Thought I would start a topic. Because LightWave is not really on most people’s radar these days it tends to get lost in the shuffle. But in the last year or so there have been even more LightWave folks making the transition.
But I did start a beginning Blender series a while ago and does focus in part on comparisons to LightWave.
Not 2.8. Sorry about that. But a lot of the basic principles do apply when making a comparison.
At any rate. Please post your questions and suggestions here. If there is another thread existing we can post it here and continue there.
For me, the one thing I still miss from LW, though I “left” at 9.6, was the various fall-off envelope options when doing things like bend, twist, taper. MiraTools comes close, but lacks the ability to alter the falloff curve. That and the way Template drill would handle cuts. Projection slice is again close, but not quite there. Other than that, all the other modelling power for me came from LWCAD and I totally understand Viktor wouldn’t recreate it for Blender, the market isn’t there for what he would have to charge.
Howdy guys,
I have quandry for you I don’t seem to be able to do in blender.
Looking at an object in profile, pick faces with the box selection. Not points, not edges, just faces.
In working with BlenderCAM, trying to get the pocket area isn’t working through the plugin and needs to be done manually. In lw, easy as … you know.
Can it be done to only select faces?
Blender 2.8xx and in many flavors.
It’s not that the market isn’t there, I think; it’s that there are so many tools already in the pipeline for much of what he offers. BoxCutter, hardOps – these are some wild ways to model that Viktor is slowly bringing to LW users. These ways are widely known elsewhere, with modifier stacks to boot.
Nice conversation. Thanks Richard. I see a cd I bought from you long ago every once in a while in a heap of treasures.
Robert
Yes, that is the kind of “modeling-centric” workflow I miss too in some ways. For me it is how cool it is to have a tool that is really designed for modeling in that way.
What I have found is that I wind up going about things differently and using Modifers instead. For fall off though, if you consider that all those modeler tools were nothing more than scale rotate and move with fall off. I found myself using proportional edit. And that has a region you can define as well as choice of fall off shapes. So twist vortex and taper can kind of be done by hand with those fall offs and r or s.
For bending things I find myself using a curve modifier. Combo of array, curve and so on.
Another couple of things I miss is Magic Bevel and Multishift.
I must admit, I probably do not make anywhere near enough use of proportional falloff.
Magic bevel, doesn’t the mira tools drawextrude do something similar?
My modelling flow has changed, especially with HardOps & BoxCutter, there is more of a natural flow to building something. Of course, I’m heavily hard-surfaced oriented so they work well in that arena.
There are probably a myriad of tools available i’m not making use of. Though edge / point slide is a BIG thing that I never understood why Newtek just didn’t get on board with that for s overy long. (Of course, I’m assuming the latest versions do actually have it).
Yeah my team makes use of box cutter and they love it. I don’t do as much serious modeling anymore.
I do remember that when I first started using Blender it really became obvious that a global fall off system is what was missing in Modeler. Too many tools to do something you could do with one shortcut and prop fall off.
I have not checked out too many other add-ons. Looks like I am going to have to look into it so my team can get the benefit
Other than hard ops and Mira, anything stand out a crack modeling team could use?
I use Shotpacker, dunno how that stacks up against packmaster, but definitely a vast improvement of the native packing. Though sometimes, you just have to tweak to suit your own preferences.
The addons I use a lot are obviously HardOps & Box Cutter, I also use decal machine for detail without the headache. The rest though, I must admit, are mainly native tools, though I do have MachineTools & Kit Ops Pro which are handy when you’re kitbashing or want easy access to a library of assets. MeshMachine has some very useful tools for redefining bevels etc which can save a load of time when you want to redefine something.
I am finding there is quite a bit of cross over with addons these days which makes choosing them more problematic. Added to the improvements constantly happening in the main branch.
For example, I used to use Vertibevel then Bevel++ a lot in Lightwave, now with 8.3 that functionality will be built in to Blender, which is nice.
Thanks Richard for starting it, hope we can have a Civil discussion with the intention of getting most out of how to enhance workflows…wether or not being blender or lightwave…without having too much fixations on the competition between them.
You mentioned in a message to me about why not starting a thread showcasing workflow, I did suggest just that in the former closed thread about vizrt and newtek, but at the same time…one of you adviced me not to, not until I have used blender more…but I do not think it needs expert level to talk about such thing anyway, so I am all for sharing workflow…but right now I may not have too much time for that.
As I said, I was thinking of actually starting a web page blog with blender and lightwave to distinguish how they do things differently etc…I might do that, as well as do recordings and post to youtube.
By the way, I asked this question about a tool that has the function of controlling the spline while bridging between polys, I only got one response that pointed to another technique, not really direct bridging but using curves to snap to polys then remesh, that is not the same thing.
Would really like to have an improved bridge tool that does this in blender…pretty much as it does in Lightwave, the bridge native tool doesn´t have any spline ctrl handles to change the shape…there is only the profile shaping which is nice in it´s own way…but no bezier spline control curve, tried the loop bridge as well…but not there either.
To note, Lightwave 2019 introduced a new spline bridge tool natively, but it is not as good as the free artspheres AW bezier bridge…a bit weird that they couldn´t implement it better, I have no use for it since artspheres free bezier bridge is better.
I need to record this but haven´t had the time.
with left click you can add ctrl handles for the spline, and right click you delete handles, segmentation is there and tensiton to bulge the bride, you can also use ctrl buttons to constrain movement of the handle.
Maybe there is a bridge tool for blender that does this…and I missed it? I would like to have it anyway, I don´t want extra meshing issues with any kind of remeshing technique, this bridge tool also works in subpatch mode.
And if by any chance such tool would be a modifier non destructable…that would be awesome.
This sample may also serve as an example on a case where using two viewports is kind of essentials (discarding the fixation of quadviews here) but a single view wouldn´t be good enough for a ratio deform design of the shape which needs more than one perspective to do so.
Spline based modelling isn’t something you can do in Blender, not like it is done in LW. I have the old SSR car tutorial which was all splines. It would be a nice addition to Blender, but I’d imagine it’s a low priority. There are tools out there that kind of mimic spline modelling, but it’s not the same.
You could, in theory, use a basic mesh, then use MiraTools to affect the flow, but it would be cumbersome.
We are really not talking about spline modeling ala lightwave or lw cads new smart mesh or nurbs, it´s just a spline control curve that needs to be added in blender bridge tool.
Thanks, cool stuff, but not something that deals with a bridge spline.
Anyway, better than lw…that depends on, lw native stuff…which is free compared to blender which is free and the addon that costs?
or compared to lightwave with senseis easy spline or the other spline tools, or compared to lw´s new nurbs tools?
hard to compare unless having testing them all, looks good though.
Thanks, yes cool stuff, pictrix had a curve deform …using a curve in the background for Lightwave, however…this seem way more powerful, and pictrix I believe is in a cryotube on a journey to mars or something (guessing)
So much cool stuff show that can do a lot of other stuff…just remarkable that blender never thought of this little curve handle in the bridge option…it´s been out there for lightwave since 2007 I think.
The bridging tool is otherwise nice with some various profile shaping, where AW bessier spline bridge only have tension.
(Richard already added a link in his post)
