Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
something a bit more exciting in the
“background department,” under
Effects | Backdrop
, activate
Gradi-
ent Backdrop
and set the Zenith
Color to
20
,
0
,
47
, the Sky
and
Ground
Colors to
98
,
92
,
169
, and the Nadir
Color to
176
,
182
,
200
. (See Figure
18-27.)
HyperVoxel “Sprites”
Something you can do that greatly reduces
the time LightWave needs to render Hyper-
Voxels is to not render the
whole
volume
but to render only a “slice” of it. LightWave
doesn't need to calculate the whole volume,
only a tiny fraction of it — a
plane
that runs
directly through its
center
, always aiming at
the viewer (
camera
or
viewport angle
).
This is similar in its result to “mapping”
our explosion sequence onto the
plane
in
the last chapter, except LightWave takes
care of all the details for us. All we need to
do is use the reduced HyperVoxel controls
to set how our sprite looks, and LightWave
does the rest!
1.
2.
Next, activate HyperVoxels for
HV_Sprite
. Bring up the presets for
HyperVoxels, and open the
Generic
library. Double-click on
Sand_Explo-
sion
to load in its settings, changing its
Particle Size to
2m
and its Object Type
to
Sprite
. When you check
Show Par-
ticles
, you get much more than a linear
representation of the voxel — you get a
real-time image of the sprite,
complete
with OpenGL transparency
. (See Figure
18-28.) (To increase the detail of the
sprite, choose a higher resolution from
the Sprite Texture Resolution pop-up
menu; this will impact your graphics
accelerator, however.)
Start with a new scene running at 24
FPS. Set the End Frame to
120
(for
both
the scene itself and within the
Rendering Options). Add a null, naming
it
HV_Sprite
. Set its Y position to
800 mm
. Then, under the camera's
Motion Options, set the camera's Tar-
get Item to
HV_Sprite
. To give us
Figure 18-27
