Working with Surfaces
After you decide which surface to work with and select it from the Surface Name list,
LightWave provides you with four commands at the top of the Surface Editor panel that
are fairly common to software programs: Load, Save, Rename, and Display.
The first command, Load, does what its name implies. It loads surfaces. You can use it to
load a premade surface for modification or application to a new surface.
The second command, Save, tells the Surface Editor to save a file with all the settings you??™ve
specified. This includes all color settings, texture maps, image maps, and so on. The ability
to save surfaces lets you build an archive of useful surfaces you can use again and again.
Note
With the third command, Rename, you can rename any of your surfaces??”a habit you
should get into from the start in your work with 3D surfaces. If you apply preset surface
settings called ???rusty_steel??? to part of a Jeep model, for instance, you might rename that
surface ???jeep_rusty steel??? to keep things orderly.With a few objects, surface names that
really don??™t mean anything are fine. You could name a rusty surface ???Lobesha??? and you??™d
still be able to work without skipping a beat.
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