New Blog Post: The Modifier Stack.

[bobakabob]

This is looking very exciting, thanks for posting Lino.
Sculpting in pose and point manipulation and animation directly in Layout would take LW to the next level.

[lino.grandi]

I totally agree with creacon here. I think the bone and subpatch systems should be separate items that could be added multiple times. Bones should be a deformers too in the way that displacement, bend or twist modifiers are.
You could for example create a complex folding system with bones.

No doubt that's the way to go. We should consider what we have now more as a deformation stack than a fully implemented modifier stack (where geometry can normally be subdivided multiple times). As a first step, it opens for some very nice workflows in LightWave, especially considering you can add multiple node editor modifiers.

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This is looking very exciting, thanks for posting Lino.
Sculpting in pose and point manipulation and animation directly in Layout would take LW to the next level.

I totally agree.

[RebelHill]

I know that this blog post and thread are mainly about the modifier stack... tbh, not THAT exciting... we could already re-order deformers and displacements for a long time now... the new stack makes those operations clearer and cleaner, so that's nice. A much needed and appreciated change, but hardly revolutionary.

However... the bits that are almost tacked on as an aside to this... new nodes for evaluating meshes, their vertices, etc... and thus use one mesh as a deformer for another (displacement mesh referencing)... now that IS a huge step forward for LW here, and a WAY bigger deal than the stack alone imo. That should allow for some VERY cool stuff to be done that at the moment you wouldnt even think of attempting in LW.

[prometheus]

A bit off topic perhaps..Any hints on wether or not weightmaps can be shown in Layout open GL at the first release of Lightwave 2016, or simply if you guys are working on it..or has it on the agenda?
I like what I see though so far.

[lino.grandi]

However... the bits that are almost tacked on as an aside to this... new nodes for evaluating meshes, their vertices, etc... and thus use one mesh as a deformer for another (displacement mesh referencing)... now that IS a huge step forward for LW here, and a WAY bigger deal than the stack alone imo. That should allow for some VERY cool stuff to be done that at the moment you wouldnt even think of attempting in LW.

The new nodes are of course extremely important, especially now we can have multiple deformers of the same kind (Nodal Dispalcement above all) and will be showed in one of the next Blog Posts.

[lino.grandi]

A bit off topic perhaps..Any hints on wether or not weightmaps can be shown in Layout open GL at the first release of Lightwave 2016, or simply if you guys are working on it..or has it on the agenda?
I like what I see though so far.

That's something we consider extremely important, but probably out of scope for the next release.

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Can we have a fracture tool as part of the modifier stack? Or a Boolean?

Out of scope for the next version, but for sure something on our agenda.

[lino.grandi]

Did anyone notice the smoothness of the deforming mesh during playback ? Looks pretty fast ...

Yes it is! Especially if we consider the detail you see comes from a displacement map.

[erikals]

i'm curious to if importing large meshes and scrubbing large meshes will be fast.

thinking of for example scrubbing huge Houdini / RealFlow water fluids meshes here...

[jasonwestmas]

So nice to finally see this kind of stacking deformation technology in Lightwave! I know it was kinda in there but it was weak. Definitely looking forward to giving it a go especially with the nice performance enhancements. . .so important.

[hrgiger]

Thanks for the blog post Lino. It's really shaping up to be a very important release for LW.

[Surrealist.]

^ Yes.

[Dexter2999]

Thanks for the post Lino, and for taking time to do follow up on the forums. Especially since ALL of this is done on your time.

Oh, and Merry Christmas, Sir!

[lino.grandi]

Thanks! Merry Christmas to you all!

[probiner]

The nodes are important as much as they don't drag the application down. I've done my own point deformers with nodes. But kills the application. Let's see how the geometry engine tackles that, hence more curiosity about that.

[ernesttx]

Lino, I owe you a bit of an apology. When the blog post came out, my mind was excited but my perception was clouded. I was thinking it was more UGE than modifier stack and after reading and watching more, I see how the modifier stack is utilized. I was blinded by being able to do what I do in messiah. When I saw the manual deformation and timeline scroll, I was thinking of manipulating the mesh directly when animating. So, with this just being modifier stack related, I'm please with what I see. I'm hoping for the ability to animate the mesh in the future.

To answer your question about saving morphs in messiah with point animation, here is a short description: Pose your character and fix geometry with Point Animation, go to setup and change Point Animation before Bone Deform. Go to animate and see that its probably borked, now you need to eyeball and experiment: turn off Bone Deform and adjust geometry with Point Animation, check how it looks with Bone Deform on and repeat this until you're happy. When you're done turn off Bone Deform and save your model with Point Animation applied. Load this model you saved and use as regular morph. Here is the thread in their forum: http://setuptab.com/index.php?PHPSES...7&topic=1891.0