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Using LightWorks Archives in Unigraphics NX

The LightWorks-User Team has put together a tutorial to help get the most out of using LWA archives in Unigraphics NX. In order to make full use of the walkthrough, you will require an installed copy of Unigraphics NX2, including the High Quality Visualisation option, Studio Render. Everything else is provided for you as you walk through the tutorial.

The LightWorks-User Team.

Step 1: Copy the archive lwa_demo.lwa into the directory containing your LightWorks Archives.
This directory can be identified as containing the unique file shaders.lob. This will usually be the “UGPHOTO” directory in the Unigraphics NX root directory. If this is not the correct location, search for the file shaders.lob, or check your environment variable settings for the “UGII_LI_LAYLA_DIR” value.
Step 2: Start Unigraphics NX
Step 3: Load in the part lwa_demo.prt
The model is in millimeters and has lights and a perspective view defined. Base geometry is 250mm square. The cylinder is 125mm long and has a diameter of 62.5mm.
Step 4: Load the demo archive
  • Enter the materials and textures task environment by clicking the materials/textures icon
  • Go to the materials library tab
  • Check the pin to keep the pane visible
  • Right Click on the archives root node in the tree
  • Click on the Open Archive popup
  • Open lwa_demo.lwa
    The archive appears in the materials Library pane as 4 distinct material trees. These material trees contain Mold-Tech, Roehlen, UNS Metals and RAL color materials.
  • Right Click on a Mold-Tech material in the tree and click copy to part - in this example we will use MT 9063
Step 5: Edit the material texture space
This material will be applied to the tube geometry. A cylindrical texture space will be needed to map the material to the geometry. LightWorks real world materials are defined in meters so the texture space will have to account for scaling the model units (mm) to meters.
  • Click on the materials in part tab to bring up the pane.
  • The material (MT 9063) should have appeared in the pane.
  • Right Click on the material and choose edit to bring up the editing window
  • Choose the Texture Space tab and set the type dropdown to Cylindrical
  • Set the Center point to 62.5 0.0 31.25 (this point is on the tube central axis)
  • Set the Axis direction to xc (direction of the tube axis)
  • Set the Origin point to 62.5 0.0 0.0 (this point is on the tube edge)
  • Set the Scale along Axis to 1000.
This value is in world units so defining Scale = 1000 will do the conversion from mm to meters
  • Set the Scale around Axis to 5
This value is gained by dividing the units scale (1000) by the largest circumference of the tube (196.35)
Step 6: Apply the material to the tube
  • Select the tube geometry
  • Right click on the material and select apply from the menu OR Drag and drop the material onto the tube
Step 7: Apply the same Mold-Tech grain to the base
To apply the same Mold-Tech grain to the base the texture space will need to be changed
  • Select the material in the Materials in Part pane
  • Right Click and choose copy from the menu
  • Right click elsewhere in the pane and choose paste. A new copy of the material should be created.
  • Bring up the material editor by right clicking and choosing edit
  • Go to texture space tab and set type to WCS Auto axis from the dropdown menu
  • Set the scale to 1000 to compensate for scaling units from mm to meters
  • Apply the new material to the base

Render Modes

There are a few points that you need to bear in mind to help further improve generated images:

  • Images should be rendered in improved mode or above in order to see the Mold-Tech grains
  • Photo-realistic mode will give better anti-aliasing
  • Ray-traced render mode will tend to blur the appearance of the Mold-Tech grain slightly due to the way that it samples textures.
  • Raytrace FFA will give good results but the render is not immediate as it is rendered to a screen buffer.
  • Photo-realistic render mode with super-sampling will give good results. This can be achieved using the High Quality Image dialog by going to the image preferences dialog, clicking the advanced options button, and setting the super sample value to 2.

To find out more about rendering in Unigraphics NX, follow this link. If you are unable to open this file, then visit the Adobe website to download their free viewer.

About the Archive

There are several examples of Mold-Tech and Roehlen grains included in the demo archive. Materials have been grouped under the headings Geometric, Leather, Textile and Other relating to the separate archives which can be downloaded from www.lightworks-user.com. Any of the Mold-Tech/Roehlen materials can be applied to the demo model but the texture space will need to be defined for each material as described above.

There are also three UNS Metal materials included in the demo archive as well as examples from the RAL color system archives. Both UNS and RAL materials do not require texture space to be defined.

Licensing locked LWA Archives

If you are trying to use a locked archive downloaded from www.lightworks-user.com, then you will need to first purchase a license key for it.

Loading a locked archive causes an LWA Archive licensing dialog box to appear, containing two pieces of information: a unique archive ID (e.g. LWD:MoldTechEUDecorative1), and a machine ID (e.g. 1:3ACF99126ADEA12515B32C3A60BA592::0).

In order to unlock the archive, these two pieces of data should be copied into the appropriate boxes here. Clicking on Submit will then take you through the rest of the licensing process.