to RS TEAM: just in case you didn't notice it...

[vipvip]

Just, look at the lightwave plugin topics, there's a growing request about a production-working plugin for lightwave...
Could you contact Holocube ( hope he is still on the place ).
Thank you per advance !

[radiance]

Hi,

I'm aware of it, we've contacted him several times already...
Maybe someone should advertise in some lightwave forum to see if a replacement exporter dev can be found ?

Radiance

[vipvip]

Thanx for following it!
An idea: why not develop a internal plugin like the 3dsmax projects ( LW, but also blender, maya...) ?

[treddie]

Yah, this is serious. I am finding it impossible to get an obj exported out of LW that can have textures that are other than planar. I've tried the following:

1. Export OBJ out of LW using its native exporter. Result: I can follow the process of creating a "cylindrical" UV Map and it renders fine in LW and Modo, but Octane takes all cylindrical mappings and makes them planar, even if it is a bonafied UV Map and not just an image with a cylndrical projector tagged along with it.

2. Import LW into PolyTrans and export out OBJ. Result: Some of the maps carry over correctly, some revert to planar and some surfaces just "disappear" like their normals got messed up or something.

3. Import LWO into Modo. Result: Messed up normals and some surfaces go to absolute black.

4. And my favorite...The OctaneExporter from Holocube:

I was hoping to use Octane on a job I have going, but I think I am going to have to go a different route until this LW/OBJ export thing can get worked out.

[face]

Have you triangulate the mesh in LW?
Maybe this is easier for the other progarms to use. Octane needs triangles also...

face

[treddie]

I work in Creo (ProE) which is a solid modeler, so all obj exports are automatically triangulated. I tried to put LW back into my workflow only because I needed a place to apply my textures. So I imported my obj files into there. But I have never needed to do texturing in Creo, so it will be my last possible choice for a solution. If it fails to export a reliable obj, then I'm back to square one.

[treddie]

Bummer...Creo will not export textures in obj files. I'm doomed.

I think that having basic position and rotation transforms for textures in Octane are a very important backup in that even if Octane exporters will work in the future, there will obviously be many cases where something simply does not carry over, and a fall-back in Octane will be necessary. But to tell you the truth, I would probably always want to do my texturing there to start with, anyway.

[treddie]

At Last! I HAVE CREATED FIIIIRRREEEEE!

I don't know what happened but I was finally able to get my UV Maps straightened out in LW and export successfully. Somehow, my UV Maps were all screwed up, so I went back in and redid them all. Here is my test:

Those bumps on the rim are at the wrong angle but that's easy to fix. This is where displacement would be great, since the bumps have too much relief to look right at the edges of the spindle when using bump. Overall though, it's pretty much what I was after.

So life is good again!