Lesson 1) Cartoon Head
Using some of the new rendering and modeling tools in LightWave 9 we will create a simple 'Toon head. With the powerful new tools in LightWave 9 rigging the eyes, setting up a Toon style render and sending steam out of our angry hero's ears is a simple matter.
Tools Discussed:
Catmul-Clark Sub Division Surfaces: model our character's head with weight edges and N-Gons Edges
Toon Shader
Center Pivot: Getting the eyes to rotate from the right place
Pixie Dust
Lesson 2) Race Car
Setting up a car to ride over a rough landscape having its wheels behave correctly does sound intimidating, but with the new tools in LightWave 9 it's a snap. We will quickly set-up a simple car in Modeler, create a track and then it's off to the races! In Layout we will use the new Sticky tool to keep the car on the road, Relativity to steer and rotate the wheels and CCTV to get a view of the action to display on the Jumbotron. A quick visit to the Node Editor and some time spent with the Advance Camera tools and we'll have a great paint job on our new ride.
Tools:
Sticky - make a car follow the terrain, aligning it to the correct path as it races around the track.
Relativity - Setting up the behavior of the wheels with the Relativity 2 expression engine
CCTV - get a second view of the action on a big screen
Advanced Camera Tools - a quick reflection map with Sky Tracer and the Advanced Camera Tool
Node Editor - impressive coat of paint using shading models in the Node Editor and our reflection map.
Lesson 3) Starship Interface
When the actors in Sci-Fi movies look at screens someone has to create what goes on that screen. Starting in Modeler we'll use some more of the great new tools, including the Dissolve Tool and the Flatten Tool to quickly create a simply space ship. Then in layout we'll set-up a great looking display using the Isometric Camera and the Node Editor.
Tools
Flatten Tool - create the smooth sections of our space ship
Dissolve Tool - It's always been easy to add edge loops, we'll use it to remove some unwanted edges.
Orthographic Camera - create a slick little diagnostic display with ship rotating around its profiles.
Node Editor - a simple process to create a unique holographic look to our ship a simple GUI overlay.
Lesson 4) Tornado
When Twister was being made teams of artists spent months to create the exciting weather effects. Using the powerful new Animation Wind Path tool we'll create similar effects in just minutes. We'll then create a landscape for our storm to pass over using the Node Editor both in the Deformation and in the Surface panels. We'll use the Adaptive Pixel Sub-Ds to optimize the rendering times. Then we'll have the twister bend a flag pole, damaging the metal with the Stress Map Tool.
Tools
Animation Wind Path - a particle system for our storm is quick and easy with the Wind Path tool.
Node Editor - Creating and texturing a quick landscape
APS - set up our scene to have only the polygons it needs to look good with Hypervoxels, optimization counts!
Stress Map - Using a simple bone setup, we'll bend a street lamp over and use the Stress Map tool to crumple the metal at the bend point.
Lesson 5) Motion graphics
Motion Graphics are the bread and butter for many animators. LightWave 9 adds many new features to make things easier when creating logos and text graphics. We'll start by creating some text, not in Modeler, but in Layout. Then using the several new tools, including Align to Path and the Node Editor, we will create a quick bit of logo work. We will also explore some of the more fundamental changes in Layout, including the List Manager to keep track of our resources, Visor to keep track of our progress and the new Global Settings panel to set up a render.
Tools:
Layout Text Tool - create text with out touching Modeler.
List Manager - create several lists to avoid any confusion.
Align to path - new Align to path is perfect for animating objects that need to start from a stop or end up not moving.
Global settings - we will setup most or our scenes wide setting, from just one panel.
Node Editor - some really slick textures on out text and other elements.
Lesson 6) Molten Metal
We will be building a scene that would have been almost completely impossible in earlier versions of LightWave. We will create a flow of molten lava that pools realistically on the ground using the new HV Deformer tool. We'll add some sparks and other effects and then use the new Save All Motions option to prep for additional animation and eventual Screamer-net rendering. Then we'll pan a camera right through the chaos and mess with the fabric of time itself with the new Time Warper plug-in.
Tools
HV Deformer - a simple particle scene with some Hypervoxels liquids pool on the ground
Save All Motions - Saving particle motion for many systems
Time Warper - escape the constraints of frame based timelines and do things that could not possibly done any other way. |
