Welcome!

This series of tutorials exists to give Lightwave users a solid grounding in the most common modeling tools.  One of the most daunting things I found when learning to model was the overwhelming number of options at my disposal. If you’re experiencing the same sense of chaotic overload, let me be the first to say, “Don’t Panic!”  As with any powerful application, there are a lot of tools at your disposal.  Some you will use every day, and some you won’t. Take Photoshop for example.  I can’t tell you the last time I used the Audio Annotation tool in Photoshop.  But I use the Paintbrush tool almost daily. It’s the same with Lightwave.

What’s in store for you.

I’m going to walk you through the use of the most common Lightwave tools and plugins.  At least, they’re the ones I use most often!  ;)  I’ve found them particularly handy when modeling characters and I’ll be writing with that in mind, however they’ll also work for regular objects as well.

To the best of my knowledge, the tools listed here are free but are copyright their respective authors. Some, such as Bandsaw/Pro, BandGlue and SmoothShift come with Lightwave. If you don’t have the other tools, look them up on Flay.com or ask around one of the Lightwave forums such as CGTalk.com.

In each tutorial, I’ll show you how to use the tool (that’s the easy part), but I’ll also go a step further and also try to explain why you’ll want to use a particular tool  I’ll try to provide information that is beginner-friendly, however I am assuming you already know how to add plugins, create primitive shapes, etc.

How this document is organized.

You don’t have to read through this document in a linear fashion. Reading one section is not required to understand another since each tool was created to solve a particular modeling problem. If you’re new to modeling, I’d suggest you start with the Mode:Action section as its use is critical to understanding how other modeling functions work Other than that, just click through and enjoy!

Steve Warner
August 13, 2002