LightWave 3D 8 1001 Tips & Tricks phần 8 pps

geometry in or around a gash or opening in the Balrog, for example, and make that a particle emitter. Versions: 6-8 1021 Larry Shultz | Simulation Examples | All Levels Voyager Effect Most of the time we see particles used in something like a fountain or fire with its particles spraying out from a source. So how can we do something where we want a ship to fly through a cloud of particles and knock them aside as it passes? It’s simple: Create an emitter. Change the nozzle size to something large to cover the region we want to animate our ship through. Determine how many particles are needed to fill the region we need and input that number into the Birth Rate field. Now set Generate by to Frame. This will make sure that the full number of particles that are needed will be created instantly. Also set the particle limit to the same number entered in the Birth Rate field. Now all we have to do is load in our ship and make it a collision object or parent a collision object to it. This will act as the shields around the ship and push the particles away as the ship travels through the “nebula.” In addition we can add wind generators and so forth behind and parented to the ship to swirl the particles. Versions: 6-8 1022 William “Proton” Vaughan | Simulation Examples | All Levels Crowd Creation in a Snap Using a particle emitter and FX_Linker you can create a crowd in no time. FX_Linker lets you turn each particle into an object. If you change the collision size on the particle, the object will collide with itself. This is great for creating a flock of birds, crowd of people, or school of fish. Versions: All 1023 Larry Shultz | Simulation Examples | Advanced Bamf! An easy way to make an object disappear in a puff of smoke is to make the object a particle emitter by applying FX_Emitter to it. Set Object Dissolve to make the object suddenly disappear at a particular frame. In the Particle Prop - erties panel, make sure Fixed is checked and that Start Frame is the frame where the object dissolves out. Make sure that a lot of particles are generated quickly from the starting frame. Apply HVs to the particles and when animated the object will suddenly disappear in a puff of smoke that is roughly shaped like the object. Versions: 6-8 Animating | 427 Simulation Examples 1024 Larry Shultz | Simulation Examples | Intermediate to Advanced Cigarette Smoke To create decent-looking cigarette smoke, you have to break down what is going on. You have your basic particle motions. You have the size or, shall we say, a volume filled with smoke (HV Size). You also have turbulence of the basic stream of particles that makes the stream wind and twist somewhat. You then have turbulence within the larger volume, which the smoke begins to fill as it starts to dissipate. You can get the basic particle stream to bend and twist with a couple of wind generators. Then as the smoke stream passes through this, it hits another wind generator that scatters the particles somewhat. Let’s say that your animation is 300 frames and your smoke begins to scatter at frame 150. You can use a gradient to affect the size of the HVs based on the age of the particles. You then use the gradient to keep the size of the HVs small when the particles are tightly packed in the stream but then grow as the particles begin to scatter. This fills a larger volume. You can copy and paste the gradient to also affect the density. As the particles scatter into a larger volume and the HVs also expand you want to drop their density. The problem that you have now is that you have smoke filling a larger area. In reality, the smoke would be some- what turbulent in that volume with fingers of smoke that are more dense and areas with less smoke where it’s less dense. You can break up the larger smoke volume using procedurals. You can also use the same gradient you used to affect the size and density to affect the amplitude of your procedural so that it only begins to appear at the precise moment the particles begin to scatter and the HVs begin to grow in size. Versions: 6-8 Editor Windows>Scene Editor 1025 Jonny Gorden | Editor Windows>Scene Editor | Beginner Scene Editor Use Scene Editor for faster item selection in large scenes. Versions: 6-8 1026 William “Proton” Vaughan, Jonny Gorden | Editor Windows>Scene Editor | Beginner Parenting Inside Scene Editor You can easily parent an object to another item in the Scene Editor by left- clicking on the object’s name in the list and dragging it to the right side of the item you would like to parent it to. You can actually make any number of things children of the same parent this way by selecting them all, using either Shift+click or Ctrl+click, and then drag - ging them. Versions: All 428 | Chapter 8 Editor Windows>Scene Editor 1027 Jonny Gorden | Editor Windows>Scene Editor | Beginner Easy Navigation When working with multiple characters in a scene, only have the character you’re working on expanded in the Scene Editor to allow for easiest navigation. Versions: 6-8 1028 Jennifer Hachigian | Editor Windows>Scene Editor | Intermediate Tangled Schematic You can sort out a tangled Schematic view relatively quickly with the Scene Editor. The Scene Editor is organized by hierarchy, making it easy to find the topmost items in each parented chain. Start at the top of the chain and work your way down. Select items in the Scene Editor and move their representative nodes in the Schematic view. If Drag Descendants is activated in the Schematic View tab of the Display Options, moving a node in the Schematic view will drag both it and all of its children around the Schematic view. It’s easier to use the Scene Editor to sort out a hierarchy than it is to click on a node in the Schematic view and guess. Versions: 6-7.5 1029 Rob Powers | Editor Windows>Scene Editor | Intermediate Built-In Filtering Use the built-in filtering function of the new Scene Editor/Dope Sheet to streamline your item and channel selection process. You can sort the items and channels in various ways including by item type, name, locked status, and chan- nel type. You can also save and load custom filters that you use frequently. Version: 8 1030 Rob Powers | Editor Windows>Scene Editor | Intermediate Scene Editor/Dope Sheet Use the Selection Sets feature in the new Scene Editor/Dope Sheet to create custom selection sets containing objects, bones, nulls, lights, or cameras found in your complex rigs. Selecting your custom sets will allow you to manipulate keys across multiple item types in the Dope Sheet all at once. Version: 8 Animating | 429 Editor Windows>Scene Editor Editor Windows>Graph Editor 1031 William “Proton” Vaughan | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Intermediate Speeding Up Refreshing If you are working with a lot of curves and keys in the Graph Editor, you can turn off the Antialias Curves and Show Tangents options, which should speed up display refreshing. Versions: All 1032 Todd Grimes | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Intermediate Hotkeys Use the same navigation hotkeys in the Graph Editor that are used in Mod - eler and Layout: Alt+click/drag — Move Ctrl+Alt+click/drag — Zoom Versions: 6-8 1033 Jonny Gorden | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Beginner Track Item Selections In Graph Editor Options, set Track Item Selections to On so you don’t have to find the item you want to work on in the Channels Bin. Versions: 6-8 430 | Chapter 8 Editor Windows>Graph Editor The new Scene Editor/Dope Sheet allows you to create custom selection sets. Ü Note: Graph Editor Options may be in the More pull-down if the Graph Editor window is small. 1034 Todd Grimes | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Intermediate Fit Values In the Graph Editor, click on the Options button. In the General tab, click on Fit Values When Selected. This will automatically place each curve you select in the middle of the graph so you don’t have to move around to find it. Versions: 6-8 1035 Jonny Gorden | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Beginner Always Show Modified In Graph Editor Options, set Always Show Modified to On so you can see the results of motion modifiers and expressions. Versions: 6-8 Ü Note: Graph Editor Options may be in the More pull-down if the Graph Editor window is small. 1036 Todd Grimes | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Intermediate Performance In the Graph Editor, click on the Options button. In the General tab, click on Lazy Layout Update. This will stop the Layout from dynamically trying to keep up with the alterations you’ll make to the curve and speed up the performance within the Graph Editor. Versions: 6-8 1037 Larry Shultz | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Intermediate Advanced Channel Sets Channel sets provide an easy way to manage channels used in animation. What I do is to throw all the channels of every bone that has motion on it into the Graph Editor in the Channel Bin. I then create a favorite set of those channels I wish to recall easily to tweak timing, copy keys, etc. You can bake motion data in the Graph Editor by selecting or multiselecting the channels you wish to bake and then hitting the “b” (bake) key. This works fine on bones driven with expressions. Again baking motion data is easier when channel sets are used. You can also use Motion Baker, which is built into LW to bake IK onto bones or the free one from DStorm. If you search on the Internet, you might find others. Versions: 6-8 Animating | 431 Editor Windows>Graph Editor 1038 William “Proton” Vaughan | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Intermediate Footprints Footprints are overlooked by many, but once you use them they won’t be so easily overlooked. If you want to clean up your keyframes, here are the easy steps to do so. 1. In the Graph Editor choose a channel (or channels) with a lot of keyframes. 2. Select Leave Foot Print from the Foot Prints drop-down menu. 3. With the right mouse button, box-select all the keyframes for the selected channel and delete them. Note that although the keyframes are now gone, there is a faded line (that’s the footprint) with the keyframes of the channel you just deleted. 4. Select the Keyframe tool in the Graph Editor. Hold down the Shift key and left-click in the Graph Editor everywhere you want a keyframe. Versions: All Ü Note: If you press Ctrl+B or choose Match Footprint Time Slice from the Keys menu, the keyframe will snap to the footprint. This is an easy way to clean up motion capture data or animations that have keyframes of every frame and appear jerky or rough. 1039 Timothy “Amadhi” Albee | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Intermediate TCB Splines TCB (Tension, Continuity, and Bias) splines may seem a bit arcane to folks not used to them, but they are actually easier to work with (and get good anima- tion from) than the more common bezier splines. If you need to have motion “ease out” of one pose and then “ease into” another, set the Tension for the end keyframe to 1 (the highest level LW’s Graph Editor will allow). Then, create a keyframe roughly halfway between the two and assign –1 as the Tension for that new, intermediate keyframe. (The motion will blend more smoothly with the positions at the end keyframes than before!) Versions: All 1040 Larry Shultz | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Advanced Precision Control of Morphs with Cycler You can tie the exact shape of the morph curve to the channel of a bone. Open up the Graph Editor and put the morph channel and the control chan - nel right above each other in the Channel Bin. Rotate the bone to the desired rotational value on frame 30. Sculpt the shape of the morph channel the way you want it to appear over the same 30 frames. Now select the morph channel, open up the Modifier tab, and select Cycler. Select the rotational channel of the bone, and input the starting and ending angle for the channel and the range of frames it’s to cover (0 to 30 in this case). What will happen now is that the morph will occur in the shape that you laid out at the speed that you rotate the bone. The rotational channels are visible in the Cycler control panel. 432 | Chapter 8 Editor Windows>Graph Editor You can also do multiple morphs the same way by copying and pasting the Cycler settings onto those other morphs or by tying the morphs to a master chan - nel and then tying the master channel to the one bone channel. Essentially this gives more control. You can set a morph to do its thing based on the rotational angle of a controller. You should be able to have more than one morph tied to a particular channel of a controller. This would allow you to blend morphs in par - ticular ways using a single controller. You could have one morph activate at a certain angle of the controller and deactivate the rest of the time. This could be done with several morphs to shape the joint at particular stages. It’s easy to simply activate a morph based on another channel’s behavior. This allows you to have the morph do several things over the range of the controlling channel. Versions: 6-8 Motion Mixer 1041 Jonny Gorden | Motion Mixer | Beginner Turn Off Actor Having your Motion Mixer actor active can cause delays in the updates when you’re creating keyframes. As a general rule, turn off the actor while you’re animating, only activating it when working with Motion Mixer or pre- viewing the animation. Versions: 6-8 1042 Jonny Gorden | Motion Mixer | Beginner Motion Mixer Actor If you have items using expressions or other motion modifiers linked to other items, include both in your Motion Mixer Actor and Motions, as motion modifiers don’t see Motion Mixer motion. Versions: 6-8 1043 Jonny Gorden | Motion Mixer | Beginner Motion Mixer Motion/Keyframed Animation If you’re using a combination of Motion Mixer motions and keyframed ani - mation, create a keyframe for all actor items at the first and last frame of each Motion Mixer animation so your keyframed animation transitions nicely. Versions: 6-8 Animating | 433 Motion Mixer This page intentionally left blank. Chapter 9 Special Effects Great special effects are equivalent to the supporting cast in a drama. They’re not the “stars of the show,” but they enhance the entire scene and add production value to your shots. When special effects are done right they add to the overall believability of your virtual animated worlds. It is often a subtle dust trail left from stomping hooves or a beautiful diffuse glow added to magical objects that really push a shot from being good to being great! The real “art” is in that final ten percent of polish. This is where the special effects features in LightWave really shine. LightWave includes a very diverse toolset for special effects. From surface glows to volumetrics, you will find pretty much any effect you can imagine at your fingertips. Unlike some other areas of 3D animation, special effects have a unique appeal because experimentation is a requirement. Adding special effects to your shots requires creative problem solving and forces you to think about your shots in different ways. The following tips not only reveal special effects techniques from several professional LightWave artists but also demonstrate how LightWave’s tools are used in fresh and new ways to achieve the desired artistic result. With a little experimentation, you will soon be adding magic to your own shots. — Rob Powers General Tips 1044 William “Proton” Vaughan | General Tips | All Levels Two-Point Polygons Make for Powerful FX Tools Need a light saber? Try these settings on a two-point poly chain: n Luminosity — 100% n Glow Intensity — 120% (Glow Intensity is under the Advanced tab of the Surface Editor.) n Enable Glow in the Processing tab of the Effects dialog. (The Effects dialog is under Window>Image Processing (Scene>Effects>Image Processing in 7.x) or press Ctrl+F7.) n Intensity — 100% Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you’re our only hope. 435 Need some quick electricity? Use the same surface settings on a two-point poly chain with many segments but also apply a displacement map. Using the default setting for displacement map will give you a nice render, but you can also animate the displacement map for further detail. Versions: All 1045 Patrik Beck | General Tips | All Levels Glow Function The Glow function is sometimes confusing. It needs to be activated in two different places: turned on for the surface in the Surface Editor and activated in the Processing tab of the Effects panel. The closer to white the surface color is, the more prominent the glow will appear. Versions: All Volumetrics 1046 Kevin Phillips | Volumetrics | Beginner Quicker Volumetric Rendering This tip is also mentioned in the rendering section of this book. If you do not need to apply motion blur or depth-of-field effects to your volumetrics, deacti- vating the Volumetric Antialiasing option can greatly improve your rendering time. Versions: 6-7.5c 1047 Kevin Phillips | Volumetrics | Beginner Particle Size Envelope vs. Particle Size Texture The Particle Size parameter, found under the Geometry tab of the HyperVoxels panel, sets the base size for every HyperVoxel in the currently active item. You can control this parameter using either an envelope or a texture. The differences are that an envelope alters the parameter value directly, while a texture scales the parameter value without actually altering it. Versions: 6-7.5c 1048 Kevin Phillips | Volumetrics | Beginner Randomizing HyperVoxel Sizes One way to get some randomization into HyperVoxels is through the Size Variation option in the Geometry tab of the HyperVoxels panel. This sets the maximum size a HyperVoxel may become. For instance, 100% means that a HyperVoxel may increase up to 100% again (i.e., become twice as large). Another way to get a much more random effect, ideal for things such as boulders on a beach and more, is to instead apply a procedural texture to the Par - ticle Size. HyperVoxels will then be randomly scaled based on the procedural texture value at that point in the 3D space (or world space if selected in the Tex - ture Editor). 436 | Chapter 9 Volumetrics [...]... in LightWave into an animation You’ll also have many easy-to-understand options for frame rate, number of colors, compression, and quality level You can also export out of QuickTime in AVI and the new MP4 format Versions: 5 -8 1106 Brad Krause | General Tips | Beginner LightWave s Outlining Function When using LightWave s outlining function (Object Properties>Edges), the default Edge Z Scale of 9 98 will... you can just pick up where LightWave left off Hopefully you won’t have to learn this one the hard way like I did I lost a night of rendering when the power went off at 2 a.m Versions: All 455 456 | Chapter 10 General Tips 10 98 William “Proton” Vaughan | General Tips | Intermediate Rendering Images for Use with Flash I’m a big fan of Flash and have created many projects using 3D elements in Flash, never... mess with the size of the image that is driving your renders A lot can be done with a little experimentation Versions: 7 -8 Filters 1 087 Geoffrey Kater | Filters | Beginner Film Grain Run a noise filter over your animation to make it feel more like true film grain Versions: 5 -8 1 088 Kevin Phillips | Filters | Beginner Getting the Corona Input Threshold Have you ever wanted to use the Corona tool on the... according to your process Versions: 5 -8 11 08 Gerald Abraham | General Tips | Beginner Display SubPatch and Render SubPatch Make sure the Display SubPatch and Render SubPatch levels are set to the same number before rendering a final This will ensure LightWave will not need to recalculate the geometry at the start of each new pass Versions: All 1109 Kevin Phillips | General Tips | Beginner Make Motion Blur... rendering items that will be composited onto other footage, whether animated or live-action plates Choose the Save RGB option in your Output Files panel in LightWave to save your animation to an image sequence format 4 58 | Chapter 10 General Tips LightWave outputs image sequences that are numbered sequentially, making them easy to manage in a compositing or editing package Keeping the original image... sphere that surrounds your 3D scene Because of this, Layout can see it in the 3D world and therefore use it in various ways such as in reflections, refraction, radiosity, and more A background image is placed into the background as part of the compositing options in Layout That is, it’s “painted” into your rendered image (and not part of the 3D scene), filling pixels where no 3D models were rendered Technically,... Technically, it doesn’t exist in the 3D world at all — it’s just painted in to fill in holes or, to be more exact, it’s a postprocess effect that happens after all the 3D calculations are finished That means that Layout cannot see it or use it for reflections, etc Note that in LW 8, these settings can be found under the Windows menu or by pressing Ctrl+F5 Versions: 6 -8 Special Effects | 445 SkyTracer... Editor The grayscale value of the texture map will determine the size of the HyperVoxels Drops, fluids, and other effects can be easily generated this way Versions: 5 -8 1065 Larry Shultz | HyperVoxels | Beginner A 3D “Drawing” Effect For a 3D “drawing” effect, create a particle emitter and animate it along a path Set the emitter so that each particle is created quickly and in place and doesn’t die out... trace and will also save you a few bucks in the process If you find yourself doing massive amounts of 3D in Flash, you might look into something like Electric Rain’s Swift 3D For the 100+ projects I have created in Flash, I have gotten by without any extra tools Versions: All 1099 Todd Grimes | General Tips | Intermediate The Poor Man’s 3/2 Conversion Oftentimes character animation is done at a frame... blur on the image further can help to eradicate them completely Versions: 6.5 -8 1 085 Gerald Abraham | Image World | Intermediate LDR Images Although Low Dynamic Range images do not contain light value information, they can be used in combination with Image World to give a bit more diffuse color to a scene Versions: All 1 086 Policarpo | Image World | Beginner Low-Res Image Illumination Experiment with . size. Versions: 6 -8 Editor Windows>Scene Editor 1025 Jonny Gorden | Editor Windows>Scene Editor | Beginner Scene Editor Use Scene Editor for faster item selection in large scenes. Versions: 6 -8 1026 William. or Ctrl+click, and then drag - ging them. Versions: All 4 28 | Chapter 8 Editor Windows>Scene Editor 1027 Jonny Gorden | Editor Windows>Scene Editor | Beginner Easy Navigation When working. Dope Sheet all at once. Version: 8 Animating | 429 Editor Windows>Scene Editor Editor Windows>Graph Editor 1031 William “Proton” Vaughan | Editor Windows>Graph Editor | Intermediate Speeding