How to Do a Ball Bounce in Lightwave

Design a bouncing ball in a few steps using NewTek LightWave.

One of the more basic animation projects you can undertake in NewTek LightWave is to create a bouncing ball. You create a bouncing ball by creating the ball in Modeler, then using keyframes to animate it in Layout. Keyframes are an important concept to understand when working with LightWave. By creating two keyframes, one in the beginning position, and one in the ending position, the program will "fill in" the frames in between automatically creating a smooth animation.

Instructions

1. Open the LightWave Modeler program. Select the "Create" tab at the top of the window.

2. Select the "Ball" tool on the left side of the screen, then draw a ball.

3. Open the "File" menu. Click "Save Object." Save the object as a file named "ball." Close Modeler.

4. Open LightWave Layout. Open the "File" menu, click "Load," then click "Load Object..." Select the "ball" object file. This will load the ball into LightWave Layout.

5. Select the "Modify" tab at the top of the window. Select the "Move" tool on the left side of the screen.

6. Move the timeline to frame zero. Click the "Create Key" button below the timeline. Select "Selected Items" from the drop-down menu, and click "OK."

7. Move the timeline to frame 10. Select the green arrow on the ball's axis. Move the ball down until it hits the "ground." Click the "Create Key" button below the timeline. Select "Selected Items" from the drop-down menu, and click "OK."

8. Move the timeline to frame 20. Select the green arrow on the ball's axis. Move the ball back up almost to the starting position. Click the "Create Key" button below the timeline. Select "Selected Items" from the drop-down menu, and click "OK."

9. Repeat the process of advancing the timeline, moving the ball, and then creating a keyframe. Every time the ball bounces "up," make it come up a little bit lower.

Resources

• NewTek LightWave