Tutorials LightWave 3D Motion Designer

Admin · 1 Tutorials LightWave 3D Motion Designer - Basics Qua Jan 26, 2011 2:13 am

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Getting Started with Motion Designer in LightWave® 6.5
Load an object, tell it that it's made of cloth,
add some wind and hit Start. That's about how
easy it is to get moving with the soft body dynamics
system in LightWave® 6.5.
To learn the basics of Motion Designer 2000
we're going to create a spinnaker sail like the
one seen below:

Tutorials LightWave 3D Motion Designer - Basics Md_sail

Tutorials LightWave 3D Motion Designer - Basics Md_sail

875k mpeg

To start, download and extract the Motion
Designer Basics v1 content packet at
the top of this tutorial. Point your content
directory to it and Load the Sail.lwo object.
Open the Motion Designer control panel:
MD_Controller. It's located in the Extras -> Plug-in
Options panel -> Generics Pop-up.
It looks a lot different than the previous
versions of Motion Designer, but all of the
functionality is still there plus more.

Tutorials LightWave 3D Motion Designer - Basics Md_controller_panel

Tip:

Before we can start the simulation, we need
to enable the object and define the material
properties of the sail. Click on the Property button,
select the Sail object in the pop-up
and click on the Activate button. This
enables the object to take part in the simulation.
Now we need to tell Motion Designer whether
the sail is a Target object or a Collision
object. It's a Target object, so click on the Target field
and then click in the empty column to the right
of it. You should see the Target field change
to ON. (A quick shortcut for this is
to double click on the Target field.)

Tutorials LightWave 3D Motion Designer - Basics Properties_activate

To define what material the sail is made
of, click on the Surface Tab and expand
the surface list by clicking on the Sail entry.
This object has two surfaces, Sail and Sail.Fixed.
Click on the Sail surface and choose cotton
(thin) from the preset material pop-up
at the bottom of the panel. This tells Motion
Designer that you want the main Sail surface
to behave as though it were made out of a thin
cotton. (It's not the real material that most
spinnakers are made of, but it will work for
this tutorial.) Now select the Sail.Fixed surface
and set the Fixed field to ON.
If you load the object into the Modeler and
select the Sail.Fixed polygons you'll
notice that these are the corners of the sail.
By fixing these polygons it prevents the entire
sail from blowing away during the simulation.

Tutorials LightWave 3D Motion Designer - Basics Properties_surface

Next we need to create the environment
properties that will affect the sail. Click
on the Environment Tab and enter the
values to match the image below. The columns
represent the x,y,z values for each of the
environment properties, i.e. There is a -1
m/s^2 Gravity on the y axis, a -4 m/s Wind
on the z axis

Tutorials LightWave 3D Motion Designer - Basics Properties_environment

Before we start the simulation, set the Preview
Last Frame in Layout to 300 frames. This
will gives us plenty of time to see the results
of the simulation. Now click the Start button
and watch as Motion Designer calculates the
simulation. After it's finished, press Play
in Layout and watch the animation playback
in real-time.
To save the simulation, click the Save button
on the Motion Designer panel and give the Motion
Designer Deformation (.mdd) file a name like md_sail.mdd.
Now save the scene. The next time you load
the scene, the .mdd file will be automatically
attached to the sail.

Since the simulation takes
place directly in Layout, you can easily experiment
with different material and environment settings
to see how the sail reacts. Also you can animate
the sail object before you begin the simulation.
Set a few keyframes, lower the wind value and
hit Start. The sail will now react to the keyframed
motion as well as the environment.

Be sure to check out the manual
to learn more about the different attributes
in the MD_Controller panel that weren't covered
in this tutorial.

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1 Tutorials LightWave 3D Motion Designer - Basics Qua Jan 26, 2011 2:13 am

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