Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Text
Making text in LightWave is a two-part pro-
cess that isn't immediately obvious. To save
memory space, LightWave's Modeler
doesn't load in all the
fonts
(typefaces) you
have on your computer. You have to specifi-
cally tell Modeler which fonts you wish to
use.
You add fonts to Modeler's Font List
through
Create | Text | Manage Fonts
(Figure 3-33). Here you can add either your
operating system's TrueType fonts or a
PostScript Type-1 font (several of which are
included with LightWave).
Clicking on Add True-Type brings up an
OS-specific font requester. Highlighting a
font and clicking OK returns you to the Edit
Font List window, now with the selected
font appearing in the Font pop-up menu
(Figure 3-34).
Having accepted the changes to the font
list made in Figure 3-34, you can then acti-
vate
Create | Text | Text
and click in any
viewport, typing the text you want to create
and pressing <
Return
> to “make”
your text.
Figure 3-33: Using
Create | Text | Manage
Fonts
.
Figure 3-34
Figure 3-35
Note
Because LightWave limits a polygon to having
a maximum of 1,023 points, you may run into
problems with extremely ornate fonts. (Notice
that in Figure 3-35, each letter's contiguous
shape is a single polygon.)
The workaround for this, albeit not a perfect
one, is to change Curve Divisions to Coarse
under
Modeler | Options | General
Options
. This slightly reduces the number of
points created as the curve data that TrueType
and PostScript fonts are made of are converted
into polygons.
You can do this for the entire line of text you
are creating or just certain letters that are
heavily ornate.
