a quite nice way to work.
| | 05:07 | So the Scene Editor is a great
place to organize your scene.
| | 05:10 | What I like to do in the Classic
Scene Editor is I like to use this for
| | 05:13 | parenting, and it's very easy to take all
of these items and parent them together.
| | 05:19 | So let's do a little project real quick.
| | 05:21 | I am going to move by Scene Editor
over and I'm going to my Items tab and
| | 05:26 | from the Add category, I am going to add a
Null object and a Null object doesn't render.
| | 05:30 | It's just a little reference you can use to
parent things, to target a camera, or to group.
| | 05:36 | So I'll call this CupMASTER, like that.
| | 05:40 | Before I do, I can open up the Edit
dropdown and here I can choose a shape for
| | 05:44 | this, like a pyramid or a diamond.
| | 05:47 | I can choose the axis, I can
choose the scale, how large it is.
| | 05:50 | If it's filled or not. And I
will call this MASTER, like that.
| | 05:55 | We will say make sure
it's the same, call it CupMASTER.
| | 05:58 | And you can draw a line to a camera or one of
the other objects if you want. We don't need to.
| | 06:03 | The Selected Color, we can make it
that bright yellow one it selected.
| | 06:08 | The Unselected Color, we can make it
kind of a nice soft nondescript color.
| | 06:15 | Text Color can be yellow as well, just
something very bright that we can see it,
| | 06:20 | and the opacity of it.
| | 06:21 | If you click OK, what happens is not
only that you have a nice item in there,
| | 06:27 | and let me come back here to a
Perspective view and I'll change to a Shaded
| | 06:31 | view so you can see it.
| | 06:33 | There is my CupMASTER right
there and what can I do with that?
| | 06:36 | Well, here it is in my Scene Editor and
I am going to click and drag it up, and
| | 06:41 | then I am going to select
layer (1), layer (2) and layer (3).
| | 06:45 | All three cups, you can see them there.
| | 06:47 | I am going to click, hold the mouse,
and I am going to drag, but as I drag,
| | 06:51 | see this white bar?
| | 06:52 | I am going to make sure
it indents, just like that.
| | 06:54 | So it's underneath it and now when it
indents it's actually parented to the master.
| | 06:59 | You can see a little arrow pops up.
| | 07:01 | So if I open and close this arrow
and I see those underneath, now I know
| | 07:04 | the parenting works.
| | 07:06 | So that means this hierarchy of
this cup now belongs to this MASTER.
| | 07:10 | So if I want to move all of these
objects around, all I've got to do now is
| | 07:14 | click the MASTER and all of
those cups move. It works quite well.
| | 07:19 | Great way to organize your scene ,
and again that doesn't render.
| | 07:22 | If I put on the virtual
preview, it doesn't render.
| | 07:26 | It's just a null object.
| | 07:27 | It's just there to reference other objects.
| | 07:30 | So now I have got a whole parent for
that and taking it a step further,
| | 07:35 | if I went to Items and I hit
CloneHierarchy for that CupMASTER, like this,
| | 07:42 | what will happen, let me get
back here to a Shaded view.
| | 07:47 | Now I have got CupMASTER (2)
and look what's beneath it.
| | 07:50 | A whole section of cups already cloned.
| | 07:54 | So not only did we have CupMASTER
(1) with 3 cups underneath, now we have
| | 07:58 | CupMASTER (2) and we have
a whole another clone.
| | 08:02 | Get back to Perspective View by
pressing 4. A whole other clone of those cups.
| | 08:08 | I am going to put it over off to the side.
| | 08:11 | You can rotate the cluster and
very easily create randomized objects.
| | 08:17 | Trees, bushes, debris, garbage.
| | 08:20 | Press 6 to get back to your camera and now I
have got more cups back there. Just like that.
| | 08:25 | So parented them all to a cluster and
then we clone them, gives us more, and
| | 08:30 | then you can of course size that cluster.
| | 08:32 | Just press Shift+H, you can size that up.
| | 08:35 | So a lot of possibilities with that.
| | 08:38 | So organizing your scene is not that hard.
| | 08:40 | A lot of it can be done all within
the Scene Editor rather than in layout,
| | 08:44 | because it gives you just a nice
overview of how everything is looking.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with different light types| 00:00 | One of the most impressive things you
can do in a 3D scene to give it realism
| | 00:05 | is make sure that lighting is set right.
| | 00:07 | But first you kind of need to
understand how LightWave lights work.
| | 00:10 | Now this is just the coffee cup scene
from a couple of videos ago and it is
| | 00:15 | basically nothing more. If I go here to
this Perspective view and I can zoom out,
| | 00:18 | it is nothing more than
just a background object.
| | 00:20 | Just a flat board that was
bent in Modeler and three cups.
| | 00:24 | And you can see here is one
light and here is one camera.
| | 00:26 | What I am going to do is press the left
bracket key a couple of times and click
| | 00:32 | and hold my zoom to pull out and you can
see that that changes my Grid Square down
| | 00:36 | to 200 mm and what happens is
my lights get really small.
| | 00:40 | So I want to make sure that when I
am doing lights that I can see them.
| | 00:44 | So I am going to press my right bracket
key a few times and then click and drag
| | 00:48 | to zoom back in and now I have got a
little bit better relationship of the
| | 00:51 | camera lights to the object.
| | 00:54 | This light right here, this is your
default light and I am going to press
| | 00:58 | Properties for it and
let's see how all this works.
| | 01:00 | I am going to turn on Viewport Preview
Render and I can't see my light all of a
| | 01:06 | sudden when that's on.
| | 01:07 | I could see its effects.
| | 01:08 | So what I need to do is under VPR is
click this dropdown and I can turn on
| | 01:13 | things like Bone X-Ray mode, OpenGL
Wireframes, and OpenGL Overlay and what
| | 01:18 | happens now is I can see my lights in the scene.
| | 01:20 | If you got a more complex scene and
you are using VPR, you might want to turn
| | 01:24 | those things off, which they are
by default. And let's do this.
| | 01:27 | Over in the top right as we are
talking about VPR, this little guy over here
| | 01:31 | will create a little preview
that you can save later on.
| | 01:34 | A little History button.
| | 01:35 | You can click this guy
right here, that second button.
| | 01:39 | This is your VPR Settings.
| | 01:41 | You could choose a Half Resolution if
your video card isn't quite up to snuff.
| | 01:45 | You can see mine got a little blurry there.
| | 01:46 | You can choose Draft mode so
it renders a little bit faster.
| | 01:51 | All of these things are going to be
based on the complexity of your scene as
| | 01:54 | well as the strength of your video card.
| | 01:57 | So with Draft mode off, Volume Shadows,
we are not actually using any volume so
| | 01:59 | I can just turn those off. Frames Per Second.
| | 02:04 | This is going to be more for
when we are doing an animation.
| | 02:06 | Now if you take a look at the RGB files,
when I click that Save, they are going to
| | 02:10 | be saved here to my Desktop/Image as a
JPEG and the Color Space set to the Linear.
| | 02:15 | Also new for what LightWave 10 is all
these different color space options.
| | 02:18 | So we will talk about that
when we get to rendering.
| | 02:20 | We will turn Draft mode back on and
Volumes Shadows go back to our default and
| | 02:24 | it works out just fine.
| | 02:25 | But those are the options right there.
| | 02:27 | Let's zoom back out,so we can see our
lights, and this default distant light,
| | 02:32 | one thing to know about it is that
its position doesn't matter. Only its
| | 02:37 | rotation matters and I know it sounds
a little odd, but that's how it works.
| | 02:42 | So if you notice, I'm off to the left
of the objects and I have rotated the
| | 02:46 | light and it is like it is
being cast from the light.
| | 02:49 | So, position doesn't matter.
| | 02:51 | Look, I will press the T key for move
under Modify tab and I will move this around.
| | 02:56 | It doesn't change the effect of it.
| | 02:57 | The default distant light,
| | 02:59 | only its rotation matters and it
has hard shadows, raytraced shadows.
| | 03:05 | The next type of light is an area
light and these are some of my favorites.
| | 03:08 | Now look at the quality of this,
as soon as I have changed it.
| | 03:12 | Now its position and its rotation do
matter, and I like these because these are
| | 03:17 | closest to a studio and as a lot of
people know I am also a photographer and we
| | 03:22 | use big soft boxes to do our portraits,
which is very much like an area light.
| | 03:27 | The shadows are still relatively
rough in the scene, but if I press
| | 03:30 | Shift+H, which is also Size under the
Transform category, I can actually size up my light.
| | 03:37 | Now it sounds a little odd but as I
decrease this light, the shadow become softer.
| | 03:42 | Just like it would in the real world.
| | 03:43 | If I have a big soft light that I bring in
close onto an object it will become softer.
| | 03:48 | If I pull that light further away
the shadow becomes harder and longer.
| | 03:52 | Very nice light to work with.
| | 03:53 | It does take a little more time to
render but it's still pretty fast on most
| | 03:58 | systems today and you can even see here in the
Viewport Preview Render, it looks pretty good.
| | 04:02 | I am going to 6 on my keyboard and
right there just in the preview you can see
| | 04:07 | it is actually looking pretty nice.
| | 04:08 | Just with one default light.
| | 04:10 | Very nice soft shadows and that
6 is a quick key for Camera View.
| | 04:16 | The other type of light you can use, it is a
Dome Light and let me jump back up by pressing 4.
| | 04:22 | Now a Dome Light kind of fakes like an
environmental light, if you will, and it
| | 04:27 | creates this overall light.
| | 04:29 | Terrific for product shots.
| | 04:30 | And you can see it right there.
| | 04:31 | It is represented by this dome.
| | 04:34 | Also you can press Size in the Transform
category here and then press T for move
| | 04:40 | and you can move this over.
| | 04:41 | Press Y for rotate and you can
rotate that dome however you want.
| | 04:45 | I don't use these too often.
| | 04:47 | I like a little more control over some
of my lighting, but this creates that
| | 04:51 | very nice soft environmental
lighting without having an environment.
| | 04:55 | So, it is like putting dome over your scene.
| | 04:58 | A linear light is a very neat looking light.
| | 05:02 | Kind of odd at first.
| | 05:04 | But what a linear light will do,
| | 05:05 | it is a great way to create sort of a
fluorescent tube look, where we had lights
| | 05:10 | that go along the edge of a wall.
| | 05:12 | Kind of like those tube
lights that go under a cabinet.
| | 05:15 | And I have put these in there, just to
mimic that same type of real world lighting.
| | 05:20 | The good thing about these is you can
use the Stretch command and actually
| | 05:23 | stretch out that light. Kind of like that.
| | 05:27 | Make a very long, linear light and if
you look at it from the camera view,
| | 05:34 | you can see how that looks.
| | 05:35 | It just has a little bit different effect.
| | 05:38 | Choosing which light to use
doesn't necessarily matter.
| | 05:41 | It's also your preference.
| | 05:43 | But if you understand them all, it
might help you decide which one to use and
| | 05:47 | then it also depends on what
you are doing in your scene.
| | 05:50 | A photometric light.
| | 05:51 | Now this works with something called IES
files and if you jump back to the Basic tab,
| | 05:55 | you are going to see there's a
little section here that you can load up an
| | 05:59 | IES file and all this is, is a
predetermined light setting that you could
| | 06:03 | download from various sources or
generate from more specific sources as well.
| | 06:09 | A point light.
| | 06:10 | And what a point light is going to do,
this is kind of opposite of a distant light.
| | 06:15 | Its rotation does not matter.
| | 06:17 | It is an omni-directional light.
| | 06:18 | So you can rotate it all you want.
| | 06:20 | It is not going to change anything.
| | 06:22 | But if you select Move from the
Translate category there, that will matter.
| | 06:27 | So as you move it around, you can
see that the shadows are changing.
| | 06:32 | This is terrific for light
bulbs, candles, little flames.
| | 06:37 | Anything like that.
| | 06:38 | It is great for general light too.
| | 06:40 | If you are building a room, you can put
it up in the ceiling and just bringing
| | 06:43 | the intensity down just a little bit
and add it as a fill light throughout the
| | 06:46 | scene that you are working on.
| | 06:48 | A spherical light, it is
kind of like a little ball.
| | 06:51 | It is almost hard to see right there,
but is similar to a point light.
| | 06:55 | As you can see as I move it the shadows
change and if I go to Rotate, nothing happens.
| | 07:02 | It is very similar to a point light,
works a little bit differently, has a
| | 07:07 | little bit different effect.
| | 07:09 | Lastly, a spotlight, probably
one of the more common lights.
| | 07:13 | A spotlight, its rotation
and its position both matter.
| | 07:17 | So if I select Move or if I
click over here and select Rotate,
| | 07:22 | all of that matters.
| | 07:24 | And with the spotlight it is
often good to get into the Light view.
| | 07:28 | So I can select that from the top left
here and get out of the Camera view and
| | 07:32 | this way I can see exactly what my light sees.
| | 07:36 | And one thing that's nice to do with the
spotlight is change the Spotlight Cone Angle.
| | 07:42 | So if I open the Cone Angle, I want to
take the Spotlight Soft Edge Angle and
| | 07:47 | increase that as well.
| | 07:49 | And that changes the falloff of that light.
| | 07:51 | So you see how the light hits right
here and then fades offs softly, mimicking
| | 07:56 | more of a real-world effect?
| | 07:57 | If I bring it to 0, it is very hard edged.
| | 08:01 | And I probably wouldn't use that too
much, if I was doing maybe something on
| | 08:04 | stage with the spotlight.
| | 08:07 | Most normal things are
going to have a softer edge.
| | 08:10 | The advantage of the spotlight is
that it has different type of shadow.
| | 08:13 | While all the other
lights have raytraced shadows,
| | 08:16 | a spotlight can use a shadow map, which
is a softer shadow created out of memory,
| | 08:21 | and you can increase the shadow
fuzziness with this and you can assign more
| | 08:26 | memory by increasing the Shadow Map Size.
| | 08:29 | And here is a little trick in LightWave.
| | 08:31 | It defaults to 512, so you want
to keep it in those increments.
| | 08:34 | So if I hit the asterisk, which is Shift+8,
that's a multiply, and hit Enter,
| | 08:41 | I can go divide by 2 and it cuts in
half or times 2, and it doubles it. Times 4.
| | 08:50 | So all of these values, whether it is a
light or the textures, you can actually
| | 08:54 | do math within them.
| | 08:55 | So you asterisk is your multiplication,
your slash is your divide.
| | 09:02 | Divide by two and it will cut that in half.
| | 09:04 | It is kind of neat little trick.
| | 09:05 | So your lights are really important and
of course you can remember that you have
| | 09:08 | more than one light.
| | 09:10 | You can put in as many lights as you want and
they don't all have to be the same light types.
| | 09:14 | Lighting is very important to your scene.
| | 09:16 | It is probably almost more important
than the style or quality of your object
| | 09:20 | in many cases, because it can affect
the mood and the overall look of your final render.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Lighting a 3D scene| 00:00 | With an understanding of how the
LightWave lights work, I think it's important
| | 00:03 | to go ahead and set up a
full scene with full lighting.
| | 00:08 | So you can see here that we've got our
Camera view looking right at our objects.
| | 00:12 | So let's go ahead and set this up
with a basic 3-point lighting setup.
| | 00:15 | I am going to press 4 on my keyboard.
| | 00:17 | It's going to jump me to Perspective view.
| | 00:19 | It helps in giving overall view to my scene.
| | 00:21 | I am going to press my right bracket
key a couple of times, and that's going to
| | 00:25 | open up my grid space a little bit,
so that I've got a little bit better
| | 00:29 | relationship between my camera and my light.
| | 00:32 | That means my grid square is not quite as small.
| | 00:35 | You can see down here in the
very bottom-left, 10 meters.
| | 00:37 | So I've got my default light right here.
| | 00:40 | I am going to press P with that light selected.
| | 00:42 | Any item you select in the scene, whether
it's an object, a camera or a light,
| | 00:45 | if you press P you will get the properties for it.
| | 00:48 | The Current Light, I am going to double-
click in here and rename this KeyLight
| | 00:52 | and the KeyLight is our main light
and I want this to be an area light.
| | 00:57 | So I can see here in the layout
that I've got my light-- I accidentally
| | 01:00 | clicked off it and there we go.
And then we will hit Modify and Size and
| | 01:06 | let's size up that light.
| | 01:09 | How big do we size it?
| | 01:11 | Imagine if we were lighting this in the
real world. We'd have a light about that big.
| | 01:15 | I am going to rotate around and I
want this light to be kind of in front but
| | 01:21 | off to the side a little bit.
| | 01:22 | So let's go to Modify and Move and
let's just move that over just a little bit.
| | 01:28 | Just click and drag it to move it.
| | 01:29 | If you want to see how it looks from
your Camera view, you can jump back down to
| | 01:34 | Camera view like this and that's nice.
| | 01:36 | You don't want the light to be
directly in front. You want a little depth and
| | 01:40 | that light falloff around the back side is
going to create kind of a nice shadow for us.
| | 01:44 | But you do need a little light back here.
| | 01:46 | So let's jump back to our Perspective
view and then we can clone this light
| | 01:50 | simply by pressing Ctrl+C. Let's
click into the layout real quick.
| | 01:55 | Ctrl+C clones the current item.
Whether that's a light or a camera or an
| | 01:59 | object, Ctrl+C will clone that selected item.
| | 02:02 | We will clone it one time.
| | 02:05 | The reason I like to clone is because it keeps
the size and the properties of whatever I had.
| | 02:09 | Let me close the Light Properties real
quick and I am going to take this second
| | 02:13 | light, you can see down here, Current
Item, KeyLight (2), I will move that over,
| | 02:17 | then I am going to choose Rotate,
and we will rotate it around.
| | 02:26 | Now this light doesn't need to be as
bright and I am going to tilt it a little bit
| | 02:30 | and if you have a little bit
trouble setting up a light, what you can do is
| | 02:34 | come down to the Light view and you
can see exactly what these lights sees.
| | 02:39 | It's like you're looking through the light.
| | 02:42 | I can select Move and hold my right-
mouse button and move it down a little bit.
| | 02:47 | Select Rotate and rotate it back,
pointing right to the objects. Press 6 on your
| | 02:52 | keyboard and that will get
you back to a Camera view.
| | 02:55 | Now, look what happens.
This light is entirely too bright.
| | 02:58 | So let's change that. Press the P key.
| | 03:01 | And if you click this dropdown here, you can
see both of your lights are named KeyLight.
| | 03:06 | Let's take this second one and name it
Fill or Phil, just in case your name is Phil,
| | 03:15 | and then you're going to
change this to maybe a soft blue.
| | 03:21 | I always like doing a little bit of a
blue light because it's not quite as
| | 03:24 | invasive and it also gives a sense of a
little bit more of an environment, but
| | 03:28 | the light intensity is entirely too much.
| | 03:30 | So let's just click and drag
that down, somewhere about 40%.
| | 03:35 | Now a lot of people have
asked me what these ratios mean.
| | 03:38 | They don't mean anything.
| | 03:39 | They are just arbitrary.
| | 03:40 | So try not to get too hung
up on some of these values.
| | 03:43 | 100% means it's fully bright,
50%, 40% means it's less than that.
| | 03:49 | However, that doesn't
mean you can't go to 1000%.
| | 03:53 | I've done that on few occasions when
we've lit the inside of airplanes for
| | 03:56 | instance, and then we take the
Surface Value down on the actual object.
| | 04:02 | So just because this slider stops at
100 when you drag, you can actually
| | 04:07 | manually punch in a larger value if you want.
| | 04:09 | But we will keep this at 40 I think.
| | 04:13 | Let's do one more light.
| | 04:14 | And instead of cloning a light, what
we are going to do is come over to our
| | 04:17 | Items under Add and here are our Lights.
| | 04:21 | Click the dropdown, and let's add a
Spotlight, and we will call this BackLight.
| | 04:31 | That adds it to the scene and it drops
right in the 0 axis, right center, 0,0,0.
| | 04:34 | I am going to press 5 on my keyboard
to get to Light view, press T for Move
| | 04:41 | under Modify, right-click to move it up,
left-click to push it back, and then Y
| | 04:46 | to rotate. Remember I am
facing backwards into the scene.
| | 04:49 | I am going to click and drag around
with Rotate on and now I am on the back of
| | 04:54 | the objects. Press the T key to move.
I can use my right-mouse to move it up,
| | 04:58 | left-mouse to pull it back and then
rotate again, just click that button, and
| | 05:06 | then left-mouse, click and drag down.
| | 05:09 | Press the P key, open up the
Properties, and for the Light Color, let's
| | 05:15 | give this a little bit of warmth to it.
Put some kind of orangey yellow back on there.
| | 05:19 | Click into the view just to update and
then let's select our Camera view again
| | 05:24 | to see how this is looking.
| | 05:26 | So now we've got a nice warm backlight,
a little soft blue to fill it back here,
| | 05:34 | and then our main KeyLight.
| | 05:36 | Often what I do for that KeyLight, let
me just open up the Light Properties real quick,
| | 05:40 | so select Lights and
then press P for Properties.
| | 05:45 | For that main KeyLight,
light is never really white.
| | 05:49 | We often want it just warm it or cool it.
| | 05:51 | Warming it meaning give it a little yellow
orange or cooling it means makes it little blue.
| | 05:55 | So just a little off-white there and
that just gives a little bit of warmth and
| | 06:00 | it's not so stark with just white on it.
| | 06:04 | So there is our scene.
| | 06:05 | We will say File > Save Scene As.
| | 06:09 | This is lighting final and you can load this up.
| | 06:12 | So very simple 3-point lighting.
| | 06:13 | If you want to see a final render,
just press F9 on your keyboard and you'll
| | 06:19 | see this render out, calculating all the
shadows, and that's what our scene looks like.
| | 06:25 | Nice warm light from the back,
KeyLight from the front, and a soft blue fill
| | 06:29 | filling in these shadows.
| | 06:31 | Simple 3-point lighting.
| | 06:32 | It's a great way to work for any kind of
product shot, a logo, or just about any
| | 06:37 | other scene you can think of.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Employing environmental lighting| 00:00 | Setting up lights in the 3D scene is
always a skill that you are going to be
| | 00:03 | perfecting and learning as you grow.
| | 00:06 | But sometimes you want to do
something even more realistic and the way to
| | 00:09 | do that is with environmental
lighting and what that means is that is the
| | 00:13 | environment that your object and your scene
lives in that can be used as a lighting source.
| | 00:19 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 00:19 | I am going to come over
here to the Perspective tab.
| | 00:22 | This is what we have in our scene.
| | 00:23 | We have got our coffee cup scene.
| | 00:25 | This is the 06_06_EnvironmentBegin file.
| | 00:28 | It has got one default distant light.
| | 00:30 | It has got a black backdrop, a few
cups and our light and our camera.
| | 00:35 | So what I am going to do is come
over to the Render tab, open up Render
| | 00:40 | Globals and then under Global
Illumination, I am going to click Enable
| | 00:45 | Radiosity and look what
happens. Not a whole lot.
| | 00:49 | you can see it change a little bit.
| | 00:51 | But what is happening there is it is
using the environment as a light source.
| | 00:55 | So let me jump down to the Camera view, turn
on Radiosity, and see how much brighter it got?
| | 01:01 | Let's do this.
| | 01:02 | Let's open up Windows and choose
Backdrop Options. Let me put on Backdrop Color.
| | 01:08 | I am going to make it just almost white.
| | 01:13 | Close the panel, click into the Layout
a bit, and what you are going to see is a
| | 01:17 | much brighter environment there
that's helping light the scene.
| | 01:21 | So I will turn this off and turn it on,
and now this full white environment is
| | 01:27 | actually what's lighting the scene.
| | 01:29 | What I am going to do is turn off the
overlay for the OpenGL as well as the wireframe.
| | 01:35 | And that way you can get a
better sense of the scene.
| | 01:37 | I am going to press my Lights at the
bottom of the screen and open Properties,
| | 01:42 | and our distant light that was in
there by default, I am going to say do not
| | 01:46 | affect the diffuse values,
meaning turn off the light.
| | 01:51 | It is still going to affect the
shine, the Specularity right here.
| | 01:54 | However, if you wanted to get rid of
that you could, but sometimes your object
| | 01:58 | is going to look too flat.
| | 01:59 | So I am going to keep that on.
| | 02:00 | So what I have effectively done is put
on a white backdrop, an environment that
| | 02:08 | is fully white, and I will just go to
Perspective view here, you can see it.
| | 02:11 | My environment and my entire
LightWave universe is white.
| | 02:15 | That is now strong enough because of
Global Illumination, just by clicking that on,
2.03]
that is actually my light source.
| | 02:24 | So there is no lights in the
scene that are lighting it,
| | 02:26 | just that white environment, and the
beauty of that is that it creates this very
| | 02:30 | realistic looking scene.
| | 02:33 | However, a problem with this is, is
that you can get this blotchiness down here
| | 02:37 | because you are relying too much on the
engine to calculate that light source.
| | 02:41 | Now you can increase the quality of
your render on output, but typically, what
| | 02:46 | I like to do is use a Global Illumination,
use that Radiosity, to enhance my lighting.
| | 02:51 | All right!
| | 02:51 | So let me show you that.
| | 02:53 | I am going to come back and open
up my Lights, hit the Properties.
| | 02:57 | I am going to turn the Diffuse Value
back on for the main light and then I'm
| | 03:02 | going to just bring that value down
about 30% and what happens now is I still
| | 03:08 | have a main light source, but the
Radiosity, the global environmental lighting,
| | 03:15 | is helping create the soft shadows.
| | 03:17 | It is filling in the other areas where
normally I would have to put a lot more
| | 03:20 | light in there and it gives it
even a more realistic approach.
| | 03:24 | In the real world, if you've got a lamp on
your desk, that lamp is hitting the desk.
| | 03:28 | It's bouncing all around.
| | 03:30 | Hitting the walls, the color from the
walls is being diffused through the scene.
| | 03:34 | That's what you're doing in the computer.
| | 03:36 | You do not want the entire
environment only lightened.
| | 03:39 | You wanted to add as a bonus, as a fill.
| | 03:42 | I am just kind of thinking those terms
and you lend up with a little bit better
| | 03:45 | look than you would traditionally.
| | 03:48 | So I will warm up that light just a
little bit just to give a little color.
| | 03:51 | The other thing I can do to help that
to it is change that light to an area
| | 03:54 | light and that would help create softer shadows.
| | 03:57 | But what we might have to do, going to
a Perspective view and put your Overlay on,
| | 04:04 | so you can see your light.
| | 04:05 | It has changed that light and make sure
that the size of it, under Modify > Size,
| | 04:13 | is big enough to create a soft shadow
that matches the environmental lighting,
| | 04:18 | and then let's move it
just back just a little bit.
| | 04:23 | Check back in the Camera view by
clicking up here on the left and now we have
| | 04:27 | got soft shadows that match our
environmental shadows and we get a much better
| | 04:32 | look and now you can play with the
Intensity just to make that light a little
| | 04:35 | more prominent and have a little more purpose.
| | 04:39 | So the environmental lighting is a
terrific way to just enhance your scene,
| | 04:42 | create a more realistic product shot, and
this also can work for outdoor shots as well.
| | 04:48 | You can put an image in your environment
and we will go over here to Windows and
| | 04:52 | choose Backdrop Options and down
here under Add Environment, you can load Image
| | 04:59 | World and with Image World on,
you can see it certainly gets dark.
| | 05:04 | I can load an image, you can just double-click
this, and Light Probe Image, if you have an HDR,
| | 05:09 | High Dynamic Range, image you can load that.
| | 05:12 | I don't really have one here but
I want to show you this you don't
| | 05:15 | necessarily need one.
| | 05:16 | I am going to go to the Chapter 5
folder and under Images, I am going to load
| | 05:23 | the clouds from our previous project,
and you'll see that even something as
| | 05:28 | simple as a cloud image
| | 05:31 | can be used to enhance
your scene. Do you see that?
| | 05:35 | So the blue from the cloud, and I
am going to open up our Image Editor.
| | 05:40 | This blue and white image now
is being used to light the scene.
| | 05:44 | So while it is not a High Dynamic Range
image, it actually has enough strength
| | 05:49 | to add more enhancement to the environment.
| | 05:53 | Render > Render Globals.
| | 05:56 | Just a few other options here.
| | 05:58 | You can tell the Global Illumination
to use Transparency, to have Ambient
| | 06:02 | Occlusion, to use any Gradients you
have put in your scene, use the Bump Maps.
| | 06:07 | You can increase the Intensity if you want.
| | 06:10 | Just like I did right there and
that increases that Global Illumination Intensity.
| | 06:14 | The more indirect bounces you have,
the cleaner it will be, but of course, the
| | 06:18 | longer it will take to render.
| | 06:19 | As well as the Rays Per
Evaluation and the Secondary Bounce Rays.
| | 06:24 | If I bring these rays down,
it will calculate in a finer detail.
| | 06:29 | You can change the Pixel Spacing.
| | 06:32 | so how much ray is calculated per pixel,
as well as the Pixel Spacing for the
| | 06:37 | maximum value and basically the
finer detail you have there, the finer
| | 06:41 | calculations will be,
the less blotchy it would be.
| | 06:44 | But for most part, often the default
settings will work well if you balance
| | 06:49 | environmental lighting,
Radiosity, with your normal lighting.
| | 06:53 | The other type other than Monte
Carlo is a Final Gather and it is just a
| | 06:57 | different algorithm and you can change
that depending on, you are doing indoor
| | 07:01 | or outdoor, and how your
final render could look.
| | 07:04 | I have found that the Monte Carlo
works quite well for most things.
| | 07:07 | So environmental lighting is a terrific
way to add an enhancement to your scene
| | 07:10 | without adding extra lights and
calculating environmental lighting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Working with 3D CamerasUnderstanding LightWave cameras| 00:00 | Lighting of course is a huge part of
your 3D scene, but so is your camera.
| | 00:04 | What the camera sees is a huge part of how
the final animation appeals to the viewer.
| | 00:10 | In the past people just left
their camera pretty much where it was.
| | 00:13 | They didn't change it much, they
didn't change the angle, they just zoomed
| | 00:16 | in and left it there.
| | 00:17 | These days you can do a
lot more with the camera.
| | 00:20 | Down at the very bottom of the screen
I've selected the Cameras list and I'll
| | 00:23 | hit P to open up the Properties tab.
| | 00:25 | The Camera Properties is where you
can set the Resolution, Antialiasing, and
| | 00:30 | other values that
determine how your camera's viewed.
| | 00:33 | So let's start with the top.
| | 00:35 | You've got multiple cameras in LightWave.
| | 00:37 | You've got an Advanced Camera, a Classic,
Orthogonal, Perspective, a Real Lens
| | 00:41 | Camera, a Shift Camera
and a Surface Baking Camera.
| | 00:45 | The Classic Camera works well with
older LightWave scenes and that's what comes
| | 00:49 | up often and most often.
| | 00:52 | The current camera right here if we
have multiple cameras in our scene we can
| | 00:55 | choose from that list, just the
way we would with multiple lights.
| | 00:59 | The Focal Length, that's set to 24 mm
and I'll show you my scene here.
| | 01:04 | That's what 24 mm looks like.
| | 01:05 | If I click and drag, I can widen out and
I can come down really wide like this.
| | 01:11 | Sometimes it's fun to do and I rarely
see people do this on a 3D scene and
| | 01:15 | it's something you should consider.
| | 01:17 | So if the camera is selected and I go
to Modify and I press Move, now I can
| | 01:21 | move in and I've got just a really
strong kind of cool wide-angle and you could
| | 01:26 | do this on buildings.
| | 01:27 | If you want to give the appearance that
somebody is a little tipsy or something,
| | 01:33 | and you want to do their point of
view in a scene, you can right-click and
| | 01:36 | rotate and just it give it
that really cool kind of look.
| | 01:40 | By the same token you can go the
other way, and really zoom in on something.
| | 01:44 | So I am going to increase my Zoom
factor here, my Lens Focal Length, quite a bit
| | 01:48 | to about a 120 mm or so and then I am
going to select Move and I am going to
| | 01:52 | pull my camera all the way out.
| | 01:54 | I am going to move it up.
| | 01:56 | Now this is a little harder to set
up because you are working with a
| | 01:58 | limited field of view.
| | 01:59 | So you're going to make sure that you
rotate, just click Rotate in the left
| | 02:03 | there and then T, I can move that back.
| | 02:06 | Now what would you use camera like this for?
| | 02:09 | Well, if you take a look, look at my scene,
completely opposite of that wide-angle.
| | 02:13 | Everything kind of gets flattened out.
| | 02:15 | So if you want a very illustrative look,
maybe you are doing architecture and
| | 02:19 | you don't want a very strong perspective, you
can just change that by zooming in the camera.
| | 02:23 | When I say zooming in-- let me
take a look at the Perspective view.
| | 02:28 | Take a look at the representation of the camera.
| | 02:31 | Down here on the bottom left you could
see that's a very long lens and open up
| | 02:35 | the Properties again.
| | 02:36 | If I change this back to let's say 24 mm,
notice that I've got a wider field of
| | 02:43 | view for the camera.
| | 02:45 | So that's all it's doing.
| | 02:46 | It's actually zooming the camera in,
just as you would in the real world and
| | 02:50 | that's really nice to do, especially
when you hit the E key and set an Envelope.
| | 02:53 | You can actually zoom as if you are
pressing the Zoom button on a camera.
| | 02:57 | The other types of cameras are Advanced.
| | 03:00 | Now the Advanced camera is pretty intense.
What it can do though is allow you to
| | 03:04 | use an object as a camera.
| | 03:06 | Now I know that sounds a little odd,
but imagine this. Imagine if you are
| | 03:10 | animating a roller coaster and you've
got one camera traveling down following
| | 03:13 | the roller coaster and suddenly you've
got a animated character and you want to
| | 03:17 | see what the character is seeing, or
you want to see what the roller coaster is
| | 03:19 | seeing. You can set the camera to be one
of those objects and that's why you see
| | 03:25 | an object listed here.
| | 03:26 | The same can be for the Ray Direction,
which way the shadows and ray tracing are
| | 03:30 | calculated as well as the depth.
| | 03:32 | So a very neat thing to do is set that
up and use a camera within an object.
| | 03:37 | The orthogonal camera, Orthographic,
will render from a very strong narrow point of view.
| | 03:44 | Basically a straight on
point of view, so let's do this.
| | 03:47 | I am going to go back to my
Classic Camera, go back to a default 24 mm.
| | 03:51 | We'll take a look at the Camera
view through our camera profile here.
| | 03:58 | Press the T key and I am just going to move in.
| | 03:59 | I am going to use my right mouse to
move down, left mouse to push in, get
| | 04:05 | back to somewhat a normal shot, and
then we'll choose the Orthographic camera
| | 04:09 | and look what happens.
| | 04:10 | It just kind of looks odd, right?
| | 04:12 | Well, let's increase the Vertical Size,
just increase it and look what happens.
| | 04:18 | Essentially you are rendering from
just a straight-on view, no perspective
| | 04:22 | whatsoever and I know that a lot of
architects and illustrators really like this view.
| | 04:26 | So it's got their very kind of
Pro-E CAD type of look, so an
| | 04:30 | Orthographic Camera.
| | 04:32 | Perspective Camera, this is your most
current camera and your most common.
| | 04:36 | So you are going to want most of your
animations done in the Perspective Camera
| | 04:39 | or the Classic Camera, either one,
but Perspective is the newer one.
| | 04:43 | In this, you can set your
focal length like we've done.
| | 04:46 | Your resolution, all different presets
in here, so often I render out at an HD
| | 04:52 | resolution, 1920x1080, and that
sets the proper width and height.
| | 04:57 | Aspect Ratio is the size of your pixel
and for the most part you rarely going to
| | 05:01 | change this these days.
| | 05:02 | Back in the early days when we used to
render for broadcast this used to have to
| | 05:06 | be 0.9, rectangular pixels for broadcast.
| | 05:09 | But these days it's one or sometimes you
might go 1.2 if you are doing a widescreen.
| | 05:14 | You can set Antialiasing to clean the
edges and how that Antialiasing is done is
| | 05:19 | determined with a Soft Gaussian
filter like you would in Photoshop.
| | 05:23 | You put Soft Filter on, and then
you've got Motion Blur and motion effects
| | 05:27 | down at the bottom and simply just put
on Photoreal and you suddenly have motion
| | 05:31 | blur for things that are moving.
| | 05:33 | You have a Real Lens Camera.
| | 05:35 | Now this camera will allow you to
choose a certain camera such as a Nikon and
| | 05:41 | the type of camera and the type of
lens. Or if you've got a pro camera and
| | 05:48 | you've got a Nikon D2X or D3, which I have
but they don't have listed, or if you
| | 05:55 | have Leica, which is great, you can
choose that and choose the type of lens.
| | 06:00 | And let me go to Canon here, something more common.
| | 06:01 | Canon SLR 35mm and let's say
you've got a 24 to 70, 2.8 lens.
| | 06:08 | This camera will match those settings.
| | 06:10 | So if you want to do any kind of
compositing and blend your 3D with a real shot you
| | 06:14 | can do it with the Real Lens Camera.
| | 06:18 | You have a Shift Camera, and a Shift
Camera in LightWave is like a tilt shift
| | 06:23 | camera and what it will do is allow
you to blur various parts of the image.
| | 06:28 | So you can have a horizontal or
vertical offset for the camera and what that
| | 06:33 | will do is give you a concentrated
focus in one part of the scene, let's say
| | 06:37 | on the very first cup.
| | 06:39 | So a tilt shift lens, it's what that does.
| | 06:42 | Finally, a Surface Baking Camera and
what this will do is bake, meaning it will
| | 06:46 | record and make an image map of what
your camera sees and then you can take
| | 06:51 | that image and remap it onto
other objects within your scene.
| | 06:55 | The advantage of doing something
like this is a speedier render.
| | 06:58 | Often video games have baked
images with a Surface Baking Camera.
| | 07:02 | The last thing you need to talk
about with cameras, and we'll go back to a
| | 07:06 | Perspective Camera, is the Use Global function.
| | 07:10 | In the render, in order to get things
rendered out you have to make sure that
| | 07:13 | you set the width and the height,
the resolution that you want and the
| | 07:16 | antialiasing. Often 9 is good, or more.
| | 07:20 | But if you click Use Global, it
suddenly turns off all those settings.
| | 07:24 | And if I Hit Use Global down here,
it turns off all those settings, and I like
| | 07:28 | to do that because then in my Render tab
under Render Globals, under the General tab,
| | 07:34 | I can control my first and Llast
frame and my width and height and my aspect
| | 07:40 | ratio all from here.
| | 07:41 | So you're going to find
these parts in two places.
| | 07:44 | So as long as you hit Use Globals in
the Camera panel you'll be able to control
| | 07:48 | your resolution from the Render Globals panel.
| | 07:51 | And that's a good idea because it's
through this process you're going to set
| | 07:54 | your frame rate, how long your
animation is, the type of things that are going
| | 07:58 | to render such as shadows and
transparency, filtering for smooth edges, Global
| | 08:04 | Illumination, yes or no, and then
where you are going to save everything.
| | 08:08 | So in our rendering videos
we'll work through all of these.
| | 08:11 | So the cameras in LightWave are just as
powerful as the lights as well as your objects.
| | 08:16 | It's always something to consider, so
don't put them off. Don't not think about how
| | 08:20 | the camera should be used.
| | 08:21 | It's just as important as the
objects and lights in your scene.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up a camera in a scene| 00:00 | So we've run through how all the
cameras work, lighting is important, so let's
| | 00:04 | go ahead and just actually
set up a camera for the scene.
| | 00:07 | So with Camera selected for the
current item, that's just the default camera,
| | 00:12 | we'll hit Properties and we've got a
Perspective Camera, which is pretty much a
| | 00:17 | default camera in LightWave.
| | 00:18 | Now the typical default 24 millimeters
is okay for most things, but when we are
| | 00:23 | doing a product shot like this I kind of
like to be zoomed in just a little bit.
| | 00:27 | The reason is, in the real world if
you actually had these on a tabletop you
| | 00:30 | wouldn't be up on top of it.
| | 00:31 | You actually would be zoomed in.
| | 00:34 | I have found that this Lens Focal Length
doesn't really equal 40 millimeters in the real world.
| | 00:39 | It's a little bit arbitrary.
| | 00:41 | But what you want to consider is how the
look is. Don't worry about the numbers as much.
| | 00:46 | So I am going to select Move, I am
going to hit the right mouse and I am going
| | 00:50 | to move this up, and then I am going to
click the left mouse and pull back, just
| | 00:53 | click and drag on the mouse backwards.
| | 00:55 | Then I am going to hit Rotate and click
with the left mouse and rotate like this
| | 01:00 | and then back in the
Properties panel hit the P key.
| | 01:04 | I can zoom in a little bit more.
| | 01:06 | So this zoom has a much different look to
it than just actually pushing the camera in.
| | 01:13 | Then if you take a look at the
Perspective view, you can see what I'm talking
| | 01:17 | about here. We just rotate the view around.
| | 01:20 | You could see that the camera is back
here, just as if we'd set this up on a
| | 01:24 | tabletop and you had a tripod with the camera.
| | 01:27 | That's kind of about the distance you'd be.
| | 01:29 | The camera wouldn't be right up
here on top of it with a wide-angle.
| | 01:32 | So anytime you're setting of a product
shot you want to give it that realism.
| | 01:36 | It changes the overall look
of the perspective of the shot.
| | 01:40 | So that's fine and just to make it
even, because I am a little OCD, we've got to
| | 01:45 | make that 50 millimeters.
| | 01:46 | We are setting Use Global so our
resolution will be set from the Global
| | 01:50 | Illumination panel and the Render Globals panel.
| | 01:53 | Our Antialiasing is set at 9 which I
know just from past experience that's a
| | 01:57 | good resolution and what that will do, see
these little jaggies right here? Now that's OpenGL.
| | 02:02 | That's just the viewport display.
| | 02:04 | But we don't want those when we render
and that's what that Antialiasing will do.
| | 02:09 | What the Antialiasing does is rebuilds.
| | 02:11 | It reconstructs the edges and how does it
reconstruct it? Well that's this value right here.
| | 02:17 | Often Classic works fine. You can set
to Gaussian, which is more of a blurring,
| | 02:20 | but it will work fine for that.
| | 02:23 | Sampling Pattern can be fixed.
| | 02:24 | you can also just choose
Classic, but Fixed works well.
| | 02:27 | We do not want Soft Filter
because we don't want a soft image.
| | 02:31 | I use Soft Filter for doing a very
low res preview. I'll put Soft Filter on
| | 02:35 | to clean it up a bit.
| | 02:37 | Motion effects we are going to
use Use Global as well, okay.
| | 02:42 | So that's setting up just a basic camera.
| | 02:44 | The next thing I like to do even
just to give this camera a little bit of
| | 02:47 | interest is just right-click, choose
Rotate, and then right-click just to tilt it
| | 02:51 | a little bit, a little touch angle.
| | 02:54 | You can also see down here in
the very bottom left Rotation.
| | 02:56 | So just like any object or light you
can choose camera and set a numeric value.
| | 03:01 | If you hit Move, you could see
there's the X, Y, Z positions and if you hit
| | 03:05 | Rotate, you can see there is the Heading,
Pitch and Bank for each of the camera values.
| | 03:10 | Lastly, we'll go to Render > Render
Globals, hit the General tab and then down
| | 03:16 | here under Resolution, I'll change it to
1920 x 1080, or you can go 720p, which
| | 03:22 | is 1280 x 720, but one of these two
settings is most current these days.
| | 03:27 | Now the Multiplier, this
again has to do with your camera.
| | 03:31 | Let's say I've got my scenes set up the
way I want, my client is happy with it,
| | 03:36 | but I need to do some tests.
| | 03:37 | So when I press the F9 key, I'll
actually see that full frame render and you can
| | 03:42 | see here Resolution 1920 x
1080, Antialiasing set to 9.
| | 03:46 | It gives me all the information I need
and the Camera Name, I just set to Camera
| | 03:50 | and I see Perspective Camera Type.
| | 03:53 | You can see that wide-angle look.
| | 03:55 | I'll hit Close, and then you can see that
there is my render, nice and clean on the edges.
| | 04:01 | This is not the scene with all the
default lighting and it looks fine, but
| | 04:07 | what I can do in here, let's say the
client says, "Well that's good and you
| | 04:11 | need to make some changes."
| | 04:12 | If you're doing a still image, it's
not a problem, but if you are doing
| | 04:15 | animation, a full res animation like this
might take some time just to send a preview.
| | 04:19 | This is where the Multiplier comes in.
| | 04:21 | You can jump this down to 25% and keep
all of the settings, the High-Resolution,
| | 04:27 | the Aspect Ratio, the Antialiasing, but
it will scale that resolution down 25%.
| | 04:35 | So press F9 and what you'll see now is
that you get the exact same ratio and the
| | 04:41 | Antialiasing, but at 480 x
270, 25% size of your full HD.
| | 04:47 | What you'll be able to do is render out
an animation in that size and it renders
| | 04:53 | much quicker of course because
it's not the full resolution.
| | 04:57 | The Multiplier is very, very nice way to
test an animation or a scene and by the
| | 05:01 | same token you can double it.
| | 05:03 | Sometimes if your resolution doesn't
go high enough, you can set it and just
| | 05:07 | double it. Again the
Antialiasing will still prevail.
| | 05:11 | Limited Region, if you turn this on
for your camera and you could turn on
| | 05:15 | Borders what you'll get is this nice
outline and so let's say you only want to
| | 05:20 | render a portion of your scene.
You can click and drag your corner and then
| | 05:23 | click in the center and then when you
press F9 to a render it will render only
| | 05:29 | with that Limited Region shows.
| | 05:32 | You can do a full res animation
like this to a QuickTime or an AVI.
| | 05:35 | You could render a square animation if you want.
| | 05:37 | It doesn't have to be set
to a standard resolution.
| | 05:42 | You can choose an overlay if you want
for your camera as a frame number or as
| | 05:47 | timecode or as film if you are
doing a movie, even time in seconds.
| | 05:51 | Sometimes I like the frame number and
you can punch that in there, press F9,
| | 06:00 | and when your animation goes you'll see
a frame number at the bottom of the screen.
| | 06:04 | Now it won't show up on a still image
like this because we are not doing a
| | 06:07 | full animation, but if you have an
animation going you'll actually see that
| | 06:11 | frame number on there.
| | 06:13 | So that works really, really well.
| | 06:15 | But again that's usually more for a
client preview than anything else.
| | 06:18 | We'll turn that off and we'll turn that off.
| | 06:21 | Last thing, Segment Memory Limit,
normally you don't have change this anymore.
| | 06:25 | In years past you did.
| | 06:26 | What this will do it says how much
memory is being used for that render.
| | 06:31 | So 256, more than enough, but if you've got a
super high-resolution you may need to change that.
| | 06:37 | The reason is you want to render in one segment.
| | 06:40 | If this is a too low, it will render
half the frame and then half the frame and
| | 06:43 | sometimes with certain plug-ins and values,
that kind of screw things up a little bit.
| | 06:48 | So it's best to render in one segment,
not only for the scene itself but also for
| | 06:53 | a time's sake it will
render a little bit faster.
| | 06:56 | But that's setting up a camera in
LightWave, very easy to do with the Camera
| | 06:59 | Properties panel and the Render Globals
panel working in conjunction to set the
| | 07:03 | right resolution and frame rate.
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| Placing multiple cameras| 00:00 | Every once in a while when you're
working in a LightWave scene you might need
| | 00:03 | more than one camera, and that's
easy to do because you can have as many
| | 00:06 | cameras as you like.
| | 00:08 | This is the 07_03_
MultipleCamBegin scene from the Exercise Files.
| | 00:12 | I am going to press 4 to
get to a Perspective view.
| | 00:15 | You can see that we've got one
camera right there in the scene.
| | 00:18 | That's our main camera.
| | 00:19 | So let's select that just by clicking
on it, press the P key, and at the very
| | 00:24 | top where it says Current Camera, I can
click and drag and say MainCamera, just
| | 00:28 | rename it, and hit Enter
and make sure that takes.
| | 00:31 | To add a new camera, we're just going
to go to Items, under the Add category,
| | 00:36 | choose Camera, and we'll call this SideCamera.
| | 00:38 | What you'll see is another camera
added right to the center of the screen.
| | 00:44 | You can move it off.
| | 00:46 | We can press 5 to get to our Light View
and 6 to get to our Camera View, press
| | 00:53 | the Y key, which is Rotate from the
Modify tab, click and drag and rotate
| | 00:57 | around, and now I have got a
Camera View down here on the side.
| | 01:01 | Press the T key get to Move, right
mouse to move it up a little bit and left
| | 01:06 | mouse to move it back,
then Y, and just rotate it down.
| | 01:10 | So Y and T, you can use those a lot.
| | 01:12 | You can also Spacebar between
those, just a little added tip.
| | 01:16 | So what happens now is that with the camera,
we've got a SideCamera and a MainCamera.
| | 01:21 | We can select between those for whatever
we need, and I think in most situations
| | 01:26 | you're not going to use that too much.
| | 01:28 | I am going to go to Perspective view.
| | 01:30 | You can see there are my two cameras.
| | 01:31 | We can have as many as we want.
| | 01:33 | So how would you use these?
| | 01:34 | I've set these up when I've got
architectural rendering, when we've got let's
| | 01:38 | say a car driving down the road for
accident recreation. You've got a MainCamera
| | 01:42 | that's parented to the car following it along.
| | 01:44 | You've got another camera perhaps that's
off to the side and watches it pass by.
| | 01:49 | And maybe you've got another camera that
has sort of a bird's eye view, and what
| | 01:52 | you can do is cut between each of these
during a render or what's even better is
| | 01:57 | render out three views.
| | 01:59 | So when you come to your Render > Render
Globals, you can choose which camera is rendering.
| | 02:06 | So you've got your Render right here,
you've got Realistic set, Quick Shade, Wireframe.
| | 02:11 | Under General, you've got Render Range,
whether it's single or arbitrary, and
| | 02:16 | we'll talk about that in rendering.
| | 02:17 | You've got your Filtering and how
that's handled, and then you've got Global
| | 02:21 | Illumination, and then you've got your output.
| | 02:24 | And what you can do after setting all
this up is tell the render engine which
| | 02:29 | camera you want to work with, and we'll
open up the regular Camera Properties
| | 02:33 | so you can choose a Current Camera, and
whatever is chosen that's just going to
| | 02:36 | render through the Render Globals
when you work through these tabs.
| | 02:40 | So it's a very easy way to set up
multiple cameras for, I don't know,
| | 02:44 | architecture, accident
recreation, and even product shots.
| | 02:48 | Even if you are doing a still, sometimes
your client might want to see it from a
| | 02:51 | different angle. So instead of you
coming in and selecting this MainCamera here
| | 02:56 | and then moving it a little bit and
rendering and moving and little rendering,
| | 02:59 | you could have multiple versions set up.
| | 03:01 | I've seen it go one step further
where people have set up a whole string of
| | 03:04 | cameras and have rendered all the
way around for stereotype images, for
| | 03:09 | lithography, where there's
multiple images of the same shot, but just
| | 03:14 | slightly offset and then those are blended
together to make some really cool images in print.
| | 03:19 | Multiple cameras in LightWave are
very powerful, very useful, especially
| | 03:23 | depending on what type of
scene you are trying to create.
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| Animating cameras and camera elements| 00:00 | Obviously, setting up a camera is one
aspect of LightWave 3D, but what about
| | 00:05 | animating the camera?
| | 00:06 | Obviously, you're going to want to
move it at some point. You don't want just
| | 00:09 | your objects,or your lights floating around.
| | 00:11 | So I'm going to show you how to do that.
| | 00:12 | Let's come over here and choose our Camera
View and you can see this is what our camera sees.
| | 00:17 | Here is our Timeline, but for right now
with our Camera selected, I'm going to
| | 00:22 | go to Modify and Move.
| | 00:25 | And we're going to click and drag
over this way, and then we're going to
| | 00:29 | choose Rotate and we're going to right
mouse to kind of rotate back and left
| | 00:34 | mouse to point over at this.
| | 00:35 | And then we're going to go to frame
60 and we're going to make sure that
| | 00:39 | Auto Key is on and we are going to
then choose Move again and again we've
| | 00:43 | got our MainCamera.
| | 00:44 | We're going to let it off to this side
like this, then we're going to choose
| | 00:49 | Rotate and left mouse and rotate it like that.
| | 00:52 | And what we've just done
is created an animation.
| | 00:55 | Hit this Rewind button back here,
hit the Play button, and you've just
| | 01:01 | animated your camera.
| | 01:02 | That's how easy it is.
| | 01:05 | It creates in-betweens for you.
| | 01:07 | So I've essentially told the camera
be here at frame zero and be here at frame 60.
| | 01:12 | And let's take a look at it from
Perspective view so you can see what's happening.
| | 01:19 | So it's very easy to set
up a motion in LightWave.
| | 01:22 | Now we've got a whole section
dedicated towards animating, but just to get
| | 01:26 | you started this is something fun
to do. Now you can enhance this just a
| | 01:30 | little bit more if you like.
| | 01:31 | I'm going to pause that.
| | 01:33 | We're going to go right in-between to frame 30.
| | 01:35 | I'm going to press my Move tool and
I'm going to move this up and I'm going to
| | 01:39 | press Y for rotate and we'll
rotate it down, pointing back at it.
| | 01:43 | And then let's just readjust to frame
60. We'll pull that down a little bit and
| | 01:48 | we'll pull it over a little and rotate still.
| | 01:52 | Let's see what it looks like by
pressing 6. Hit the Rewind button and hit Play.
| | 02:00 | So the caffeine jot from the
coffee brought us up in the air.
| | 02:03 | Press 4 and you can see there
is what the camera is doing.
| | 02:07 | So three keyframes made a motion path
very easy to do and all you're doing is
| | 02:12 | working through your Timeline and
moving your camera to a new position.
| | 02:15 | As long as that Auto Key button is on,
your camera will stay in place where
| | 02:19 | you set it over time. Pretty easy to do.
| | 02:22 | You can also view it with the Viewport
Preview Render and I'm going to turn my
| | 02:27 | OpenGL Overlay off, so
it's a little bit cleaner.
| | 02:30 | And let's take a look at it from the
CameraView, and we'll see how well this plays back.
| | 02:36 | Not so well, okay, and that is
where you're going to come over here.
| | 02:39 | It's your Settings.
| | 02:40 | It's top right corner.
| | 02:42 | Draft mode is on. Let's put on Half
Resolution and let's see how well we do it
| | 02:46 | that. I'll leave that open.
| | 02:52 | So it doesn't quite playback enough in
real-time, and for the most part, I don't
| | 02:57 | usually preview it like this
anyway. Usually I just do it with stills.
| | 03:00 | The system simply can't draw it fast
enough to playback in real-time and
| | 03:04 | that's okay, but depending on your video card,
you may be able to that a little bit better.
| | 03:10 | We'll jump back to Perspective view
and we'll turn this back to Shaded Solid.
| | 03:15 | So animating the camera is pretty easy.
| | 03:17 | It will record motions, rotations,
and it will automatically create
| | 03:22 | keyframes in-between for you.
| | 03:24 | So simple three keyframes and you've
got a nice motion setup for your camera.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Building AnimationsUnderstanding the Timeline| 00:00 | You know that LightWave can model 3D
objects and then LightWave Layout you can
| | 00:04 | create a full lighting setup.
| | 00:06 | You can design your cameras
around real world principles.
| | 00:09 | But it can also animate and in
LightWave Layout, you can see down here at the
| | 00:12 | very bottom of the screen I've
got this nice little timeline.
| | 00:15 | Well, this is your home base
for all your animation needs.
| | 00:17 | Let's start over here on the left.
| | 00:18 | You're going to see that be
little dropdown box here is the 0.
| | 00:23 | That is my first frame.
| | 00:24 | Now you can set this to have a first
frame of maybe frame 30, if you wanted.
| | 00:29 | Or, you can set it for maybe negative 30.
| | 00:33 | And people think, well, would you do
a negative value for your first frame?
| | 00:36 | Let's say you have a character that's running.
| | 00:39 | You don't want to start your
animation with him actually running.
| | 00:41 | You want him to be already in full stride.
| | 00:44 | And if that's the case, you can give it
a pre-roll so he can already be running.
| | 00:47 | Give him a one second pre-roll and then
as an animation starts, he'll already be
| | 00:52 | in his full stride when you get into it.
So a very nice, little, handy feature.
| | 00:56 | You might not use that too often
but something you should be aware of.
| | 01:00 | The last frame over here you can set.
| | 01:02 | By default it's set to 60, which is
2 seconds at 30 frames per second.
| | 01:06 | You're not often going to
do a 60-frame animation.
| | 01:09 | you might do something more
like a 10 second animation.
| | 01:11 | So I'll enter in 300, easy enough.
| | 01:14 | In the very center of the screen, you've
got Auto Key, which is always on by default.
| | 01:18 | What Auto Key will do will lie to
automatically create keyframes. So you'll select
| | 01:22 | an object, a light, or a camera
| | 01:23 | and as you move through your timeline
then adjust that item, it'll automatically
| | 01:28 | create a keyframe, locking it in place.
| | 01:30 | We're going to talk about
keyframes in an upcoming video.
| | 01:33 | Beneath that you're going see Create Key
and if you can select an item and click that,
| | 01:37 | you have your Create
Motion Key panel that pops up.
| | 01:40 | And at the same time, you can have Delete Key.
| | 01:42 | So as you're working through and you
accidentally create an extra keyframe where
| | 01:45 | you realize it's not needed,
very simply you can delete the key.
| | 01:48 | Over on the right-hand side here, you've
got your full rewind, then you can jump
| | 01:53 | to the last keyframe, or you can step
through one frame at a time by clicking
| | 01:58 | these buttons backwards or forwards.
| | 02:00 | Jump to the next keyframe or jump to
the end of animation with these buttons.
| | 02:04 | We have a rewind button that you can
hit and it plays the animation backwards.
| | 02:08 | Pause it or play the animation forward.
| | 02:11 | Now there's a Rate down here at the very bottom.
| | 02:12 | This is the rate of playback
for these buttons right here.
| | 02:15 | Typically, I never really change this.
| | 02:17 | Back in the early days when computers
were much slower, we might want to change
| | 02:21 | that so your computer had enough time to
playback at a normal speed that you can
| | 02:25 | tell what's happening.
| | 02:26 | These days most computers are very fast
and you don't need to change that too often.
| | 02:31 | The Preview dropdown here allows
you to make a preview of your layout.
| | 02:36 | So let's say your client wants to see
a preview of the animation and you don't
| | 02:39 | have time to render out even a small preview.
| | 02:42 | You can actually show your client a
recorded preview of the OpenGL screen by
| | 02:46 | hitting Make Preview.
| | 02:47 | And what this allows you to do, if you
come down here to the Preview Options, is
| | 02:51 | you can save out a Quick Time or an AVI file.
| | 02:54 | And again this is not a render.
| | 02:56 | This is just a preview of what's
happening in your Layout screen.
| | 02:58 | So it's kind of a nice way to work if you
have a quick preview that you need to render.
| | 03:02 | So the LightWave timeline, it's kind
of your home base for all your animation
| | 03:06 | needs, for creating
keyframes and deleting keyframes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding and controlling keyframes| 00:00 | Creating an animation in LightWave
might not be as hard as you think.
| | 00:03 | To do so, we're going to
start with simply just the camera.
| | 00:06 | We're not going to put any objects in the scene.
| | 00:07 | You're going to see how simple this is.
| | 00:09 | I've set my Timeline to 300 frames,
giving me a ten second animation.
| | 00:14 | I've got my Camera selected and I'm
looking at it from a Perspective view.
| | 00:17 | I'm going to start at frame 0 and
I make sure that my Auto Key is on.
| | 00:21 | So what happens is anywhere I move my Timeline,
| | 00:24 | whenever I move that camera, or a
light, or an object, it will be recorded
| | 00:28 | in that time space.
| | 00:29 | So I'm going to start over here.
| | 00:30 | I'm just going to move my camera up
by clicking and dragging on the green
| | 00:32 | handle, and let's say I want to go all
the way to the back of the frame about 150.
| | 00:37 | Okay, now here is a little trick
that I use for creating animations.
| | 00:42 | I set up my final resting spot or at
least half way if there is a big turn.
| | 00:48 | So I want the camera to jump
down the frame and then come back.
| | 00:51 | So I'm actually going to grab the blue
handle and push it all the way down.
| | 00:54 | What you're going to see is this
little motion path that's created.
| | 00:58 | That will actually determine and
show you how that camera is moving.
| | 01:02 | You will also notice that there is a
little yellow mark where the 150 is.
| | 01:05 | That means a keyframe has
automatically been created, and at frame 300,
| | 01:09 | I want it to be back at 0.
| | 01:11 | Well, instead of just moving it back to 0,
because I want it to be at the exact same place.
| | 01:15 | Here is little trick.
| | 01:16 | I'll come back to frame zero,
and then I'll hit Create Key.
| | 01:21 | I am creating a key for the Selected
Item At-- well, not at zero, but at 300.
| | 01:28 | And I want it to be for the Position,
the Rotation, and the Scale of that item.
| | 01:33 | So while I had the camera already
set as a keyframe at frame zero,
| | 01:37 | I want to copy that keyframe, so I'm
simply just going to add existing position,
| | 01:41 | then hitting Create Motion Key, and
telling it make that same position at 300.
| | 01:46 | And what happens is this.
| | 01:47 | If I hit the Play button, the camera
moves forward at 150 and then comes back.
| | 01:54 | It's exciting, isn't it?
| | 01:59 | And then of course, the animation starts over.
| | 02:01 | Well, let's say in between that,
I needed to move my camera left or right.
| | 02:07 | Perhaps this light, let's go to frame zero.
| | 02:10 | Perhaps this light is in the way and
we want the camera to pass around it.
| | 02:15 | I am going to move up my view just a little bit.
| | 02:20 | Back to the camera. So my light's in the way,
and it needs to just kind of pass around that.
| | 02:26 | How would we do that?
| | 02:27 | Well, if I try to guess what frame I
need to move beyond this light just to move
| | 02:33 | around it, I probably would be wrong,
and what would happen is the camera would
| | 02:36 | move at a certain speed, and then
kind of jerk around the light, and then
| | 02:40 | perhaps move too slow.
| | 02:41 | But by setting the first keyframe and
then the last keyframe, the computer has
| | 02:46 | interpolated those frames in between.
| | 02:47 | So now I know that right here is frame 53.
| | 02:51 | That's a little bit arbitrary and most
likely I would have keyframed it 40 or
| | 02:54 | 50, or 45, something more even.
| | 02:57 | So I'm just going to select frame 53,
and then I'm going to grab the green
| | 03:01 | handle and pull the camera aside.
| | 03:03 | But what you're going to see is that
the motion path automatically starts going
| | 03:07 | to that next keyframe.
| | 03:08 | So at frame zero, I am starting out
and then it's going right to 53.
| | 03:12 | Well, I want it to stay in a straight
line until it gets close to the light and
| | 03:17 | then passes around it.
| | 03:19 | So right about here is where I would need
it to start coming out around the light.
| | 03:24 | So I'm just going to move to that frame,
select the right-handle here, and just
| | 03:27 | pull that over, and now you can see I'm
straightening out that Timeline and the
| | 03:32 | camera comes and moves around slowly.
| | 03:35 | But keeps the same motion path,
keeps the same constant motion.
| | 03:41 | And by the same token you can come to
the backside of it, right about here, and
| | 03:47 | then just move that back in place.
| | 03:50 | So now I've created not a very complex
animation, but something with little motion.
| | 03:57 | If I wanted to do a little bit more
perhaps at frame 53, I can grab the green
| | 04:03 | handle and pull that up, or I can select
Rotate and I can give it a little bank,
| | 04:09 | so that when I go back to frame zero
by hitting the Rewind button down here.
| | 04:12 | Hit the Play button to the right.
| | 04:15 | It starts banking around the camera.
| | 04:17 | If I go to the very last frame at
frame 300, I can even rotate it this way.
| | 04:26 | What happens is that the computer
does its best job to interpolate.
| | 04:29 | So you see it already has an
angle going into that last frame.
| | 04:33 | So it's not very hard to
set up keyframes in LightWave.
| | 04:36 | But let's say you wanted to move one of these.
| | 04:37 | There is a little trick here.
| | 04:39 | If you move your arrow right above
this Timeline, you'll see a little arrow
| | 04:43 | pop up, kind of looks
like a little Christmas tree.
| | 04:45 | If you click that, you're going
to see an additional Timeline.
| | 04:49 | What that allows you to do is select
over any of these keyframes and you can
| | 04:54 | move them by clicking and dragging.
| | 04:56 | You could select one of them, right-
click, and you can copy those keys,
| | 05:00 | paste those keys, delete them, and
that's the same Delete Key you're going
| | 05:04 | to see right here as well.
| | 05:05 | But a lot of times you might just want
to adjust and it's quickly added to your
| | 05:10 | Timeline just like that.
| | 05:12 | So now things happen a little bit differently.
| | 05:15 | And I can take this keyframe here and
maybe I want it to instead of 150, get
| | 05:20 | down to the back at a 139, and maybe I
don't want it to happen at 300. Maybe I
| | 05:24 | want it to come back to the front really fast.
| | 05:27 | So I'll just click and
drag that keyframe up to 180.
| | 05:30 | Watch what happens now.
| | 05:32 | So the same motion path happens here.
| | 05:33 | Watch how quick it comes back.
| | 05:35 | Just like that, I was able to
edit the keyframes quite easily.
| | 05:39 | So working with the timeline is not that hard.
| | 05:41 | A lot of times you're going to just
worry about the numbers, and you shouldn't.
| | 05:45 | Worry about what you see in the motion,
and if it doesn't feel right, tweak it a
| | 05:49 | little bit and the way you can tweak
it is with this additional timeline above
| | 05:52 | the regular timeline.
| | 05:53 | You can always close that out just by
clicking back on it to keep your interface neat.
| | 05:57 | So, creating keyframes
works very well with Auto Key.
| | 06:00 | It can be used for lights, for objects,
and for cameras, as well as surface
| | 06:05 | properties, color values, and many
other things throughout LightWave.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fine-tuning keyframes in the Graph Editor| 00:00 | I've loaded up the 08_01_
AnimateCamBegin and this is a scene from earlier in
| | 00:06 | the course and I have got a
little error with the camera here.
| | 00:09 | I am not sure what's going on there.
| | 00:11 | Well, what's the best way to fix that?
| | 00:12 | Well, if I take a look at the
Perspective view by pressing 4 on my keyboard, if
| | 00:16 | you look at that motion path, I'll hit
the Rewind button and then just hit Play,
| | 00:19 | it looks okay, but it's
kind of odd right in here.
| | 00:23 | And while I can tweak that right here
in Layout, there is another way to adjust
| | 00:27 | your keyframes and
that's with the Graph Editor.
| | 00:30 | The additional thing I want to fix is
that my camera just kind of starts out and
| | 00:33 | it's just kind of ends abruptly.
| | 00:34 | Just kind of stops.
| | 00:37 | So I am going to extend this to 160
frames just so the camera sits for a
| | 00:41 | little bit before the animation
rewinds, and in the real world the camera
| | 00:45 | wouldn't just slam in. It would ease in.
| | 00:48 | And the same thing at the start.
| | 00:50 | It wouldn't just start up.
| | 00:51 | It would kind of ease out a little bit.
| | 00:52 | Well you can do that in the Graph Editor.
| | 00:54 | You can fix all those little things by
clicking the Graph Editor right here on
| | 00:57 | the very top-left of the screen.
| | 00:59 | Now a lot of people I now get in here,
and they go, "whoa, too much!" And it's not
| | 01:03 | that hard once you know what you are doing.
| | 01:06 | So what I am going to do is give you an
overview of this and then we are going
| | 01:09 | to tweak that keyframe.
| | 01:10 | We have got our Scene Bin, down here at
the very bottom left and what this does
| | 01:14 | is it shows you whatever
is in your LightWave scene.
| | 01:18 | So we've got our CupMASTER.
| | 01:20 | All the additional cups that we
have created, our light and our camera.
| | 01:23 | Let's open up the camera by clicking
the little triangle, and in there, you can
| | 01:27 | see that you've got all of your motion channels.
| | 01:31 | So you have got your Position X, Y
and Z and your Heading, Pitch and Bank.
| | 01:37 | By just double-clicking one of those,
you add it to the Channel Bin, which is up
| | 01:41 | here in the top-left.
| | 01:42 | You can double-click one of the
others, or if you hold the Shift key you
| | 01:46 | could add two channels.
| | 01:48 | If you want to add all of them at once,
simply just double-click the camera and
| | 01:52 | all of its Motion Channels
are added to the Channel bin.
| | 01:55 | The reason you do that is because then
you can select one of these channels and
| | 01:59 | edit them in the Curve bin.
| | 02:00 | That's this area right here.
| | 02:02 | So I know that my camera is a little
weird on the rotation at that middle keyframe.
| | 02:07 | So let's take a look at those channels.
| | 02:09 | I can grab this Timeline slider right
here and look through. The red represents
| | 02:16 | my Heading, the green represents the Pitch.
| | 02:19 | And you can see that it's pretty flat,
meaning there's really no motion on that channel.
| | 02:24 | And the Bank also doesn't
really have much change.
| | 02:27 | The Heading is the one
that to be a little bit odd.
| | 02:29 | So let's go to that frame 60 right there.
| | 02:32 | I will move this down and
that's that keyframe right there.
| | 02:35 | So if you have a larger screen,
| | 02:37 | you can actually put your Graph Editor
on one view and then take a look at your
| | 02:40 | animation on another view.
| | 02:41 | I am going to adjust my screen here
so you can see what's happening on both.
| | 02:46 | If I move my Timeline, you will see it
respond in Layout, and what I can do then
| | 02:51 | is come down here to these tools.
| | 02:53 | The very left one here is Move and you
can see the legend right there, and it
| | 02:56 | even tells you what to do.
| | 02:57 | Left mouse button moves values, Ctrl+
Left mouse button moves time, Ctrl+Right
| | 03:02 | mouse button, and so on.
| | 03:04 | This one creates a key.
| | 03:06 | You can actually create your
keyframes in the Graph Editor.
| | 03:09 | I don't know too many people that do that.
| | 03:10 | Most people adjust in the Graph Editor,
adding one or deleting one, but you're
| | 03:15 | welcome to build your whole animation in here.
| | 03:17 | You can stretch a timeline, you can roll
a group of keys, and of course, you can
| | 03:23 | just zoom in on one.
| | 03:24 | And if you accidentally do that,
just press the A key. That will fit
| | 03:27 | everything to view.
| | 03:29 | Up here just like you can in LightWave
Modeler and LightWave Layout, click and
| | 03:32 | drag around to look at your Timeline.
You can zoom in and out and then there are
| | 03:36 | a number of other keys up
here that you can click.
| | 03:39 | These will give you more specific
controls over your keyframe and motion channels.
| | 03:43 | We are going to leave those
alone just for the time being.
| | 03:46 | Let's take a look at this key
right here. What's this one?
| | 03:48 | That is the X. It's red and that is
where things start out. So let's do this.
| | 03:53 | I'm going to left mouse and just
click right on that keyframe, and that
| | 03:57 | activates a number of controls
down here at the very bottom.
| | 04:00 | So in the Curves tab, you can see that
my value for that frame is -15. -15 what?
| | 04:07 | Well, that's -15 meters on the
Position.X. Where does that number come from?
| | 04:12 | Well, the base is just off of that zero axis.
| | 04:16 | That dark crosshair that you see in the screen.
| | 04:19 | That's your 0,0 axis.
| | 04:22 | So it's -15 meters from that point and
I know that because my grid at the very
| | 04:28 | bottom left of the screen is 10 meters.
| | 04:30 | So it starts right over there.
| | 04:32 | 15 meters from that zero point.
| | 04:34 | But notice how hard it is when it comes out.
| | 04:36 | That's where these Curve controls come in.
| | 04:38 | What I can do is click and drag
the Tension and I get set that to 1.
| | 04:43 | And this Tension only goes to 1 or -1.
| | 04:45 | So you can't really go more than that.
| | 04:47 | But now the camera eases out.
| | 04:49 | See how that curve changes?
| | 04:51 | I can do the same over here.
| | 04:52 | I am going to hold the Shift key and
select all of my keyframes for the Position
| | 04:58 | and then with my right mouse button, I'm
going to select all of those, just like that.
| | 05:03 | Now I can easily set Tension for
each one of those very easily.
| | 05:07 | I can right mouse over the ending
keyframe and also set a Tension of 1 and
| | 05:13 | notice how now it eases in.
| | 05:15 | Well, let's see what
happens now when I play this.
| | 05:17 | It starts out slow, comes around,
and then it slows down into place.
| | 05:23 | Much smoother.
| | 05:25 | But I still have that odd rotation
going on here in the middle. Right there.
| | 05:29 | So let's fix that.
| | 05:30 | The reason I can't really fix it
directly from here is because it's going to an
| | 05:36 | additional keyframe.
| | 05:37 | Even though there is a keyframe at 30, when
it's going to 60 it's rotating in between.
| | 05:42 | It's interpolating.
| | 05:45 | So I need to be careful
when I adjust that keyframe.
| | 05:48 | So let me come over here and hold
the Shift key and select all my heading
| | 05:51 | channels and see this slope right here,
you see the Motion Z that actually
| | 05:55 | changes the Z channel, where it pulls
out a little bit, and then the Rotation,
| | 06:00 | we'll right mouse over this and here
I can change the value. Look at that.
| | 06:07 | I am actually rotating the camera in
Layout right by changing this value.
| | 06:11 | So let's just put it at zero and now the
camera is not rotating, but I need to be
| | 06:16 | careful because it might
actually be rotated too much.
| | 06:19 | Let's take a look at the Camera
View and see what it sees? Oops!
| | 06:22 | Too high, right?
| | 06:23 | So we're just going to bring it down
about 10 degrees and I'll pull this up so you can see,
| | 06:30 | and now we actually
can see our shot very easily.
| | 06:33 | So we will rewind, hit the Play button,
and now we don't dip down into the shot.
| | 06:42 | Just by editing it in the Graph Editor.
| | 06:45 | Lastly, let's go back to Position.
| | 06:48 | If you don't like the camera easing in,
perhaps you have a ball bouncing or
| | 06:52 | something like that, you could set
a Tension of -1 and what that does is slam
| | 06:57 | your camera in. It comes in really
fast, and again that's something more that
| | 07:00 | you want to land hard.
| | 07:01 | Now, our camera doesn't want to
land hard. It wants to just ease in.
| | 07:04 | So that's the opposite. That's 1.0.
| | 07:07 | Other values like Continuity and Bias
work better with your in-between keyframes
| | 07:11 | and here if you adjust the Continuity
to 1, you will see it actually jumps into
| | 07:16 | a keyframe and jumps out quickly.
| | 07:19 | So ball bouncing that would work really well.
| | 07:21 | The opposite value has a
jump in something really hard.
| | 07:24 | You have a car perhaps that turns a corner.
| | 07:27 | Well if you are going to do that, go to Bias
and watch what happens when I adjust the Bias.
| | 07:32 | It changes the motion
before or after that keyframe.
| | 07:36 | So you have a car swinging around a
corner. It can actually fishtail by just
| | 07:40 | adjusting the Rotation channel's keyframe bias.
| | 07:43 | Now I know that sounds relatively complex,
but it's not as hard as you might think.
| | 07:48 | It's just takes a little bit of time
to just adjust these, tweak, and with one
| | 07:52 | little setting, you will see the
instant results right in the Layout.
| | 07:56 | For the most part you are going to use
the Tension quite often and there is a
| | 07:59 | little quick key to do that.
| | 08:01 | If I come back to 4 on my keyboard and
I go to frame 120 let's say, if I press
| | 08:08 | Ctrl+G, take a look at the Rotation
information channels down here. Ctrl+G all
| | 08:12 | of a sudden changes that keyframe to Move TCB.
| | 08:17 | Tension, Continuity and Bias.
| | 08:19 | Right there in Layout, I can actually
set a Tension for that keyframe, and avoid
| | 08:23 | going to the Graph Editor,
if that's all I need to do.
| | 08:26 | And to just to get out of it, I can just
select the Move tool or Rotate or some other tool.
| | 08:31 | So the Graph Editor is not quite as
complex as you think, but it's a great
| | 08:34 | way to get in and take care of motion
channels, individual channels, as well
| | 08:38 | as rotation channels, and have very
specific motion channels for all of your animations.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using motion plug-ins to enhance keyframes| 00:00 | Setting up keyframes in LightWave is
not too complicated. Start with one point,
| | 00:04 | set a keyframe, move to a
second point, set another keyframe.
| | 00:08 | But sometimes you can do
things a little more automated.
| | 00:10 | You can let the system work for you.
| | 00:12 | And that's done with motion plug-ins.
| | 00:14 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 00:15 | I am going to press 4 on my keyboard
to take it to a Perspective view and I
| | 00:19 | am going to rotate around just to see
things a little bit, and I will select
| | 00:23 | the big red ball here.
| | 00:24 | Now, notice that the pivot point for
this ball is right at the center origin.
| | 00:28 | We never changed that in LightWave
Modeler, which means if I rotate this by
| | 00:32 | pressing the Y command, it's
going to rotate from that point.
| | 00:36 | Well, I want to change that.
| | 00:38 | So what I am going to do is go to Modify,
and then go down to Move Pivot, right
| | 00:42 | here under the Translate category,
and very simply I can move this over.
| | 00:47 | And let's press the 2 on our keyboard.
| | 00:50 | It gives us a top-down view, and
very easily I can move that pivot point.
| | 00:54 | Press 4 to go back to Perspective and
even 3 if you like to go to a Side view,
| | 00:59 | and I can move that up
to the center of the ball.
| | 01:02 | But I think we could leave it there
for what we are going to do right now.
| | 01:05 | Make sure though when you're moving a
pivot or anything, you check it from all axis.
| | 01:09 | Now, if I go back to the Move tool,
now I can move it very easily from that
| | 01:13 | center opine. reusesP the Y command for
Rotate and now it rotates from that base point.
| | 01:19 | So very easy to change that.
| | 01:20 | And that's important to do if you've
got things like doors that are opening and
| | 01:23 | closing. You are going to
want to move that pivot point.
| | 01:26 | With that object selector, I am going
to press the M key for Motion Options.
| | 01:29 | You will have Motion
Options for any item in LightWave.
| | 01:33 | Camera, light, or an object.
| | 01:35 | I don't want to do any parenting or
targeting to this. I actually want to work
| | 01:39 | down under modifiers, and modifiers
are a plug-in, just a little accent that
| | 01:43 | you can put in, such as something like
gravity, and there is a long list,
| | 01:49 | there is quite a few things, but
I am going to choose Gravity.
| | 01:52 | Any time you add something, you can
double-click it and you'll get additional
| | 01:55 | tools that follow beneath it.
| | 01:57 | So the Strength of gravity, right now it says 1.
| | 02:00 | Well, 9.8 will give you a
little bit more realistic gravity.
| | 02:04 | The Ground Level is 0.
| | 02:06 | Now, we know that that's going to work,
because we build everything right on
| | 02:08 | that 0 plane, and that pivot
I just moved is right at 0.
| | 02:12 | Start Time is 1, End Time is 60.
| | 02:14 | Elasticity at a 100% means it
will bounce. So let's do this.
| | 02:18 | I am going to leave this open. Put it off
to the side so you can see what's happening.
| | 02:22 | I have got the red ball selected and
I am going to move it up like that.
| | 02:27 | I have not set any keyframes for it.
| | 02:29 | There is always a keyframe at 0 to hold it in
place but there is no others on the Timeline.
| | 02:34 | When I press Play, it automatically
falls and bounces, and let's make our
| | 02:39 | animation 300 frames by
adding the last frame to 300.
| | 02:45 | And so now you can see it stopped after 60.
| | 02:47 | Well, that's because our End Time
was only 60 in our Motion Options.
| | 02:52 | So I'll select that and choose 300,
or better yet, let's make it 200, so we
| | 02:57 | could see what happens after.
| | 03:00 | So now for 200 frames, that
ball is just going to bounce.
| | 03:03 | I didn't have to set any
keyframes, and at 200 it stops.
| | 03:09 | Well, I want it to bounce a
little bit, but not keep bouncing.
| | 03:13 | Well, that's where the Elasticity comes in.
| | 03:14 | So I am going to come over to
Elasticity and maybe choose 20%, hit the Play
| | 03:19 | button, and there it goes.
| | 03:23 | So it's a little heavier, like a bowling ball.
| | 03:25 | If I want it lighter, put a
little more bounce into it.
| | 03:27 | A little bounce in your step, and there you go.
| | 03:31 | Now, you can certainly add some
keyframes to this to accent it.
| | 03:35 | I have actually used this quite a bit for logos.
| | 03:38 | I had logos drop right in
from behind the camera and fall.
| | 03:42 | It works really well.
| | 03:43 | Let me show you one more thing you can do.
| | 03:46 | We'll pretend that we're viewing it from here.
| | 03:48 | Let's say our camera
wants to shake a little bit.
| | 03:50 | This is a big heavy red ball.
| | 03:52 | You want your company logo to
just really shake the screen.
| | 03:54 | Let's press 6 to get to Camera View.
| | 03:58 | When this comes down, it bounces.
| | 04:00 | It hits right at about 14 frames.
| | 04:04 | So I am going to select the Camera, press
Properties, press M to get the Motion Properties.
| | 04:11 | You don't need the regular properties.
And we are going to add the Modifier Jolt.
| | 04:15 | It's right under Gravity.
| | 04:16 | And this is Motion options for the Camera.
| | 04:19 | I am going to double-click Jolt and
I get this whole other panel that pops up.
| | 04:23 | Now, don't be confused by all this.
| | 04:25 | It's actually pretty easy.
| | 04:26 | What we are going to do is go to
that frame that we just set, which was
| | 04:30 | probably 11 or 12, 13, you can even
manually punch it in, and then I want to
| | 04:34 | hit Create Key, and I want a light jolt of the
camera, and all these values are automatically set.
| | 04:40 | I'll click Continue, I'll
rewind, and now watch what happens.
| | 04:46 | Now, the camera has a
little bit of a shake to it.
| | 04:49 | Let's bring this back down to about 90.
| | 04:50 | Now, you can adjust that to more of a
medium jolt; you can extend it so that
| | 04:57 | it wobbles the camera.
| | 04:59 | It can rotate the camera, whatever you
like, but those motion plug-ins are very
| | 05:03 | useful for little accents in your
animation that are often sometimes hard to
| | 05:07 | keyframe, and something to consider
whether you're doing realistic animations,
| | 05:11 | logos, or even simple product shots.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Animating textures| 00:00 | Animating in LightWave is pretty
straightforward, especially when it comes to
| | 00:03 | setting keyframe for cameras, lights or
objects, but there can be other things
| | 00:07 | you might to animate such as a texture.
| | 00:10 | And why would you do that?
| | 00:11 | Well, there is a number of reasons.
| | 00:12 | Let's start with a simple object.
| | 00:14 | What I am going to do is go to File, hit
Load, I want to choose Load Object, and
| | 00:18 | from the Chapter 8 Exercise Files if you
have those, load up the CowBegin file.
| | 00:22 | You can load up any object you want,
if you have even a simple box to do
| | 00:25 | something like this.
| | 00:26 | I am going to rotate this
cow around so we see it.
| | 00:30 | Now it looks like he doesn't have
any textures on him but he really does.
| | 00:33 | Let's jump over here to Viewport
Preview Rendering and you can see that he has
| | 00:37 | got a cow type surface on him and that works fine.
| | 00:42 | But what if for some crazy reason,
you want to animate that texture on him?
| | 00:45 | I will open up the Surface Editor
and that's the CowHide surface that we
| | 00:49 | are going to work with.
| | 00:50 | And what I want to do is take a
look at where that surface is.
| | 00:54 | So under the Color texture,
I will hit the T button.
| | 00:58 | And here we can see there is
the Procedural Texture applied.
| | 01:01 | It's a Fractal Noise.
| | 01:03 | Texture Color is this dark gray.
| | 01:05 | We can brighten that up if we want,
make it green, whatever color we like.
| | 01:09 | The Frequencies and Contrast, I'll
determine how that shape is on the ends of it.
| | 01:12 | But here under Scale, Position, or
Rotation, I can change that over time.
| | 01:17 | So for instance, here's the position on
the Y. If you can see me move it, it's
| | 01:21 | actually moving the texture.
| | 01:23 | Well, by hitting the E button right next
to that, I can change that value over time.
| | 01:29 | That opens up the Graph Editor.
| | 01:31 | Now we talked about the Graph Editor
earlier for tweaking your motion keys, but
| | 01:35 | you can also use it for animating textures.
| | 01:37 | I am going to press the Tab key real
quick. That will hide all my panels.
| | 01:43 | If you think to enter the Graph
Editor right from the Layout, you're not
| | 01:46 | necessarily going to get your
textures all in here to begin with.
| | 01:49 | Okay, that's important to know that you
have to enter the Graph Editor from one
| | 01:53 | of these E buttons by clicking on it.
| | 01:56 | In that way, all of your Surface channels
are now entered into the curve bin here.
| | 02:01 | So, what do I want to do?
| | 02:02 | Well, I want to change that value, just
on the Y-axis, up and down, kind of like
| | 02:07 | we played with, from 0 to 60.
| | 02:10 | So at Frame 0, we already have a keyframe.
Our Value, and we will select it right
| | 02:16 | here, is 490mm for that selected texture.
| | 02:20 | And then at Frame 60, we will click
Create Key and we will click right on there.
| | 02:26 | That creates a keyframe.
| | 02:28 | Go back to the Move channel and just
make sure that's selected, and at Frame 60,
| | 02:33 | let's move that to 600mm.
| | 02:36 | Press the A key to fit.
| | 02:37 | Now, you can see that this texture
moves form 490 up through 600mm over
| | 02:45 | two seconds 60 frames.
| | 02:48 | Now, the other thing to understand is
that that 490mm is based on the grid size.
| | 02:52 | So again, down here we are going to
reference the Grid, 1m. Every grid is 1 meter in size
| | 02:57 | and you will see the
grid if you go to OpenGL Overlay.
| | 03:02 | So, 1m in size, we told it
to go from 490 up to 600.
| | 03:05 | It might not be enough, but if you hit
the Play button, you will see it moves up.
| | 03:10 | I will actually just scrub through it a
little bit slower. But now the texture
| | 03:15 | is actually moving on the cow.
| | 03:18 | Now, what's kind of neat is that
it really can't come off the cow.
| | 03:23 | So here's a little trick and you
can do this for oceans as well.
| | 03:26 | Take the CowHide, go back to the
texture, and let's take a look at the position X.
| | 03:32 | So I am going to hold the Shift key
and let's just turn this off for a minute
| | 03:34 | so you can see what I am doing.
| | 03:35 | If you play with the X value, because
the cow was facing down the Z, so the X is
| | 03:40 | left and right, so basically either
side of the cow, and close out real quick.
| | 03:46 | Hold the Shift key to click and turn it off.
| | 03:49 | What happens is that it actually looks
like the shape of the texture changing
| | 03:54 | when really all it's doing is
just moving through the cow.
| | 03:58 | There is no way for it to come off
into us, even though it is a 3D program.
| | 04:02 | So what's happening is it gives the
appearance that this fractal noise patterns
| | 04:06 | are changing over time.
| | 04:08 | So, it's a really cool look and you can
set that value by hitting the E button
| | 04:12 | and setting a keyframe over time.
| | 04:14 | So think of this for moving clouds and
surfaces on water and ground and dust.
| | 04:20 | You can do some really cool looking
things just by placing a texture on a
| | 04:24 | surface and animating that channel.
| | 04:26 | If you had a flat object on the ground,
you would animate the Y value, because
| | 04:30 | there is no way for it to go up so
it just kind of shrinks and changes.
| | 04:35 | It's kind of a neat little trick.
| | 04:37 | So you can play with that cow, that's in there.
| | 04:39 | Let me show you one more thing.
| | 04:40 | I am going to load an actual
little scene and this is the SkyBegin.
| | 04:45 | And what this is if I press the 4 on my
keyboard, it's just a sphere cut in half
| | 04:51 | and it's inverted so that we can see inside it.
| | 04:54 | And you can do something like this for
maybe an environment, perhaps around a
| | 04:58 | boat or a car, even a product.
| | 05:00 | So, I'll press 6. I am going to open
the Surface Editor and this time we are
| | 05:04 | going to place a texture
on the Luminosity channel.
| | 05:07 | So rather than clicking the E for
that value, we are going to go to Texture
| | 05:10 | first because then we can grab the E
channel to animate any of those values we
| | 05:15 | have placed on here, even such as an Image Map.
| | 05:18 | So we have animated a texture with the cow
but in this case, we want to animate the image.
| | 05:23 | So, Projection type can be Planer, the
image we are going to load is the clouds
| | 05:28 | and you can use any kind
of cloud that you might have.
| | 05:30 | We will place it on the Y axis and
we'll click Automatic Sizing, so it fits
| | 05:35 | to the whole object.
| | 05:38 | I want to make sure that in my
surface properties I have Smoothing on for
| | 05:42 | that particular surface.
| | 05:44 | And now you can see that I can move
this on the Y, just by clicking and
| | 05:50 | dragging. I can move it on the X
and you can see it's just slowly just
| | 05:53 | moving around that sphere.
| | 05:56 | So to animate this, all I have to do is
click the E button and I will hit Create Key.
| | 06:02 | That's the second button right here,
and we already have a key right at 0 at 755mm.
| | 06:09 | So let's go over to about 40 frames,
create a key, and then for that selected key,
| | 06:14 | maybe we will say 1000mm, which is 1m.
| | 06:21 | Like I've shown you earlier in the
Graph Editor, you can right mouse over these
| | 06:25 | and set a Tension of 1 and that
value then will ease-out and ease-in.
| | 06:31 | very subtle on an image, but I can still do it.
| | 06:34 | So, what happens now is that that
texture from 0 all the way over will be
| | 06:41 | moving on the X-axis.
| | 06:44 | We will open up the Texture Editor and
you need to sometimes click into the
| | 06:50 | layout to make sure that updates for you.
| | 06:52 | Let me go back to the VPR mode and we
will see that a little bit better and
| | 06:58 | now you can see that texture is just slowly
moving, just a very soft moving sky on there.
| | 07:05 | You can put this on a flat plane, you can
put it on a larger object, whatever you like.
| | 07:11 | I will press 4 to get back to my Perspective
view and you can see what we have done there.
| | 07:15 | Animating textures is not that difficult.
| | 07:17 | It's just using the Graph Editor to tell
that texture to be at one point in time
| | 07:23 | and then at another point in
time be at a different value.
| | 07:26 | That value is determined from the grid,
which is right here which represents
| | 07:31 | each one of these grid
spaces in your LightWave Layout.
| | 07:34 | So try animating textures.
| | 07:35 | It could be a lot of fun.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Enhancing scene animation with displacement maps| 00:00 | Earlier in the course I showed you how
bump maps can enhance a surface and then
| | 00:03 | slightly got into displacement maps.
| | 00:06 | I like to cover those a little bit more
and show you something that you can do
| | 00:09 | with them to create a simple
landscape from just a couple of polygons.
| | 00:13 | I have got a scene loaded here
and this is nothing more than a
| | 00:16 | subdivided polygon.
| | 00:17 | Let's take a look at the Perspective view.
| | 00:19 | So I will press 4 on the keyboard and
it will zoom out and I am going to jump to
| | 00:25 | a Wireframe so we can see what this is.
| | 00:28 | And that's pretty much it.
| | 00:29 | It is just a subdivided box and I
will press the Tab key to turn on the
| | 00:34 | subdivision surfaces and the reason I
did that is because it allows me to have
| | 00:38 | all these segments that I can bend around.
| | 00:40 | When we create a Bump Map you can put a
Bump Map literally on one flat surface.
| | 00:45 | When you do displacement maps, you are
going to want a little bit more geometry
| | 00:49 | in there so that you can bend it a
little bit and I always use the analogy of a
| | 00:53 | screen door that you can bend very easily.
| | 00:56 | Well, take a look at this.
| | 00:57 | It kind of looks like a screen
door made up of tiny little segments.
| | 01:00 | So it is very easy to be bent.
| | 01:02 | So to do that we are going to first
select the object itself and then press P
| | 01:07 | to get to the properties for that
object and under the Deform tab you are going
| | 01:11 | to see Displacement Map right in the
center of the screen with a little T
| | 01:14 | button that means Texture.
| | 01:16 | So we are going to click that to
apply a Displacement Map Texture.
| | 01:19 | But what is the texture we are going to use?
| | 01:21 | Well, we are going to let
the computer do it for us.
| | 01:23 | So rather than an image map,
we are going to load a procedural.
| | 01:28 | So let's say Procedural Texture and
instantly you can see that that surface
| | 01:32 | suddenly becomes a little bumpy, which is great.
| | 01:35 | What that means is this value here,
| | 01:38 | the white value, is actually being
applied to this entire surface and bumping it.
| | 01:43 | If I increase that Texture Value you
can see those bumps increase, or you can
| | 01:49 | go negative as well.
| | 01:51 | So what could you do with this?
| | 01:52 | Well I have often made landscapes with
this and let me show you how to do that.
| | 01:56 | You choose Underwater.
It creates kind of a neat look.
| | 01:59 | You can different values in here for
map function. You can see it back there.
| | 02:03 | Veins, Wood. Click Automatic Sizing for
a lot of these to help straighten it out.
| | 02:10 | But for a landscape we can often do
Crumple and that works really well and if
| | 02:15 | we increase the Texture value you get a
very nice-looking, just kind of mountain range.
| | 02:20 | It is a very soft mountain range,
perhaps one you would see in, I don't know,
| | 02:25 | Ventura, California, and this could sit
behind some buildings that you can make
| | 02:29 | very easily with perhaps a Bevel tool.
| | 02:32 | So this also could work for an ocean.
| | 02:34 | It could work for cloth.
| | 02:36 | So I want you to think in those terms
when working with Displacement Maps.
| | 02:41 | The other way to do it is with Fractal
Noise and of course that looks a little odd.
| | 02:46 | So what you need to do for
this is manually set the size.
| | 02:50 | So I will set the X value of the
scale to 2, 2 on the Y, and 2 on the Z, and
| | 02:56 | then let's bring that Texture Value
down to about 2 as well, and actually we
| | 03:00 | can even go lower than that.
| | 03:01 | So now I have got just larger bumps
like that. It gives you a little more that you
| | 03:07 | can work with and what's wonderful
about these displacements and the speed of
| | 03:11 | computers today is you
can get a real-time feedback.
| | 03:14 | So as I'm moving these around I can get a
pretty good idea of what this looks like.
| | 03:18 | That's another way to create
a nice little mountain range.
| | 03:21 | But let's say I don't want the whole
thing to be mountain; maybe I want sort of
| | 03:24 | little valley before it.
| | 03:26 | Well, the way I would do that
and let's go back to Crumple.
| | 03:28 | I think that worked pretty well for us.
| | 03:30 | What we are going to do is take that
value and once we get this back up here and
| | 03:36 | we are going to make it fall off.
| | 03:38 | So I am going to jump to the Falloff
tab and which ways is it going to falloff?
| | 03:42 | Well, let's take a look
at our camera in our scene.
| | 03:45 | Our camera is pretty much at this
default position, pointing down the Z-axis.
| | 03:49 | Our object was centered on the X, Y
and Z, so 0 is right there in the center.
| | 03:54 | So we want to falloff on the Z-axis
towards the back and look what happens.
| | 03:59 | It just kind of falls off from the
whole thing and I don't want that.
| | 04:04 | I only wanted just from the front.
| | 04:06 | Well that's okay. I will make it fall-
off about 5% from that center value,
| | 04:12 | and then I am going to use Position on
the Z. I am positioning the procedural
| | 04:17 | texture that we are applying as a
displacement map and I can just push that over.
| | 04:23 | Here is the cool thing.
| | 04:25 | Earlier I showed you how you
can animate textures, right?
| | 04:27 | Well, you can actually animate
something crawling under this like a rug.
| | 04:31 | So I am going to show you that next.
| | 04:34 | But right now we are just going to move
this and so what we end up with is this
| | 04:38 | nice little scaled mountain range
that we can use to render our scene.
| | 04:44 | So let's take a look at
our Viewport Preview Render.
| | 04:47 | We will press 6 on the camera and now
we have got a nice very flat land here
| | 04:53 | that we are going to apply texture to.
| | 04:54 | We will open up the Surface Editor and
put Smoothing on and we will come into our
| | 05:01 | Backdrop Options from the Windows
dropdown and turn on our gradient just to get
| | 05:06 | a little sky in there. And we will
click Camera and then under Modify I will
| | 05:10 | choose Rotate and now when I move
around you can see that I've got that nice
| | 05:15 | mountain range back there.
| | 05:17 | Looks nice and random.
| | 05:18 | I didn't have to worry about modeling.
It is all done with displacement maps.
| | 05:21 | Let me show one thing you can do with this.
| | 05:25 | If you had an image map- I am
going to press P for Properties-
| | 05:28 | you can actually have that
image move through the object.
| | 05:32 | So a way to do that, we will take an
image and I am going to go down to Image
| | 05:37 | right here and hit Load and I
am going to load the bricks.
| | 05:42 | So now this brick image is being used
to displace and let me turn off my
| | 05:48 | Falloff here so it does the whole thing.
| | 05:52 | So there's the bricks actually coming
through the surface and the more detail I
| | 05:58 | have in here, the more
detail I'll be able to see.
| | 06:03 | Meaning let's come here to the object
properties and under the Geometry tab.
| | 06:07 | Because I have a subdivision surface, my
SubPatch Display level is 3, but I want
| | 06:12 | to render it maybe a little higher.
| | 06:14 | You got to be careful with this because
it is very easy to go overboard and have
| | 06:17 | your system kind of come to a crawl.
| | 06:20 | But I am going to bring my
Display SubPatch Level to 6.
| | 06:23 | That means this object is going to be
subdivided 6 times versus 3 and you will
| | 06:28 | see here in a minute as it redraws,
look at all the detail I have now in here.
| | 06:32 | And now that I have more detail I can
come in and adjust my values for the
| | 06:37 | amplitude, which is the amount of
displacement, and now you can see that those
| | 06:42 | bricks are very well defined.
| | 06:44 | So I think of this in larger terms.
| | 06:46 | You can put a logo in there, you
can emboss a coin, and then you can
| | 06:51 | actually take this and position it and
move it through there just like I did
| | 06:55 | with the landscape.
| | 06:56 | Now it is going to take a little bit to
update because it is a lot of geometry
| | 07:00 | we are working with.
| | 07:01 | But taking one step further, if you have
a little white image perhaps of a shade
| | 07:06 | of a mouse, like a little
ball with two little ears.
| | 07:09 | that white image would actually
displace this, kind of the way that white in
| | 07:13 | this image is and you would have a
nice little bump in there that you can
| | 07:16 | translate through the object.
| | 07:18 | So displacement maps are very powerful,
not just for oceans and landscapes, but
| | 07:22 | also for things like brick-walls and
little imperfections in a surface that you
| | 07:26 | might have through an everyday object.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Particle AnimationIntroducing particles| 00:00 | You've probably heard us talk about
particles at some point and I always
| | 00:04 | wondered what they were.
| | 00:05 | It might be a little scary to you to even
use them, but they are really quite useful.
| | 00:09 | You can make things like sparks and
flames and fire and water and all kinds of
| | 00:13 | cool things like that.
| | 00:14 | But before you do that, you
have to learn how to control them.
| | 00:17 | So let's take a look under the Items tab.
| | 00:19 | I am going to come down under
Dynamic Object and choose Particle.
| | 00:24 | Now when this panel comes
up, you've got two options.
| | 00:26 | You are going to have a HyperVoxel
Emitter. That's what HV Emitter means.
| | 00:30 | You also have a Partigon Emitter.
| | 00:32 | Let's just start with the Partigon.
| | 00:33 | You can give it a name but Emitter
usually works and we will click OK.
| | 00:38 | When you do that, you get a nice
little box right in the center of the screen
| | 00:41 | and then the FX_Emitter panel comes up.
| | 00:44 | To begin, just hit the Play button
and particles are generated, that easy.
| | 00:50 | There's not much more to it but what if
you want to control them a little bit?
| | 00:55 | What can you do with these?
| | 00:56 | Well, if you look under here, under the
Generator, you've got a Birth Rate and
| | 01:00 | you can tell it how often those
particles are birthed, how soon they come out.
| | 01:06 | You can generate that by a Second or by
Speed or by Collision, by Wind, but for
| | 01:11 | the most part, you're often going to
do it either by Frame or by Second.
| | 01:14 | This is the most common.
| | 01:16 | The Nozzle of how those come out.
It could be a Sphere or a Box.
| | 01:21 | The Size Effect, I am usually going to change
that from Mass Change and I will show you why.
| | 01:26 | The Key Effect, we are not really going
to have any at this point, but you would
| | 01:29 | do it for an envelope value or a parent value.
| | 01:31 | But the Generator Size is important.
| | 01:34 | Now a lot people want to size an
emitter down in their actual layout and that
| | 01:38 | doesn't necessarily always
make the best alternative.
| | 01:41 | You generally want to set the size in here.
| | 01:43 | So I am going to go to 0.2, 0.2,
0.2, and why would I do that?
| | 01:48 | Well, let's say you have somebody
walking around with a pipe and you want this
| | 01:51 | to be smoke coming out of a pipe.
| | 01:53 | Well, we can't have this super large emitter
like a giant fireplace on top of their pipe.
| | 01:56 | You need a little small one.
| | 01:58 | So you change the Generator Size.
| | 02:00 | Particle Limit is how many
particles would be generated in total.
| | 02:04 | So 100 particles per second and you
have 1000 of them that can be generated.
| | 02:08 | Let's come back here a little bit.
| | 02:10 | So in the Particle tab, you
can set the Particle Weight.
| | 02:14 | Now this might work a little
differently than you think.
| | 02:16 | You would think that increasing it adds more
weight and in fact it's kind of the opposite.
| | 02:21 | So if I open this up and put more
weight, well nothing really happens.
| | 02:27 | The reason is I need to
give the particles some motion.
| | 02:30 | So we'll come back to that
after I put the motion on.
| | 02:33 | Well, we want them to have a little bit
of velocity on the Y. We just want them
| | 02:36 | to come up and look what happens.
| | 02:38 | The default 60 frames can start to get annoying.
| | 02:40 | So let's open this up to about 300
frames, give ourselves ten seconds so we
| | 02:45 | could see things happen.
| | 02:46 | So, now that the particles have motion
on the Y just by increasing the value of
| | 02:51 | the velocity on the Y axis up and down,
we can go back to the Particle Weight
| | 02:56 | and the more I increase this weight,
the lighter the particles become.
| | 03:01 | If I bring it back down to the 1, you can
see they kind of get heavy and they stall.
| | 03:05 | Let me zoom in so we can see that.
| | 03:07 | They are kind of stalled at the top.
| | 03:10 | So the lower that weight value, the
more weight is applied to the end of those
| | 03:14 | particles, opposite of what you might think.
| | 03:19 | Now the speed of this might be a little
fast for let's say a pipe, like little
| | 03:24 | smoke streaming out.
| | 03:25 | Well, two things have to happen.
| | 03:26 | First, I need a lifetime.
| | 03:28 | How long those particles are
going to be visible as they come out?
| | 03:31 | The default 60 frames actually can
work for us, but the plus or minus, we used
| | 03:36 | the plus or minus value earlier in
Modeler to create different level of
| | 03:40 | bevels of randomization.
| | 03:42 | Well, you can do the same here.
| | 03:43 | Lifetime randomization could be maybe 20 frames.
| | 03:46 | So, some will last a little longer.
| | 03:47 | Some will last a little less, and now
they start dying off a little bit sooner.
| | 03:52 | Just give it a little more realism.
| | 03:54 | If you go to the Etcetera tab, the Etc,
you can change the Gravity and if I
| | 04:00 | just bring this negative gravity down
on the Y, well, it really doesn't do much
| | 04:05 | because I'm already
putting the velocity up on the Y.
| | 04:09 | What if I put it perhaps on the X?
| | 04:11 | What's going to happen?
| | 04:12 | I am pushing the particles
off to the side, just like that.
| | 04:18 | So that can work really well.
| | 04:19 | You have to think in
gravity in terms of 3D space.
| | 04:23 | Don't think of it in real world up
and down, but you can have it on the Z,
| | 04:26 | you can have it on the X, and the gravity is
just a force we can push the particles to.
| | 04:31 | It's pretty neat.
| | 04:31 | So to make them last a little bit
more, we can come back to the Life Time
| | 04:38 | and put that back up to about 90 and now
they're actually streaming out just a little bit more.
| | 04:45 | The last thing I want to do is I don't
want them to actually start right at 0.
| | 04:50 | If they are right here at 0, and
they're starting, I already want them out.
| | 04:54 | So if I look at my timeline, they
start right about the 100, 90 to 100.
| | 04:57 | So what I am going to do is go to
Frame 90 and see if that works well for us.
| | 05:01 | You can set up a pre-role.
| | 05:03 | So, if I come down to Fixed in the
Generator tab, the Start Frame at 0, I can make -90.
| | 05:11 | So 90 frames of the particle generation
has already happened by the time I get
| | 05:15 | to Frame 0 and what happens is that
those particles, as soon as the animation
| | 05:20 | starts, are already in place
and that works really well.
| | 05:22 | If we want to slow those down a little
bit, we can go to Motion tab and we can
| | 05:27 | bring the Velocity down a little bit.
| | 05:29 | So our initial velocity for the Y is
430mms. We can bring the overall velocity
| | 05:36 | down a little bit and we will rewind and play.
| | 05:41 | Now they travel just a little bit slower.
| | 05:45 | So the interactive feedback that
you get from these particles is great.
| | 05:49 | Simply making changes, you can
see them right here in layout.
| | 05:52 | Now the difference between this
partigon that I have created versus a
| | 05:56 | HyperVoxels Emitter is basically this.
| | 05:59 | If I come down to Virtual Preview
Render and we take a look here, you can see
| | 06:03 | that I have got my particles and my overlay.
| | 06:05 | I am going to turn my Overly off from
this dropdown here and while I really
| | 06:10 | can't see anything in here, if I go to
the Surface Editor for these partigons
| | 06:14 | and I make them 100% luminance and come
back, and I'll put these on 60s here and
| | 06:21 | I press 6 to get to my camera and
press T to move the camera in like this,
| | 06:27 | right mouse to move it up and I press F9,
I can actually see those little particles.
| | 06:32 | That's great for many things.
| | 06:34 | Little bugs and sparks,
but it's not good for smoke.
| | 06:38 | So, that's the only difference when you,
say add dynamic object of particle.
| | 06:43 | HyperVoxel Emitter or Partigon Emitter.
| | 06:46 | Everything else is same except that
partigons will render on their own.
| | 06:49 | They are single point polygons.
| | 06:52 | The HyperVoxel Emitter is used to
create smoke and we are going to load
| | 06:55 | HyperVoxels to show you that.
| | 06:57 | Initially to get started with
particles, it's really pretty simple.
| | 07:01 | Load up the Partigon or the
HyperVoxel Emitter and play around with it.
| | 07:05 | Put some motions on it and if you are not
seeing a result, move the motion even more.
| | 07:09 | A lot of people tend to get hung up when they
make little changes and they don't see results.
| | 07:13 | So they think it doesn't work.
| | 07:15 | If your value is at 1m perhaps and you
go to 1.2 and it doesn't change, well
| | 07:20 | type in a value like 10 and see if you
get a really strong change and then bring
| | 07:23 | it back a little bit.
| | 07:24 | Really experiment with those tools,
so that you can understand how
| | 07:27 | these particles work.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a particle animation| 00:00 | Creating particle animations is
not as complex as you might think.
| | 00:04 | The first thing you have to decide if
you want a particle to be a Partigon
| | 00:08 | Emitter or a Hypervoxel Emitter.
| | 00:10 | Partigons are going to be used for little
sparks, fireflies, little things like that.
| | 00:15 | But if you are going to do something
more dynamic with smoke and flames, it's
| | 00:18 | probably good to create a
Hypervoxel Emitter. So let me do that.
| | 00:22 | In the Items tab from the Add category,
I'm going to choose Dynamic Object and
| | 00:27 | I'll click that and choose Particle,
and then we're going to choose Hypervoxel
| | 00:32 | Emitter, not Partigon.
| | 00:33 | For the Name, we'll just leave it as Emitter,
but you can put in there anything you want.
| | 00:36 | When you click OK,
the Hypervoxel Emitter enters into the layout.
| | 00:40 | When you hit the Play button,
you can see the little particles are
| | 00:42 | automatically generated.
| | 00:44 | We're going to extend our scene to
about 200 frames, just to give it a little
| | 00:47 | more life, and then we have to
decide what we're going to do with this.
| | 00:52 | Well, I want to create a nice little
stream of smoke for you and this is going
| | 00:56 | to be just moving up on the Y axis a
little bit, little soft streaming smoke.
| | 01:02 | So let's give ourselves a
little bit of room here.
| | 01:04 | I'm going to click and move this Layout
down just by clicking and holding on the
| | 01:08 | Move tool on the top right, and
I'm going to leave this playing.
| | 01:11 | Now one thing I want to show you,
and we're going to clear this out.
| | 01:14 | What's kind of neat with these
particles is that it will record real time.
| | 01:18 | So I've got my Move tool selected and I'm
just going to move this around like this.
| | 01:25 | Use my right mouse
button to move it back too.
| | 01:27 | Then when I let go of the mouse,
LightWave actually recorded those movements,
| | 01:33 | because I have my Auto Key on.
| | 01:35 | So let's pretend you have just some kind
of dust you want coming off of an object.
| | 01:41 | You literally can do nothing more than
parent this to an object that's already
| | 01:45 | moving and those particles will
react to the 3D world. That's it.
| | 01:50 | I never set any parameters at all,
just added an emitter and moved it around.
| | 01:55 | So just kind of a neat little thing you can do.
| | 01:59 | So let's pause that.
| | 01:59 | Now to get rid of all these
keyframes, here is what we're going to do.
| | 02:02 | I'm going to move back to 0, open up
the extended Timeline, and from the
| | 02:08 | second frame all the way to the end,
I'm going to select those just by using
| | 02:12 | my left mouse over them.
| | 02:13 | Then I'll right-click and I can see
clear selection or better yet Delete Keys,
| | 02:19 | and let's get that 200 frame done too.
| | 02:22 | We don't want that one.
| | 02:22 | I'll hit Delete Key, because that
was a motion key that we did not need.
| | 02:27 | So now we're back at 0 and we'll leave this
playing so that you see what's happening.
| | 02:32 | The Birthrate is set to 100.
| | 02:34 | The Generator Size is fine.
| | 02:36 | For Particle, we'll just
work out right through the tabs.
| | 02:38 | Particle Weight, we'll leave on its own.
| | 02:40 | But I want the Life Time to maybe about
160 frames and maybe a falloff of about 30,
| | 02:46 | meaning that some will die at 160,
some will die a little sooner, just a
| | 02:49 | randomization of when those particles will end.
| | 02:52 | You don't want them just automatically stopping.
| | 02:54 | For the Motion, Velocity is okay.
| | 02:57 | But let's give it some motion up on
the Y and you could just drag it to look,
| | 03:02 | but let's try and be a little more calculating.
| | 03:04 | My Grid Square is set to 1 meter.
| | 03:06 | That means every grid is 1 meter in size.
| | 03:09 | The larger darker grids are 10 meters.
| | 03:12 | So 8 or 10 meters might
actually be doing it for.
| | 03:15 | So hit 8 m for meters and you can see
this particles shooting out the top.
| | 03:19 | I'm going to zoom out so you can see them.
| | 03:21 | But you see that little cluster at the top?
| | 03:24 | That has to do with the Particle Weight.
| | 03:26 | Well, we don't really want that.
| | 03:28 | So I'm going to increase the Weight
also to about 10, but now it's going really fast,
| | 03:33 | more than we want.
| | 03:36 | Okay, so we're going to
come back to the Motion tab.
| | 03:40 | Bring the Velocity down maybe to 4
now and you can see that it works a
| | 03:45 | little bit better for us.
| | 03:46 | I'm going to take this Velocity, the
general Velocity, and bring that down to about 30.
| | 03:51 | Now we've got good timing for that,
not too much, and then we can bring this
| | 03:56 | back up a little bit.
| | 03:57 | So when you're working with particles,
you're often going to jump around a little
| | 04:00 | bit in between both.
| | 04:02 | Now I like how it looks.
| | 04:03 | I like the speed of it.
| | 04:05 | It's pretty good for a little smoke, but
I don't like the starting and stopping.
| | 04:10 | What if my animation is going longer?
| | 04:12 | Well, right about here, just like 190,
it's already starting to die off.
| | 04:17 | Well, what I'm going to do is bring my
Timeline all the way back to 0 and in
| | 04:21 | the Generator tab, I'm going to click
Fixed, and hit the Start Frame of -180. Or 190.
| | 04:30 | But that will make it
already coming out at Frame 0.
| | 04:34 | Now what happens is that those
particles are just on throughout my animation.
| | 04:39 | However, there is a problem when I get to 200.
| | 04:41 | The particles end, I don't have enough. Okay.
| | 04:45 | Well, back in the Birth Rate at 100
and the Particle Limit, we'll just need
| | 04:48 | some more particles.
| | 04:50 | Well, I can change it to maybe 2000,
and then you'll see the particles not end
| | 04:56 | or if I bring it back to 1000, where it was,
and I change my Birth Rate down to about 50,
| | 05:07 | that will give me more time, so not as
many particles are coming out as quickly.
| | 05:13 | That's something I want to do too,
because you don't often need a ton of
| | 05:16 | particles when we put our smoke on there.
| | 05:18 | In fact, you can bring this down to
about 25 if you want, just so you have a good
| | 05:23 | reference of particles.
| | 05:26 | So a nice little spattering.
| | 05:27 | The next thing to do --and I'll
leave this playing so you can see it.
| | 05:29 | Come over to Etc tab.
| | 05:32 | You can play with the Gravity, and
we'll push a little bit on the Z, maybe a
| | 05:36 | little bit negative on the X, just like
that just to give it a little bit of a
| | 05:39 | turn as it comes out.
| | 05:43 | Under Rotation, well, we're not doing anything.
| | 05:45 | If we're doing smoke, that
would require Align to Path.
| | 05:50 | But if we had more of a motion path in
there, we can have those particles follow it.
| | 05:53 | Under Interaction, we're not
interacting with anything, but you could put on a
| | 05:57 | Push, a Bounce, or a Drag if
we had other items in the scene.
| | 06:01 | Now we're not going to do
any File type stuff right now.
| | 06:04 | This is where you can actually save out these
particle motions, and same with the EditFX.
| | 06:09 | Now the EditFX are a little bit different.
| | 06:12 | Let's just say you have one
rogue particle that you don't want.
| | 06:15 | You can click the Edit tool.
| | 06:17 | It allows you to click on any one of these
particles like this, and it gives you a number.
| | 06:21 | Each one of those actually has a
unique number and then you can simply
| | 06:25 | delete that particle.
| | 06:26 | So it's a great way just to edit
particles, especially when you're doing more
| | 06:30 | collisions and interaction.
| | 06:33 | So the last thing for the Motion,
what we're going to do is play with the
| | 06:36 | Vibration and Explosion.
| | 06:38 | So if I change Explosion to 2, it spreads
that out. Explodes that as it comes out.
| | 06:44 | Vibration, not quite what you might think.
| | 06:46 | If I change that to 2, it gives
sort of this little random appeal.
| | 06:52 | So they're not coming out as even.
| | 06:54 | If I did that, then maybe I'll bring
Explosion back down just a little bit.
| | 06:59 | Now we've got just more of a general
random smoke coming out, but there is not
| | 07:04 | any smoke yet. There will be.
| | 07:06 | So setting up a particle
animation is not that difficult.
| | 07:09 | Using the interactive display will
always help you and a matter of using
| | 07:14 | Explosion, Vibration, and Velocity can
create the very nice effects you need for
| | 07:19 | just about any type of particle animation.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with Hypervoxels| 00:00 | Once you have created a particle
animation, well you are probably thinking
| | 00:03 | what can do with it.
| | 00:05 | Well the best thing to do with it is
render it out because if I take my camera
| | 00:09 | right now by pressing 6 and I press the T
key and I move back and I come up like
| | 00:15 | this and I press F9 to do a
Frame Render, look what happens.
| | 00:19 | Nothing. Hypervoxel emitters need to
be rendered and you are going to do
| | 00:23 | that with hypervoxels.
| | 00:25 | So we will come over here to Windows
and we are going to choose Volumetric and
| | 00:30 | Fog Options and under
Volumetric, you can choose HyperVoxels.
| | 00:34 | That's where it lives.
| | 00:35 | Now there is a shortcut for it
right up here. It goes to the same place.
| | 00:39 | We will double-click it to open the
panel and I will close out the effects so
| | 00:43 | you can see what's going on, and by
default that emitter is not active.
| | 00:47 | So I am going to double-click it.
| | 00:48 | Now this is a portion of LightWave
that often is confusing for a lot of
| | 00:52 | people, but it's really not too
complex and the best way to learn it is to
| | 00:55 | really click on Show Particles.
| | 00:58 | What that does is it shows
those particles in layout.
| | 01:01 | Now it doesn't look like much now, but I
will move it this way so you can see it.
| | 01:04 | What is going to happen is that
this Object Type is set to Surface.
| | 01:08 | And in fact, you can go to your Viewport
Preview Render and see exactly what's happening.
| | 01:14 | So the particles coming out now typically are a
simple blob, which on its own is kind of cool.
| | 01:21 | You can do water and faucets.
| | 01:24 | I think there was an Oreo commercial
one time that used LightWave's particles
| | 01:27 | like this to create Oreo
cream coming down the street.
| | 01:30 | But for the surface based HyperVoxels,
everything is kind of round and blobby and
| | 01:35 | it works okay, but for smoke what we
really want to choose not Volume-- and
| | 01:39 | Volume can be great for
big puffs of smoke like this.
| | 01:43 | The problem with the Volume though is
that they get really intense when it
| | 01:47 | comes to rendering.
| | 01:48 | I've set up tornadoes doing this and it
has taken not just days but I think over
| | 01:53 | a good week just to render a small tornado.
| | 01:55 | Granted that was many years ago, but
even these days that will still take a
| | 01:59 | lot of rendering power.
| | 02:00 | So instead of using Volume try Sprite.
| | 02:03 | Sprite is a slice of that volume that
you just saw and what is kind of neat
| | 02:08 | about this is that you
can create very easy smoke.
| | 02:11 | It doesn't have to take a lot of
rendering time and you can put little soft
| | 02:14 | wisps into your scene.
| | 02:16 | So with that default set, I am going to
click Automatic Sizing and just in case
| | 02:21 | my particles were one size
and HyperVoxel is another,
| | 02:24 | that's often good way to start.
| | 02:26 | I like to set the variation and that
immediately starts getting rid of all that
| | 02:31 | blobbiness and if you
click and drag it stops at 500.
| | 02:34 | Well, like I've told you with lights and
other things you can manually go past it.
| | 02:40 | Now, you don't want anything quite
like that, but what's kind of neat is that
| | 02:45 | you've got a nice big puff of smoke
that you can still see moving when you have
| | 02:50 | size variation like that.
| | 02:52 | So what I do is I turn that size
variation way up, and then I bring the
| | 02:56 | particle size down and now I have got
just a good variation of smoke in there,
| | 03:00 | that I can work with.
| | 03:02 | The Stretch Direction you can
set on whatever axis you like.
| | 03:06 | I usually like to go with the Velocity
of the particles themselves and again
| | 03:10 | Stretch you can of course click and
drag up to 500%, but like many things you
| | 03:15 | can go much, much more.
| | 03:17 | So there it is at 1000, you can see
those particles are stretched and you can
| | 03:22 | even bring the size down just a little bit more.
| | 03:24 | If you look at it on the Y-axis, which
is the angle that it's going, you can see
| | 03:28 | it stretches another way. Try it on the Z-axis.
| | 03:31 | It kind of comes up towards you and
creates all kinds of cool looks and even on
| | 03:35 | the X goes the other way.
| | 03:37 | Almost like clouds, crossing your scene.
| | 03:39 | But we are going to keep it on Velocity
and I am going to bring this back down,
| | 03:44 | not to be too exaggerated.
| | 03:45 | Okay, so that is showing the particles.
| | 03:47 | Well, you can also give them some
color and I will press 4 on my keyboard here
| | 03:51 | just so we can see the whole thing.
| | 03:52 | We will go here to the Shading tab and
the color is set to White. That's fine.
| | 03:57 | but let's makes it more of a soft gray and
then I want to play with Luminosity value.
| | 04:01 | If you bring it all the way
down, well that's very luminous.
| | 04:04 | You can play with the Opacity of it, how bright
it is, and you can play with the density of it.
| | 04:08 | Okay and of course you can go more than
that 100% to create very cool effects.
| | 04:14 | Especially when you have got things blowing up.
| | 04:15 | Yhat's often very good to do.
| | 04:17 | The Number of Slices, remember how I
said this was a slice of a Volumetric.
| | 04:22 | Well, you can add more
slices for a little more detail.
| | 04:25 | I often don't do more
than 1 or 3 so that's okay.
| | 04:29 | You can choose which lights hit it if
you have multiple lights in your scene or
| | 04:33 | choose None at all depending on
how bright your luminosity is.
| | 04:37 | But let's add a texture to the color
and what I am going to do with this is add
| | 04:41 | a Procedural Texture.
| | 04:43 | So earlier in the course I told you
how important learning the Texture Editor
| | 04:46 | was because it is used everywhere for
displays of maps, color textures, image
| | 04:50 | maps, and of course here it is in the
HyperVoxel panel. Use the texture and set a
| | 04:54 | color for your particles.
| | 04:56 | So let's go down and just choose just
maybe a soft brown like that, and now you
| | 05:00 | can see this texture is
blended with that white underneath.
| | 05:04 | Let's bring the size in half.
| | 05:06 | So I am going to go .5, .5, .5 and scale
that down and just so you can see this.
| | 05:11 | Not that you would make red and white
smoke but, you can see how that fractal
| | 05:15 | noise pattern now is mixed
with the white surface underneath.
| | 05:19 | You can change the frequencies of it,
play with the contrast a bit so it is a
| | 05:22 | little stronger, and now you have got
just an entirely different look that you
| | 05:26 | can work with for any kind of scene
and those textures applied to each one of
| | 05:31 | those particles coming up.
| | 05:33 | Now one thing that is neat to do is
put a gradient on. So let's do that.
| | 05:36 | The gradient allows me to vary the color.
| | 05:39 | So I am going to click a couple of keys
in here and let's say the base key could
| | 05:42 | be more of a blue and the middle key,
we can create more of a gray and then the top
| | 05:51 | key we can just fade off like that.
| | 05:54 | Now you are not seeing much on here.
| | 05:57 | So what I want to do is change
the input parameter to Particle Age.
| | 06:02 | So as the particles age, as they come
out and die at the end, you can actually
| | 06:07 | see this transition and just to give a little
more contrast here, I will put the color in.
| | 06:13 | You can even bring this one back in
and I'll make this red so you can see it.
| | 06:23 | Let's bring the Alpha back up and so
now we have go this burnt area down at the
| | 06:28 | bottom which goes to gray and then
fades off to the blue. And then of course it
| | 06:33 | still animates with it and it is
almost like there is kind of a little fire
| | 06:36 | burning at the end, simply by adding a gradient.
| | 06:40 | So this gradient
represents this particle string.
| | 06:43 | If I bring the end up, you can see that
I have more blue here and that will help
| | 06:49 | keep that a little more solid at the
top, and click Use Texture for that.
| | 06:53 | Now you can apply that texture and as
I have mentioned you can animate all
| | 06:57 | these texture values.
| | 06:58 | Just as you did animating clouds on the
sky, animating the texture on the cow,
| | 07:02 | you can animate the texture for
the Color, Luminosity, Opacity.
| | 07:06 | Anywhere you see these E buttons
you can animate that particular value.
| | 07:10 | So you have Luminosity animating.
| | 07:13 | It could be fading in and out, whatever you like.
| | 07:16 | Lastly in HyperVoxels, you should
learn about the Hyper Texture and the
| | 07:19 | Hyper Texture is a way that you can
set something like Turbulence to help
| | 07:23 | shape the particles.
| | 07:25 | So all the particles are emitting
and coming up and spilling all over.
| | 07:28 | If you notice in here, I've gone
ahead and put Hyper Texture on set to
| | 07:33 | Turbulence and now you get this
kind of wispy ends inside here.
| | 07:37 | Here it is with none and it is just soft
on the edges and with the Hyper Texture
| | 07:42 | on such as Turbulence, you get a
turbulent texture inside those particles.
| | 07:46 | So you can use even something
like this for creating brain matter.
| | 07:50 | It doesn't actually have the move it;
you can just render right through it.
| | 07:53 | Amplitude is how strong it is.
| | 07:55 | The Effect you can actually set to
Billowing and this will animate within the
| | 07:59 | texture, so it is animated texture
within the texture on the particles.
| | 08:04 | And it gets a little Inception-like
deep, but it is very cool stuff.
| | 08:08 | So HyperVoxels makes it very easy to set up
some really cool surfaces on your particles.
| | 08:14 | Lastly, I want to just show you under
the Windows dropdown there is Presets and
| | 08:19 | when you're in the HyperVoxel window
you can choose Clouds, Fire, and Smoke as
| | 08:25 | well some other strange things in here.
| | 08:29 | One of them is called Strange,
and if you double-click, those settings get
| | 08:33 | applied to your particles, and then
you can create all kinds of things.
| | 08:36 | And here is a little tip.
| | 08:37 | use these presets that came with LightWave to
help you learn HyperVoxels a little bit more.
| | 08:44 | You want to see how this glass is made?
| | 08:46 | Load that up and then take a look and now
you actually can see how bubbles are done.
| | 08:50 | You've created particles yourself.
| | 08:52 | You have set up HyperVoxels.
| | 08:54 | Use one of the presets and dissect
it a little bit and say "Okay, it is a
| | 08:57 | little bit blue, diffused.
| | 08:59 | Very shiny with the speculatory."
Just to give you an idea of how those settings
| | 09:03 | can be manipulated or created on your own.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Going a step beyond with particle animation| 00:00 | When you think about particles in
LightWave you think about smoke and fire and
| | 00:03 | all these cool things like that, but
something like this you might not think is
| | 00:08 | doable in particles, but it
absolutely is and it's a really great effect.
| | 00:12 | So let me show you how to do that.
| | 00:13 | What we are going to do is come to the
Items tab and we are going to load the
| | 00:16 | dynamic object and let's say Particle.
| | 00:19 | Add Particle Emitter comes up.
| | 00:20 | We are going to want a HyperVoxels Emitter.
| | 00:22 | It's pretty important, not a Partigon.
Partigon only renders single point
| | 00:25 | polygons, good for little bugs and things.
| | 00:28 | But HyperVoxels are what's going to
create that nice streaking for us.
| | 00:32 | We'll click OK and an
emitter is added to the scene.
| | 00:35 | Now by default if you just hit Play,
those 60 frames just show the particles
| | 00:38 | kind of just popping on.
| | 00:41 | Let's change our Last frame to 200 and now it
gives us a little more length on our animation.
| | 00:46 | Now the particles just are
emitting amongst themselves.
| | 00:49 | They need to actually
come out towards the camera.
| | 00:52 | So what I want to do is come over
to my Particle tab and we'll see that
| | 00:56 | the Weight is set to 1.
| | 00:58 | That's okay for right now.
| | 00:59 | But my Life Time, let's make that
200, the same length as my scene.
| | 01:03 | We don't need to worry about the plus or
minus, the randomization of the falloff
| | 01:07 | for it, because it's going to go past the camera.
| | 01:10 | For the motion we want it on the -Z.
| | 01:13 | Remember the camera faces down, the +Z
by default, and we've not changed that.
| | 01:18 | So -Z is going to be back
behind this, behind the camera.
| | 01:22 | So I'll hit the Play button so you
could see what's happening and I know that
| | 01:25 | every grid is one meter in size.
| | 01:28 | You can see down here at the
very bottom left of the screen.
| | 01:31 | So, if that's the particles at zero,
one, two, three, four, five, six grids or
| | 01:36 | six meters is what I need.
| | 01:38 | So I'll go -6 and meters is default.
| | 01:41 | Now they do bunch up behind the camera
and that's where I can change the weight
| | 01:45 | in the Particle tab.
| | 01:47 | But in this case, we are not
going to see it so it doesn't matter.
| | 01:50 | Next thing I want to do is go to the
Generator tab and let's size this down a
| | 01:54 | little bit to about 0.2.
Hit the Tab key. 0.2 and 0.2.
| | 02:04 | Looks too small, doesn't it?
| | 02:05 | Well, go to the Motion tab and under
Explosion make that about two, and then you
| | 02:11 | get this nice spread.
| | 02:12 | If you want to see what that looks like,
click into the layout and press 6.
| | 02:15 | That's what you've created,
kind of this fun cool vortex.
| | 02:20 | In this case, I'm not going to restart
with a negative keyframe. I actually want
| | 02:24 | them to start back here almost like
we're traveling down there and then we
| | 02:28 | get fade into it during an edit, and of
course put some cool sound effects in.
| | 02:33 | That's all you got to do for the particles.
| | 02:34 | Now let's go up to the Windows
dropdown and choose HyperVoxels.
| | 02:38 | That's what's going to render our particles.
| | 02:41 | So here's the emitter.
I'll select it and click Activate.
| | 02:44 | Now I can turn on Show Particles and
I'm guilty of actually forgetting about
| | 02:50 | this sometimes. I want to
show you what I am talking about.
| | 02:52 | While I can see these particles in
layout, I am using a Sprite mode, which is a
| | 02:57 | slice of the volume, which is
this larger thicker type of particle.
| | 03:02 | A sprite will show up in layout.
| | 03:04 | I want to stretch it on the velocity
and I want to take this stretch way up.
| | 03:09 | We'll take it to 500%, where its limit is.
| | 03:12 | But if I take a look in layout I'm not
actually seeing it and even if I play
| | 03:16 | with the Size Variation and some of
these other values, often I can't see the
| | 03:21 | stretch the way I want.
| | 03:22 | It looks a little odd.
| | 03:24 | Well, myself included I've actually
forgotten that you can't always trust
| | 03:28 | what you see in Layout.
| | 03:30 | Make sure you see a render and with
LightWave 10's new Viewport Preview Render
| | 03:35 | from the dropdown, now I get an
accurate display of what that looks like.
| | 03:41 | So now I can see my velocity on there.
| | 03:43 | Well the problem is that's not really
quite looking like the streaks I want.
| | 03:47 | So I'm going to take the
Stretch amount in and type in 3000%.
| | 03:51 | So lot of people think even though
that value stops at 500 you can go a lot
| | 03:55 | farther with it. And just like that
I've got this great looking streak and you
| | 03:59 | can see that if I move back at zero
and I move through my timeline,
| | 04:03 | those particles are still emitting and I am
getting a very nice kind of streaking
| | 04:08 | effect coming through those. It looks really cool.
| | 04:12 | So all you have to do now is put some
surfaces on, and certainly you are allowed
| | 04:16 | to come in here and play with the Size
Variation with these. You can make it
| | 04:19 | really small, so you can make tiny
little narrow streaks, or you can make them
| | 04:22 | fatter so that it's little
softer in between, totally up to you.
| | 04:26 | But the idea is to get
that Velocity way up there.
| | 04:30 | Under the Shading tab, let's open up
the Texture for Color and instead of an
| | 04:35 | Image map we are going to choose
Gradient and what I want to do is vary the
| | 04:38 | color based on the Particle Age, the age
being from where it starts to where it ends.
| | 04:44 | I'll click right in this Gradient Bar
and add a few keys and just so you know
| | 04:48 | how these keys work,
you can click and drag on them.
| | 04:50 | You can click the X to cut one, click
back in the center to add one, and then
| | 04:55 | you can right-click with your right
mouse on one of these little arrows.
| | 04:59 | That locks it so you can't
accidentally move it around.
| | 05:02 | So what I'll do is just put some color in there.
| | 05:04 | I will take a nice blue, and then I
will take a nice red, orange, always fun.
| | 05:10 | I will take some green and we even
take a little bit of yellow back in here.
| | 05:15 | Just a really great look to it.
| | 05:17 | We can even add one more in here, put a
little soft white or purple in there.
| | 05:23 | And just like that you now have this
psychedelic rainbow of colors and it's
| | 05:29 | something that might even take you a
little while to paint in Photoshop.
| | 05:32 | Not only is this a great look, don't forget
that it's animated thanks to the particles.
| | 05:40 | I can't really see this in real time just
because it is a little bit to calculate.
| | 05:44 | But as it grows it starts out with all
those base colors and as our particles age
| | 05:51 | you'll actually see those colors change.
| | 05:54 | You can change the input parameter to Z
Distance to Particle and we're working
| | 05:58 | on the Z. So now you've got the
green all the way out to the red.
| | 06:02 | So as that distance from Z moves
on, you can actually see those.
| | 06:08 | Now here is the advantage of
using the Viewport Preview.
| | 06:11 | If I go to Perspective by pressing 4,
I can actually still see the render in
| | 06:15 | there and see what's happening and
gives you good idea of how that gradient
| | 06:18 | works based on the Z Distance to Particle.
| | 06:20 | You can also look at Y Distance to
Particle, which isn't going to do much
| | 06:23 | because that's more up and down, so
you are only going to get the yellow.
| | 06:25 | But you can also look at Particle Speed.
| | 06:27 | Now we are going pretty fast, so you
are only going to see this very first
| | 06:31 | portion of the color gradient but
Particle Weight, we are not really weighting
| | 06:36 | it too much, but the weight shows
basically the backend of this and the time of
| | 06:41 | it also very similar.
| | 06:42 | So that's why I chose Particle Age.
It works best for what we're trying to do.
| | 06:46 | Here is a good example of the yellow
and green starting out through the blue to
| | 06:50 | the orange, down to the little bit of
magenta, and of course you can click on
| | 06:55 | these and adjust them in
real time to get some updates.
| | 06:58 | You can put as many keys in here as
you want, changing colors to whatever
| | 07:01 | you like, adding perhaps a white in the middle,
just to give it even more color variation.
| | 07:08 | Click 6 to go back and what I am
going to do is I am going to go ahead and
| | 07:11 | render out this animation.
| | 07:13 | It's going to take a little bit
of time so we'll cut back to it.
| | 07:16 | So you can see how this final
animation looks nice and clean with all these
| | 07:20 | particles animating with a nice streak.
| | 07:23 | So I've waited about seven hours, you
could see that this finished late in the
| | 07:26 | evening and this is the final animation,
just from the simple particles streaking
| | 07:32 | out towards the camera
with the gradient map applied.
| | 07:35 | You could see that even just a little
effect like that could be very powerful.
| | 07:39 | You can use it for space warps, you
can use it for transitions, you can even
| | 07:43 | bring it back into LightWave in the
background image and render over it, put
| | 07:47 | logos over it, put other particles over it.
| | 07:50 | So while the render might have
taken a little bit longer than you might want,
| | 07:53 | it's still a great effect
and you can use this over and over
| | 07:57 | throughout your scenes.
| | 07:58 | So particles in LightWave, they can be
used for smoke and fire and water, but
| | 08:02 | they can also be used for special effects.
| | 08:04 | Without much effort you can set up
a very dynamic looking animation.
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| Replacing particles with items| 00:00 | Particles are great for
smoke and flames and water.
| | 00:04 | They are also good for special
effects like vortexes and things like that.
| | 00:08 | Particles can also be used to
create an animation of multiple items.
| | 00:12 | Everybody would love to have a little
more money in their pocket and if you
| | 00:16 | can't do it in the real world,
at least you can do it in the virtual world.
| | 00:18 | So what we are going to do is add up a
dynamic Particle down here under the Add category.
| | 00:25 | We definitely want a
HyperVoxel Emitter and we'll click OK.
| | 00:27 | I am going to move this up into my
scene, just like that, just kind of above
| | 00:31 | that 0 axis, and we're going to make
it maybe 200 frames like we have done
| | 00:35 | before, and click the Play button.
| | 00:37 | And I want these particles to fall.
| | 00:38 | So I am just going to put some negative
Gravity on it, like -9, and that might
| | 00:43 | be a little too fast, so we'll
say -4. We'll cut that in half.
| | 00:47 | And I'll come back to the Motion tab.
Let's bring up Velocit about half that,
| | 00:50 | and that's pretty good.
| | 00:52 | And we'll change our Explosion to
about 1.5 so it spreads a little bit.
| | 00:57 | And then we've got this nice kind of
tumbling array of particles that come out.
| | 01:01 | I am going to go to the Windows
dropdown and choose HyperVoxels and in
| | 01:05 | HyperVoxels I am going to double-
click the Emitter to activate it.
| | 01:09 | And while we can have a surface based
HyperVoxel, let me put VPR on so you can
| | 01:12 | see what we're doing.
| | 01:14 | A surface base will give
this nice kind of blobby effect.
| | 01:17 | We can certainly increase the Particle Size.
| | 01:20 | Change the Size Variation.
| | 01:22 | You can have different blending modes
so that they blend a little bit better
| | 01:25 | together. Especially that's good
for water and things like that.
| | 01:28 | Put some Stretch on the Velocity of the
direction of those, so that they stretch
| | 01:33 | as they come out and make
goo and things like that.
| | 01:36 | But if we went to a Sprite mode, we
have got Smoke and soft effects like this.
| | 01:42 | But there is something
else you can do with a Sprite.
| | 01:43 | If you go to the Shading tab, there is
another tab that shows up called Clips
| | 01:47 | and in here you can
actually add a clip or an image.
| | 01:52 | However, if I choose this, it will
say no clip is currently available.
| | 01:55 | So what that means is you have
to come over to the Image Editor.
| | 01:58 | So over here on the top left, it
always lives right there, hit Image Editor.
| | 02:02 | And we are going to load up from Chapter 9
folder, under the Images for the projects
| | 02:07 | for this course, the Coin. And
it's just a simple Canadian coin for our
| | 02:13 | northern friends, and what we're going
to do with this is apply it to each one
| | 02:17 | of those particles.
| | 02:18 | So once that clip is loaded into
LightWave through the Image Editor I can
| | 02:21 | choose Add Clip and choose the coin.
| | 02:24 | The Alpha channel, we are going to set
to Luminosity, because the background is
| | 02:27 | white so that white is going to disappear.
| | 02:29 | And when I click into the layout, I can see
all those coins now replace those particles.
| | 02:34 | It kind of looks like
something, but a little bit big.
| | 02:37 | So all we've got to do is come back to
our Basic tab, up to Geometry, and let's
| | 02:41 | do Automatic Sizing, and then let's
just shrink those down just a bit, and I
| | 02:47 | certainly don't want any Stretch
on these so we'll turn that off.
| | 02:50 | And look what happens.
| | 02:51 | We put a Size Variation on from before
and actually that still keeps when it
| | 02:56 | comes to putting little images on here,
and of course now that these are on here,
| | 03:00 | as we run through the animation,
those falling particles are now
| | 03:05 | actually falling coins.
| | 03:07 | You can show the particles in layout if
you're going back to a shaded solid and
| | 03:10 | you will see them in here like this,
just in the regular default view.
| | 03:14 | But one thing that's kind of neat to do
is that if you come back to the Shading,
| | 03:18 | and then you choose Clips,
you can see there's AntiAliasing.
| | 03:22 | You can choose an Offset for
Particle Age or just a Random Offset.
| | 03:25 | Put a little bit of a Rotation on
there if you like, just so it angles them.
| | 03:30 | You can see them all angled in there.
| | 03:32 | And lastly, back in the Basic tab you
can say Orient Slices To Ray, and what
| | 03:37 | that would allow you to do is, as you
rotate, notice that those particles,
| | 03:41 | those coins, are actually
always kind of pointing to you.
| | 03:43 | So it's a great way to make just sort of
a nice revolving animation and you can
| | 03:50 | see how the particles always stay
pointed to wherever I'm looking.
| | 03:52 | So let's take the Camera View, I'll
press 6 on my keyboard, and close out the
| | 03:57 | panels, select the Camera, and
we're going to move to Frame 0.
| | 04:02 | Press T, which is Move from the Translate tab.
| | 04:05 | I am going to push in, press the Y
command for Rotate, and we're going to rotate up,
| | 04:08 | and we're going to just enjoy this
for a moment that money is being showered
| | 04:12 | on us, even if it's only pennies.
| | 04:14 | And as we come like this, now here is
all this money kind of being thrown out
| | 04:19 | and spewing down in front of us.
| | 04:21 | Turn on VPR, you can actually see a
quick preview render and there is all the
| | 04:26 | animated coins falling down on top of us.
| | 04:30 | So particles can be used for smoke,
they can be used for flames and water and
| | 04:34 | special effects, but they can also be
used for animating a huge array of more
| | 04:39 | complex things such as falling coins.
| | 04:41 | You can put clip maps of money on there,
clip maps of bottles, boxes of tissue,
| | 04:47 | television producers, whatever you like,
you can put them on the particles and
| | 04:50 | have them fall all over you in LightWave 3D.
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|
|
10. DynamicsUnderstanding dynamics in LightWave| 00:00 | LightWave is terrific for creating
3D models, animations, text animation.
| | 00:05 | You can see that we did particles,
but you can also create dynamics.
| | 00:10 | So I've got a scene created here and I'll
show you how to create all this in just a moment.
| | 00:15 | But what's happening here is that
we've got a brick wall. We're got a flat
| | 00:18 | ground, and we've got
just a crumpled green ball.
| | 00:21 | And that has been set up to animate
and crash through that wall and then come
| | 00:26 | back and crash through it again.
| | 00:28 | So I am using the Viewport Preview Render
and you could see a real-time render of this.
| | 00:32 | And it's looking pretty nice.
| | 00:34 | Let me go to Wireframe so you can
actually see the full motion, such as up at
| | 00:38 | the very top of the screen there
you can turn on Wireframe view.
| | 00:41 | I'll rewind here and I am just going
to select the camera, so that this will
| | 00:46 | be a little more descriptive. The black and
the white lines will be a little more visible.
| | 00:52 | Let's move that camera out of the way.
| | 00:53 | Then I am going to hit the Play
button and you can see that there is the
| | 00:57 | real-time motion of all the bricks
falling, calculating their bounces, and the
| | 01:01 | collision of the ball.
| | 01:04 | So dynamics are great for
hard surface things like this.
| | 01:07 | But you can also create soft things
like a pillow or a flag and that's going to
| | 01:12 | be coming up in just a minute.
| | 01:14 | Dynamics in LightWave are used for
any kind of thing you can think of, from
| | 01:18 | buildings collapsing, to objects
interacting on a table, to even simple product
| | 01:23 | shots that have to fall
and tumble on each other.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up a dynamic scene| 00:00 | Setting up dynamics is not too
hard once you know the proper steps.
| | 00:04 | So let's step into LightWave
modeler and I'll show you how to do that.
| | 00:08 | First thing I am going to do is build a
box like this and the reason is it's got
| | 00:12 | two things that are going to happen and
this really relates to what happens in
| | 00:16 | Layout versus animating and dynamic
setup for one part or for multiple parts.
| | 00:21 | So let me clear this out and I'll
show you what we are doing here.
| | 00:24 | I'll hit close all objects from the
File menu, press the A key to reset our views,
| | 00:28 | and now in the Create tab I am
going to draw out just a nice big box like
| | 00:31 | this with multiple segments.
| | 00:33 | You can press the N key to get to
segments if you like, and you can see I've got
| | 00:37 | 6 on the X, 4 on the Y and 5 on the Z.
| | 00:41 | So that's fine. It doesn't
have to be exact of any sort.
| | 00:45 | We'll press F2 to center it, and then
I am going to select B for the Bevel tool
| | 00:48 | and we are just going to bevel this so
we get little Hershey bar thing like that.
| | 00:54 | So we've got a box like this.
Now what can we do with this.
| | 00:57 | Very simply this dynamic setup can
work with even a simple object like this.
| | 01:03 | So I'm just going to save this. We are
going to put this in our Exercise Files
| | 01:08 | under Chapter 10 and I'll save it as
BasicDynamic, hit Save, and then I am
| | 01:13 | going to send it to Layout in the top
right by hitting Send Object to Layout.
| | 01:20 | A very simple dynamic setup sometimes
only requires one object. I am going to
| | 01:24 | press the P key for Object
Properties and here we have a basic dynamic
| | 01:29 | object, which is that one.
| | 01:31 | Add Dynamic, we want this to
be a hard surface dynamic.
| | 01:35 | Well we need something to collide with
it and from the Items tab in Layout
| | 01:39 | we can create a dynamic collision
and I can just add that right there.
| | 01:45 | Collision Name, well we can just call
it Collision and the little Effects panel
| | 01:49 | comes up and the Radius is set to one.
| | 01:52 | Our Grid is set to 2 m, if you look
at the very bottom left. That means every
| | 01:56 | grid is 2 m in size. Let's make this
about two meters and then you can actually
| | 02:00 | see the collision right inside there.
| | 02:02 | If we have another object you can set
that object as a collision as well, but
| | 02:07 | you don't always have to.
| | 02:09 | So here is this nice little dynamic
collision at frame zero and then I am going
| | 02:14 | to go up just a frame 10 or 15 or so
and I am going to keyframe this over and
| | 02:20 | I am going to hit the right mouse and
move it down so it slams into that.
| | 02:24 | I'll rewind and I'll hit the
Calculate button and it pushes it.
| | 02:29 | It's a hard dynamic.
| | 02:31 | But it pushes it as one object.
| | 02:33 | So properly setting this up means the
Piece mode is set to Parts, but it's only
| | 02:38 | 1 piece and I could set it like that.
| | 02:40 | It calculates and bounces it.
| | 02:41 | But what if I want all of these bricks
to follow just tumble all over the place?
| | 02:46 | Well there is something you
need to do in Modeler to do that.
| | 02:50 | So while you can separate items into
multiple layers and animate you can also
| | 02:54 | do it within the same layer and that hard
dynamic can be setup to Parts versus 1Piece.
| | 02:59 | Cutting this apart into separate
objects probably wouldn't work. We would
| | 03:02 | need to build brick separately and we are
going to do that coming up in another video.
| | 03:06 | But if you got a quick one like this
and you want to just really smash, there's
| | 03:10 | a quick little trick you can do.
| | 03:11 | Under the Construct tab what you can do
is right mouse around to select all of these,
| | 03:17 | just so you have
all of these happening here.
| | 03:20 | And actually let's go to Detail and
over here under Points you could hit Unweld.
| | 03:26 | And it looks like nothing happens but
let me hit Command or Ctrl+S to Save.
| | 03:31 | I am going to jump back to Layout
and I am going to hit Calculate again.
| | 03:37 | It still pushes it at one. Well let's
take a look at and instead of 1Piece
| | 03:41 | let's change it to Parts.
| | 03:43 | Hit Calculate and now that
smashes into a bunch of pieces.
| | 03:49 | The reason is Unweld took all those
points and turned all those polygons into
| | 03:54 | individual pieces and
the dynamic engine saw that.
| | 03:57 | So I was very easily able
to go in and set that up.
| | 04:03 | That's all you really have to
worry about the dynamic setup.
| | 04:06 | If your objects can be animated
independently they should be on separate layers
| | 04:09 | or be independent objects within the same layer.
| | 04:13 | If it's one object like this that you
want to smash, make sure that the Points
| | 04:17 | are unwelded so those
polygons can animate on their own.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Animating cloth| 00:00 | Dynamics in LightWave are always fun
to set up, especially when you've got
| | 00:03 | things knocking down like
brick walls and buildings.
| | 00:06 | But sometimes it's nice to
do softer things like cloth.
| | 00:09 | You can do that pretty easily
with the LightWave Dynamics.
| | 00:12 | But it starts in modeler with the proper object.
| | 00:15 | Let me show you how to set that up.
| | 00:16 | Under the Create tab you can start up
with the Box, and I am going to draw it
| | 00:20 | flat in the top view like that.
| | 00:22 | With my mouse in this view I am going
to use my up-arrow a few times and my
| | 00:25 | right-arrow a few times just so
I have a good amount of segments.
| | 00:28 | If you want to know how many segments,
press the N key on your Numeric panel.
| | 00:32 | I've created 11 segments on the X
and 6 on the Z. The object can be flat.
| | 00:37 | We don't need that to be thick at all.
| | 00:38 | So there are no segments on the Y.
| | 00:40 | I'll click the Box tool to turn it off and
I'll press F2 on my keyboard to center it out.
| | 00:46 | Hold the Alt key on your PC or Option on your
Mac and rotate around, and you can see that.
| | 00:50 | Now, one of the most important things
to know when you're animating cloth is
| | 00:54 | that you want to have Subdivision surfaces on.
| | 00:56 | So press the Tab key and you can see
that if I press let's say Ctrl+T, which
| | 01:02 | is my drag, I can actually click and
drag on a point in this object. Look at
| | 01:07 | the corner right here.
| | 01:08 | You can see how it's nice and
soft and it can be pushed around.
| | 01:11 | That's really important
especially when it comes to dynamics.
| | 01:14 | Otherwise, if you have let's say just a
straight object like that and it's just
| | 01:20 | going to bend like this, just going to crack.
| | 01:21 | So you definitely want to have your
Subdivision surfaces on by pressing the Tab key.
| | 01:26 | I'll press Q and name this cloth.
| | 01:29 | Then we want something
for this to interact with.
| | 01:31 | So very simply I am going to go to
layer 2, click beneath that slash to see
| | 01:35 | layer 1, and under the Create tab
I'll select the Ball, and I'll just draw a
| | 01:40 | little ball like this and you can
make it maybe a little bit bigger.
| | 01:43 | I'll press F2 to center it and just to
give it a surface I'll press Q and call
| | 01:48 | it Ball and click OK.
| | 01:50 | I am going to save this out as
ClothFX like that in our Chapter 10 Exercise
| | 01:56 | folders, and then I am going to say Send
Object to Layout from the top-right of the screen.
| | 02:03 | So setting up dynamics in LightWave is
very easy to do as long as you've got the
| | 02:07 | proper objects set up in 2 or 3 or 4
separate layers in LightWave Modeler.
| | 02:11 | Remember layers are going to help
you animate objects independently.
| | 02:15 | So when I have a cloth effect scene
like this very simple with a ball and a
| | 02:19 | cloth, each of those live in their own layer.
| | 02:21 | When we have hard effects scene such as
dominos, each one of those things that
| | 02:26 | have to fall down have to be in their own layer.
| | 02:28 | Dynamics are relatively easy to set up
once you know the process and once the
| | 02:32 | objects are in place.
| | 02:33 | From here you can set up your
collisions and all of that's going to happen
| | 02:36 | inside LightWave Layout.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building collisions| 00:00 | Setting up dynamics is relatively easy
in LightWave, but part of it, especially
| | 00:05 | when one is working with cloth, you
definitely want some collisions in there,
| | 00:08 | and I want to show you how you can actually
make this cloth just fall right over the ball.
| | 00:12 | Now this whole concept can be used
for flags, tablecloths, clothing on a
| | 00:16 | model, anything you want.
| | 00:18 | So I am going to take the cloth, which
is just a flat box that is subdivided and
| | 00:24 | Subdivision surfaces is turned on.
| | 00:25 | Get a right mouse to move it up and I've got
the Move tool selected from the Modify tab.
| | 00:31 | That's at frame 0 and then let's just
drop it down maybe at frame 20, just a
| | 00:36 | little bit like that.
| | 00:37 | The rest of it we are going to allow
the dynamics to do, so we are just going
| | 00:39 | to let it float a little bit and
then the dynamics are going to kick in.
| | 00:42 | So I am going to press the P key and that
will open the Object Properties for that object.
| | 00:47 | I'll just kind of move
over here so you can see it.
| | 00:49 | I am going to add a dynamics for
that cloth of what? Cloth. Makes sense.
| | 00:55 | I'll select it to get the Properties
for it and what we can do is set along
| | 01:00 | these variances but for right now,
it's better just to get it going and then
| | 01:04 | tweak rather than trying to work your way
through all these settings. So go to the Etc,
| | 01:08 | the etcetera tab, and just
some presets you can use.
| | 01:11 | This is the way I like to work.
| | 01:12 | I'd like to come in here and
just say I want thin cotton.
| | 01:16 | When I select that and I go back to
Basic and Collision a lot of these values
| | 01:20 | are already put in place for me,
| | 01:22 | thanks to the preset.
| | 01:24 | So all I've to do now is say Calculate but
what happens is that the ball disappears
| | 01:30 | and the object doesn't fall.
| | 01:31 | So let's go back to Cloth
and take a look under Etc,
| | 01:35 | the Etcetera tab, and we need to put
some gravity on it. -9.8 meters per second
| | 01:40 | squared, we have a little gravity.
| | 01:41 | Then the ball, let's select that,
we need that to be a collision object.
| | 01:45 | So we'll select it and then again from
the Object Properties choose Collision.
| | 01:51 | And that simply alone.
| | 01:52 | Let's just see what happens. Hit Calculate.
| | 01:54 | It doesn't quite work, does it?
| | 01:58 | We need to determine what is colliding.
| | 02:01 | So what we're going to do is select the
Cloth again, open up the ClothFX,
| | 02:05 | and let's take a look at the Collision.
| | 02:07 | Collision Detect > Cloth.
| | 02:09 | So we need to make sure that the surface of
this object is being used as the collision.
| | 02:14 | Now I calculate and now you can
see that it interacts with the ball.
| | 02:20 | But as it does, it gets really kind of
stretched out and that's pretty normal,
| | 02:24 | because we're using that default thin setting.
| | 02:27 | Well, let's take a look at
it and play it in real-time.
| | 02:31 | So you can see it works pretty well,
and the other thing I want to do real
| | 02:36 | quickly is open the Surface Editor and
for the Ball let's put Smoothing on, and
| | 02:40 | for the Cloth let's put
Smoothing on as well as Double Sided.
| | 02:44 | So that way if you flip it around,
we've got a surface on the other side and
| | 02:48 | just for grins and giggles, let's put some
shine on this thing so it has a little life to it.
| | 02:53 | Back in the ClothFX, all we
have to do is change a few things.
| | 02:57 | We'll come down to collision and the
Bound and Friction, well those are okay.
| | 03:03 | That's what's helping it stick to the ball
and it looks like it's doing it pretty well.
| | 03:06 | So we don't need to change that too much.
| | 03:08 | If you've got a more complex object,
things are spiky and maybe a fist going
| | 03:13 | through, you might need to adjust
this just a little bit because certain
| | 03:16 | parts might poke through.
| | 03:18 | Under the Advanced tab, this is
what we really need to change. Compress
| | 03:21 | Stress, we don't want to put too much on
there and we don't want too much Stretch Limit.
| | 03:26 | So we are going to bring that down to
about 5% and we'll bring this down to
| | 03:29 | about 5% and now let's hit Calculate.
| | 03:32 | I've always told people with LightWave,
don't often go in and change a bunch of
| | 03:36 | settings and then see what happens.
| | 03:38 | Do one setting, make a little preview,
see how that works, make another change,
| | 03:42 | see how that works, and so on.
| | 03:43 | So you could see now that it doesn't stretch
as much, but it kind of crosses into itself.
| | 03:49 | The folds look really nice.
| | 03:51 | But what I want to do, let's
just take a look at the playback.
| | 03:55 | That's looking pretty good but what I want
to do is change how it interacts with itself.
| | 03:59 | So again with the ClothFX selected,
we can come into Collision and then
| | 04:03 | under Self Collision select that Cloth
Surface. And Double Sided, Cloth Surface.
| | 04:10 | You could see it turns red.
| | 04:12 | So all those nodes now are active and
they are going to interact with each other.
| | 04:14 | So hit Calculate again.
| | 04:16 | It will hold for a little bit and
then Gravity kicks in and it will drop.
| | 04:21 | Sometimes these will start to take a
little more to calculate and this is often
| | 04:24 | why we do these dynamics with very
simple objects. Because it's a lot easier to
| | 04:28 | show them and describe them, because
this calculation is really what takes the
| | 04:33 | most part of your processing time.
| | 04:35 | You could see as it comes down,
it wraps around the ball pretty nicely.
| | 04:39 | Now I want you to think about
maybe a tablecloth or bedspread.
| | 04:43 | You can just drop a cloth right on
there and have it look very natural.
| | 04:47 | So right away this comes around, and you
can bring that Stretch Limit down, just
| | 04:51 | so it's not stretching as much.
| | 04:53 | But the folds are pretty nice.
If you up your subdivision level, that will
| | 04:57 | also help the detail.
| | 04:59 | We have a default subdivision
about three or four right here.
| | 05:02 | At this point as it starts to cross
into each other, the interaction is doing
| | 05:06 | about the best it can and you could see
it kind of folding, and pretty much this
| | 05:10 | point there's not a whole lot more you
can do other than bring down some of the
| | 05:13 | Gravity so it's not pulling as much.
| | 05:16 | So it's not falling as fast and then
you won't get as much flip at the bottom.
| | 05:21 | You can also make it thicker as well.
| | 05:25 | So that it's a little bit heavier cloth.
| | 05:27 | The Cloth dynamics in here
can only take you so far.
| | 05:31 | So a lot of times it's not going to always
work to fix themselves, to fold onto each other.
| | 05:37 | You are going to have to want to work
with that just a little bit and manipulate.
| | 05:41 | Now you are not always going to drop a
cloth right on the ball and expect it to
| | 05:45 | be perfectly suited for what we are doing.
| | 05:48 | But again, this is just an example.
| | 05:50 | Now if you are putting cloth on a table,
it will work perfectly because you are
| | 05:54 | not having all of this
object folding onto itself.
| | 05:58 | But to set it up, it's very simple to
do. Very simply you just need to put a
| | 06:02 | collision, put a soft effect
on the actual cloth itself.
| | 06:07 | Make sure it's a subdivision surface.
| | 06:09 | Make sure that the cloth surface is set
up as the calculation, hit Calculate, and
| | 06:14 | you've got your animated cloth.
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| Creating a hard dynamic scene| 00:00 | So here I have got a brick wall scene
that we are going to set up with a lot
| | 00:04 | more complicated dynamics.
| | 00:05 | Setting up a simple cloth can work
pretty well for you as well as setting up
| | 00:09 | dynamics for hard objects like a
ball pushing a big brick or something.
| | 00:14 | But when you have got a wall like this with
multiple parts, it has to be set up a certain way.
| | 00:19 | So I am going to select the wall and
then hit the Modeler button in the top
| | 00:21 | right and that jumps me into LightWave
Modeler and the way this wall is built,
| | 00:26 | it is one object that has been
cloned many times in the same layer.
| | 00:31 | This is different than one big box with
multiple segments and the reason this is
| | 00:35 | important is because I can select on
any one of these polygons, hit the right
| | 00:38 | bracket key to select everything
connected, and notice that only that one brick
| | 00:42 | get selected and I can just move it out.
| | 00:45 | That's important for the dynamic engine
to see that and the way this was built--
| | 00:49 | If I go to a blank layer here, go to
Create, select the Box and I just made a
| | 00:54 | little brick like that.
| | 00:56 | Press F2 to center and then under
Multiply, I went to the Array tool and
| | 01:02 | added maybe 10 on the X, 20 on the Y,
and click OK and you can see it I have
| | 01:07 | an array of those boxes.
| | 01:09 | I can press B for the Bevel tool and
just bevel those a little bit, and that's
| | 01:13 | how those bricks were made.
| | 01:15 | But again, they're all independent.
| | 01:17 | That's very important to know.
| | 01:18 | Ctrl+X to cut those.
| | 01:20 | We don't need those anymore and then
we'll get back into Layout by hitting
| | 01:25 | Switch to Layout or press F12.
| | 01:27 | It looks like I still have
an object in there, layer4.
| | 01:30 | Let's jump back to Modeler.
| | 01:32 | This is what happens with the Hub,
because the Hub connects the two programs and
| | 01:38 | you need to make sure that when you
have an object like this that if you don't
| | 01:41 | want use it in Layout to get rid of it.
| | 01:42 | And then we'll resave our scene,
Ctrl+S, and jump back to layout.
| | 01:47 | That's typically why I often like to
work in Modeler, get all my modeling done,
| | 01:50 | and then quit Modeler just so those
two programs don't send pieces back and
| | 01:54 | forth that you might not need.
| | 01:56 | So let's set this up.
| | 01:56 | So I have got the ground object.
| | 01:59 | The bricks and the ball.
| | 02:00 | I am going to press the P key and for the
bricks we need those to be a hard effect.
| | 02:05 | We will click that.
| | 02:07 | Piece Mode needs to set to Parts.
| | 02:09 | Each one of those is a separate part.
| | 02:11 | If it had one big wall we are
moving, it would be one piece.
| | 02:14 | So Parts is what we need.
| | 02:15 | I am going to put a little Gravity on,
make it 9.8 which is real-world
| | 02:19 | gravity, but you don't need to
do that. You can set it to -2 or 1.
| | 02:23 | Minus meaning though it is going to go down.
| | 02:25 | You could set Resistance and
Resistance will help those bricks have a little
| | 02:29 | more resistance on when that
ball hits for the collision.
| | 02:32 | Maybe I will just punch in
one and see what happens.
| | 02:35 | Rotation. The Impact Effect from the
collision. Instead of Force we can set this to Roll.
| | 02:42 | We can put a Wind Effect on
we want. Maybe Roll or Spin.
| | 02:45 | And then you can choose how much of that
impact, Minimum or Maximum with the Torque values.
| | 02:50 | I am going to leave those at 100 right
now, but those are ones you can adjust
| | 02:53 | and recalculate and see how it looks.
| | 02:55 | Under Collision, some of
the most important stuff.
| | 02:58 | Collision by Box, these are
little boxes so that's all we need.
| | 03:02 | The Self Interaction.
| | 03:03 | I also want those independent boxes to
see other so we are going to choose Box
| | 03:07 | for that as well as
Interaction for the Box here.
| | 03:11 | We don't want it to bounce around too much.
| | 03:13 | So I am going to bring it down to about 20%.
| | 03:15 | The Force, we will start random.
| | 03:18 | That's fine and then the Rotation,
| | 03:20 | I don't necessarily need that right at
this point. That's something you can try,
| | 03:23 | but all those basics are pretty much set up.
| | 03:26 | The next thing I want to do is tell
the ground object to be a collision, so
| | 03:30 | that the bricks have something to fall onto.
Otherwise they will just fall into space.
| | 03:34 | So we are going to set that as a
collision and then the ball is going to be a
| | 03:39 | collision as well and we will select that.
| | 03:42 | Now one thing with this it
defaults to an object type Collision.
| | 03:46 | We want to set it to Sphere and then
if I look at the radius it's set to 0.
| | 03:50 | If I jump this up to 2, what happens
is I get this sort of bounding box, this
| | 03:56 | region, almost like a
force field around the ball.
| | 04:00 | That is actually the collision.
| | 04:02 | So the collision would start more here at
the end of this, not necessarily at the ball.
| | 04:06 | So I am just going to bring this down
to about 1.17 because I know that's the
| | 04:10 | size and that encompasses the ball.
| | 04:12 | You are going to set this more towards
object where it defaulted to when you
| | 04:16 | have something like perhaps a cup or
a lamp or something that needs very
| | 04:20 | specific calculations.
| | 04:22 | When it's something simple like a ball
or a sphere, you can use these presets
| | 04:26 | and that's going to help the
calculation just a little bit.
| | 04:29 | So with those set let's hit Calculate and see
what happens and look at that. The bricks fall.
| | 04:34 | It looks great, but we want the ball
itself to actually knock them down.
| | 04:39 | So what I am going to do is hit Abort
in my calculations here, pull this up and
| | 04:44 | we will take the ball object, go to
Modify and then Move, make sure our controls
| | 04:49 | are on for position.
| | 04:50 | We are here at 0. Right-
mouse to move it up a little.
| | 04:53 | Let's go to frame 15 and let me just
move this out of the way so you can see it.
| | 04:58 | Click the blue handle and I will drag
it back, right-mouse to move it up, frame 20,
| | 05:04 | I will come down and maybe
about frame 35 we will drag it back.
| | 05:11 | Remember these dynamics have to be
calculated so you are not going to see the
| | 05:14 | interaction right away.
| | 05:15 | I will hit Calculate and then
that just slams through there and now
| | 05:20 | everything is interacting.
| | 05:21 | The ball, the bricks are interacting
with each other, with the ground object and
| | 05:26 | from there you can go in and change some
of the settings like the spin on these.
| | 05:30 | You can put Resistance.
| | 05:31 | You can play with the Gravity settings.
| | 05:33 | So there is a lot of
different forces a work here.
| | 05:36 | But on a simple level, setting up a
more complex dynamic scene like this really
| | 05:40 | can work well for you.
| | 05:41 | Now I have done this for
obviously some buildings.
| | 05:44 | I have actually done it on logos.
| | 05:46 | It's kind of a neat way to introduce
the client's logo, is just have it smash
| | 05:49 | through a brick wall, have it smash
through other parts of perhaps competition's
| | 05:55 | logos, things like that.
| | 05:58 | Think beyond the basics here of just
balls and brick walls and where you can
| | 06:01 | employ these techniques.
| | 06:03 | Now the final scene is
already on the exercise files.
| | 06:06 | It is called BrickWallFinal.
| | 06:08 | This is the BrickWallBegin. You can
actually load this up and set up this the
| | 06:12 | same way, but I encourage you to build
your own file because it will definitely
| | 06:16 | help you learn the settings and like
I have said with many of the LightWave
| | 06:20 | settings, don't go ahead and start
clicking and changing everything at once.
| | 06:23 | Do one setting, maybe a couple of the
key settings, hit Calculate, preview it
| | 06:28 | and see how it looks, and then move on
from there and change something else,
| | 06:32 | preview it, and so on.
| | 06:34 | So I'm going to go ahead and stop
this at 54% here. I will hit Abort.
| | 06:39 | What has been calculated will still
remain, but the rest of the bricks
| | 06:43 | actually falling to the ground haven't been
calculated yet, but let's rewind and see it looks.
| | 06:47 | We will close the Object Properties,
hit the Play button, and now you can see we
| | 06:52 | have got some great looking dynamics that work.
| | 06:56 | Bricks are smashing all over the place.
| | 06:57 | Now you might want to change the
weight and I am going to change the bounce
| | 07:01 | values just so they have a
little more substance to them.
| | 07:04 | But hard dynamics, soft dynamics,
| | 07:07 | they are all possible within the LightWave.
| | 07:09 | It is a matter of you getting in there,
setting up the scene for your own unique
| | 07:12 | needs and really creating something dynamic.
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|
|
11. Bones and Inverse KinematicsUnderstanding bones| 00:00 | You might've heard the term bones before
when you talk about LightWave. What are they?
| | 00:04 | Well, bones are deformation tools.
| | 00:06 | And what's the deformation?
| | 00:07 | Well, it's something that will deform an object.
| | 00:10 | There's a few principles you need to
understand before you start using bones.
| | 00:13 | Number one, they have to live within
an object, meaning you need an object
| | 00:18 | for them to be present. So let's do that.
| | 00:20 | I am literally just going to create just
a very simple little disc here and we will
| | 00:24 | put it right on the Y-axis, just like that.
| | 00:26 | Now this is probably one of the
most important things to understand.
| | 00:30 | This object can't be bent and the
reason is there is no segments in here.
| | 00:33 | So let me just turn this
off and I'll show what I mean.
| | 00:35 | If I go into the Modify tab and I
choose Bend and I come into the top view and
| | 00:41 | I just grab it, look what happens.
| | 00:43 | Just does that. I can't really bend it,
because there's no segment in between.
| | 00:48 | Okay, so if we take an object and
build this again and with my mouse in
| | 00:55 | this view, I just press my up arrow
and then my right arrow to add a little
| | 00:58 | more detail to this.
| | 01:00 | Now it's made up of a nice mesh.
| | 01:02 | We go to Modify, we
choose Bend, look what happens.
| | 01:06 | It can bend nicely.
| | 01:07 | That's why the model needs to
be made up of multiple segments.
| | 01:11 | Of course subdivision
surfaces will help that as well.
| | 01:14 | However, what if you wanted to bend
this in Layout, perhaps animate it?
| | 01:17 | Well, that's where the bones
come in. So let's do this.
| | 01:19 | I am going to undo my bend, press F2 to
center, and then press T and I'll move
| | 01:24 | this up and set up right on the ground here.
| | 01:27 | When I jump into the Layout,
I'll say Switch to Layout.
| | 01:31 | Bones, if we go under Setup,
are all done right here.
| | 01:35 | Let me just show you one what it looks like.
| | 01:37 | And we're going to attach
one just to a null object.
| | 01:40 | So from the Items tab I am
going to Add > Null, all right?
| | 01:42 | And remember a null object doesn't render.
| | 01:46 | It's just a reference point working as
for a number of different things such as
| | 01:48 | targeting or parenting.
| | 01:50 | But also with that I can add a bone.
| | 01:52 | So Setup, Add > Bone.
| | 01:54 | And you can give it a name
but that's what it looks like.
| | 01:57 | And the bones have been greatly
enhanced up through version 10, allowing them
| | 02:02 | to be a lot more visible in Layout and have a
lot more control over their size and position.
| | 02:05 | But a bone by default is 1 meter in length.
| | 02:08 | You can see it fitting that one
square right there in our grid.
| | 02:11 | And it shoots down the Z-axis.
| | 02:14 | There's our Z, way back there.
| | 02:15 | Okay, the fat end is where the
influence is more and the small end is less.
| | 02:22 | If I press the Y command, it's
always going to rotate from that fat end.
| | 02:25 | And what we would do is put
these in an object to bend it around.
| | 02:31 | Well, that's really all there is to
it, except for things like higher key.
| | 02:35 | So if you're doing perhaps the
shoulder of a character, you would have a bone
| | 02:39 | in the shoulder, a bone down for the
upper arm, a bone down for the forearm,
| | 02:43 | for the hand, and one reason these are
called bones is because they can mimic
| | 02:48 | bones in a human body.
| | 02:49 | Now we don't always use them for that.
| | 02:51 | I've often used them for animating
curtains, making a bottle come to life, or
| | 02:56 | taking a lamp and giving it some personality.
| | 02:59 | So bones are pretty easy to set up.
| | 03:01 | But there's another section called skelegons.
| | 03:04 | Very similar but these are bones
that you can setup in LightWave Modeler.
| | 03:07 | Bones or skelegons are all deformation
tools and can be used to bring any kind
| | 03:12 | of object you want to life.
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| Understanding skelegons and when to use both skelegons and bones| 00:00 | Bones in LightWave Layout can deform an object.
| | 00:02 | You set them up directly in layouts to
manipulate something so it has a little
| | 00:06 | more life to it, but you can also set up
bones in Modeler and when you do that,
| | 00:10 | they're called skelegons.
| | 00:12 | So let me just show you,. If I take
just a simple disc object right here like this
| | 00:16 | and I jump to another layer and I
hit the background layer for that first object,
| | 00:23 | I can go under Setup and
here's this section called Skelegons.
| | 00:28 | I can say Create Skelegons and what
that allows me to do is literally click and
| | 00:31 | draw out a bone right in LightWave Modeler.
| | 00:35 | So I can very easily just create two
bones just like that, just by clicking
| | 00:40 | and drawing them out.
| | 00:41 | Well, why would I do that in Modeler?
| | 00:42 | Well, there's a number of different reasons.
| | 00:44 | Skelegons in Modeler can be animated in Layout.
| | 00:48 | They can also be edited in Modeler.
| | 00:50 | It saves you the effort of setting up
multiple bones in Layout and changing
| | 00:54 | your configuration.
| | 00:55 | You could simply jump back in LightWave
Modeler and have these bones always part
| | 00:59 | of the object that you can
treat kind of like polygons.
| | 01:03 | So like this. I can go to Modify, I can
choose Drag, and I can click right on one
| | 01:08 | of these bones and move them around
like that, because those points act like
| | 01:13 | typical vertices, and I can very easily
shape my bones directly in the LightWave
| | 01:18 | Modeler and keep them as part of my object.
| | 01:21 | When I save this, and I'll just put it
right on my Desktop as a dummy because
| | 01:25 | we're not going to keep this.
| | 01:27 | We have a better project for you.
| | 01:29 | When I send object to Layout, there is
two things I need to know about skelegons.
| | 01:33 | Number one, they will live on this other
layer, so I have my object in one layer
| | 01:38 | and my skelegons in another layer.
| | 01:40 | But in order to get them to show up and
be useful, I need to come over here to
| | 01:45 | my Setup tab and I need to
convert those into bones.
| | 01:49 | It's kind of an important thing.
| | 01:51 | And in order to do that, we'll come
down here to Add and we will say Convert
| | 01:55 | Skelegons into Bones.
| | 01:57 | Down at the bottom it tells me two
bones were created and to see them I can
| | 02:00 | come up here to this little tiny
dropdown at the top of the layout and say Bone X-Ray Mode,
| | 02:05 | and now I can
see those within my object.
| | 02:07 | Well, what does that do for me?
| | 02:09 | Well, if I select one of these and I
choose Rotate, well, I can rotate it around
| | 02:13 | but it doesn't deform my object.
| | 02:15 | That is because bones need to live
within an object and while these are part
| | 02:19 | of the same object, but they are not derforming
it and that's because they are in another layer.
| | 02:23 | All I need to do is take the object
itself, press M for Motion Options, and
| | 02:30 | I can see here that there is no parent
item, and if I look at the bones, you can
| | 02:34 | see that Bone 01 and Bone 02, well,
they are parented to dummy:layer2 and that
| | 02:39 | was all set up in LightWave Modeler.
| | 02:40 | So really the best way to do this is to
take one of these bones and tell that to
| | 02:46 | be used for that object.
| | 02:47 | So this object right here, if I go to
Bones for it, notice that it says None.
| | 02:53 | If I press M for Motion Options and hit
Properties, I can tell this object
| | 02:59 | Use Bones From layer2, and
layer2 is where my skelegons live.
| | 03:03 | And notice as soon as I do that, the
object actually becomes active and I can
| | 03:07 | take that bone and move the object around.
| | 03:10 | Now, it sounds like a little bit of
work and sometimes it is to use Skelegons.
| | 03:13 | Because you do have to create them in
Modeler, bring them to Layout, convert them,
| | 03:18 | tell the object to use the
bones from that particular layer.
| | 03:21 | The advantage, however, is that I can go
into Modeler at any point and those bones
| | 03:24 | will always be part of that structure.
| | 03:26 | So let's say I was working as part of
the team and I needed to create a full
| | 03:30 | model with the bone structure. I can
send that to my colleague, who can then go
| | 03:34 | ahead and edit it and continue on.
| | 03:36 | I don't have to send him the whole
scene file with the bone setup. I could
| | 03:40 | send him just the model.
| | 03:41 | I can very easily slice those bones in Modeler.
| | 03:44 | I can split them, and if you go to the
Setup tab, there is a number of different
| | 03:47 | tools that allow you to Rotate, Slice,
Add, and Continue to build upon them.
| | 03:53 | A little bit more
difficult to do that in Layout.
| | 03:56 | The choice is really yours, whether
you want to use skeletons in Modeler or
| | 03:59 | bones directly in Layout and a lot of
it is going to depend on the type of
| | 04:02 | project you are doing.
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| Placing bones in an object| 00:00 | Setting up bones in an object is
not as difficult as you might think.
| | 00:03 | I often like to approach them
kind of like a human structure.
| | 00:07 | So we're going to start out with this object
| | 00:08 | that was built earlier in the course,
a nice little bottle in Modeler.
| | 00:11 | It has subdivision surfaces on.
| | 00:13 | So it's nice and smooth and
has a very nice mesh to it.
| | 00:15 | Now we can take a look at the
Wireframe and you'll see that it's made up
| | 00:18 | of multiple segments.
| | 00:19 | So it's going to bend for us very nicely.
| | 00:21 | So setting up bones in
here is really pretty easy.
| | 00:24 | What I'm going to do is
come down to my Front View.
| | 00:26 | I'm going to press 1 on my keyboard and
I'm going to come to the Setup tab and
| | 00:31 | I'm just going to say Add > Bone, one bone.
| | 00:32 | We can name it whatever
we want, but Bone is fine.
| | 00:35 | You'll notice it comes in right
at the zero axis. Take a look.
| | 00:39 | Press 4 on your numeric keypad to look
at the Perspective view and you can see
| | 00:44 | that bone is right down the Z-axis.
| | 00:47 | Well, I wanted to face up in the bottle
because again, we're setting this up,
| | 00:50 | think of a human form.
| | 00:52 | So I'm going to press Y for Rotate
and I'm going to rotate it up.
| | 00:56 | But I want it very precise.
| | 00:57 | So down here in my numerics,
| | 00:59 | I'm going to enter in -90. Rotate that up.
| | 01:02 | Then I'll press T, which is
Move under the Modify tab.
| | 01:06 | I'm going to move this down to the base,
and that's where we'll come back to our
| | 01:09 | Front View by pressing 1 on the keyboard.
| | 01:11 | Right-mouse to move it down and right
at the base, and Period key will zoom
| | 01:15 | us in a little bit.
| | 01:17 | Now you have to consider what size this bone is.
| | 01:19 | But this is a really
important thing. So listen hard.
| | 01:22 | You can't just size the bone.
| | 01:24 | If you size it with the Transform tool,
what will happen is once those bones are active,
| | 01:28 | it will size your object,
and that's not what you want.
| | 01:30 | Notice that the bone is dotted.
| | 01:32 | There are dashed lines.
| | 01:34 | That means it's inactive.
| | 01:35 | Hit the P key with the bone
selected and you get the Bones panel.
| | 01:39 | What you can do with this
is increase the Rest Length.
| | 01:43 | That's what we want.
| | 01:43 | So we're going to click and
drag that up about that far.
| | 01:47 | We want about a third of the bottle.
| | 01:49 | So you always want to increase the Rest Length.
| | 01:51 | You do not want to change the Size.
| | 01:53 | Big difference there.
| | 01:55 | Then I don't want just to add another bone.
| | 01:58 | I want to add a child bone, and the reason
is let's say I take this bone and I rotate it.
| | 02:03 | Well, I want to bones
following it to also rotate.
| | 02:07 | So I want a child bone.
| | 02:08 | A child bone will actually create
the exact same bone right on top of it.
| | 02:13 | So I'll hit that Child Bone.
| | 02:15 | Same size as it right on top.
| | 02:17 | If I added just another
bone, what's going to happen?
| | 02:20 | Well, it would dump it right in
layout, right down the middle again,
| | 02:24 | not sized, not positioned.
| | 02:26 | Okay, so to get rid of that, if you
accidentally do that, press the Minus key,
| | 02:31 | and that will remove that selected item,
and that works the same for objects
| | 02:34 | and lights as well.
| | 02:35 | So back to the Front View, press 1.
| | 02:38 | The top bone is selected.
| | 02:39 | We're going to add another child bone,
and you can name these if you want.
| | 02:44 | Base bone, middle bone, top bone.
| | 02:46 | Now I want this to be a little shorter.
| | 02:48 | So I'm going to press the P key and
I'm going to bring my Rest Length down.
| | 02:51 | I'm going to have it go right
to the neck kind of like that.
| | 02:54 | Then we'll add another child bone,
and then this one I want to also make
| | 03:00 | shorter and we're going to have this
on control just the neck of this bottle.
| | 03:04 | Then we'll add one more child bone and
that'll be the head bone and this one of
| | 03:09 | course will be filling the
top like that. That's it.
| | 03:14 | Your bones are set up.
| | 03:15 | Of course, you could put
arms on here if you wanted.
| | 03:18 | You can extend them out and the way
you would do that is select this middle
| | 03:22 | bone and you would add a child bone and
rotate it off to the side, but we don't
| | 03:26 | really have arms sticking out of here,
so it's not necessarily important.
| | 03:30 | But that's how you would do it,
because you want those to be a child and the
| | 03:32 | reason is let's say you take this
middle right here and want to move it.
| | 03:36 | Well, pretend that's the upper body.
| | 03:38 | You want those arms to actually follow.
| | 03:41 | Now notice that the bones aren't
moving the object at all. Okay.
| | 03:46 | Well, the reason is they're not active.
| | 03:48 | To make them active in the Bones
panel, you have to say Active, okay?
| | 03:53 | You need to press R and it
is right there, Bone Active.
| | 03:56 | But this is what happens.
| | 03:57 | A lot of people do this.
| | 03:58 | They stop, they email me. "Oh my gosh!
| | 04:00 | My objects are in that stuff." It's not.
| | 04:02 | You only have one bone
active. Think about this.
| | 04:05 | The bone came down to Z-axis
that way, then you rotated it.
| | 04:10 | Well, the bottle is following suit
to that rotation from the one bone.
| | 04:15 | But if you press your up or down arrow
and go to the other sets of bones and
| | 04:20 | activate them, they will
now hold your object in place.
| | 04:24 | You always need at least two bones.
| | 04:26 | One to hold the object and
one to actually deform it.
| | 04:28 | So this base bone here is
really holding it in place.
| | 04:32 | That is the parent bone.
| | 04:33 | If you open the Scene Editor, you'll
see that that first base bone has all the
| | 04:38 | other child bones following it.
| | 04:40 | So I'm going to close this out.
| | 04:41 | So what happens now if I select
some of these bones and move them?
| | 04:44 | Well, look at that.
| | 04:46 | We got a little dancing bottle.
| | 04:49 | Remember, I've got Bone X-Ray mode on.
| | 04:51 | So if you don't see your bones,
make sure you do that. Bone X-Ray mode.
| | 04:55 | You can use your up and down arrow to go
to each one of these and move it around.
| | 04:59 | You can jump into VPR mode if you've
got textures on here,and you really see
| | 05:04 | what that looks like with
the render and a shadow.
| | 05:07 | But it's a great way to put some life
into your objects quickly and easily.
| | 05:12 | I've seen animated toasters and of
course full-blown characters, but I really
| | 05:16 | like people to kind of get into
animating inanimate objects like this and
| | 05:20 | really perfect your animation skills by
bringing something simple like this to life,
| | 05:23 | and bones are the way to do it.
| | 05:25 | They are pretty powerful in that way.
| | 05:27 | They work pretty fast and not too hard to
set up as long as you do the process right.
| | 05:33 | So there are a number of
different things you can do with bones.
| | 05:35 | You can move paper.
| | 05:36 | You can distort paper.
| | 05:38 | You can create cloth and
make them just kind of wrinkle.
| | 05:42 | So I've done draperies where I've put
bones in there just to kind of use
| | 05:46 | them to deform things. You don't
necessarily need to always have a character
| | 05:49 | animation to use bones.
| | 05:51 | However, you can go that route
and bring bottles to life, and cans,
| | 05:54 | and inanimate objects.
| | 05:56 | But there is some other fine-
tuning that you do as well.
| | 05:59 | I'm going to show you that coming up.
| | 06:00 | But try your hand at bones. Load this
model up, or load one of your own models,
| | 06:04 | put the bones in, and do just three or
four bones just to get started, and get a
| | 06:08 | feel for how they work.
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| Fine-tuning bone placement and activating bones| 00:00 | Once you setup a bone structure on
object, you can move it around and you can
| | 00:05 | bend it and see that it works, but
every once while you might feel the need to
| | 00:08 | move the placement of the bones.
| | 00:09 | You might need to fine-tune them a bit.
| | 00:11 | So in order to do that, you don't
want to do them while they're active.
| | 00:14 | You don't want to adjust them, because
what will happen of course, if I move
| | 00:17 | this bone, well it's going to move
the object so I need to deactivate it.
| | 00:21 | So if I press the P key for any
selected bone, I'll get the Bone panel and I
| | 00:25 | can simply say Bone Active uncheck.
| | 00:27 | I can use my up arrow to cycle through
the other bones, and I can do the same
| | 00:31 | thing and just deactivate these.
| | 00:33 | So now, if I move one of these, you can
see that it doesn't affect the bottle at
| | 00:37 | all because it's deactivated.
| | 00:39 | And with that done, I can close that
panel and perhaps I wanted to come down at
| | 00:43 | my front view. I'll press 1 on the keyboard.
| | 00:45 | Maybe I want to add another set of bones
at the bottom so I can give it a little
| | 00:49 | bit of a twist during my animation.
| | 00:52 | So I'll press 2 on the
keyboard to get to the top view.
| | 00:55 | Come to the Setup tab and I'm going to
add a bone and that's going to put one
| | 00:59 | right down the Z-axis.
| | 01:01 | I'll press the P key to get back to my
bone properties and I can increase the
| | 01:04 | Rest Length just until it
hits the edge of that bottom.
| | 01:07 | From there I'm going to add a child
bone, but then I'm actually going to move
| | 01:12 | that bone back and then
press the Y key for Rotate.
| | 01:15 | We're going to rotate it about 90 degrees
off to this side here, and then we're going
| | 01:20 | to make a child bone from that one and it
will do the same thing. Press the T key.
| | 01:24 | We're going to move that back.
| | 01:26 | Press the Y command and we're
going to rotate that around.
| | 01:30 | And if you're off just a little bit,
just to press the T key again for Move.
| | 01:34 | We'll make one more child bone.
| | 01:36 | And then we'll move that one back into
the center and then we'll press Y for
| | 01:39 | Rotate and I'll move this and then T
key to move it back just a little bit.
| | 01:45 | Let's take a look at it from the
Perspective view by pressing 4.
| | 01:48 | So they're in the middle of the bottle.
I actually want them at the bottom.
| | 01:50 | So I'm going to select the initial bone there.
| | 01:53 | Now I'll press the T key for Move.
Because the other bones are child bones of
| | 01:57 | that, they will follow.
| | 01:58 | That's okay if your bone sticks
outside of your bottle. Just remember that
| | 02:01 | those don't render.
| | 02:02 | So if you go to your preview render
in the VPR, you'll see that they don't
| | 02:06 | actually show up there. They're just
references and they're influencing your bottle.
| | 02:10 | Well, the advantage of doing something
like this is that I can then go ahead and
| | 02:15 | when I activate these, I'll press the R
key as kind of a shortcut to activate
| | 02:19 | all the bones, as you see
them get solid obce I do.
| | 02:23 | See how it affects the bottom of the
bottle? So now what I can do is take this
| | 02:27 | bone right here and twist
the bottom of the bottle.
| | 02:29 | And let me go here to a
Shaded view so you could see it.
| | 02:33 | So now I've got a little more control
over the bottom of the bottle that's
| | 02:37 | independent from the top part of the bottle.
| | 02:41 | So he can jump around as needed. He
can bend. You can set these keyframes.
| | 02:45 | So using the keyframe lessons of course,
we can move through our Timeline and
| | 02:48 | make this little bottle come to
life and jump around the screen.
| | 02:52 | So very nice way to work.
| | 02:54 | I'm just going to Command+Z or
Ctrl+Z to undo a couple of times.
| | 02:58 | So that bone structure works very well
for pretty much any kind of simplistic
| | 03:02 | object like this, but it's often all you
need to bring a full character to life.
| | 03:05 | A few other things you know about the
bones. Press the D key and if you've got a
| | 03:09 | lot of preferences inhere that
you're going to work through.
| | 03:12 | Under Handles & Icons in the Display
tab, you'll actually see that there is a
| | 03:17 | Bone Icon Size. I'll move that over.
| | 03:20 | And if I increase this you can see that these
bones can be much more visible in your object.
| | 03:25 | You can Draw Bones Filled and
that's usually on by default. You can
| | 03:29 | Auto-size Bones, and you can Draw
Joints, depending on inverse kinematics
| | 03:34 | and more complex setups.
| | 03:36 | So something to keep in mind, you can
also set a light icon, just so you know, a
| | 03:41 | camera icon, and your
handles for when you move objects.
| | 03:44 | So as you're building more complex
characters, even simple ones like this,
| | 03:47 | keep in mind these display settings
that help you fine-tune your bones.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up Inverse Kinematics| 00:00 | With the simple bone structure like
this or with a complex one, sometimes you
| | 00:04 | want to move it around
with a little bit more ease.
| | 00:06 | Now this works pretty well just to
select one of these bones and press the Y
| | 00:09 | command to rotate it and give this
character a little life, but every once in
| | 00:13 | a while you might want a little more
control, like you possibly might want to
| | 00:17 | grab the tip of it here and kind of move
it around a bit. It might be little easier.
| | 00:20 | So let me show you how to do
that with Inverse Kinematics.
| | 00:23 | I am going to select the bottle here
and I am just going to move it over. I am
| | 00:25 | going to go to Items and say Add Null
and we'll call this Base, something like that,
| | 00:31 | and with that Base object, I am
going to go to Setup and Add > Bone.
| | 00:35 | Easy enough, just like we did
earlier for the little bottle.
| | 00:39 | Then I am going to press my Equal
key on the keyboard and add a few child
| | 00:42 | bones, just like that.
| | 00:44 | Then I am going to take that last bone
and I am going to press the P key and I
| | 00:48 | want to change the Rest Length for this one.
| | 00:50 | The reason being is that all rotations
and positions and movements all happen
| | 00:54 | from the base of the bone.
| | 00:56 | So if I want to grab the tip here, well
that one bone will be kind of sticking out.
| | 00:59 | I want to be grabbing it from the
bottom here, making this one our top bone.
| | 01:03 | So I am going to bring the Rest Length
down like that and basically there's
| | 01:07 | not much distinction now between the base
or the tip, which is kind of the whole point.
| | 01:11 | Also with a smaller Rest Length, it's going to
have a lot less influence, if any, on an object.
| | 01:16 | Back in Items, I am going to add
another Null object and call this Goal and
| | 01:21 | then I am going to move that item all
the way to the tip, like that, and that's
| | 01:25 | going to be our control point.
| | 01:26 | Now, if you wanted to give this a
little more life as far as visibility,
| | 01:30 | press the P key for that object and you
can go to Add Custom Object and you can
| | 01:35 | choose Item Shape and if you double-click this,
you'll get a nice little panel that comes up.
| | 01:40 | This panel is visible when you
actually created your null object and if you
| | 01:44 | forgot to do it, this is how you get
back to it. And with this you can change
| | 01:49 | the shape to maybe something like a
pyramid, a diamond, a sphere and so on, and
| | 01:53 | you can change the shape of it and the size.
| | 01:55 | That helps you really identify
where those control handles are when
| | 01:58 | you're setting them up.
| | 01:59 | What I am going to do now is tell
these bones that that is the goal.
| | 02:03 | Basically I am going to have this
hierarchy and this is what is really
| | 02:05 | important when setting up Inverse Kinematics.
| | 02:07 | Let's open up the classic Scene Editor
and notice that I've got the base bone
| | 02:12 | all the way through.
| | 02:13 | I am taking yhis last bone.
| | 02:14 | Here are all the others.
| | 02:16 | This last bone, I am going to goal it.
| | 02:18 | I am going to tell the Inverse
Kinematics engine, point to that goal and that
| | 02:22 | then is going to control all the other bones.
| | 02:24 | The way to do that, if you press M for
Motion Options for that selected bone,
| | 02:29 | that will be the last one, up under IK
and Modifiers there is a section for
| | 02:33 | Goal Object. Well, the goal is that null
object we named Goal and you can see a
| | 02:38 | line draw all the way through there.
| | 02:41 | If I select that object now and I move
it, you can see there is a dotted line.
| | 02:44 | So I know something is working, but
the bones haven't been told to be set for
| | 02:50 | Inverse Kinematics yet.
| | 02:51 | So what I am doing is I am holding the
Shift key and I am selecting all those
| | 02:54 | bones at once and then still under
Motion Options for Bones, under Controllers
| | 02:59 | and Limits, there is a Rotation tab.
| | 03:02 | Under Heading Controller
change that to Inverse Kinematics.
| | 03:06 | For Pitch same thing and for Bank
same thing. And then when I select this and
| | 03:12 | press the T key for move, my bones move.
| | 03:15 | Now I can grab this whole chain and
move it around, just simply by moving
| | 03:20 | this one little control.
| | 03:22 | If your bones are not moving and
you've set this up property, make sure that
| | 03:25 | under the Setup tab, under the General
category, under More, make sure Enable
| | 03:30 | Inverse Kinematics is on, okay?
| | 03:32 | I've been victim to thinking something
is not working because that was off.
| | 03:36 | And what happens now if you think of what
I showed you earlier, how the bones deform
| | 03:39 | an object, well, now you have a control
handle to move that deformation around.
| | 03:45 | So let's go one step further and take
our bottle here and do the same thing.
| | 03:51 | I want to control it from the very tip.
| | 03:53 | So I am going to select that top bone
and I am going to add a child bone.
| | 03:56 | You can even call this a TipBone if you want.
| | 03:58 | I'll press P to get to the Object
Properties for that bone and I am going to
| | 04:04 | move that down, just bring
that Rest Length all the way down.
| | 04:09 | Close the panel, go to Items, you can
add a null object, and we'll call this Goal.
| | 04:14 | And here under Edit, if you open that up,
I can change my Shape to maybe a Ball
| | 04:20 | and I can make it a good size if I want.
| | 04:23 | Draw a line to my Goal if I want,
put a label, Goal, and so on.
| | 04:28 | You can select a color and unselect a color,
just the nice options for your display.
| | 04:33 | Now my goal is by default right here at the
(0,0) axis and my bottle is all the way over here.
| | 04:38 | That's okay because I can just move
this and then right-click and move it up.
| | 04:42 | And let's always check it from the Top View
just so we know that it's right on the top there.
| | 04:46 | I'll press 2 on my keyboard.
| | 04:47 | I'll press 3 to go to a Side view
and then 4 to go back to Perspective.
| | 04:53 | From here I want to take that top bone
and set the Goal to that null object.
| | 04:58 | That's sometimes hard to do
because it's such a tiny bone.
| | 05:01 | So what I like to do is select one of
the bones I can see and then just press my
| | 05:04 | up or down arrow to cycle through it.
| | 05:07 | Then press the M key on your
keyboard to get the Motion Options.
| | 05:10 | Go back to IK and Modifiers and
the Goal Object is now the Goal.
| | 05:15 | Don't be confused with our first goal that we
did over on the other side there. That's Goal (1).
| | 05:20 | We wanted the Goal (2), which is right there.
| | 05:23 | Then I am going to hold the Shift key
and select all these other bones, go to
| | 05:28 | Controllers and Limits, and for the
Rotation put on Inverse Kinematics.
| | 05:35 | When I select that goal in Layout and
press the T key for move, not only am I
| | 05:41 | deforming my object, but I'm
controlling all of the bones with one movement.
| | 05:47 | So Inverse Kinematics is not that
difficult to set up once you have your bones
| | 05:51 | and your deformation in place.
| | 05:53 | That being said, you don't have to
use bones to use Inverse Kinematics.
| | 05:57 | If you have a series of objects like
a simple lamp or a robotic arm, those
| | 06:01 | objects in the hierarchy can also work with IK.
| | 06:06 | You can put a base object and parent
to that as the middle object like an
| | 06:10 | arm, parent to that is a hand, and
then from there you can set up an IK
| | 06:15 | goal with a null object just like
this and have a very nice workable
| | 06:19 | controllable object.
| | 06:20 | Inverse Kinematics are good for very
simple objects like robotic arms in a
| | 06:24 | factory or very complex objects like
full rigged character with arms and legs and a
| | 06:29 | head and eyeballs and everything else.
| | 06:31 | You can take it from a very simple
object to a very complex object all with the
| | 06:35 | same tools in LightWave 3D.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with rigged characters| 00:00 | Working with bones or skelegons
in LightWave is relatively simple.
| | 00:04 | You can even setup things like
this, like an animated character.
| | 00:07 | And even on a very simple character, you
can have a lot of fun and bring this to life.
| | 00:11 | Well, let me show you how
simple this character really is.
| | 00:14 | I can hit the Modeler button.
| | 00:15 | And you'll see that it's just a
matter of boxes that are shaped.
| | 00:18 | I'll hit the Tab key and you can see
that it's really nothing more than just a
| | 00:22 | very simple object like that.
| | 00:23 | And I built this a number of years
ago and this is really just hoping I can
| | 00:27 | recall up and use just for fun, but put
into a scene for whatever I need. It starts
| | 00:32 | that with a box in the center.
| | 00:33 | And really it's just pulled and
deformed and beveled and nothing more than what
| | 00:37 | we've done throughout the course, but
when you hit the Tab key for subdivision
| | 00:41 | surfaces, well, it turns
into a much smoother object.
| | 00:44 | So let's jump back into Layout.
| | 00:46 | Now when we've set up bones in a very
simple little bottle, well, we started with
| | 00:51 | the base and then we
moved up with a child bone.
| | 00:54 | And then we went up to the neck, and
then we made a tiny little bone if you
| | 00:56 | remember for the neck.
| | 00:57 | And then we made a larger bone for the cap.
| | 00:59 | Well, this exact same principle is done
right here and its child bones all the way up.
| | 01:04 | So if I take this middle bone and I
select Rotate, well that rotates so the bones
| | 01:09 | are active and it's rotating the body.
| | 01:11 | If I move my up arrow and I go
through the chest, I can move that.
| | 01:15 | Go up a little bit more and move the
neck and that move head around and of
| | 01:20 | course, you can take the head and just
twist that around. So really pretty easy
| | 01:23 | to set up just to make a nice little character.
| | 01:26 | To make the shoulders, all you really
need to do is take this center bone and
| | 01:30 | add another child bone. Rotate it
off to the side then down the arm.
| | 01:35 | And so when you rotate these bones,
you've got an arm that's rotating and by the
| | 01:39 | same token, you can do the
same for the bottom, for the leg.
| | 01:43 | Now this center bone right here is very
much like the top hierarchy where we've
| | 01:48 | got a bone in the base that comes up
through the chest through the neck.
| | 01:52 | Another new bone is set up here with
child bones that go right down the leg.
| | 01:57 | And again this is something I'd said
earlier, which is really just set up any
| | 02:01 | kind bone structure like you would a human form.
| | 02:04 | And of course that's why they're named bones.
| | 02:06 | So we've got a hipbone right
here and we'll move that hip.
| | 02:08 | You can make this guy have a little boogie.
| | 02:10 | You can do the same for this one right
here, and then obviously for the arms.
| | 02:18 | So animating these characters is not
really too much trouble once you get
| | 02:22 | these bone structure in place and a
very simple bone structure like this is
| | 02:25 | not hard at all to set up.
| | 02:26 | It just takes a little bit of time
and I'm sure you can do it quite easily.
| | 02:31 | From there, you would set up
your keyframes to animate this.
| | 02:35 | So you'd have a foot move and then you
would move to another position and then
| | 02:39 | you move to another position,
and move to another position.
| | 02:43 | And that is the art of keyframing and
character animation is getting that timing down.
| | 02:49 | And that's something that will take
years of practice. Some people can pick it up
| | 02:53 | right away others it takes them a
little while, but it's a lot of fun to
| | 02:57 | practice and set up these characters.
| | 02:58 | And the best way to really learn this
is to mimic real world motions. Have a
| | 03:02 | mirror by you, mimic your facial muscles,
jump around in your room, watch your
| | 03:07 | steps, videotape yourself, and see how
fast you actually step across a room.
| | 03:11 | Often you might think you can set up a
little walk cycle in a matter of 30
| | 03:16 | seconds 30 frames, when in actuality
it's a matter of four or five frames.
| | 03:20 | So pay attention to real world
principles and you may be able to setup
| | 03:23 | character animation quite easily.
| | 03:25 | A bone structure in a character like
this is very simple to set up, takes a
| | 03:29 | little bit of time, but once you know
the process, you can animate just about
| | 03:33 | anything can think of.
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|
|
12. Rendering AnimationsUnderstanding resolutions and rendering| 00:00 | When we talk about resolutions and
rendering it's something probably just as
| | 00:04 | important in learning
LightWave as the tools itself.
| | 00:07 | Obviously, you're doing this all to create a
final animation or an image that go somewhere.
| | 00:12 | And if you don't have the right
resolution and settings, well, you've kind of
| | 00:15 | wasted a lot of time.
| | 00:17 | So let me show you how this works.
| | 00:19 | This is the dynamic scene created a
little bit earlier and we're going to
| | 00:22 | use this for our rendering just so
we can get an idea of some motion and
| | 00:26 | some anti-aliasing.
| | 00:28 | What I want to do first is go to the
Camera panel at the bottom of the screen
| | 00:31 | and open Properties.
| | 00:32 | Now typically you would use this
setting here to create your resolution.
| | 00:37 | You need to understand that in order for
your final render to come out a certain size
| | 00:42 | you need to set the Width
and the Height of that image.
| | 00:45 | The Resolution right here though
has a lot of presets that you can use.
| | 00:49 | So if you scroll down, you can see there
are all kinds of Film settings as well as HD.
| | 00:54 | D1 for video and even just some computer sizes.
| | 00:59 | Well, typically you're going to render
a lot of times depending on where it's
| | 01:03 | going but for today's television is at
1920x1080 and that is for the US standard
| | 01:09 | of high definition television.
| | 01:10 | So you can do that and
that preset comes up for you.
| | 01:13 | But one thing to understand with
these resolutions is that you have another
| | 01:17 | panel that will control your rendering.
| | 01:19 | The best way to work in LightWave is
to click Use Globals and that kind of
| | 01:22 | cancels all that out.
| | 01:24 | Then you'll go to the Render
tab and choose Render Globals.
| | 01:30 | Here you can choose your first and last
frame, which we'll get to, but down here
| | 01:35 | this is where you're going
to set your resolution now.
| | 01:37 | So I recommend saying Use Globals
because if you don't check that,
| | 01:41 | the resolution from your Camera Properties will
actually take precedence over your Render panel.
| | 01:47 | So make sure that's checked on.
| | 01:49 | You don't have to, to render but it's
a good idea to get in the habit because
| | 01:52 | then you can use just one panel to
work your way through to a render.
| | 01:56 | So you're going to start a size at the
resolution, what aspects are rendering,
| | 02:01 | how you're going to clean it up for
anti-aliasing so you don't get little
| | 02:04 | jaggy edges, if you're going to employ
Global Illumination, and then finally your output.
| | 02:10 | So resolutions and rendering are
extremely important to a still image or an
| | 02:14 | animation and something you need to be
careful with so that you get the proper
| | 02:18 | output for your final project.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up a render project| 00:00 | I have got the 12_02_BrickFinal scene loaded.
| | 00:04 | I want to go ahead and set up a render for this.
| | 00:06 | So the first thing I need to do is make
sure my Timeline is correct and I could
| | 00:10 | see here that yes I've got 160 frames, the
animation is moving, everything looks good there.
| | 00:15 | I also want to make sure that my camera is set.
| | 00:18 | Typically it would be because we
are setting that up as we are working.
| | 00:22 | One thing that I've seen a lot of
people do, we'll go here to our Viewport
| | 00:25 | Preview Render, is they will get in
the habit of setting up an animation from
| | 00:28 | the Perspective view which is right up here.
| | 00:31 | But unfortunately, the Perspective view
doesn't render in the final animation.
| | 00:36 | It does here for the Viewport Render,
but for the final render we need to be
| | 00:39 | in the Camera view.
| | 00:40 | So I am going to press six and it gets me to
the Camera view. You can see it right there.
| | 00:45 | Then I am actually going to press the
T key, which is Move, and I am going to
| | 00:49 | click and push in to move my camera.
| | 00:52 | I can also choose Y to actually rotate
and I'll make sure my camera is selected
| | 00:56 | at the bottom of the screen and
I will press T and I will move in.
| | 01:00 | So now you can choose how you
want the camera to be seen.
| | 01:03 | So setting up a render, especially on
a dynamic scene like this, might mean
| | 01:08 | moving camera, or it
might mean leaving it static.
| | 01:11 | So if at frame 0 my camera is here
and then ball comes through and smashes,
| | 01:15 | maybe we can set up a keyframe here
for the camera to kind of look at it a
| | 01:19 | little bit and we will move it like that.
| | 01:23 | And then we'll move through our
Timeline and as the ball comes back here, maybe
| | 01:27 | we'll sweep the camera down just to
follow it a little bit and as it comes back,
| | 01:32 | perhaps at frame 120,
the camera will just travel back.
| | 01:37 | Of course you can fly the camera
right through the wall with the ball
| | 01:43 | breaking it as well.
| | 01:46 | So this way we just have a little bit of
an animation going as we are doing this.
| | 01:49 | So remember the camera is
a very key to your render.
| | 01:52 | Now even if you have multiple cameras,
you make sure you have the right camera
| | 01:55 | selected because that is what your render
engine will see, not your Perspective View.
| | 02:00 | In the Properties for the camera, you
want to make sure that Use Globals is checked.
| | 02:04 | You can set up your resolution right
here in the Camera panel, but it's often a
| | 02:08 | good idea to check Use Globals for
both the Resolution and the Motion Effects
| | 02:13 | because when you get to the Render and
hit Render Globals, you will have one
| | 02:17 | panel that you can work your way through.
| | 02:20 | So, now as we set up this render, in
the Render Globals panel I want my first
| | 02:24 | frame to be 1 and my last frame
to be 160 to match my Timeline.
| | 02:29 | My Frame Step is set to 1,
meaning render every single frame.
| | 02:33 | If I wanted render every third
frame, let's say, I would set it to 3.
| | 02:36 | By the same token I can render -1.
| | 02:39 | What that will do is render backwards.
| | 02:42 | So I could set 160 as my first
frame and 1 as my last frame.
| | 02:46 | A reason you might do this? I have one
machine rendering 1 to 160 at a step of one.
| | 02:51 | I have another machine rendering 160
to 1 with a negative frame step of 1,
| | 02:58 | so that both machines are rendering, but
they are not repeating the same frames.
| | 03:02 | So if one machine stops at frame 80,
at least the other machine is rendering
| | 03:06 | the backend and then one of those
single frames come together we will have one
| | 03:09 | complete animation.
| | 03:10 | What I want to do from here,
make sure Auto Frame Advance is on.
| | 03:14 | If you are rendering your
animation you need to have this on.
| | 03:17 | Frame End Beep, turn that off. That will
beep every time in Animation Frame Renders.
| | 03:22 | Animation End Beep, that's often good
to have on because let's say you are
| | 03:25 | working in your office, and you have
the rendering going in the background.
| | 03:29 | That will beep when the animation is done.
| | 03:31 | Every frame beeping, that
might be a little annoying.
| | 03:34 | Preview will automatically disable.
| | 03:36 | It will ask you if you want to turn that
off when you do a full frame animation.
| | 03:40 | Now that we have Use Globals on, the render
can be set right here for the resolution.
| | 03:45 | Now we will just use a preset. Very nice to do.
| | 03:48 | From there, under the Render, Render
Mode should usually be realistic, but if
| | 03:52 | you do a Quick Shade or a Wireframe.
But for the most part if you want a full
| | 03:56 | render, you want Realistic.
| | 03:57 | Tell the render engine if you want
Shadows or Transparencies, Occlusions, Render
| | 04:03 | Lines, Reflections or Refractions.
| | 04:05 | Generally these are on by default,
so we are going to keep those on.
| | 04:08 | The quality of the raytracing is
all set right here in the Render tab.
| | 04:11 | So Ray Recursion Limit will be set to 6.
| | 04:14 | Sometimes you are going up this for a
little bit better in transparency, but
| | 04:17 | for the most part that's going to work just
fine, as well as the Precision and the Cutoff.
| | 04:22 | Light Intensity is a global control.
| | 04:24 | So if I take this down, all of my lights
in my scene will actually fade out and
| | 04:30 | as you saw earlier in the
course, you can set an envelope.
| | 04:34 | You can animate those
values by clicking the E button.
| | 04:37 | So let's say you have a stage of characters.
| | 04:40 | Perhaps it's an improv and you've got
characters running around the stage.
| | 04:44 | You can have all these stage lights on,
and one frame at 0% and all of a sudden,
| | 04:49 | they come on and they bend
and bow and it works really well.
| | 04:54 | You can also do the same for Lens Flare
if you have Lens Flares on for your lights.
| | 04:58 | Globally, you can turn on
Shadow Maps, Lens Flares, and so on.
| | 05:02 | If you have High Dynamic Range imaging
on for Filtering, you can put that on and
| | 05:06 | Multithreading, if your
computer has multiple processors.
| | 05:10 | You can go up to 64
processors now with LightWave.
| | 05:13 | If you're doing a lot more work outside
of LightWave on your computer, you can
| | 05:16 | throttle back some of the threads
and maybe if you've got four processors,
| | 05:20 | you tell LightWave only use two threads
so it's not using as much power in your system.
| | 05:25 | I generally leave that on Automatic.
| | 05:27 | Lastly, you can get to Filtering,
which we are going to talk about shortly to
| | 05:31 | clean up your render, but what I want
to do now is take a look at what this
| | 05:35 | might look like and I will
come down to about frame 45.
| | 05:38 | I am going to press F9 and that's
going to render a single frame for my
| | 05:42 | animation, and it looks pretty good, but
I can see that there's little bit of jaggies.
| | 05:47 | So I am not sure if that
shows up exactly on the video.
| | 05:50 | There is a way to make this a little bit
cleaner and that's through the anti-aliasing.
| | 05:54 | The last thing to set up
a render is your Output.
| | 05:58 | How you are going to save this?
| | 05:59 | There is a couple of different ways and
we are going to talk about that shortly,
| | 06:03 | but you can save animations,
you can save RGB files.
| | 06:07 | Setting up an animation is not too
difficult as long as you work through the
| | 06:10 | Render Globals panel.
| | 06:11 | You get your resolutions right, you tell
the render engine what to calculate, and
| | 06:15 | then set an output and your render will go.
| | 06:17 | The last thing you should do though is
over in the left-hand side under Render,
| | 06:22 | there is Render Frame or Render Scene.
| | 06:24 | So I will show you how to do that coming up.
| | 06:27 | Rendering an animation or
still image is not a lot of work.
| | 06:30 | The Render Globals panel is a great
way to work through setting up a render.
| | 06:34 | It eliminates mistakes because in
one panel you can work through your
| | 06:37 | resolution, you can tell the render
engine what to calculate such as Retray
| | 06:41 | Shadows, you can set up your
Antialiasing through the Filtering tab, and then
| | 06:45 | your output can be set for
images, AVIs, or QuickTimes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Determining the proper anti-aliasing filter| 00:00 | One of the biggest mistakes a lot of
people make when rendering out an animation
| | 00:04 | is forgetting to set the filtering.
| | 00:06 | It's often called antialiasing.
| | 00:08 | So when you go to the Filtering tab,
you can see that there is the Classic
| | 00:11 | Camera Antialiasing and I
am at the Render Globals tab.
| | 00:13 | Now if you open up the Camera Properties,
there is something you should be aware of.
| | 00:18 | If you're using a perspective camera,
the Antialiasing defaults to one. Often I
| | 00:22 | like to set this to about nine.
| | 00:24 | What that's going to do is clean
up the edges on all of your renders.
| | 00:27 | But if you are using the Classic Camera,
the Antialiasing filter you can often
| | 00:31 | set from here as well,
Classic Camera Antialiasing.
| | 00:34 | It's really something to be aware of,
depending on which camera you are using.
| | 00:38 | Because what can happen is all
these edges here can be very jaggy.
| | 00:41 | If you take a look at the ball as it
moves out and see those jaggies there in
| | 00:46 | the viewport preview before it
cleans up? Well if you don't have the
| | 00:49 | Antialiasing on you will
see that in here as well.
| | 00:51 | You can see all those jaggies right in there.
| | 00:54 | You can see here in the final render,
I pressed F9, we have got one path,
| | 00:58 | Segment 1 and if you look down here,
you can see all of the different settings
| | 01:02 | and here's my Antialiasing of 9.
| | 01:05 | Effectively what that's doing it's just
doing a soft blurring on all the edges
| | 01:09 | and makes for a much cleaner render.
| | 01:11 | You are really going to see
it when things get in motion.
| | 01:13 | When thing starts moving, they'll
actually have little jaggy edges
| | 01:16 | as it's rotating around.
| | 01:18 | So you don't want these
bricks to actually look all jaggy.
| | 01:22 | Doing so is not such a hard thing.
| | 01:24 | You just have to remember to set it.
| | 01:25 | Of course you don't want to spend the
whole evening rendering and come back and
| | 01:28 | see ooh, I forgot to set that
rendering and your client then, of course is
| | 01:32 | waiting for your project.
| | 01:34 | Once that Antialiasing is set, you can
come in here to the Adaptive Sampling and
| | 01:38 | put that on, which helps clean it up a
little bit more but most of the time you are
| | 01:42 | not going to need that.
| | 01:43 | Soft Filter will actually
create a little bit of a blurring.
| | 01:46 | That really works well when you
are doing a tiny little resolution.
| | 01:50 | I often do it on small previews.
| | 01:52 | So if you have a small
resolution without Antialiasing,
| | 01:55 | just as a quick render, you can put
Soft Filter on it and it will do just a
| | 01:58 | blurring across your whole scene.
| | 01:59 | And here you can see this is little soft in there.
| | 02:02 | So you don't always want that on, only
if you are doing more of a preview, but
| | 02:06 | the Antialiasing is quite
important as well as the Motion Blur.
| | 02:10 | Especially in our scene. We are
going to go to Photoreal Motion Blur.
| | 02:13 | The more Motion Blur passes you have,
the cleaner it will be, but of course the
| | 02:17 | longer it will take to render and I'll
come like this and press F9 again, which
| | 02:22 | does a single frame render.
| | 02:24 | What you are going to see here
is a little bit longer render.
| | 02:27 | Why we are doing that let's take a
look up here in our status window. It shows
| | 02:31 | what frame we are rendering, shows
what frame step and since we are not
| | 02:33 | animating, that doesn't apply.
| | 02:36 | Our resolution, our pixel aspect,
what camera is rendering. So if you have
| | 02:40 | multiple cameras, you could have a
top camera, back camera, and so on.
| | 02:44 | Camera Type is a perspective camera.
Our antialiasing, so I often check this.
| | 02:48 | Even though when I get a rendering going
and I know I have got everything set,
| | 02:51 | I let it go and I kind of watch
this panel and I take a look and make
| | 02:54 | sure I have got all of my settings right.
Because again you don't want to waste
| | 02:57 | those hours rendering and suddenly it
has something not set like Antialiasing.
| | 03:02 | It's a very big thing, especially when
you're flying pass to logo, where you have
| | 03:05 | got bricks like this and
something with a stronger edge.
| | 03:08 | You definitely want those clean.
| | 03:10 | If you notice, I've set this Motion
Blur pretty high and this single frame is
| | 03:14 | actually taking a lot longer to render.
| | 03:17 | So while a lot of people think real-
time rendering is the future, there are
| | 03:21 | still lot of things that you can put on
that will really help slow things down
| | 03:24 | and Motion Blur is one of them.
| | 03:27 | Antialiasing, Motion Blur, Shadows,
Reflections, Refraction for water and glass,
| | 03:33 | all of those things calculate and take time.
| | 03:36 | There is always going to be a need
for full-time rendering like this and a
| | 03:39 | faster processor you have, the more memory
you have, the better it's going to render.
| | 03:43 | So we are at about 94%, 95%, and we
will take a look at this last render here.
| | 03:48 | And this still image with a Motion Blur
should look pretty good and we should
| | 03:53 | see those bricks nice and
blurred in there, very clean.
| | 03:57 | So you could see them all right here.
As they are tumbling, they are blurring.
| | 04:01 | So the faster those items are moving,
the more they are going to blur in your scene.
| | 04:04 | A nice way to set things up, but
always pay attention to that Filtering tab
| | 04:09 | and again this goes back to using the
Render Globals to set up your animation.
| | 04:13 | Make sure you set Render Globals in the
Camera panel, which forces control just
| | 04:17 | to the resolution in this panel, and
then work your way through your tabs all
| | 04:22 | the way to the output.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rendering to movie files vs. image sequences| 00:00 | Rendering an animation or a still image,
you often need to save it and that's
| | 00:05 | all done in the Render
Globals panel through the Output tab.
| | 00:08 | So, let's start at the top.
| | 00:10 | If you want to save an animation,
you can click Save Animation.
| | 00:13 | Hit Save and then you choose a type of
animation, whether it's a QuickTime or an
| | 00:18 | AVI depending on your system.
| | 00:20 | There are some other options in
here too as a Film Box or Storyboard.
| | 00:24 | For the most part, I generally don't do
this and the reason is sometimes those
| | 00:28 | savers can fail, a QuickTime or an AVI saver.
| | 00:31 | So, you have got be really careful
of those, and it's just a preview.
| | 00:34 | It's not really a big deal.
| | 00:35 | But then you could say here is the
animation file and where to save it.
| | 00:39 | What I would like to do instead is I
save in RGB sequence and with that, I will
| | 00:43 | set up a special folder on a second
drive and I will put in the file name and
| | 00:48 | I will hit Save, and then
I choose a type of file.
| | 00:51 | And this is really important because
often my clients need 32-bit files such as
| | 00:55 | a TIFF 32 or TARGA 32.
| | 00:59 | With that 32-bit file, they will have
the alpha channel, which means they can
| | 01:04 | key it over something.
| | 01:05 | They can composite it
later in an editing program.
| | 01:08 | So, I often like to save a sequence.
| | 01:11 | Now, how that sequence is saved
in the format is right down here.
| | 01:14 | So, I would go let's say the name and
the frame number, dot, whatever the format is,
| | 01:19 | and that usually works pretty well for me.
| | 01:21 | But you have got to remember that if you
have an animation that goes longer than
| | 01:24 | a thousand frames, well, make sure
you choose a name with four digits.
| | 01:29 | You can choose the color space, which
is a really big deal, depending on how
| | 01:33 | your animation is being portrayed.
| | 01:34 | If it's Linear or sRGB.
| | 01:37 | You have the Alpha Format and we
definitely want that Premultiply Alpha.
| | 01:41 | And the color space for the alpha
could be the Linear or sRGB, and
| | 01:44 | generally that is Linear.
| | 01:46 | Now, the sRGB we often used for print.
| | 01:49 | So you need to consider and talk to
who's ever getting your final render.
| | 01:52 | If they are going to use it for print,
where it's going to go, because that's
| | 01:55 | going to determine how you
want to set that color space.
| | 01:57 | These are all some new settings in a
LightWave 10 that are going to really help
| | 02:01 | the color of the output as well
as the contrast of the lights.
| | 02:04 | Some can be too hot, some can be too dark,
and this can help balance them quite a bit.
| | 02:08 | So, you don't get too much falloff
or not enough from some of your lights.
| | 02:11 | We have all been down the road where
we have a light set that's just entirely
| | 02:15 | too bright and it's not
lighting the scene enough.
| | 02:18 | Well, this is a way you can
change that, through Color Space.
| | 02:21 | So, once that Output is done,
you can just go to Render Scene.
| | 02:26 | But what's also important is that's
saved with your scene file and the reason
| | 02:31 | that's important is because down here
in the bottom left, under the Render Tab,
| | 02:35 | there is Open RenderQ and when you do
that-- just close this out-- you will get a
| | 02:42 | Render panel that you can add up.
| | 02:45 | So let's say you have got this brick
scene and you want to render it from the
| | 02:48 | top and from the side.
| | 02:50 | Well, you can set up different renders for
each one of those cameras and add the scene.
| | 02:54 | So, I would add a scene let's say
from one of my chapters here.
| | 02:58 | We will open these up and we will open
up the one scene. We will add that in.
| | 03:02 | We will add another scene and I will
add this to the Q. And once I go ahead and
| | 03:07 | hit Render, it will render the first
scene and it's going to save it wherever I
| | 03:11 | told it to save in my Global
Renders panel from the Output tab.
| | 03:17 | So, make sure that once you save this,
you then go to File and hit Save Scene.
| | 03:23 | And then you load the scene up in
Render-Q and you can walk away for a week and
| | 03:26 | have all your animations
just rendering away for you.
| | 03:29 | You can clear it and close it out.
| | 03:33 | So, rendering animation is not so tough.
| | 03:35 | If you have a high res still image,
the best way to save that is just hit the
| | 03:39 | Render button and I will tell you what,
let me do this. I am going to close that
| | 03:43 | and let me turn off all the Motion Blur
I put on, which is in the Filtering tab,
| | 03:48 | just to make this speed up a little bit.
| | 03:50 | I will press F9 and this is how I
actually render out a still image, so you
| | 03:53 | just kind of wait for it, because it
normally don't take too long, even if
| | 03:56 | they're quite large.
| | 03:58 | What happens is after this render goes,
a panel will pop up and that panel-- just
| | 04:03 | hit Continue-- is right here.
| | 04:06 | This is your image frame and
you'll see this in the General tab.
| | 04:11 | The Render Display > Image Viewer
and that's this one right here, so you
| | 04:14 | want this to pop up.
| | 04:16 | In this file, I can save an RGB, I can
save PICT, I can save TIFF, whatever I
| | 04:21 | need of that final render.
| | 04:22 | So, this is technically a raw render,
and I can save it out wherever I need.
| | 04:26 | I can save it exposed, resampled,
put it to a buffer for a later use, but
| | 04:30 | generally for the most part
you're going to use the Save RGB.
| | 04:34 | This color space for this, if you take a
look, you can change it to sRGB, Cineon,
| | 04:39 | and some of these others.
| | 04:40 | Cineon can be used for film.
| | 04:42 | So, for most of your things, you are
probably going to choose between Linear and
| | 04:45 | sRGB and it's really neat to
experiment with that and see what your client
| | 04:49 | needs, or your output, or your editing system.
| | 04:53 | We can look at this at 100% and
that's how large it really is.
| | 04:57 | We can look at it 200% and we can
shrink it down if we need, and this is really
| | 05:01 | good if you have got a really large
screen and you don't have a very big render.
| | 05:04 | You can blow it up or vice versa.
| | 05:07 | Metadata, if you are into
photography at all, same kind of idea.
| | 05:10 | This will have all the information
about this image embedded within it.
| | 05:15 | Lastly, if you leave this panel open
as you are rendering-- if you have got a
| | 05:19 | second screen, you can push it off to the side--
| | 05:21 | it will save your render frames.
| | 05:24 | So, let's say that's a frame I
rendered, let's move up like this, press F9.
| | 05:28 | As long as our panel stays open,
LightWave will remember these renders and you
| | 05:32 | can get back to it without re-rendering.
| | 05:34 | But if you close it, it's
going to not remember those.
| | 05:37 | So something to be aware of.
| | 05:38 | We will let this render finish. Press Continue.
| | 05:41 | So, now I've got my new
render and the previous render.
| | 05:44 | It's a good way to show
those to clients as well.
| | 05:48 | Lastly, you can view the image or if it
has an alpha channel, you can view that
| | 05:52 | as well right from there and save it out.
| | 05:54 | So, rendering from LightWave not too
difficult. Yyou just need to remember
| | 05:58 | everything you should do, that should be
saved through the Render Globals panel
| | 06:01 | through the Output tab.
| | 06:02 | Still images or moving images are
often going to be saved as sequences.
| | 06:07 | Lastly, I want to show you down at
the very bottom of the screen is the
| | 06:09 | Preview and what you can do in the Preview
is save your OpenGL. You can save your layout.
| | 06:16 | So, what you can do in the Preview
Options is choose how you want your rendering.
| | 06:20 | I want it Normal.
| | 06:21 | How the encoding should be?
| | 06:23 | How it's compressed? The interlacing,
| | 06:26 | which we are not going to do.
| | 06:27 | This is often done more for
broadcast in your video editors.
| | 06:30 | If you are staying within the computer,
you are going to keep that to None.
| | 06:32 | Lastly, you can choose QuickTime, AVI
and choose the codec for that, or you can
| | 06:40 | save an image sequence.
| | 06:41 | And once you save those options, once
you make a preview, that will actually
| | 06:47 | generate a preview in the
background. Move that out of the way.
| | 06:50 | Let's bring this back to a wireframe
and then we will hit to Make Preview and
| | 06:56 | let's stop that real quick.
| | 06:57 | We will jump back to this wireframe.
Make Preview, from the Camera view
| | 07:06 | or Perspective view, which is very handy.
| | 07:14 | Just playing through and it's
recording that and I can play this back
| | 07:18 | It helps give me a real-time look at my scene.
| | 07:22 | It's also good for clients and again, you can
render it from a Top view or from a Side view.
| | 07:27 | But then you can save it. Because I set
up those options, now I can play it back,
| | 07:32 | free it from memory, or I can save it.
And I will just put it on my Desktop as
| | 07:36 | temppreview, and you will see
it's exporting out of QuickTime.
| | 07:43 | So, not only can you export out a
full time render, you can export out a
| | 07:46 | playback of your screen exactly as you see it.
| | 07:49 | So, it's a terrific way to keep your
client, your boss or somebody up to speed
| | 07:53 | on your work, if they're not
there to look at your screen.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
13. Finishing UpExporting an object| 00:00 | While we would love to do
everything in just one program, every once in a
| | 00:03 | while you're going to need to
use some other type of program.
| | 00:06 | And today, 3D programs
pretty much all talk to each other.
| | 00:10 | So while you might have a great
character here, you might need it in another
| | 00:13 | program for somebody else to work on.
| | 00:15 | So I want to show you how to export
that object right out of LightWave.
| | 00:18 | I've got this character loaded here.
| | 00:20 | This is the 13_01 from exercise files,
but this can work for any type of object.
| | 00:25 | And from the File dropdown
menu, I can choose Export.
| | 00:28 | And in here I can export the Collada file,
a Film Box, or a Motion Dynamic Multi Baker.
| | 00:35 | And the MD files are often good for let's
say your cloth animation or your dynamics.
| | 00:41 | But the Collada file, something I've
been using quite a bit, and when I export a
| | 00:45 | Collada file, I can do this for all
kinds of programs such as CAD programs,
| | 00:50 | other 3D modeling programs,
o other r 3D animation programs.
| | 00:54 | We can set a Scale for this and of
course you can put it into Google Sketchup as well,
| | 00:59 | which is where the
Collada file comes from.
| | 01:01 | And simply just choose which you want.
| | 01:03 | Select OK, and it sends out the dae
file, which is the type of extension.
| | 01:08 | A LightWave file is a lwo for objects,
but a scene file in LightWave is lws.
| | 01:14 | So that's the way to save out that file.
| | 01:16 | However, if you want to make some changes to
this, you can simply just save a copy of this.
| | 01:21 | So I'll go to File. Instead of
Export, I'll do Save Object Copy.
| | 01:26 | And with that I can give it a new
name and I have a copy of the object.
| | 01:31 | And then I can reload that object so
that I am not destroying the one object
| | 01:35 | that I've created that I
want to keep with that scene.
| | 01:38 | So object copies and object exports
are pretty easy to do outside LightWave.
| | 01:42 | If you've deformed an object with
deformation maps or displacement maps or
| | 01:46 | something like that, you can also
export out and save a transformed object.
| | 01:52 | And that's a pretty neat thing to do.
| | 01:54 | What that allows you to do is you can
take let's say an ocean scene that you
| | 01:58 | created and you've placed
displacement maps on there,
| | 02:01 | you can save the transformed
object and export that out and use it
| | 02:04 | somewhere else without using the displacement
map, because you've saved the transformation.
| | 02:08 | A lot of different options for
you for using your objects with and
| | 02:11 | without LightWave.
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| Exporting a full scene for backup| 00:00 | You can save out your objects into
different formats out of LightWave, but what if
| | 00:04 | you wanted to save your scene to be
used later or to give to somebody else or
| | 00:07 | perhaps even for backup?
| | 00:09 | How would you do that?
| | 00:10 | Well, there's one thing you should
pay attention to and that is the content
| | 00:13 | directory and we have talked about that
earlier in the course and how important that is.
| | 00:17 | A scene is made up of
objects and motions and lights.
| | 00:21 | The objects themselves, however, are made
up of textures and images, so you need
| | 00:25 | all three of those
components for a scene to be created.
| | 00:29 | And while some are much less than that--
you can have just a simple scene file
| | 00:32 | with data-- typically you are
going to have some objects in there.
| | 00:35 | So, from the File dropdown,
you want to go to Package Scene.
| | 00:39 | Now, what that's going to do is call up
this great little panel that will tell
| | 00:42 | you where you want to save.
| | 00:44 | It will allow you to put a scene's path,
allow you to put an object's path and
| | 00:48 | images path and so on.
| | 00:50 | You can copy any image sequences that
are loaded, and what this will do is
| | 00:54 | package up a scene for you.
| | 00:56 | So, let me do this.
| | 00:57 | I will hit this little guy and I am just going
to go right to my desktop so you can see this.
| | 01:00 | And by default, it fills everything else for me.
| | 01:03 | I can reload it if I want and I
can say Preserve Existing Structure.
| | 01:07 | I will just click OK.
| | 01:08 | Would you like to save all the objects? Sure.
| | 01:11 | Now, if I take a look at my scene,
I am going to go just to my Finder here
| | 01:16 | and look at my desktop.
| | 01:18 | Now, I have got two folders and since there
are no images, I don't have an images folder.
| | 01:23 | But what you see here is automatically
the structure has been created for me,
| | 01:27 | and that's what's terrific about
exporting out with the Package Scene command.
| | 01:32 | And the reason that's good is every
once in a while when you are working in
| | 01:35 | LightWave, you might have an image that
you use from another project, you might
| | 01:40 | have a plug-in or a little third-party
program, and you might forget about that.
| | 01:44 | So, by using the Package Scene from the
File dropdown menu, you can very easily
| | 01:50 | save all those parts of the
scene and export it for backup.
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ConclusionFinal thoughts| 00:00 | Before we say our final goodbye, I want to
show you just a few things that might help you.
| | 00:04 | If you jump over online, take a
look at the NewTek Discussion Forums.
| | 00:08 | There's a lot of terrific information in there.
| | 00:10 | A lot of people helping out.
| | 00:12 | You can ask questions.
You can find a lot of tutorials.
| | 00:15 | You can find some links to some other
sites where people are also talking about
| | 00:18 | 3D and they have a Mac
specific forum, a PC specific forum.
| | 00:23 | Additionally, if you go my site,
DanAblan.com, you can email me.
| | 00:28 | Just type danablan@agadigital.com.
| | 00:32 | Get information about my books and you
can look at some of the animations I've
| | 00:35 | done, talk about training, and so on.
| | 00:38 | And just make sure you contact me.
| | 00:39 | You can find the email right on the
site there, but visit my site as well.
| | 00:44 | When working with LightWave you've got
all kinds of options ahead of you, from objects
| | 00:48 | to scenes and particles to dynamics.
| | 00:50 | And hopefully we've covered a good bit
of that in this course just to get you
| | 00:53 | going for LightWave 10 essentials.
| | 00:56 | Thanks for joining me and we
hope to see you around here again.
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