But no matter which surfacing
tool you prefer, you should learn something about both. That??™s because, if you use
LightWave with any regularity, you??™ll eventually come up against a project in which you
can achieve better results using your ???nonpreferred??? surfacing tool.When you??™re working
on simple, solid-colored objects, or ordinary image-mapped polygons, the Surface
Editor is the better choice, even if you??™re a Node Editor expert. Conversely, if you??™ve created
a killer-looking dinosaur model, the Surface Editor won??™t let you create the same level
of kick-Jurassic details you??™ll want for the scale, claw, and teeth surfaces; the Node Editor
is the tool for that job.
Before getting into any projects, keep in mind that the Node Editor is very powerful, and
it comes equipped with far too many different nodes to cover in a single chapter.We could
fill up this entire book trying to cover just the Node Editor alone. But the NewTek manual,
in both hard-copy and electronic PDF form, offers extensive coverage of every node.
Please refer to that for specific technical explanations of the various nodes. This chapter
will supplement the descriptions in the manual by showing you how to use the Node
Editor to set up various surface types.
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