This chapter
takes you on a tour of LightWave Modeler. Along the way, I??™ll explain points, edges, and
polygons and show you how to use them to create 3D objects??”which you will then animate
and render in LightWave Layout.
LightWave Modeler is where your 3D animations begin. That??™s not to say you can??™t start
animating right away. NewTek Inc., the makers of LightWave, have included a terrific
amount of prebuilt content for you to use and explore. In fact, you can load a sample scene
in LightWave v9 Layout and click the Render button to create your very first animation
without ever launching Modeler. But to really know your software, you must first understand
what a 3D model is all about.
Note
If you only plan to animate, and never plan to model, you might wonder if you should
even read this chapter.The answer is yes! Even if you never plan to model in your
career, it??™s still important to understand LightWave Modeler for a couple of reasons.
You may at some point need to import a model from another program. Or, at the
very least, you??™ll need to assign a surface to parts of your model. You can only do
that in Modeler.
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