Basic stuff Lightwave users should know, but are not-so-obvious

[jwiede]

That is awesome. Item selection by name.

Predictive text for item selection would be rad. And I hope a similar feature for Tool selection which uses more than just the tool's name because some of the tool names in Lightwave are not intuitive to their behavior so maybe there could be some search-keywords associated with Layout (and Modeler) Tool plugins to support predictive tool discovery.

The problem with that from a UX standpoint, is what it should do when the tool's name is specified? Activate it? For quite a few LW tools that's the only (and terminal) action in the workflow, so you don't want that until everything's selected and configured. For others, it only begins the operation, and requires further configuration/adjustment actions, and then a separate action to actually take effect/finalize. Oh, and there's no easy or clear indication by name which tools behave which way either.

The reason stuff like this works in other systems is because their tools in such systems all have uniform action models, such that they can always be selected, then adjusted, then finalized. Since LW tools' activation conventions are all over the map, such a system won't work nearly as well in LW, at least without some major rework of (many) tools' behaviors.

It'd be very nice to have, if the workflow discrepancy issue could also be addressed. Without addressing the workflow issues, it'd be an unpredictable mess.

[Luc_Feri]

I've added this to list from memory, I did it ages ago, but it's a nice workflow to try and experiment.

Just a quicky. I did a test, created one concert/arena seat.

I used LWCAD vector clones to quickly create a point source for instancing.

Inside of layout, create a null. Positioned the null and when created instances told the instance generator to use the null as a look at target. All the seats aligned to point towards the null centre, multiple nulls can be used, but you could create banks or groups of instances each with a different look at target.

Have fun, no more painful placing and orientation for stadium or theatre seats using instances and a point source for generation.

[allabulle]

I've added this to list from memory, I did it ages ago, but it's a nice workflow to try and experiment.

Just a quicky. I did a test, created one concert/arena seat.

I used LWCAD vector clones to quickly create a point source for instancing.

Inside of layout, create a null. Positioned the null and when created instances told the instance generator to use the null as a look at target. All the seats aligned to point towards the null centre, multiple nulls can be used, but you could create banks or groups of instances each with a different look at target.

Have fun, no more painful placing and orientation for stadium or theatre seats using instances and a point source for generation.

Brilliant! Thanks.

[Luc_Feri]

Brilliant! Thanks.

Your very welcome.

The seats will align with heading and rotation if using look at, and there is also axis aligned feature too.

[ianr]

Nice > Slick > Luc . >Yah!

[Luc_Feri]

Nice > Slick > Luc . >Yah!

Cheers.

[jeric_synergy]

LWM: Renaming Layers

If you have a bunch of layers selected, double clicking on the layer in the (incredibly lame, weak, and poorly thought-out ) Layers Panel will destroy your selection as it opens a dialog to rename the layers.

Instead, use the LAYER SETTINGS function in the Layers tab to rename your layer. This preserves your possibly complex layer selection, saving time.

[Asticles]

Does this still works?

https://www.lightwave3d.com/assets/p...layer-renamer/

Edit:Seems not

[jbrookes]

Not sure if this was mentioned in this thread already, but here's one from a William Vaughan vid:

Make rotating an eye in its socket easier by using Action Center Selection mode (since it automatically uses the selected object's center as the pivot point).

https://youtu.be/UvFvATRznKM?t=258

[jbrookes]

A few more:

The Flakes node texture lines up with the veins, crust, crackle, and crumple textures at the same scale.
https://youtu.be/isteI9L45z8?t=697

Entering a negative value for an image map's scale will flip the image on that axis.


The "Flare to Alpha" image filter also adds the LW Glow effect to the alpha channel.
https://youtu.be/tEzcsk9r4zY?t=296

You can create a wax texture by using the "Fast Skin" node and setting both Epidermis Distance and Subdermis Distance to very high values relative to the size of the object you've modeled.
https://youtu.be/z8v1Z2aMZ8E?t=129

[jbrookes]

To hide/show menus (for when you need more real-estate):

Press ALT F2

[BeeVee]

And to hide floating windows in Layout, hit Tab...

B

[gar26lw]

ctrl+shift+esc

experimental features enabled