Getting Started with Lightwave 7.5*

*Lightwave 5.6 users will find this helpful

 

 
Lightwave Basics
 
     

The next topics I want to cover are the most important differences between LW6.x-7.x and LW5.6.

For our purposes, the biggest differences are metaNURBS in Layout and multiple Layers per object. I'll cover the multiple layers issues later.

1. Targeting and Parenting

In LW 5.6, we either Target or Parent by clicking on those buttons and chosing a parent or target from the pop-up list. Only lights and Cameras may be targeted. In LW 7.5 Parenting and Targeting are set with the Motion options window. The "m" key activates this panel and we chose the Parent or Target from the pop-up lists on the panel.

2. MetaNURBS

With LW 5.6 we freeze objects before bringing them into Layout. Freezing converts them into polygons. In LW 7.5 we don't need to do this as Layout will let you work with metaNURBS objects without the need to convert to polygons. Strictly speaking ALL 3d software works with polygons at some level. With LW 7.5 metaNURBS are converted in the background by the rendering portion of the program.

3.Surface Editor

Here most of the differences between LW 5.6 and LW 7.5 are cosmetic; the concepts are the same. The biggest difference is that sufaces are listed as "sub-categories" of an obect(see first arrow).

In LW5.6 all the surfaces show up in one giant pop-up list. All the properties of a surface selected from the list work much the same way as in LW 5.6, wher a "T" indicates a surface texture, either procedural or bitmap.

 

More to come later...