Creating a Lantern

Basic Scenery

Before we start texturing this Lantern we are going to create a very simple scene for it. This scene will contain of a single box with the polygons flipped inwards, which will act like a room. Start the Lightwave Modeler and activate the Box Tool, then use the following settings in the Numeric Panel.



Close down the Numeric Panel and press Space to deselect the Tool. Flip the polygons by pressing “f” on your keyboard. The room is finished; all we need to do is apply a surface to it.

Press “q” to bring up the Change Surface Panel and create a new surface for this room called “Walls”, just use the default settings and click OK. This is it for the modelling part, save this object now, you can call it “Box.lwo”.

Okay start up Layout now and load in the box we just created. Like I mentioned earlier, we are going to use this box as a small room, and we’ll put the Lantern inside it. We are going to use 2 area lights to fake some Radiosity, even though it wont look as good as Radiosity it will be pretty close. Once you’ve loaded in the box, select the Camera and move it to the following position.



Once you’ve moved it, press “Enter” twice to create a keyframe. Keep the Camera selected and activate the Rotate Tool, then use the following settings.


When you’re done rotating, create a keyframe by pressing “Enter” twice. We are going to move the box a bit closer to the camera as well, so select the Box object now and activate the Move Tool, then use the following settings.


Once you’re done, create a keyframe for the box.

Okay, lets set the lights up, select the Light Item and open up the Item Properties Panel by pressing “p” on your keyboard. Change the Properties of the Lightsource to the following.



Close down the Properties Panel when you’re done. We need to move, rotate and scale this Lightsource a bit to fit our scene, so with the Light still selected, activate the Move Tool and use the following settings.


Before we continue, lets change some of the Display Options in Layout. Press “d” to bring up the Display Options Panel, then use the following settings in the OpenGL section.


We’re only using 1 OpenGL light for this scene; since we are adding a second Lightsource later on the OpenGL preview might get too bright.

Keep the Lightsource selected and activate the Rotate Tool, then use the following settings.



Once you’ve rotated the Light, press “Enter” twice to create a keyframe. Next activate the Size Tool and use the following settings.


Once you’re done, create that keyframe. Before we continue, lets save this scene as “Scenery.lws”, just in case. With the Lightsource still select, select “Add -> Clone Current Item” to duplicate it, then activate the Move Tool and move this new Lightsource to the following position.


Once you’ve moved it, create a keyframe for it. Next activate the Rotate Tool and rotate the second Lightsource using the following settings.


And once again keyframe it once you’re done. Since we cloned the first Lightsource we don’t need to scale it down, but we are going to change some of the properties for this second Lightsource. Open up the Properties Panel by pressing “p”, then use the following settings.


There were only 2 things you needed to change for the second Lightsource. The Light Intensity should be 70% and the Shadow Type should be set to “Off”. Okay, now we’re done with the Camera and the Lights, so lets take care of the Box Surface. Open up the Surface Editor and select the “Walls” Surface there. The Surface Preview will most likely be a very bright white ball now, so lets change that first. Right click on the Surface Preview window and a small menu should pop up. There should be an option there called “Use Scene Lights”, and we don’t need that one right now so turn it off.

The Surface for the Walls will not be very advanced at all, we are just going to add a procedural texture in the diffuse channel to get some variation in the material, but first lets change some of the basic settings. Use the following settings for the basic Walls Surface.


Click the “T” for the Diffuse Channel, then use the following procedural texture.


Click “Use Texture” when you’re done, and that’s it for the Walls Surface. Our simple Box Scene is done, but lets see what it looks like when rendered.