PGL Play

• PGL Play is a displacement map plug-in for LightWave 3D.
  Set PGLPlay to Displacement Map Plugins in Object panel, and press Option button.
  The following screen will appear.
  
  

• File menu

  
  

  
  

  • Load PGL As...
    Loads the PGL file created for the current object. When there is a file in the same name with LWOB that has the extension of (.PGL) existing at the time of selecting object, the PGL file is automatically loaded.
    
  • Save PGL As...
    Specifies the name of the information of the current vertex color and saves it.
    
  • Load GIZMO As...
    Load the GIZMO project files created by Morph Gizmo.
    
  • Save GIZMO As...
    Save the morphing information created by PGL Play as a GIZMO project file.
    Since all targets of GIZMO project files keep same keyframe, PGL Play will sometimes create a new keyframe at the time of saving a project file. Also, the value of Linear, Tension, Continuity, Bias is set to the default value(0).
  • About PGL Play
    Displays the version of PGL Play.
    

• 3D Window

  
  

  How to operate the object

  • Rotating Object
    Move the mouse cursor in 3D window with pressing the left button of the mouse.
    
  • Moving Object
    Move the mouse cursor with pressing "Move" button.
    
  • Enlarging and minimizing object (, key and . key)
    Move the mouse cursor with pressing "Zoom" button.
    

  Preview Mode

  • (F1 key)
    Display of points. Displays points in bone colors.
    
  • (F2 key)
    Displays wire frame. Displays polygons in wire frame in bone colors.
    
  • (F3 key)
    Display of front face. Displays the surface polygons in wire frame in bone colors.
    
  • (F4 key)
    Display of filling. Fills polygons in bone colors.
    
  • (F5 key)
    Flat Shading using the surface color.
    
  • (F6 key)
    Smooth Shading using the surface color.
  
  • Show Bone
    Display bones in the 3D view.
  
  • Show Axis
    Display rotation axis in the 3D view.

• Bone Control Panel

  
  

  

  Bones
  This is a list of bones set to Reference object. The selected bone will be the current bone, and the point selected in 3D view is laid out to this bone. The color box displayed on the right of the list is colored in a bone color in order to distinguish the current bone. The point belonging to the current bone is displayed in higher luminance than usual and is displayed in a bit larger size.
  And if you click on the bone in 3D window by the left button of the mouse with pressing SHIFT key, the bone clicked will become the status being selected.

  Bone Active
  This is a check button for switching Active or Non-Active of bones. The value set with Object Skelton of Layout will be the default value. Once you set PGL Play, the active status of bones will be set in this panel thereafter.

  Morph Active
  This is a check button to switch active and non-active of morphing for current point group. It becomes non-effective when there is no morph target existing.

  Influence
  With Influence, the deforming method of each bone is specified.
  

  Independent
  In Independent, all the points that belong to a certain bone move along with the bone completely independently and are not affected by any other bones. For example, when you create a human face with one object, its eyes and tongue should move independently without affecting the polygons around them. With setting bones to the parts that move independently and having those bones move in Independent mode, it becomes possible to have the movement partly independent.
  

  All Bones
  The points belonging to the bones where All Bones is set are affected by all bones except Independent. The extent of the affection by other bones is determined by Fall Off set to the bones where these points belong. The deformation with All Bones is similar to the standard deformation of LightWave 3D with no Limited Range.
  

  Parent and Children
  In Parent and Children, only the pair of bones that is related as parent and children affect each other. For example, in case when you set bones to a finger of a hand, the joint of the finger should be bent smoothly, but the fingers should be set so as they will not knit together. With setting Parent and Children, you can only have the bones related as parent and children affect each other. So, even the points in close position to the bones can be deformed independently. In the following images, one object is cut off to four plates, and there are four pairs of bones related as parent and children set. Although the pairs of bones set per each color are deformed smoothly, every plate deforms without interfering each other despite that these plates touching.
  

  Pass Through
  Pass Through exports the deformation of points as it is that LightWave 3D Layout has calculated without making deformation by PGL. For example, when you basically want to use the movement of bones by LightWave 3D and want to move the parts which has partially become independent in Independent mode (such as a part of a face like eyes and/or tongue), go ahead apply Pass Through to the bone that you want to have original movement of LightWave.

  Note: If you mix Pass Through and other modes to the bones that are set to consecutive polygons, there is the case that a joint will be produced at the border part since the calculation results run counter.

  
  

  Fall Off
  Fall Off specifies the extent that points adsorb to bones with the exponentiation of the distance from the points to the bones. Though this is, basically, the same concept with Fall Off of LightWave 3D, with PGL, this Fall Off can be separately specified per bone. Influence that Fall Off is effective is All Bone and Parent and Children.
  
  There are 6 kinds for the Fall Off value that can be specified with PGL -
  1/Distance, 1/Distance^2, 1/Distance^4, 1/Distance^8, 1/Distance^16, 1/Distance^32.
  

  
  

  Apply To All Bones
  Apply To All Bones makes carbon copies of the value of Influence and Fall Off to all bones.

  
  

  Enable PGL Play
  Enable PGL Play switches on and off of the deformation with PGL Play. Though the calculation results of the bone of LightWave are export as they are when switched off, the parameters set in the panel are saved until Enable PGL Play is switched on next time.

  
  

  Ignore inactive bones
  With switching on the toggle button of Ignore inactive bones, nonactive bones will become not to affect the deformation calculation of active bones. When the toggle button is switched off, the deformation belonging to other active bones will be affected though the points belonging to nonactive bones will not be deformed.

  
  

  Reload PGL File
  Reload PGL File re-reads PGL files. After setting PGL Play and edit the points with getting back to PGL Editor, the contents currently read with PGL Play and the contents changed with PGL Editor become different. With pressing Reload PGL File button, you can update to the latest contents of PGL.

• Morph Control Panel

  
  

  

  Morph Control Panel provides you with the interface that directly perform morphing of objects in PGL Play. It enables operators to adjust the extent of transformation by bones and the morphing at the same time, with the slider bar of the frame.

  The information edited in Morph Control Panel will be written to a scene file at the time of saving the file. You have no necessity to save the details of morphing as the project file of Morph Gizmo.

  
  

  Add
  This Add adds morph target for current object. The morph target must be the file in LightWave 3D LWOB file format and have the same number of vertex with current object. The number of target that can be specified with PGL Play is 128, at maximum.

  
  

  Clear
  Clear deletes a specified object from morph target.

  

  
  

  Create Key
  Create Key creates the keyframe in the status of the current morph target. The keyframe will be created for all targets. You can also create the keyframe with pressing Return key instead of pressing button.

  
  

  Morph Control
  Specify the rate that target is combined to current object using the slider bar. Though the range of the value of the slider is 0 to 100, the value larger than 100 can be also specified with typing in the value directly with the keyboard. Save the value specified here to the keyframe with pressing button. When the frame was changed without creating the keyframe, the extent of morphing specified in each target cannot be saved.

  

  button indicates the interface of the envelope that specifies the extent of morphing of target in a curved line.
  When the morph key was edited by envelope, the keyframe will be created independently per target. With pressing OK button after the keyframe was edited, the details of the edition will be reflected to the screen. When Remove Envelope button or Cancel button was pressed, the details edited in Envelope panel will be canceled.

  

  The value of EndBehavior, Linear, Tension, Continuity and Bias that can be specified in Envelope panel will be reflected to the morphing.
  
  

  Page Up / Page Down
  Scroll the control of morph target displayed on the panel.

• Bone Deformation Test

  
  

  Please refer the section in PGL Editor
  PGL Editor Bone Deformation Test

• Keyboard Shortcuts

  
  

  Key	Action
  a	Displays the object in whole screen
  f	Displays the front side of the object.
  t	Displays the top of the object.
  s	Displays the side of the object.
  ,	Displays the object minimized.
  .	Displays the object enlarged.
  A	Auto focus of the current bone
  u	Undo
  r	Redo
  F1	Points preview
  F2	Wire preview
  F3	Front Face preview
  F4	Fill preview
  F5	Flat Shading
  F6	Smooth Shading
  Right	Makes the luminance of background color higher.
  Left	Makes the luminance of background color lower.
  Up	Scrolls up bone list.
  Down	Scrolls down bone list.
  h	Display a list of h Keyboard Shortcut.
  SHIFT+LMB	Selects bones.
  F	Displays the PGL file name.