I need help

[jhopfenblatt]

Hey, I just had a general question. I am fairly new to lightwave and I was wondering if you could give me some advice on how to reproduce pictures into 3d format. Here is the picture I'd want to put into lw to make something out of, and my question was basically if there's a way to do this rather simply instead of tracing everything by hand.

http://images.bolt.com/photoalbums/1/4/2/6/5/7/9/1426579/albums/photos/3IpX342qz6DqFdqp.jpg

By the way, I do have the picture in a bigger size, but I'm just putting this one up to give you guys an idea. On another note, if you want a basic feeling of the quality of my work (so that you can see how much detail you need to get into), here's some random stuff I made (taken at smaller sizes because this is the only place I have the pictures uploaded to and they automatically reduce them).


http://images.bolt.com/photoalbums/1/4/2/6/5/7/9/1426579/albums/photos/d2LPSXsN6wjxbnh7.jpg

http://images.bolt.com/photoalbums/1/4/2/6/5/7/9/1426579/albums/photos/YeqtLtGD1Flz8HqT.jpg


http://images.bolt.com/photoalbums/1/4/2/6/5/7/9/1426579/albums/photos/bCdSJ563061tmG2s.jpg

[richpr]

You could have the contours traced in some vector drawing program like Illustrator or Freehand... then you can use the lines by importing them into LW... For extrusion or whatever you want...

If you just want to use just the pic on something you could stencil it onto an object...

[John Fornasar]

I'm assuming you want to convert that picture into a model?

Clean up the picture, increase the contrast so you have pure black and white.
Make a flat box in modeler, and subdivide it as much as your computer will bear.

In Layout, apply the picture as a displacement map - Object/Item Properties/Deform tab/Displacement Map.
Put your picture in, autosize it, and play with the Texture Amplitude. You'll see your shape displace the polys.
Do a Save Transformed, (otherwise you'll lose the deform when you leave LW), bring it into Modeler, and start cleaning it up.
You're going to end up with a pretty heavy model, memory wise, so you may want to work with it just as a Displacement Map in Layout.

[daveythegravy73]

Hi,

If U want to use the pattern as an extrusion, U could use Adobe Streamline to change it into vectors, then import it into LW and extrude.

Best Wishes

daveythegravy