============================================================ Lightscape Plug-ins for Lightwave README ============================================================ Lightscape version: 3.1 Lightwave version: 5.5 This file last updated: 10/16/97 Lightscape Technologies, Inc. 1054 South DeAnza Blvd., Suite 200 San Jose, CA 95129-3553 USA Phone: +1 408 342-1900 Fax: +1 408 342-1910 Sales email: info@lightscape.com www: http://www.lightscape.com Support: support@lightscape.com Welcome to the Lightscape Plug-ins for Lightwave This README is divided into the following sections: * The Lightscape Importer for Lightwave * The Lightwave Importer for Lightscape -------- The Lightscape Importer for Lightwave -------- Install ------- In order to complete the installation of the Lightscape Importer for Lightwave, you must add the installed plug-in in Lightwave: 1) Start Lightwave. 2) Open the Options Panel and click the Add Plug-ins button. A file open dialog is displayed. 3) Changed to the directory plugins\layout subdirectory in the directory where Lightwave is installed. 4) Select ls2lw.p and click OK. 5) Lightwave will add the plug-in and display a message that 3 plug-ins were successfully added. Basics ------ The Lightscape Importer for Lightwave is a scene converter, and allows you to open Lightscape files just as you would Lightwave scene files. To load a Lightscape file, choose Load Scene from the File drop down. Type in *.ls in the Name field and press Enter. Use the dialog to navigate to the Lightscape file you wish to load. Select it and click OK. The Import Lightscape Scene dialog is displayed, where you can direct how the Lightscape scene is converted. Help ---- A brief help file is included with this release. It is located in plugins\layout\ls2lw.hlp in the directory where Lightwave is installed. You can view the help file by opening it in Windows Explorer of the File Manager. If you have activated the Import Lightscape Scene Dialog, the Help button will also view the help file. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 8 ------------------------------------ Fixed a bug that prevented the Browse button from working. We now use the current content directory in the objects directory. The objects directory will initially be set to the Objects directory under the current content directory. After dismissing the Lightscape shader options dialog, the surface panel regains focus. Lightscape radiosity is no longer calculated during the surface preview in the surfaces panel. If an alternate lighting model has been selected, it will be used in the preview render. Another texture alignment buf was fixed. The bug happened when planar textures were not aligned to an axis and when the texture alignment vectors did not lie in the plane of the patch. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 7 ------------------------------------ Changed the name of the Lightscape shader from "LVSShader" to "Lightscape". The original name "LVSShader" is still supported and valid, but will be dropped by the end of the beta program. Added alternate lighting models for lighting Lightscape models with Lightwave lights. When you have Lightwave lights that need to light objects in your scene, you can either use the internal lighting model in the Lightscape shader or you can choose an alternate shader, such as Gaffer, to handle your lighting. There are more details in the help file. Fixed a bug that set falloff ranges even when the Use Attenuation checkbox was not checked. Add a metallic material flag to the Lightscape shader options. Setting this flag will add color highlights to the specular refections on the surface. This flag duplicates the Color Highlights flag in the Lightwave UI, and is only present, because the Lightwave plugin interface doesn't allow access to surface properties. Fixed several bugs importing texture alignment from Lightscape. Clip wasn't properly handled. Expand with Fixed texture size wasn't properly handled. Texture reference objects weren't correctly output. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 6 ------------------------------------ At the end of installing the Lightscape Importer for Lightwave a help screen is displayed that gives instructions for finishing the install. New help files are included. There were some small label and name changes. Object Name Prefix was renamed to Surface Name Prefix. If you import Lightscape meshes individually, there object name was changed from LVSMesh to LSMesh. A crash bug that happened when loading a second .ls file in Lightwave was fixed. The dissolve for objects imported from inactive layers is now set to 100% to prevent them from rendering. Lights whose direct illumination is stored in the radiosity solution, are not imported with No Diffuse set, rather than with an intensity of 0. Lights on inactive layers are not imported with both No Diffuse and No Specular set, rather than with an intensity of 0. A bug, that set the intensity of Lightwave lights incorrectly when the Lightscape intensity was 0, was fixed. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 5 ------------------------------------ Lightwave version 5.5 is now required. The importer will not work with Lightwave version 5.0. Fixed incorrect linear light position. Removed checkboxes for Materials and Background from UI. Added checkbox to select how Lightscape Linear and Area Lights are converted to Lightwave Lights. Added checkbox to select whether texture reference objects should be created. If the Texture reference object option is on, texture reference objects will be created when textures cannot be align without one. If the object directory is a subdirectory of the content directory, the content directory is removed from the object file names that are imported. The content directory is also removed from image file names that are in the content directory. Lights on inactive layers are no longer imported when Skip layers that are off option is on. If a light is imported from an inactive layer, it's intensity value will always be 0. Range falloff now works with area and linear lights. Surfaces now are not shared between objects. This allows texture reference objects and surface morphing to work better. There were several bugs in the object files written by the importer. While Lightwave handled these errors, the object files couldn't be imported back into Lightscape. These bugs were fixed. Fixed a problem with morphing surfaces that are using the Lightscape radiosity shader. This fix requires that surfaces not be shared between objects, so it the fix will not work with scenes imported by previous versions. Fixed a bug that improperly imported polygons that had been finely subdivided by Lightscape. Lightwave displayed an error message because the object referenced a non-exisitent vertex. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 4 ------------------------------------ Fixed hang bug in directory browser. Added Make Directory buttion to directory browser. Ls2lw can now import area and linear lights from Lightscape to Lightwave area and linear lights. Fixed a bug that tried to set the shadow option for lights to shadow mapped even when the light didn't support shadow mapped shadows. Set unused components of the texture size for cylindrical and spherical mappings to 1.0. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 3 ------------------------------------ Added Browse button for the Object directory. Fixed crash when importing only sunlight. Fixed direction error when importing only sunlight. Force bank angle of distant light used for sun to 0. Do not enable raytrace reflections nor raytrace refraction when importing a Lightscape model. Removed Data Overlay Label. Changed "Too many vertices..." message to distinguish the case when a single patch cluster has more than 64K vertices, and when an object has more than 64K vertices. Added support for Lightscape Mesh to Texture. Fixed several bugs in rotating objects to align texture maps. Set the origin of the model to the average of it's vertices. Made the shader thread-safe. You should be able to render Lightscape models in Lightwave using multiple threads. Fixed missoriented faces. Camera bank value is set properly. A lighting bug that happened when a light color component was 0.0 was fixed. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 2 ------------------------------------ The Lightscape importer can now import a new radiosity solution without importing objects. The way to do this is: Load the original scene imported from Lightscape. If you want to reimport lights delete all of the lights in your scene. Bring up the Objects Panel and select Load Objects From Scene. Open the .ls file with the new solution. Turn off all checkboxes in the Import section of the dialog. Turn on the Radiosity checkbox. If you want to import lights, Turn on Lights and Sunlight checkboxes. Set the grouping the same as the original import. Set the light parameters, if you are importing lights. Click on OK. If the View checkbox is not turned on the importer will not import the Lightscape view. Known Bugs ---------- Brightess and contrast are not animatable. -------- The Lightwave Importer for Lightscape -------- The Lightwave Importer for Lightscape allows you to import Lightwave scenes directly into Lightscape. Help ---- Help is available from the Help menu, or from the Import Lightwave scene dialog. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 8 ------------------------------------ I had forgotten to import the Lightwave background color into Lightscape. Now it does. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 7 ------------------------------------ The Lightwave importer was not changed. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 6 ------------------------------------ New help files are included. Planar non-rectangular quadrilaterals are no longer triangulated. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 5 ------------------------------------ Added ability to set material colors to average texture color when textures are imported into Lightscape. A spotlight selected for sunlight is no longer imported into Lightscape. The progress bar displayed while loading tracks progress better. The default color assigned to Lightwave materials was changed from black to the gray value that Lightwave uses for the default color. The luminance imported for sunlight have been corrected. Surfaces are now imported correctly from objects that do not assign any of the surface option. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 4 ------------------------------------ The import dialog now consists of two pages. A general page and a daylight page. The general page is used for general parameters. The daylight page is used to calculate the sun position from a Lightwave light. See Help for more information. Fixed a bug that caused light intensities to be excessively bright when matching brightness at a distance. Fixed a scaling bug for area and linear lights. Improvements and Bug Fixes - Build 3 ------------------------------------ Added Browse button for content directory. Correctly pass the filename to the import dialog when file is selected for MRU list in file menu. Convert Lightwave linear and area lights to Lightscape linear and area lights. Fixed a bug the mispositioned objects with a non zero pivot point. Known Bugs ---------- The Lightwave importer does not import detail polygons. When you import very large models (1 kilometer or larger), the near clipping plane may be set so that portions of the model are not visible.