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2.1 Getting Started - Orienting Yourself
 
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ORGANIC OBJECTS

In these tutorials, I will be illustrating how to use LightWave to create what are called 'Organic' objects. Organic objects are such objects as dinosaurs, flowers, aircraft, human bodies, or any other shape which might have free-flowing lines.


LIGHTWAVE IS ACTUALLY TWO PROGRAMS, NOT ONE

LightWave consists of two programs... The first program is called Modeler (Modeler.exe on the IBM) and the second is often referred to as Layout in many books, but you'll quickly find that 'Layout' is actually called 'LightWave.exe' (LightWave.exe on the IBM)).

Modeler and Lightwave are found wherever you installed the program initially. A good place to put the program is in your C:\Program Files\ folder, but people also create a special folder on the root of their C:\ drive such as C:\LIGHTWAVE\ .

People oftentimes ask, "Why are there two programs instead of just one as with Maya or 3D Studio Max?"

Well, LightWave was originally designed by two people, and the copyrights still are held by those two people. People like to say that it is separated into two pieces because that is a better way of doing it. ... in many ways it IS better, but in others it isn't.

One advantage of having the two programs be separate is you can render an animation at the same time as you are working on the next objects.

This is not a small point, as rendering can oftentimes tie up your computer for days-on-end for even short animation segments. Hollywood, and programs such as 3D Studio Max allow multiple computers to render scenes and multiple computers to build objects and render with. But, an individual generally has one computer and one program to work with so the ability to work on models at the same time as its rendering an animation in the background is an excellent ability to have.

A second advantage to the Modeler program being separate from the Layout program is that the IBM sometimes will crash. Although LightWave is a quite stable program, and seldom crashes (possibly because of its more logically elegant design) it will infrequently lock up. I've never seen it go to blue screen, the program just quits out from beneath you and disappears (along with any unsaved objects if it was 'Modeler' or scenes if it was 'Layout').


THE LIGHTWAVE 'HUB'

When you run either program, a third program called the 'Hub' (on Windows, it will appear as a curly green icon in your task bar at the bottom right of the screen to the left of the time ) will automatically run.

You don't ever have to do anything with this program, it is there so that Modeler and Layout can communicate with each other or pass objects back and forth between the two programs.

The first time that you run either program, you should run both programs so they will be able to update each other through the Hub.


LAYOUT, or LIGHTWAVE



'Layout'(or some call that part 'LightWave') is where you import objects that you have designed in Modeler. In Layout you set up lights, set up your camera, move the objects around in 3D-space, rotate objects, and once you're done, you create animations or still-frames using what is called 'Rendering'.

There are some things which you can do in either Layout or Modeler, such as use the Surface Editor to create surface textures. You can also change object or surface colors among other things. In the first tutorials I will be predominately showing you how to use the Modeler program.


MODELER, UNDO FUNCTION



The very first thing you should learn in Modeler is how to undo the last thing you did. It being a complex program, you are bound to make mistakes. The second thing to learn is save your work, and save it using a different name each time. Object files are very tiny, so saving multiple times with slightly different and descriptive names can really help you not lose work.

The undo capability of LightWave's Modeler is fantastic (although the undo feature of the Layout program is horrid, having only one undo level which hardly ever works.).

IMPORTANT - To undo something, press the 'u' key. To redo something, press 'Shift-U'.

The number of default undo's is 8, so increase it quickly before you make mistakes.

In this tutorial I will oftentimes be talking about making selections from either menus, or buttons. When I refer to 'This->That' it means to select 'This' and then you will be able to select 'That' once you reach that location (either in the menu, or after clicking on a tab.

Wherever possible, I will try and put apostraphes around any words or word sequences which can be physically found in the program, such as the text in menus or as button captions.

So, to change the number of undo levels, go to the 'Modeler' button, choose 'Options->General Options' and change the value where it says 'Undo Levels'.




MODELER, CONTENT DIRECTORY

A very important feature in Modeler that you should remember is the place where you change the 'Content Directory'.

Since LightWave separates an object (which it expects to find in an 'Objects' folder) away from a scene (Which it expects to save in a folder called 'Scenes'), away from images (which will be kept in a folder called 'Images', away from 'Presets'... LightWave's ability to change the location where you find these folders can be very helpful to keep together all parts of a scene you're working on, keeping it separate from the hundreds of others you might be currently working on or have worked on in the past.

The location where you change the content directory is found at the very top of the 'General Options' requester where you just set the number of undo levels.




To change the directory click on the button and select a folder that you made. In this case I created a folder called 'Deinon' when I made a Deinonychus dinosaur, which you'll see in Chapter 40.

Inside that folder you should create four empty folders from 'My Computer' by doing a 'New->New Folder'. You should name them 'Objects', 'Scenes', 'Images' and 'Presets'. LightWave will automatically save scenes into the Scenes folder, objects into the 'Objects' folder, etc. as long as you set the 'Content Directory' to the folder where those folders are found.

In my case, I've also created a folder called 'Surfaces' where I save surface textures and 'Deinonychus' where I keep my Photoshop sketches, research, documentation and plastilina model images.




This has been a rudimentry introduction to the concept of 'Content Directory'. In the next tutorial, I'll be delving deeper into the concept and will be illustrating exactly what you'll need to do, and why.


MODELER, CASE SENSITIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Another thing to keep in mind, all keyboard shortcuts are case-sensitive. So, if you are pressing a key and what you think should happen isn't happening, check to make sure your Caps Lock key is not turned on.


MODELER, OBJECTS

Modeler is where you create what are called objects. An object might be a body, or it may be a finger. It might be a chair, or a screw... might be a car or just a car's tire.

You can either build an object by combining together ready-made spheres, cones, boxes, and other canned objects that come with the program; or you can build an object from scratch.

When you create an object from scratch, you lay down points, create polygons, weld points together, etc. The main focus of the first tutorials will be to illustrate how to create objects in this manner.


MODELER, VIEWPORTS

The four squares when you first start Modeler are called 'ViewPorts'. The default mode in Modeler is that you have four views, but you can modify this by pressing the 'd' key which brings up the 'Display Options' panel.



We will be using the default 'Quad' viewport mode in most of the tutorials, but I just wanted to show you where you would modify the viewport layouts. If you pull down the 'Layout' drop-down menu you will see a variety of other viewport layouts you could use. Just for a second, click on the Viewports tab.



It's in the 'Display Options' panel that you can set a particular default viewport in the TL (Top Left), TR (Top Right), BL (Bottom Left) and BR (Bottom Right) Viewports. Click on 'CANCEL' to return to Modeler without making any changes.


MODELER, DEFAULT 'QUAD' VIEWPORT

Most of the time a beginner will be working in the default 'Quad' mode. An expert could theoretically do everything from the 'Perspective' view type, never going to any other of the Top/Back/Right views at all, but in reality that never happens.

You will find that sometimes it is easier to work on an object from just the front, or just the side while at other times it's easier to work on the object in the perspective view (where you can rotate it so as you may see any angle of the object).



The default, and most typical way of using Modeler is to have 'Perpective View' be in the upper-right box.



What is called 'Top View' is the upper-left viewport. Note the white lines that cover the object. For each view there is a drop-down menu to the right of the 'Kind of View' menu. (Second down-arrow).

This will give you a menu which allows you to pick from many different 'View Types'. Wireframe is good because it lets you select points or polygons all throughout an object.



However, the problem with 'Wireframe' view type is, once the object gets any sort of complexity at all, it will just show you a jumble of white dots.

Probably the most important type is 'Wireframe Shade' which is what this View is currently in. Wireframe Shade lets you see the polygons at the same time as the color at the same time. When you select polygons or points with this view type you don't select polygons that are behind the object.



A third handy type for creating objects is 'Smooth Shade', which gives you a very close representation to what the object would look like if rendered in Layout without any shadows or reflections. Although you could set every view to this mode if you had an extremely fast computer, you probably will do well setting the three non-perspective views to 'Wireframe Shade' or even 'Wireframe' most of the time except for times when it really pays to have Smooth Shade mode on.



'Back View' is in the bottom left. So, your question might be at this point, "Why, then, is this a picture of the front of the girl?" I'll get to that in a minute.



...and finally 'Right View' is in the bottom right. Again, I'm sure your question is, "Why is this the left side of her body, then?" Again, I'll get to that.




MODELER, WHAT'S UP, DOC?

One of the most confusing things about the interface is one which long-time users ignore completely. That is, it's all ass-backward from the way you think that it 'should' work.

After all, wouldn't you think that 'Back View' would mean, "I'm looking at the back of the object."? And, wouldn't you think that 'Right View' would mean, "I am looking at the right-hand side of the object"? Well, it doesn't.

And, wouldn't the view you might think to be the 'most important' view be the front of an object? Why would they have 'Back View', in the lower left corner?

And, if that's the case, you might say, "Well, what's the big deal... From the drop-down-menu in the lower-left window I can change that view to 'Front View' so why the fuss?"


MODELER, IT'S SIMPLE, BACK IS FRONT AND LEFT IS RIGHT...

Well, let me just say that you have to live with it. How do you live with it? Well, you turn your object backwards so that in Back view, you put the front of your object towards you. And, in 'Right View' you think of that as meaning 'The right side of the object as I look at it.' rather than meaning 'The object's right side'.

A famous writer for LightWave 3D books explained to me that "'Back view means you're looking towards the front of the 3D world." Or spoken in another way, "You are looking at the back of your world.

The first tutorial will be an attempt to orient you. You will learn what 'forward', 'up', or 'right' mean. Until you have a firm grasp of direction you will not feel comfortable in LightWave.

Lets see if I can unravel the 'front is back/left is right' problem. The reason people turn around the object is because the front and side views are generally the most important views.

The top view is generally smaller, with less detail to work with. Think of a human head, for example. Does the top of the head tell you much information? Top of a car? Top of a cat? How about the back of a person? Back of a book? So, when working with objects, the front and side of the object are almost always the most important views.

So, lets take this as our opportunity to illustrate these points.


MODELER, THE 3D WORLD'S COORDINATE SYSTEM

There are three axes in LightWave, the X, Y and Z axes.

Notice that you will only see a depiction of the axis names when you have 'Grid' turned on under the 'Display' panel. (Press the 'd' key and make sure that 'Grid' is checkmarked).

First, look at the 'Back' viewport (generally the bottom-left viewport). . In the 'Back' viewport, if you were to use it the way they want you to, you would be looking at the back of your object. Therefore, +X would mean 'The object's Left' and -X would mean 'The Object's Right'. +Y makes sense, which would be up, and -Y is downwards.

Now, look at the 'Right' viewport (generally the bottom-right viewport of the four). In this view +Z would be the front side of the object and -Z would be the back of the object. Thus, if the object were facing with it's face away from you in the 'Back' view, then in the Right view, you would be looking at the right side of the person's body and their nose would be pointing to the right.

Finally, look at the 'Top' viewport (generally the top-left viewport). In this view, you are looking down at the top of the object and if the object were facing with its face pointed away from you in the 'Back' view, then in the 'Top' view, the nose would be pointing upwards.

Now, you might ask now, "Well, then why don't you just put the object facing away from you then? What's the big deal?"

Well, it is almost definite that you will be working on the front of an object a lot. So, you COULD choose 'Front' for the bottom left panel, correct? Yes, you COULD. But, then look at your top view? Your top view would show the object's right side pointing to your right, yet the front view would not reflect that. The object's right side would be pointing to your left instead.

But, if you just turn the object so it's turned around, then the 'Top' and 'Back' views now correspond point-for-point so you can look at the back view (which is now the front of your object) and a point that's on the right side (object's left side) will correspond directly with the 'Top' view.

Also, if you do it this way, then when you finally import it into Layout, you won't have to turn your object around to light it. For, just as in Modeler, Layout also is a 3D world where you're looking towards the front of your world. If you create your object so that it faces away from you, then it will also come into Layout that way, and your lighting and camera will be pointing at its back.


MODELER, GETTING USED TO THE INTERFACE

You are now ready to begin.

Enter Modeler, and click on 'Ball' or press 'SHIFT-O'. Click in the center of the upper-left hand window and drag the mouse to the right and down. An oval will appear in the 'Top View'.



At the corners of the sphere, you will find angle brackets. If you click the angle brackets and drag them you can size the sphere in any of the views.

At the sphere's center will be cross-hairs Drag this with your mouse to move the sphere's position in any of the three views.

The sphere now has a depth, front to back, but it has no height. So, go to the lower-left 'Back View' and drag downwards on the center cyan-colored line until it looks about like a circle.




MODELER, VIEW TYPES

You'll notice that the 'Perspective View' on my diagram in the upper-right view looks the same as the other three views, but possbly in your interface, it looks shaded.

You can at any time pick a different type of view for any of the views by selecting from that view's drop-down menu. I oftentimes change the Perpective View, in particular, to different types as I work. The most handy being 'Wireframe Shade'.



If I change my 'Perpective' view to the 'Wireframe Shade' view type, it will probably look more like your inteface.

However, you might have noticed that if you just pulled down a drop-down menu to look at the menus, your sphere has disappeared. Until you have pressed the space bar to complete an action, no real sphere has actually been drawn.

Thus, if you have been following my instructions, and at any time your sphere has gone away, this is the reason. So, if your sphere is gone, follow the steps again and this time press the space bar. The cyan guides will go away, and you will no longer be able to change the size, shape, or position of the sphere. This holds true for all of the pre-made objects.

Pressing the space bar 'sets' the sphere. IMPORTANT - Pressing the space bar always deselects the last tool you were using, and thus 'sets' the operation.

Up until you press the spacebar, any menu selection or other action you take other than resize or reposition the sphere will cause the sphere representation to disappear.


MODELER, PERSPECTIVE VIEWPORT

So, you now have a simple object, but so far, there's no way of telling what front/back or left/right is, so lets add some more pieces to our object.

Let me take this time to impress on you the power of the Perspective window. First, go to the Perspective window and hold down the ALT key (Windows) while clicking with you mouse and moving it around in the Perspective View.



You should see the whole world rotating as you move your mouse. You are able to rotate the object into any position using the ALT key. This is true for Windows. On other computer platforms, find the equivalent for the ALT key.

Know that you can not only rotate an object to any angle, but you can also do all your highlighting of points or polygons in the Perspective mode. It is a very powerful window.

Next, select the Box button (or press SHIFT-X) and in the same way as you created the oval sphere, click in the center of the upper-left window again, on the top side of the oval, to create a box as if it were a 'nose'.

With the box tool, it will begin the box from the upper-left corner of the box rather than spreading out from the center as it did with the Ball tool. Drag down and to the right to create the box, then move to the 'Back' window and drag down on the center cyan horizontal line in the center to create a height to the box.

Use the + Centerhair to move the box to sit on 'top' of the oval in the upper-left 'Top' view. This is actually the front of the object (since this is a 'Top' view, and 'Up' means 'Front' of the 3D world just as 'Down' means 'Back' in the 'Top View' window.



Press the space bar to 'set' the rectangle box and the cyan guides will disappear.




MODELER, I THINK I CAN, I THINK I CAN...

So, you've chugged your train halfway up the hill so far.

Notice that you can't see the square any more in the lower-left 'Back' view. This proves that 'Towards the Front' in the upper-left 'Top' view is 'Up' on your computer monitor (in this case, as at the moment we are following their rules of the bottom left window being 'Back' of the object. Thus, the oval's square nose is towards the interface's 'Front'.)

Now, lets put two different kinds of ears on this oval-headed object. Again pick the Box button and in the same way you just drew the square nose, draw out a square ear on the right side of the oval in the upper-left 'Top View'.

Go to the bottom-left 'Back' view and drag down to create a height to the box and use the crosshairs to position it so that the left side of the box is even with the right side of the circle in the 'Back View'.



Press the space bar to 'Set' the box and you'll now see the box in the bottom-right 'Right View'. This means that this view is showing the right side of the object, which makes complete sense. Thus, 'Front' to the 'Right View' is to the right and 'Back' is to the left.

Now, you can do things in this manner forever, if you'd like. It all makes sense except for the fact that nobody cares about the back of an object.


MODELER, WHAT'S 'TOP'

Lets keep going and see what I'm trying to show you. Lets put a cone on the 'Top' of his head. Pick the Cone button, and again go to the 'Top View' and drag from the center of the oval to create the cone's base. Then, go to the 'Back View' and drag upwards from the center horizontal cyan line to create a height to your cone.


MODELER, TWO SHAPES MERGE AS ONE WHEN RENDERED

Use the crosshairs to move the cone where you want it. Notice that any object which is within another object will be absorbed by that object and the outside object will seem to engulf it. It will also render as if the two objects were joined together.

When you import the object into the Layout program, any polygons on the same Modeler 'Layer' (See Tutorial #4 for more information on using Layers) will end up being one object as far as Layout is concerned.



We can now see that the object in the perspective window is tipped sideways. We can hold down the ALT key, click and move with our mouse to rotate this view so that the face can be turned in our direction.


MODELER, ZOOMING AND PANNING IN A VIEWPORT

Up until now, and particularly when you were trying to create the cone, you might have found that you needed to move to an area in a View that was out of the View area.

Two things help in this case, first are the comma and period keys. The way that you can remember it is the comma is on the same key as the less-than symbol is and it makes it look smaller.

The period is on the '>' or 'Great Than' key and it makes the object look larger. Pressing these keys will not change the actual size of the objects.

IMPORTANT - Press the ',' (comma, or less than) key and you will zoom out in the currently selected viewport. Press the '.' (period, or greater than) key and you will zoom in.

Also, you may move the object around the view by pressing the 'g' key (for 'Go') while pointing with your mouse to some area within a Viewport.

The program will try and take the point where you're pointing and center that point in that Viewport. This takes a bit of getting used to, as you would point below the center of the View to raise the view up (a lower center, raised to be the new center).


MODELER, "WHERE DID THE OBJECT GO?"

If you completely lose the object, first try pressing the 'a' key. If the object isn't invisible and you're on the correct layer (See Tutorial #4 for more information on using Layers) the object would now be centered within all views. You can then use the ',' and '.' keys to zoom it to the appropriate size for that viewport.


MODELER, ACCIDENTLY HITTING 'HIDE SELECTED'

If when you pressed the 'a' key nothing still appears (and you have checked that your Caps Lock key isn't pressed), you may have accidently pressed the minus sign next to the zero on the top row of your keyboard. This is the keyboard shortcut for 'Hide Selected' (under the 'Display' tab, 'Selection' section, 'Hide Sel' button).

IMPORTANT - LightWave always implies 'All Polygons or Points' when NO polygons or points are selected.

Thus, if no points or polygons were selected when you accidently pressed the '-' key, then all polygons would become hidden.

You would then see nothing at all. It would hide ALL of the points or polygons if you accidently pressed the minus sign making it look like you lost your entire object. I wonder how many people have thought they just deleted their object?

And, pressing 'u' to Undo the operation does NOTHING to reveal the object. If you wish to again view all points or polygons you must press the '\' key or choose the 'Display' tab and find the 'Unhide' button under 'Selection'.


MODELER, ACCIDENTLY ENTERING DIFFERENT LAYER

Another thing which can make it seem like you just lost your object is when you accidently press a different layer button, and there is no object on that layer. (See Tutorial #4 for more information on using Layers).

Rotate the Perspective View to this angle.



The square ear should be on your left when the nose points out at you. You now have oriented yourself in this 3D World.

However, lets see what I was referring to... Go to the bottom-left view (the one called 'Back') and from the left-hand drop-down menu choose 'Front', instead.

This would almost be ideal, but you'll notice that the ear is now on the 'wrong side of the head' relative to the 'Top View'.

This makes complete sense seeing that 'Up' is 'Front'. In order to have this view mean anything now that we've turned the bottom-left view to 'Front', turn the upper-left View to 'Bottom' and you have the ear on the correct side again.

However, how useful is 'Bottom' view?

So, most animators just use 'Back' view in the bottom left, 'Top' in upper-left and turn around their object. Not really that hard to do. Then, you can use the 'Top' view instead of the bottom view, and you can see the front of the object instead of the Back and everything's fine.


MODELER, SAVING YOUR OBJECT

Now, save your object by going to 'File' and pick 'Save Object As'. Type an object name and save it. Now, you can always get back to that point again. In fact, as you build objects, you should get in the habit of saving out different versions every few minutes. It is very disappointing to have hours worth of work just go down the drain. I save them as
  • 001_MyObject_StartedObjectNose.lwo
  • 002_MyObject_WithBetterNose.lwo
  • 003_MyObject_WorkedOnEar.lwo

 ... and so on.

If you label your files in that manner, you'll know the progression by the number, you'll know the particular object you are working on, and you you'll know what state that object was in at that point (or at least the previous state it was in).

Note that although you have been building this thing with separate pieces, the whole conglomeration will be called an 'object' and can be loaded into layout as if it were an intact piece to be rendered as if it were one object. The pieces will stay together as if they were one object.

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