LOCATION:
Auckland University of Technology (AUT)
State Building (corner of Wakefield and Queen streets)
13th floor (room 1307)
Auckland

DATE:
Wednesday, 25th September 2002
6:00pm to 10:45pm.

WHAT HAPPENED:
Meetings seem to be getting more popular as we go - This time around we had a few more then usual, so its great to see so many interested faces!

SHOW AND TELL
We started off with Kevin McCullough showing his excellent results from doing Larry Shultz's excellent Character Animation course. Nice work, as expected from the quality of work coming out of Larry's students!

I followed this up with my Gohan model, rigged and poseable... Of course, in my rush to organise the LWUG material, I forgot to burn the texture images! Doh, however it was all rigged (even if I needed to adjust the badly placed IK ankles!).

I followed this up with some older animation I had created (Available as a DivX 5.0.2 encoded avi file (1.1Mb in size) here) and then took the opportunity to explain some of the basics of how I lit the scene and rigged the character.

GET CONFUSED! DIGITALLY, THAT IS!
The first tutorial I put together was a demonstration and explanation of LightWave 7.x's Digital Confusion depth of field tool. I covered the differences between standard LW DOF and Digital confusions own. After running over the relatively easy parameters (inlcuding the nice 'autofocus' feature), I then showed a few dos and dont's on using the plugin.

During the presentation, LW's image viewer came in handy (using 'image controls') to allow me to show two images, half and half, onscreen to give a great impression on the differences between the renders!

We took a short break (which led into some excellent socialising and conversation - This was what LWUG's are all about!).

GLASSY EYED
I followed the break up with my next demonstration of Light Absorption and attenuation effects using an excellent free plugin called coffee. This allowed us to create some awesome effects of 'thickness' in transparent objects... From a glass object to a large plate of soup, the effects were pretty nice!

I also attempted to demonstrate another shader - ASA_LASI, however I never managed to have any luck getting a decent result with it, though I did render the demo scene which too a looooonnnnggggg time to render.

Brief mention was made of OGO_HIKARI, another excellent and mathematically accurate (I believe) shader, however I didn't have a demo prepared for this powerful beast...

GRADIENTS
Finally, I covered something people always ask me about - Gradients - And some ways to apply them creatively. From a mulitcoloured blobby sphere to corroded bronze 'Beethoven', then onto using them to create a glowing heated surface, and some 'ticklish' fake flames...

Gradients are one of the more powerful tools in the LightWave arsenal, capable of controlling more then just textures!

AND THEN IT WAS OVER...
Thanks again to everyone who made the effort to come along - The night was one of the best so far IMHO, and thanks to Medi for supplying some Dunkin Donuts! The few remaining crazy people stuck about and watched a little 'Roughnecks' action before we closed up around 10:45pm... I'd swear these meetings are creeping later and later into the night!

See you all next month!


Kevman