Electric Rain Swift3D LW 2
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What It Does
When you get right down to brass tacks, Swift3D LW 2 is just another rendering option in LightWave, and as such, there really isn't a whole lot to cover as far as what it does: open up or create a LightWave scene, set your Swift3D rendering options, and render. That said, there are still three main components that make up the overall experience of using Swift3D LW 2 that are worth delving into at least a little bit of detail: the installation process, rendering options, and supported formats.
If you're familiar with LightWave at all, you already know that it's a program that is heavily dependent on plug-ins even for some of its core functionality. Now, there are some third-party plug-ins that, during the install process, will add themselves to your LightWave config files, effectively installing themselves into the LightWave environment. However, Swift3D LW 2 is not one of those plug-ins, and while it does offer an installer on both the Mac and Windows to get the plug-ins into the LightWave plug-ins directory, you'll have to manually add them yourself once in LightWave (fig. 1).
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| Figure1: Installation of Swift3D LW 2 requires you to manually add the plug-in from LightWave. |
Plus, if you want quick access to the rendering options and such, you'll need to modify the LightWave interface to create a place for them (fig. 2).
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| Figure 2: You can add GUI buttons for Swift3D LW 2 through LightWave's Edit Menu Layout panel. |
Fortunately, Swift3D LW includes a handy-dandy install guide that auto-launches from the end of the installer which will guide you through this process, which, if followed, will give you access to the Swift3D rendering options right underneath LightWave's built-in rendering options (fig. 3).
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| Figure 3: I put mine where Electric Rain wanted me to -- right below LightWave's regular rendering options. |
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