Essential LightWave 3D- P10 pptx

Next, select the eight polys at the rearof the underside of the skull and smooth shift and move them down-ward, reshaping the points of the neck, muzzle, and throat as you do to create t

.

That’s all there is to it! It just takes time

and patience (With practice, the time

requirement drops considerably — though

the patience allocation must always remain

high if you’re going to enjoy doing

any-thing.) When broken down into “next

logical steps,” even someone who is

rela-tively new to 3D can model heads with the

best of ’em

Remember that the finding of the “next

logical steps” is the single, most important

key to doing anything (3D or otherwise) If

you’re not sure how to get to your ultimate

goal, just figure out what you can do that

moves you a little way toward that goal.

Do that thing, and then figure out what youcan do next! Now, granted, it is much easier

to have a guide to show you the trail, ing out where to step and where not tostep, but that doesn’t mean that you reallyneed one

point-Your creativity is your single mostimportant asset; it allows you to be yourown guide

Learning is a skill (just like any other

skill) By practicing this skill, you learn how

to learn Problem-solving is also a skill You

can learn how to use what you already know

to get you where you want to be!

It’s as simple as that

Organic Modeling

Exercise 4: Modeling

a Wolf’s Head

This chapter presents another take on

mod-eling a face and head It’s the technique I

use when I’m asked to model an animal We

create a very simple, basic sketch in this

exercise, one that you can “work back into”

with BandSaw, Spin Quads, and Smooth

Shift to create a model of incredible detail

1 Start with a symmetrical box centered

along the X axis Under the Segments

setting, set X to 4, Y to 4, and Z to 5.

Note

You may notice that I’m leaving more and more up to your own artistic sensibilities If you compare your confidence level before reading this book with how you feel about what you can handle now, you will sense a pronounced evolution.

I am going to continue to leave more and more of the artistic decisions up to you, helping you to expand and trust your own sensibilities and judgment.

Figure 11-1

2 In a Left viewport, use Magnet and

Drag to get the rough shape of a wolf’s

profile

3 Now, working from a Top viewport with

Symmetry active, use Magnet and

Drag to get something that looks like atop-down view of a wolf (or a bicycleseat — bet you won’t ever think about

a bicycle seat in the same way again!)

Figure 11-2

Figure 11-3

4 Working our way from the tip of the

nose backward, start pushing points to

give some roundness to the front of the

muzzle Surface the four polys that we

smooth shift into the nose with

some-thing “nose-like.”

5 Having smooth shifted the nose to give

it some definition, activate sub-patchesfor your model and tweak the points ofthe muzzle to define the smooth,rounded masses of a wolf’s snout

Figure 11-4

Figure 11-5

6 Now, working with the first “ring” of

points that defines the skull mass of

the wolf, push points to create the eye

ridges, cheekbones, and jawline

7 The next “ring” of points back sees thecrown of the head rise above the eye-brow ridges, while the sides of the headangle down to the receding cheek line

Figure 11-6

Figure 11-7

As someone who has drawn many wolves

and spent a lot of time around them, I’m

familiar with the “shorthand” that defines a

lupine form You’ll probably want to

sur-round yourself with as many photographs of

wolves from as many different angles as you

can find as you work Whatever way you tilt

your Perspective viewport to evaluate your

work, you should have reference material in

a similar angle to compare and contrast.

You may also want to load my wolf sketch

model from the CD: Objects\Chapter11\

9 Next, select the eight polys at the rear

of the underside of the skull and

smooth shift and move them

down-ward, reshaping the points of the neck,

muzzle, and throat as you do to create

the beginnings of the neck (I’ve

deleted the polys I smooth shifted after

positioning them to create the sharp,

clean line for the bottom of the neck in

Figure 11-9.) You’ll want to work a

lit-tle with the underside of the muzzle

where it meets the skull to suggest the

esophageal area rather than just

leav-ing it flat and “boxy,” as it is after

smooth shifting

10 The thing about canine and feline earsthat surprises so many people is howfar down on the skull they actuallystart (They aren’t just these little

“tabs” that are stuck on top of thehead.) Select the seven outer rearpolys on each side of the head, asshown in Figure 11-10 (You’ll want togroup these polys now, setting their

Part Name to Ear, so you can select

them quickly later on if you need toisolate them from the rest of the points

of the head.)

Figure 11-9

Figure 11-10

11 Smooth shift the ear polys, and move

them upward just a bit

12 Using Stretch, “squish” the ear polys

down so they become more of a plane

described by the X and Z axes (though

not totally flat yet) The bottom row of

points of the selected polys should be

even with the top of the muzzle

13 Smooth shift again, moving the polysupward just below where the tips of theears will be Use Stretch to “flatten”the selected polys so they are “flat”along the XZ plane, and drag the pointsaround so the backs of the ears arerounded and the fronts are flat, asshown in Figure 11-13

Figure 11-11

Figure 11-12

14 Smooth shift these polys one more

time, stretching and moving them to

become the pointy tips of the ears

Figure 11-13

Figure 11-14

15 Now, selecting just the polys of the

ears (so you can “filter” their geometry

from the webwork of the rest of the

wolf’s head), push points so you have

something that reflects the graceful

angles of lupine ears

16 Select the polys that make up the rently flat) fronts of the ears (For mymodel, this is nine polys for each ear,going right up to the edge where theear turns toward the back of the head.)Smooth shift them, and then use Mag-net to push points so the ears become

(cur-little “cups.”

Figure 11-15

Figure 11-16

There is your completed sketch of a wolf’s

head! But this is much more than just a

simple sketch exercise You have a base

form that you can “work back into” with

BandSaw, Smooth Shift, and Spin Quads to

create models of incredible detail

(Just because this is a wolf’s head doesn’tmean it can only be used to create othercanine forms — I once “pulled points” of acheetah model of mine to quickly make apug dog!)

Figure 11-17: “Working back into” a similar base form, this realistic wolf’s head

was modeled much more quickly than if it had been created from scratch.

.

There are many, many ways to model heads

and faces Now you know two of them

Con-tinue to explore and find out as much as you

can, picking and pulling what fits with your

ways of thinking and problem-solving —

and letting the rest be cast to the winds

There is no “right” or “wrong” way of doing

this sort of thing — so long as you are

happy with the result of what you’ve done

(it does what you intended it to do), and it

works with whatever animation you will be

using on it

When you are modeling animals for ring” later on, with either Sasquatch or itsfree version, Sasquatch Lite, bear in mind

“fur-that you are modeling the animal’s skin.

The fur rides on top of this skin, adding

thickness and removing detail If your

ulti-mate goal for your model is realism, studyanatomy books that show the structure ofthe animal’s skin

Nothing increases the power of yourwork more than working from a position ofknowledge and understanding

Figure 11-18: This is a detail of Reflections, showing what the wolf head from Figure 11-17 looks like in a final render (Fur by Sasquatch)

Modeling 4: Spline

Modeling Basics

Spline modeling is a way of interpolating a

surface between three or four curves that

define its boundaries This allows you to

define very complex surfaces — replete

with complex, compound curves (curves

that bend in more than one direction at

once) — with “simple” spatial lines

(splines) Spline modeling is big in the

auto-motive and industrial design industries

Alias|Wavefront’s claim to fame is that it

was a forerunner of spline modeling and

heavily used in the automotive industries

(back when it cost more than $60,000 for a

single license of the software)

Subdivision surfacing, or sub-patch ing, has long since surpassed spline model-

model-ing in the field of character modelmodel-ing, butthere are still many opportunities to usespline modeling; it is still a very handything to have as a part of your toolset

Note

LightWave was one of the first software packages to implement subdivision surfac- ing Back then, it wasn’t real time, and in LightWave, it was called “metaforming.”

The “Rules of the Game”

pe·dan·tic adj Characterized by a narrow,

often ostentatious concern for book

learn-ing and formal rules (American Heritage

Dictionary)

When you look in the dictionary under

“pedantic,” you see “See spline modeling.”

(Just kidding — sort of.) Spline modeling

adheres rigidly to a set of rules (covered in

detail in Chapter 14) Deviate one iota from

the rules, and you won’t get what you were

expecting — plain and simple

The rules are:

• Spline modeling in LightWave is not

real time You must use your splines to

cre-ate polygonal “patches,” which, if General

Options | Polygons is set to Quadrangles,

you can use as sub-patches later, if you

wish

• Spline patches can only be generated

from areas defined by three or four curves

• The ends of each curve that define an

area must be welded to the ends of its

neighboring curves (When you have one

curve selected and you use Select

Connected, your entire area to be patched

will become selected — if you’ve donethings right!)

• Knot placement (the points that define

a curve) is excruciatingly important

(Preci-sion modeling is achieved by Modeler doing

a “connect-the-knots,” as it were So, whenmaking defining areas with your curves, beprecise and aware of your “knotwork.”)

• The order in which you select the

curves to be patched affects how Modelercreates the patch

• “Automation” can rarely be trusted.

Three-Curve Patches

Just to keep us all on the same page while

we’re working with these tools, I’ve created

a couple of examples for us to work from

Load

Objects\Chapter12\SplinePatch-Examples.lwo On the first layer, you’ll

see the spline “cage” shown in Figure 12-1

Notice that the ends of the curves inFigure 12-1 have all been welded to oneanother and the two long, smooth curvesboth have the same number of knots

Figure 12-1

When patching areas that are defined by

three curves, Modeler “fans out” its

geome-try from the point where the first two curves

selected meet (So, by selecting your curves

in a different order, you can be presented

with completely different patch shapes —

see Figures 12-2 through 12-4.)

Selecting the curves in the order shown in

Figure 12-1 and then using Construct |

Patches | Patch (or the <Ctrl> + <f>

keyboard shortcut) brings up a window

where you control aspects of the patch to be

created

• Perpendicular refers to the number of

polygonal rows that will be created, like the

“ribs” of a fan, radiating out from the point

where the first two selected curves join

• Parallel refers to the rows of polys

that stretch between the first two selected

curves

• Length specifies that the entered

number of polygonal rows are to be evenlyspaced along the length of the curves thatdefine it

• Knots specifies that the entered

num-ber of polygonal rows be weighted relative

to the points that hold the shape of thecurves (More knots means more polys;this is a way of letting areas of more detailget more of the rows than other areas.)

Figure 12-2

Figure 12-3: Altering the order in which the curves are selected changes where

the patch “fans out” from, making a marked difference in how the patch looks.

Figure 12-4: Same settings, different order, different patch.

Figure 12-5: Using Knots for the Parallel setting.

By changing the setting for the parallel

seg-ments to Knots (and selecting the curves in

the same order as we did in Figure 12-2),

the “long” curves now have their segments

weighted according to where the curve’s

knots are (This preserves the subtle slope

of the tip of our dingus.)

Note

You add points to a curve or a polygon by

selecting it and then activating Multiply |

Subdivide | Add Points A new point will be

added wherever you click on the selected

curve(s) or polygon(s).

By altering the positioning of the knots and

using the Knots setting for defining our

parallel segments, we can “sculpt” theways our segments lay over our surface.(LightWave interpolates its segmentation in

a “connect-the-knots” fashion.)Note

You’ve probably noticed that the direction in which you select the curves (clockwise or counterclockwise) determines whether the normals of the polys that are created will be facing toward or away from you You’ve probably also noticed that the convention established by selecting points to make poly- gons is reversed here when selecting curves

to make patches.

It’s not really a big deal — just something

to be aware of.

Figure 12-6

Four-Curve Patches

Patches defined by four curves work almost

exactly the same as ones defined by three

curves The endpoints of each curve must

be welded to the endpoints of its

neighbor-ing curves, and the order in which the

curves are selected still controls what theMake Spline Patch interface thinks of asparallel and perpendicular The one thingthat really differentiates four-curve patches

is that the segments don’t “bunch up” in a

Figure 12-7: Layer 2 of SplinePatchExamples has this neat, little funky shape to

play with.

Figure 12-8

corner They all spread themselves across

to the opposite curve (like the threads of

the warp and woof of a loom)

Selecting the curves in the order shown

in Figure 12-8, Perpendicular refers to the

rows of polys that are created that extend

away from the first curve selected, and

Par-allel refers to the rows of polys that run

along the axis defined by the first curve

selected

Selection order, the number of

seg-ments, and how the segments are distributed

really begin to matter when you want toactually make something with patches Theselection order of the defining curves ofthese patches was different, and thus thepoints along the center don’t line up MergePoints can’t be used to create a single, con-tiguous mesh

Figure 12-9: Same settings, different order, different patch.

Figure 12-10

Because patches are intended to be merged

together to form more complex shapes, the

curves themselves are sometimes called

seams The process of merging points to

cre-ate objects from the patch sections is

sometimes called seaming.

Patches created with the same settings and

order can be seamed into a single,

contigu-ous mesh (shown in the Perspective

viewport in Figure 12-11 as sub-patches)

Note

Under the Patches pop-up menu, you may have noticed Auto Patcher MK This is a tool that is supposed to automatically patch all the curves in your spline cage at once As I’m sure you can see with even the simple applications we’ve gone over so far, spline patch modeling can have a lot of variance in its outcome, even when patching the most modest of cages.

Spline modeling requires your input to tell LightWave what you want it to do As the documentation in the LW manual says, when using Auto Patcher MK, “To insure success, never have more than four knots in a curve.” Remember that you can often spend much more time fighting with the automation than

it would have taken to just do the task right manually from the start.

.

So those are the basics of spline patch

mod-eling You may never need it Then again,

for what you may want to do, you may find

it to be the greatest thing since sliced

bread The important thing is that now youknow how to use it (in its simplest form), soshould you ever need it, you will know that

it exists and what it can do for you

Figure 12-11