Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
polygons. With my current processor speed
and GL graphics accelerator, I find I get
about a 24 FPS refresh rate when animating
my characters that have less than 200,000
polys (using sub-patches, this figure can be
dialed up or dialed down on demand —
more on this in Chapter 7). If I'm working
with a character that has many more than
200,000 polys, I find that things begin to
slow down past the point where things are
fun. (When an object gets temporarily
replaced with a bounding box, I can still see
the bones that “drive” him as I work. It's
just his mesh that gets temporarily
substituted.)
•
Show Motion Paths
displays the
currently selected item's path in the
viewports. Keyframes are shown with large
ticks, while inbetween frames are shown
with smaller ticks.
•
Show Fog Circles
draws dotted cir-
cles (in the Overlay Color) around the
camera, indicating where objects begin to
be affected by LW's fog and where they dis-
appear completely into it.
•
Show SubPatch Cages
shows a
ghosting of the polygonal mesh that is the
base for your sub-patch object.
•
Show Handles
turns on the little
arrows and rings that show translation,
rotation, and scaling axes for the currently
selected items. (You can click directly on a
handle and manipulate the item in only that
one clicked axis; this overrides the left and
right mouse button conventions mentioned
earlier.)
•
Show IK Chains
draws a line from an
IK chain's root to its goal.
•
Show Target Lines
draws a dashed
line between, for instance, a camera or a
light and the item it is targeting.
Advanced Note
I've noticed that when an item is being
moved about in LightWave's default parent
coordinate system, the handles of “pro-
tected” axes are ghosted. You can't click on
the ghosted handles, so you can't acciden-
tally manipulate an item on a protected axis.
If you change your preferred coordinate
system to Local or World, protected axes are
no longer ghosted; they can be clicked on
and manipulated.
For my own projects, I create some very
complex nested character riggings. Moving
some referential controls that aren't meant
to be touched can really bugger an anima-
tion. When handing these riggings off to
less-experienced animators, I'll often disable
Show Handles to remove the possibility of
them accidentally moving one of those ref-
erential controls while they are working
away in world- or local-space coordinate
systems.
•
Max OpenGL Lights
tells LightWave
how many lights you want it to factor in
when shading its OpenGL viewports. Eight
is the current maximum number of lights;
each extra light will slow your system
slightly.
•
OpenGL Multi-Texturing
allows you
to preview the effects of multiple textures
right in your OpenGL display.
•
Camera View Background
shows
the background image (still image, image
sequence, or movie) you are compositing
your LightWave render onto when looking
through a Camera View viewport. (You
assign the background image using
Win-
dow | Compositing Options |
Background Image
.)
