And best of all, advanced bevels can be stored, either to disk or to memory. Bevels in several steps and polygons can be grouped. A really fast tool to tweak geometry and quickly build up new shapes. Drags points, edges or polygons depending on what you click on when dragging, no need to switch mode. EasyMesh – An excellent tool, that works like XSI’s tweak tool or Modo’s element move.To avoid having to look for tools and break my modeling flow, I have designed five new tabs that are more logical to me. As it’s not feasible to have every tool mapped to a key (and remember it) and the mouse just have so many buttons, one still have to rely on selecting tools in the menus now and then. The default menu configuration, even when using the Studio Production Style layout, doesn’t do it for me. RopeEditor, TrueHair and Pawel Olas plugins (TreeDesigner, Leaves Generator…) would be cool to have as well, but they are no show stoppers.Īlso if you do any kind of hard surface modeling, LWCad is the best investment you can ever make (64-bit version available). Pictrix just released SP_Move as 64-bit, and have promised that the others will follow soon though. Pictrix brilliant modeling plugins (PX_Clone, C_Worm etc…) is still 32-bit only. Skelegon Editor, Normalize Bone Weights, Show Weights Missed babies: Here is my current must have modeler plugin list, all available in 64-bit versions: Modeling:ĮasyMesh, DEdgeSlide, EasySplit, Swift Edge Loop, SpMove 3, Fix Symmetry, SymmXMirror, Polygon Coloring Texturing: Still, as not all plugins I relied on in the 32-bit era are available as 64-bit compiles, I had to sacrifice some or find replacements. Since the release of LightWave 9.5, where FFX and FBX are available native in LightWave and most plugin developers have by now compiled 64-bits versions, I made the decision to completely switch to 64-bit LightWave. Some plugins are commercial but many are free. The must have LightWave 3D pluginsįortunately the LightWave community is blessed with having many brilliant 3rd party developers, which have created additions that fills up about any gap lacking in the out-of-the-box modeler, bringing the modeling experience up to par with other packages. The less time spent digging through menus for tools, the more time spent pushing vertices around. I always keep one hand on my mouse and the other hand on the keyboard while modeling, to jump between the common tools I use in a split second. The time spent learning these will save you so much time in the end it’s worth every second. Print a shortcut reference card if needed. Force yourself to use them as much as possible until they become second nature. Spend all the time needed to learn the keyboard shortcuts. I can’t stress this enough! If you keep spending time switching between tabs and menus in modeler each time you change the active tool, you’ll never get a speedy modeling flow. The “secret” to unlock the current LightWave’s modeler to a compentent speed modeling package consist of four important steps to learn and change in LightWave: Still though, when it comes down to it, I do model with an incredible speed in LightWave compared to the other apps I am comfortable modeling in. Even though Modo is the most elegant modeler I’ve ever worked with, it do still lack a few operations (which I guess might be added when 401 comes) and 3ds max has also grown a lot as a modeler in the last couple of years, and is very competent by now. My LightWave modeling experience goes back to LW v3.5, so I know it pretty much inside and out, and my recent experience with other modeling packages comes to using Modo quite regularly and also to some extent I model in 3ds max when I do on location work. This has lead to that the competition has caught up and even surpassed LightWave in this time.ĭo we have to wait until LW10, which supposedly will get the long awaited modeling updates? Or can the current release be tweaked to still be a top modeler for a speedy workflow? According to me the latter holds true. So what we have here is a former state of the art modeler that hasn’t received much love in 7 years except for a few minor updates, acquired 3rd party tools and some halfbaked additions. Then the years passed and because of different reasons the modeler became neglected, in the v8.x (2004) update the modeler was pretty much ignored and when 9.x (2006) was released the modeler still didn’t receive any significant changes. The modeling workflow was considered one of LightWave’s strongest features and this held true up until v7.x (2001). LightWave 3D was once known as the fastest polygon and subdivision modeler on the market. About a year ago, I wrote a post about customizing modeler, since then I’ve completely switched to a 64-bit environment and with LightWave 9.5 just released, it was about time for an updated version.
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