LightWave 3D [8] 1001 Tips & Tricks phần 2 doc

123 Geoffrey Kater | Design | All Levels Modeling the Bare Essentials Model only the necessary parts of your model for animation. In other words, don’t build the legs of a character if you’re only going to see it from the waist up. Modeling more just wastes computer resources, in storage, project time, and rendering time. Versions: All 124 Geoffrey Kater | Design | All Levels Efficient Texturing Don’t spend too much time on detailed texture maps that no one will ever see or notice. Versions: All 125 Patrik Beck | Design | All Levels Build to Scale It is a good idea to keep your objects roughly in the same scale. LightWave likes to have things about 1 meter in size. If you always keep your logos and text objects about 1 meter tall, you can reuse textures more easily from object to object. Versions: All Design, Pre-visualization, and Prep | 37 Design This page intentionally left blank. Chapter 3 Program Setup Whether a seasoned veteran or a newbie to LightWave 3D, we are all looking for shortcuts and suggestions on better program setup. From saving disk space and organizing programs to customizing menu layouts and creating keyboard short - cuts, this chapter’s tips cover a number of important topics. Program setup and organization is such a crucial task with LightWave. Do not overlook the infor - mation in this chapter by thinking you already have your plug-ins organized and shortcuts set up — you just might find a tip that saves you time on a daily basis. — Wes “kurv” Beckwith Installation and Configuration 126 Rob Powers, Dave Jerrard, William “Proton” Vaughan, Eki Halkka | Installation and Configuration | Intermediate Creating New Configs and Managing Them By default, the configuration files for LightWave are stored in the Docu- ments and Settings folder on the Windows drive. This will cause problems when you upgrade or try to run a different version of LightWave since the configura- tion files are different, but they’re all saved in the same place. To fix this, you’ll need to delete these files (LW3.cfg, LWM3.cfg, LWHub.cfg, and LWExt.cfg) every time you want to run a different version of the software. Of course, this means that when you run LightWave, you’ll need to add plug-ins again and redo any other modifications you’ve made in the past since they’ll be gone. On the PC, create a new Config folder in the folder where you have LightWave installed. Now go to the LightWave Programs folder and create shortcuts for the lightwav.exe and modeler.exe files by right-clicking and select - ing Create Shortcut from the pop-up menu. Next, copy the shortcuts to your desktop. Right-click on each icon and select Properties from the pop-up. This will open the Properties panel for that shortcut. In the Target section for LightWave Layout you will see the path to your lightwav.exe file in the text entry box. Click in that text entry box and move the cursor toward the right all the way to the end of the line of text. Here you will add a new line of text to tell LightWave exactly what config files to use when loading. Add -cPath into that window replacing “Path” with the path to your newly created Config folder. For example, if LightWave is installed on the C: drive in a folder called LightWave, you would add the following path to the text entry box: -cC:\LightWave\Config. 39 So the entire entry into the LightWave Layout Target entry box would be: C:\LightWave\Programs\lightwav.exe -cC:\LightWave\Config. This will force LightWave to use the config files found only in this Config folder, which will allow you to easily manage and back up your configs. If there are no configs in that folder, LightWave will create default configs the first time you open and close the application. You should also follow the same steps for the Modeler Properties shortcut. Versions: All ð Mac Note (Robin Wood): The Mac doesn’t have .cfg files; we have Prefs files. You’ll find them in your Home>Library>Preferences folder. You can recognize them because they all have LightWave or LW (or LScript, LSed, LSid, etc.) in the name. There might be only a few, or quite a lot of them, depending on how many plug-ins you’ve used. I recommend taking the whole slew and putting them into an Old Light - Wave Prefs folder when you change versions of the program. That way, if you need to go back to the old version, you’ll have them all. 127 Dave Jerrard | Installation and Configuration | All Levels Using Common Config Files If you want to redirect LightWave to use a common configuration in situa- tions where you have a network of LightWave workstations, you can also use the -c option. This way, when plug-ins need to be added, they only need to be added once, and all the other installations will automatically find them. How- ever, this would also mean that every workstation would be using the exact same menu layout as well. If some people modify their menus, then they’ll either modify the configuration for everyone else (assuming the config files are not write protected), or they’ll have to constantly recreate (or reload) their custom configurations every time they restart. The -p option can be used instead, which merely redirects LightWave to look for the plug-in’s configuration file (LWExt.cfg) at the specified location, but allows users to still use their own cus - tom menu and key configurations. For example: “E:\Program Files\LightWave_7.5\Programs\LightWav.exe” -0 -c“E:\Program Files\LightWave_7.5” -p“L:\Network\Configs” Versions: All ð Mac Note (Robin Wood): This is a PC-only tip. On the Mac, the -c and -p commands sometimes show up in the cmdLines files, but I have never successfully gotten them to actually go to a file stored any - where except the Home>Library>Preferences folder. 128 Eki Halkka | Installation and Configuration | Intermediate Using Common Plug-ins When you make your plug-in and config directories accessible through a network, you can have multiple users share the same configuration — and whenever you add a plug-in, it’s available to all users. Versions: 6-8 40 | Chapter 3 Installation and Configuration 129 William “Proton” Vaughan | Installation and Configuration | Beginner Have Configs, Will Travel If you’re like me, you have customized your menu configuration to speed up your work flow. If you are a contract worker, student, or anyone who moves from computer to computer, you should get in the habit of traveling with your custom configs. Versions: All Ü Note: I used to travel with a CD that had my config files, third-party plug-ins, etc. But now, thanks to modern technology, I travel with all of these items on a USB keychain drive. ð Mac Note (Robin Wood): On the Mac, copy your plug-ins, menus, keyboards, etc., from wherever you keep them. Then simply copy the Layout Preferences files from your Home>Library>Preferences folder, and add those to the set. (There may be as few as three of them, or upward of 10, depending on the plug-ins you use.) When you go to the new machine, be sure to save the prefs into another folder, if you don’t have your own Home folder there, so you don’t overwrite your host’s Prefs. 130 Dave Jerrard | Installation and Configuration | All Levels Saving Config Files When modifying the menu and keyboard configurations, save them as sepa- rate files. Each configuration panel has Save and Load buttons so you can instantly load up any pre-saved configuration. This is most handy when you need to delete the .cfg files because you are running a new version or one has become corrupted, since you’ll be able to return to your custom setup quickly. It’s also handy if you want to set up different configurations based on the type of work you’ll be doing. A character rigging setup could be created that deals with all aspects of rigging, and then an effects configuration could be made that focuses on particles, deformation, etc. You could then switch between them on the fly. Versions: All ð Mac Note (Robin Wood): This tip refers to menu layouts and keyboard shortcuts. This works for the Mac, too, but there’s no suffix on the files. So be careful to give them a meaningful name when you save them. (It helps to save all of them to the same place, too. I keep all of mine in a folder called Interface Stuff in my Content folder.) 131 Eki Halkka | Installation and Configuration | Intermediate Editing Config Files LightWave’s configuration files — LWHUB.cfg, LW3.cfg, LWEXT3.cfg, and LWM3.cfg — can be opened in any text editor, like Notepad. They’re really rather educational reading — and not rocket science for the most part. Versions: 6-8 ð Mac Note (Robin Wood): The Mac files are quite different. They are found in your Home>Library>Preferences folder, and all have LightWave in the name. They also appear to be much shorter, but you can still open them with any text editor, such as TextEdit, and take a look at them. Program Setup | 41 Installation and Configuration 132 Eki Halkka | Installation and Configuration | Intermediate Controlling LightWave You can control the way LightWave works by adding switches to the Startup icon’s properties. If you wish to, for example, disable the Hub, add –0 (minus zero) at the end of the startup command: C:\LightWave\Programs\lightwav.exe –0. In Windows, this is done by right-clicking the Startup icon, and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu. Versions: 6-8 ð Mac Note (Robin Wood): This is a PC-only tip. If you want to disable the Hub on the Mac, you add –0 (minus zero) to the Hub cmdline file in the Programs folder, inside the LightWave 3D folder. 133 Dave Jerrard | Installation and Configuration | All Levels Changing Frame Settings through Config File Some of the default values that LightWave starts up with can’t be changed through the interface, but they can be altered by editing the LW3.cfg file in a text editor. One example is the default scene length. Sixty frames is only two seconds of animation, and most scenes you work on will be longer than this. I find it handy to change the value to 300, which gives you enough room to imme- diately start testing ideas with such features as particles. Look for the line “DefaultSceneLength 60” and change the value to a number you like (300 gives you 10 seconds, which is a good average length). Make sure Layout is not run- ning and then save this file. Layout will use the new value the next time it’s run. Versions: 6-8 ð Mac Note (Robin Wood): This works exactly the same way on the Mac, but the file you need to change is the Layout 8 Prefs file, of course. (Or “Layout 3 Prefs” in versions prior to 8.) 134 Rob Powers | Installation and Configuration | Beginner Multiple License Keys For LightWave to operate properly you must have your license key installed in the LightWave/Programs folder. The license key is a simple text file where you can input your unique license key number for your dongle and resave it as LICENSE.KEY. The license key file can include multiple key numbers in the same file. Just paste the license key numbers each on a separate line, one below the other. This is very useful if you are a company that has multiple LightWave dongles and everyone is loading LightWave from a central server location. Versions: 5.6-8 ð Mac Note (Robin Wood): On the Mac, the file is License.key. 135 Wes “kurv” Beckwith, Steve Warner | Installation and Configuration | All Levels Texture Wireframes The color of your wireframes in Modeler can be determined on a polygon- by-polygon basis. This can be particularly useful when the surface color on one 42 | Chapter 3 Installation and Configuration part of your object makes the wireframes difficult to see. Best of all, LightWave 8 will let you view these color wireframes in the standard Textured Wire view. There are three ways to change and use this great new feature. The first is to change the existing wireframe shades by going to the Detail tab and clicking on the Sketch Color button as seen in the following figure. This will change the existing wireframe colors while in the Textured Wire view as long as you have not selected any polygons in your model. Remember, selecting nothing is the same thing as selecting everything in LightWave. You can also change the default sketch color in the Options window; this makes it easy to see new geometry while working with complex objects. To get to the Display Options window, hit “d” or go to Edit>Display Options. Program Setup | 43 Installation and Configuration Scene in LightWave 8 Mod - eler using Textured Wire view with Sketch Colors set to Black Click on the Detail tab, then choose the Sketch Color button. The third way is to select a polygon, and change the color of only that poly - gon. Click on the polygon to select it in Polygon mode. Then click on the Detail tab and choose the Sketch Color button. Change the color of that polygon. All polygons created from that polygon forward will also retain the new color. Version: 8 136 Lee Stranahan | Installation and Configuration | All Levels Create Some Default Scenes The first thing you probably do when you go into LightWave is to get it set up the way you like it. You know — set the antialiasing settings how you like them, resolution, and so on. A better approach is to make some scenes with the setting as you like them and load those. Maybe even do some default lighting setups. Much quicker. Versions: All 137 Steve Warner, William “Proton” Vaughan | Installation and Configuration | Beginner Optimize Layout Renders Display SubPatch Level/Render SubPatch Level. When animating high- polygon objects, sometimes there’s too much data for your machine to handle and playback/redraw can become sluggish. On SubPatch (SubD) objects you can have a lower SubPatch level (even 0) for display purposes and still have it render at the higher level. This is priceless when it comes to animating high- polygon characters. Versions: All 138 Kevin Phillips, Dave Jerrard | Installation and Configuration | Advanced Adding Print Camera Resolution Options You can adjust more than just the menu and keyboard shortcuts in LightWave by editing the lw3.cfg file. A lot of settings are stored in here, including the camera resolution presets you get in the camera’s Properties panel. 44 | Chapter 3 Installation and Configuration Display Options window If you’re doing a lot of print work, you might consider adding any commonly used resolutions to this list by adding more resolution presets. The ResolutionPreset command allows you to enter the parameters for the camera and a text description that gets displayed in the Camera Properties panel in the Resolution list box. The parameters include the width, height, and pixel aspect ratio followed by mask settings (left, top, width, and height) if needed (though in most cases you can just leave these as 0,0, and the same size as the resolution). The end of the line is where you can type a text description for this setting. Before adding these, make sure that you have exited LightWave completely. (This includes the Hub as well if it is active.) If you don’t, LightWave will over - write your changes when it exits and you will have to add these again. Some common resolutions to consider for print include: ResolutionPreset 3508 49611003508 4961 A3 (300dpi Port) ResolutionPreset 4961 35081004961 3508 A3 (300dpi Land) ResolutionPreset 2480 35081002480 3508 A4 (300dpi Port) ResolutionPreset 3508 24801003508 2480 A4 (300dpi Land) ResolutionPreset 1748 24801001748 2480 A5 (300dpi Port) ResolutionPreset 2480 17481002480 1748 A5 (300dpi Land) ResolutionPreset 2550 33001002550 3300 Letter (300dpi Port) ResolutionPreset 3300 25501003300 2550 Letter (300dpi Land) ResolutionPreset 2200 34001002200 3400 Tabloid (200dpi) Some other fun ones you might also consider for your own personal use: ResolutionPreset 1063 6141001063 614 Business Card (300dpi) ResolutionPreset 1417 14171001417 1417 CD Label (300dpi) ResolutionPreset 3600 24001003600 2400 6" x 4" Photo (600dpi) And if you’re working alongside 2D animators, you’ll find that most 2D images are scanned for TV in a square pixel format. This (for PAL at least, since it’s what we use here in New Zealand) can be added as: ResolutionPreset 768 576100768576D1PAL(Square Pixel) Additional from David Jerrard Additional camera preset resolutions can be added to Layout by using a text editor and modifying the LW3.cfg file. Near the top of that file you can find a series of default camera presets, as follows: ResolutionPreset 640 480100640480VGA(640 x 480) ResolutionPreset 800 600100800600SVGA (800 x 600) ResolutionPreset 1024 7681001024 768 XGA (1024 x 768) ResolutionPreset 1280 1024 1.0667 0 0 1280 1024 SXGA (1280 x 1024) ResolutionPreset 720 486 0.9 0 0 720 486 D1 (NTSC) ResolutionPreset 720 486 1.2 0 0 720 486 D1 (NTSC Widescreen) ResolutionPreset 752 480 0.8592 0 0 752 480 D2 (NTSC) ResolutionPreset 720 576 1.0667 0 0 720 576 D1 (PAL) ResolutionPreset 720 576 1.4222 0 0 720 576 D1 (PAL Widescreen) ResolutionPreset 752 576 1.0186 0 0 752 576 D2 (PAL) ResolutionPreset 1280 7201001280 720 HDTV (1280 x 720) ResolutionPreset 1920 10801001920 1080 HDTV (1920 x 1080) Program Setup | 45 Installation and Configuration Here’s an example of a custom preset: ResolutionPreset 2048 1556 2 50 50 1998 1506 2.35:1 -Anamorphic Film- (2048*1556) The first two numbers define the actual camera resolution that will be used when the preset is selected. The third number is the pixel aspect. If you want to set up an anamorphic preset, this number determines the amount the image is squeezed (or stretched). The example preset above shows an anamorphic squeeze of 2 being applied, which means that the rendered image will appear half as wide as it normally would. The next four values are for the camera mask, and define start and end points for a frame that can be drawn into the rendered image. This example shows a 50-pixel wide border will be drawn when the Camera Mask option is active in the Camera Properties panel. The rest of the line after these seven values is the text that appears in the Camera presets pop-up menu. A downside of doing this is that you will lose all of these settings if you rein - stall LightWave or delete the configuration files for any reason. You will need to add these again. It pays to keep these settings in a separate text file that you can easily copy and paste back into your configuration at any time. Versions: 6.5-7.5c ð Mac Note (Robin Wood): On the Mac, you need to put these lines into the LightWave Layout 8 Prefs file in your Home>Library>Preferences folder. (For LightWave 7.x and below, it’s called LightWave Layout 3 Prefs.) You can open the file with TextEdit set to Plain Text, or any other plain text editor. When you do, you’ll see the other ResolutionPreset lines. For some reason, it seems to work better if you copy several existing lines, including the return character, paste them at the bottom of the section, and then edit them. (LightWave can be very picky about line return characters at times.) Save the file, and you should see the new resolutions in the Camera Properties panel. 46 | Chapter 3 Installation and Configuration Camera Properties panel Camera presets pop-up [...]... ActionButtonColor 130 135 150 DialogButtonColor 130 140 145 54 | Chapter 3 Menu Layout DragButtonColor 140 150 160 InfoAreaColor 115 120 125 InfoAreaTextColor 20 0 21 0 22 0 Use WordPad or Microsoft Word to paste this into your LWHUB.cfg file Save the new version and then reload LightWave to reveal the new interface color settings This way you can choose the color settings that you prefer to work with Versions:... Salvucci | Interface Navigation | Beginner LightWave as a Calculator? LightWave s numeric inputs all accept mathematical expressions So, if you don’t want to be bothered with reaching for a calculator when you go to a frame that is 2. 5 seconds into a 24 fps animation, you can simply enter 2. 5 *24 in the Go to Frame input box Or let’s say you need to rotate an object 3 .25 full rotations Rather than getting... color scheme of LightWave by adding your new custom color settings to your LWHUB.cfg file Because the LWHUB.cfg file is a text file, you can edit it in any word processor program To change the LightWave color scheme you paste the new settings into the LWHUB.cfg file Here is one of my favorite color schemes: BackgroundColor 120 120 120 StateButtonColor 140 150 160 ToolButtonColor 115 120 130 ActionButtonColor... Frame input box Or let’s say you need to rotate an object 3 .25 full rotations Rather than getting a calculator out, you can simply enter 3 .25 *360 into the numeric requester LightWave will do the math for you Here’s another example: If you type in 25 0mm +20 mm, you will get 27 0mm as the value for that field Available arithmetic operators are: + addition – subtraction * multiplication / division ^ power Another... each toolbar too far down the side of the screen! Versions: 6.5-7.5c 1 52 Rob Powers | Menu Layout | Beginner to Intermediate Changing LightWave Interface to Previous Versions Use Alt+F10 to pull up the Configure Menus panel This will allow you to change the LightWave interface to resemble previous versions Depending on the version of LightWave you are using, you will find options for 7.5, 6.0, and 5.6... with previous versions of LightWave Versions: 6-8 153 Rob Powers | Menu Layout | Intermediate Saving Your New Interface Settings After customizing your LightWave interface by organizing the menus and adding custom buttons, you should use the Configure Menus panel (Alt+F10) to save your settings to a file You can then reload these settings at any time and port them to any LightWave system that you might... Installation and Configuration | Intermediate Camera Zoom Factor LightWave s default camera zoom factor of 3 .2 is slightly wider than that of the human eye If you want to simulate normal eyesight, change the zoom factor to 3.75 You can also change this default value by editing the LW3.cfg file in a text editor Look for the line “DefaultZoomFactor 3 .2 and change the number to whatever zoom factor you like... the Display SubPatch level in the Object Properties panel to 1 or 2 This way, Layout has to update fewer polygons However, if the display level is different than the Render SubPatch level, you will notice a delay every time you start or stop a render since LightWave will have to re-subdivide the object By keeping these values the same, LightWave won’t have to keep changing the geometry This is most noticeable... eyeball behind a thin transparent film Versions: 6.5-7.5c 50 | Chapter 3 Interface Adjustments 146 Wes “kurv” Beckwith | Interface Adjustments | Beginner Changing Point Display Size New to 3D modeling or LightWave 3D and having a hard time seeing the points in Modeler? You can change the point size Press the “d” key or click on Edit>Display Options, then choose the Interface tab Check the Simple Wireframe... Files \LightWave_ 7.5\Programs\LightWav.exe” “U:\Scenes\scenes\ Cartest.lws” tells LightWave to load Cartest.lws from U:\Scenes when it starts Versions: 7-8 ð Mac Note (Robin Wood): On the Mac, if you want to start from a specific scene, just put that scene in the Dock (or in DragThing, or wherever you put such things) and click on it to start LightWave You can even give it an icon that will remind you which one . 1 024 76 810010 24 768 XGA (1 024 x 768) ResolutionPreset 128 0 1 024 1.0667 0 0 128 0 1 024 SXGA ( 128 0 x 1 024 ) ResolutionPreset 720 486 0.9 0 0 720 486 D1 (NTSC) ResolutionPreset 720 486 1 .2 0 0 720 . 7 52 480 0.85 92 0 0 7 52 480 D2 (NTSC) ResolutionPreset 720 576 1.0667 0 0 720 576 D1 (PAL) ResolutionPreset 720 576 1. 422 2 0 0 720 576 D1 (PAL Widescreen) ResolutionPreset 7 52 576 1.0186 0 0 7 52. Widescreen) ResolutionPreset 7 52 576 1.0186 0 0 7 52 576 D2 (PAL) ResolutionPreset 128 0 72 0100 12 80 720 HDTV ( 128 0 x 720 ) ResolutionPreset 1 920 108 010019 20 1080 HDTV (1 920 x 1080) Program Setup | 45 Installation