Round banana, or banana with ridges?

[Birck Cox]

Hello, guys. I have another question, having to do with Hammers and Bananas. I'm trying to follow a tutorial wherein the demonstrator builds a banana out of an elongated box. I'd wager that most of you have done it or something like it, early in your LW days. In LW 2015, what tool do you use to turn the round banana into a ridged banana, with those 3 or 4 or 5 shallow ridges running lengthwise? The demo used "Edit Edges", which sounds good, but there's no step-by-step, and I couldn't get very far. Otherwise, the banana looks pretty banana-like, curved and tapered, with a stem, etc. But no ridges.

[prometheus]

In order to work with edit edges properly, you need to have several edge loops nearby, that will support the edit edge move/contract to a pinch state.
usually you select the polys around one edge loop and hit "l" for connect..which will actuall make a loop edge in the center of the selected loop, then you can adjust the nearby edges with edit edges.
You can also select one edge loop only, and use edge bevel, it won´t let you shrink or compress the edges good enough though, so you may want to drop that tool after the initial edge bevel ..then use edge edit.

with edge edit.manual move edits are done with left mouse click, to actual split in to a new edge loop, you right mouse click ...initially when you hover over the object, it will highlight the edges you are about to split..but be aware..the edge split is done perpendicular to the highlighed edge.

Point normal move can also work on a single edgeloop if you want to lift a certain edge loop as a higher ridge.

Always check youtube...
https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...wave+edge+edit

[prometheus]

Don´t know which tutorial you followed, personally I would just use the capsule tool in Lightwave with 6 sides, 4 segments and 4 divisions.
Use spline guide to bend it, then use poly normal move to inflate it to proper thickness of the banana Versus length then..
use edit edge right mouse to create new edges, and left mouse move to compress to a ridge.

[erikals]

multiple ways, here is one >

Point normal move can also work on a single edgeloop if you want to lift a certain edge loop as a higher ridge.

yes, i use this quite a lot when Action Center Selection + Scale won't work.

[ccclarke]

In order to work with edit edges properly, you need to have several edge loops nearby, that will support the edit edge move/contract to a pinch state.
usually you select the polys around one edge loop and hit "l" for connect..which will actuall make a loop edge in the center of the selected loop, then you can adjust the nearby edges with edit edges.
You can also select one edge loop only, and use edge bevel, it won´t let you shrink or compress the edges good enough though, so you may want to drop that tool after the initial edge bevel ..then use edge edit.

with edge edit.manual move edits are done with left mouse click, to actual split in to a new edge loop, you right mouse click ...initially when you hover over the object, it will highlight the edges you are about to split..but be aware..the edge split is done perpendicular to the highlighed edge.

Point normal move can also work on a single edgeloop if you want to lift a certain edge loop as a higher ridge.

Always check youtube...
https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...wave+edge+edit

To minimize confusion, the correct keyboard shortcut key for the Connect tool is "L".

https://docs.lightwave3d.com/display...bine+-+Connect

[prometheus]

To minimize confusion, the correct keyboard shortcut key for the Connect tool is "L".

https://docs.lightwave3d.com/display...bine+-+Connect

No I don´t think so..that wouldn´t work, the correct shortcut Is "l" and not "L"

To further make it clear, you mentioned the shortcut as being a Capital letter..that means shift L, and that doesn´t work.
it is a Lower case letter version of L, and it´s not " I " nor " i" either.

I know the doc says "L" but mine are set to "l" I could be wrong if I have changed them myself, but I don´t think so...and if I haven´t, then the docs are describing it differently...maybe to avoid confusion with the capital letter of i.

Check this shortcut reference, which also has "l"
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...oYTZbXNPQp0UUw

All the standard a-z letters are in lower case letters, unless any specic function like freeze "D" is a capital letter to indicate you need to use shift-D .

[prometheus]

multiple ways, here is one >




yes, i use this quite a lot when Action Center Selection + Scale won't work.

Yep..that banana and model workflow is quite good.
Thanks for taking the time and recording it.

[Birck Cox]

Hi, guys, I'm still working on my neverending banana, after perfecting my hammer head, and I have a new question. Most of my banana instructions are coming from Dan Ablan's Essential LWv.9, wherein he starts with a box, then uses a bevel on the corners to establish the ridges. One tool he walks us through is the use of Set Value to bring all of a mashup cluster of displaced polys at one end of the banana into alignment along one gridline-he straightens out a badly mangled mesh by alternating modes between Mouse and Selection, then inputting a numeric value to bring all the points into the same plane. It looks like a really useful tool, but the toot just presents us with the information needed to make it work in that tutorial. Can anyone refer me to a tutorial or article on how to read the grid, figure the numbers, pick the mode, etc.?

[ccclarke]

Set Value (V) is used to position selected points, edges, or polys on a common X, Y, Z plane.

First, select the points, edges, or polys to be positioned, move the cursor to the position you want them to align with, read the X, Y, or Z value from the Position box in the bottom left corner of the Modeler window, press "V" to bring up the tool, enter the cursor coordinate, select the axis in the Set Value tool panel, and press "OK." If things go sideways, check the entered values, or axis.

CC

[ccclarke]

No I don´t think so..that wouldn´t work, the correct shortcut Is "l" and not "L"

To further make it clear, you mentioned the shortcut as being a Capital letter..that means shift L, and that doesn´t work.
it is a Lower case letter version of L, and it´s not " I " nor " i" either.

I know the doc says "L" but mine are set to "l" I could be wrong if I have changed them myself, but I don´t think so...and if I haven´t, then the docs are describing it differently...maybe to avoid confusion with the capital letter of i.

Check this shortcut reference, which also has "l"
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...oYTZbXNPQp0UUw

All the standard a-z letters are in lower case letters, unless any specic function like freeze "D" is a capital letter to indicate you need to use shift-D .

The standard LW convention for Connect is "L", which is as per the docs; the tool has been assigned "L" for as long as I've been using LW.

However comma, looking at this from your point of view, we're both right - The Configure Keys menu lists it as "l" - lowercase "L". This is somewhat misleading, since L requires the shift key to be used. LW docs use upper case to denote shortcut keys, which is the way I write them for tutorials, etc.

"I" and "i" are the same key as opposed to L and l which look similar and can lead to confusion, especially on a computer screen. In most cases, using the upper case to denote a key minimizes it. (Or should!) I think this was Newtek's intent.

[MonroePoteet]

The standard LW convention for Connect is "L", which is as per the docs; the tool has been assigned "L" for as long as I've been using LW. Changing your configs to call it something else is your version only, and only serves to confuse a a beginner trying to learn the tool.

Sorry, but the default keyboard shortcut for Connect is LOWER-CASE l not capital L and has been since at least LW11.6.4:

LW11.6.4

LW2015.3

LW2018.0.7

The LW2018 documentation is incorrect in saying the default shortcut key for Connect is capital L. The LW2015 documentation (page 1478) correctly indicates that lower-case l should be pressed to invoke Connect. The LW11 manuals don't indicate the shortcut keys.

mTp

P.S. cross-posted while ccclarke was adding his addendum to indicate the confusion over upper-case L vs. lower-case l

[prometheus]

The standard LW convention for Connect is "L", which is as per the docs; the tool has been assigned "L" for as long as I've been using LW.

However comma, looking at this from your point of view, we're both right - The Configure Keys menu lists it as "l" - lowercase "L". This is somewhat misleading, since L requires the shift key to be used. LW docs use upper case to denote shortcut keys, which is the way I write them for tutorials, etc.

"I" and "i" are the same key as opposed to L and l which look similar and can lead to confusion, especially on a computer screen. In most cases, using the upper case to denote a key minimizes it. (Or should!) I think this was Newtek's intent.

What..now I am not following you at all?
you say the opposite, that it is misleading that is in the configure Keys menu is listed as " l " or "L" ? since that that would require the shift key to be used, ..that is what I said about the "L" but you mix it with the notion that "l " is missleading.

Try follow the doc you refer too, which is Capital " L" that means shift-l to get a capital letter ..and you will end up with the lathe tool instead of connect.

Don´t see how this would ever have been default for ages?
Aslo check monroePoteet´s reply and check lw shortcut referendum

[prometheus]

for instance, check this ref...which is off the charts, having both shift + "L" as for Lathe and shift + "l" as for connect..in essential the same thing, but two different operations..and in which case they are wrong.
https://defkey.com/lightwave-3d-shortcuts

Foremost to determine, if you have default settings...what happens when you press "l"
connect right?
and what happens when you press shift + "l"
lathe right?

[Birck Cox]

Thanks, CCC. It works. Pretty straightforward. It helped me finally get a decent-looking banana done. In grey, of course. Now I need to work on ridges that look like banana skin ridges rather than splines.

[jwiede]

The LW2018 documentation is incorrect in saying the default shortcut key for Connect is capital L. The LW2015 documentation (page 1478) correctly indicates that lower-case l should be pressed to invoke Connect.

Regardless why they chose to use it, the fact remains that there are both "l" and "shift-l" shortcuts, and therefore they need to be differentiated. Expecting users to know, a priori, that where the docs say "L" they means "l" not "shift+l", is both confusing and inconsistent.

The best answer is to cite keystrokes using a "keystroke"-type font ("Keystroke"), and ALWAYS cite modified keystrokes as "<modifier key icon> + <letter key icon>" (f.e. shift-l as "(shift) + (L)")-- that's why such fonts exist, and leaves no ambiguity about precise keystroke combinations needed.