form•z is basically what we would call a SOLID modeler, meaning that it assumes everything you create from primitive forms (i.e. spheres, cubes, cylinders, etc.) are made of solid materials which can be cut by other shapes just as you would a block of wood or plastic. This program also has the ability to make SKINS which are mesh-like surfaces that have no visible thickness or substance like that of a sheet of thin paper or cloth. This can be difficult for first time users and challenging when put together in combination. In form•z, one needs to decide how an object reacts or is combined with others to before building it to get good rendering results in the future.
Other modeling features include:
Splines which are editable curved lines used to make outlines of shapes to be skinned such as a stretched fabric on a frame. These are often used in a combinations of 2 or 3 to make a full object.
Revolution which is the process of "revolving" a shape or series of lines around a single axis to make an object like a symmetrical wine glass table leg or pen. This is much like using a lathe.
Boolean Operations which is a set of mathematical calculations that allow one to carve out or subtract, weld together, split and much more to one or more objects.
MetaBalls is another newer form•z feature that allows one to make objects out of bunches of spheres. This is similar to that of putting water droplets together on a flat surface and moving them closer or farther apart to create an attraction that is ver blobby to say the least. Its a fun feature, but easily absorbs all of your processing power and is not a very practical solution to organic modeling. Due to the high amount of attention to scale and modeling methods, form•z is extremely powerful at creating precise rigid shapes like a plastic box with rounded corners or an engraved table coaster with smooth rounded edges.

[Difference] in form•z 2.95	[Subtract] in LightWave 3D 5.6

LightWave 3D 5.6 is best known as a SURFACE-SOLID modeler, meaning that it uses both solid model making properties as in form¥z and surface like properties like that of Skinned surfaces. It does share features such as Splines, Revolution, Boolean Operations, MetaBalls, and the like with the exception of a few major differences. One of these differences is that the way an object is created and formed affects a its visual results, depending on how you decide to drill, cut, or patch that object. This can prove to be fatal for critical renderings which have close attention to detail. NURBS, which stands for Non Rational B-Splines is in my opinion the most major defining line between the LW 5.6 & form•z 2.95. This is the ability to take a cube or other object made from 4-sided planes (quadratic polygons) like a cube for instance, and tell it to smooth all the surfaces between its points; the result of which resembles a sphere-like object. With NURBS, one can easily rough out the shape of a Teddy Bear with cubes, and make them into NURBS to create a smooth rounded bear with a curved snout, head, & paws. It's simple, LightWave has them and form•z does not! Other than animation, this is the sole reason I had purchased LW 5.0 as a student; to create organic shapes in 3D without much pain and suffering.

Shaded Blocks	Meta-NURB applied to blocks
Click Image to Enlarge	Click Image to Enlarge

Background: I was originally taught the concept of NURBS when learning to use Alias-Wavefront which is a competing product to LightWave 3D, Softimage, and 3D Studio Max. Sadly, this product required a Silicone Graphics Inc. machine and was never fully released on the Mac, except for an ill fated "Alias Sketch 3.0" which was a far far cry from it's big sister Alias 9.x. Had I purchased Alias & and an SGI machine, I would not be able to have 3 Macs, lots of ram, a video card, additional Hard Drives, a 24" monitor, etc. SGIs are excellent machines, but the price tag was a little overwhelming and the IRIX interface and I never really became good friends.

If you have ever had any experience with 2D programs such as Freehand, Photoshop, or Illustrator, you know the importance of layers, which allow you to manipulate a specific object(s) by locking or hiding the layers you don't want to touch.
form•z layers work exactly like this, with the ability to have as many layers as you want, lock them, hide them, ghost them, or just make them not selectable. form•z's objects exist on a stand alone basis, and can be mixed and matched on the same or different layer(s). This is allows one to create their own hierarchy for organization, and form•z still recognizes each object as having an editable individual Identification name when being selected.

form•z 2.95 Layers	LightWave 3D 5.6 Layers

LW handles layers in a less visual manner and is limited for the most part to 10 basic layers in Modeler at a time. These Layers can't be locked, but can be ghosted or put in the "background" and can't easily be shifted around due to the fact that they really don't have an order or hierarchy structure. They are however, used to determine what is kept & what is cut in a Balloon Operation. Unlike form•z, LW can temporarily hide polygons on an individual bases, which is extremely helpful when working on models with high polygon density or subdivisions. Objects in the LW Modeler environment are not separated in any way beyond which layer they are present in. Thus, once you put two or more objects in the same layer, they "magically" become one and are virtually impossible to deselect to put back into their original layers. Fortunately, both form•z & LW have multiple "UNDOs" which can be set to numbers in the 100s if you have the RAM for it.

Almost every object in the 3D World is comprised of Points, Lines, and Polygons. A Point is a dot on your screen, a line is the segment that connects two or more points, and a Polygon is a plane that is made of at least 3 lines & points; in the form of a triangle, square, pentagon, or other many sided shape. In form•z, you can select an object and make it snap from any point, line, or polygon to another object's point, line, or polygon. This "Snapping" feature is very handy when taking two objects, such as two walls, and lining up their edges exactly flush with each other to create a seamless connection when joining them together. LW does not have this feature and it is what I miss most when using LW. LW tends to want everything created on the center of it's X, Y, & Z axis planes and requires that you line them up together when each object is finished.

form•z	Imager	3DMF	LW Modeler	LW Layout

f•z & LW both accept popular 3D file types such as DXF, DWG, IGS, and 3DMF and each imports them at the appropriate true size. This is a very popular method for Architects to import their PC antacid R.x (Yuk!-I just had to say it) to Mac & PC form•z users to be extruded, revolved, or whatever have you to create fairly accurate depiction of buildings on their landscapes with vegetation and an occasional person fob scale.

Creating organic files in LW & importing them into form•z can be very tricky at times and often result in objects that appear to be smooth, but have rough polygon shadows cast upon them. This can be fixed with careful smooth shading adjustments or in Photoshop after a rendering is finished & saved. Now, if you want to bring your form•z 3DMF files into LW for animation or special effects, it is possible to have excellent results. There is only one thing you MUST do before importing them into Modeler or Layout, and that is to change the "Type" and "Creator" of each file to appear as a LightWave 3D Object or ".LWO" Fear not worried one, you can "batch" change all the files at once with a handy utility such as TypeCreator (Japanese shareware/freeware) or other equivalent application such as ResEdit in which you will have to change each file individually. Yes, this is not for the faint of heart, but this will not damage the 3D file in any way.

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