Lightwave Modeler Basics

Viewport Navigation

ALT → Rotate view
ALT + SHIFT → Move view
ALT + CTR → Zoom view
hit a to center everything in view (View All)
hit SHIFT-A to center selection in view (View Selection)

Layers

When in the modeler program, you can find the layer selection in the upper right corner of the screen:

The name of the currently active object (the * indicates that is has changed since it was last saved)
The current layer bank. Lightwave has an unlimited amount of layers. 1 means layers 1-10 are being shown
Layer one is currently in the foreground. All other layers are off. The tickmark in the upper left corner of layer one means it contains geometry

You can select more then one layer by holding down SHIFT. Clicking in the lower right corner of the layer selection rectangle will put the object in the background.

The first layer contains geometry and is in the background
The second layer contains geometry and is in the foreground
Layer 3: No geometry, in the background
Layer 4: No geometry, in the foreground

When there are more layers in the foreground, new geometry will end up in the first foreground layer (Not the one first selected, but the one with the lowest number)

You can also use the number keys to select layers as foreground , ALT + number key will select a layer as background (holding SHIFT will add to seletion, or to be more precise: toggle that layers selection).

Selecting

When nothing is selected (no points, polygons or edges), EVERYTHING in the foreground layers is selected

SPACE BAR toggles between Point - Edge - Polygon selection.

Deselecting / Clearing selection

Click in an empty area of the toolbar on the left
Shortcut key: / (forward slash, found under the "?")

User Manuals

PDF versions of the user manuals can be found on the computers in the lab. Look in C:\Program Files\Newtek\Lightwave\Documents

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