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tools:start

db&w Tools

The db&w Tools are a collection of small plugins for LightWave 3D.

They've initially been written out of personal need, due to user suggestions, as a playground or to complement our products.

As of November 1st 2018, all future versions will only be available to our patrons on Patreon. We want to continue developing the plugins for you, with you.

As of April 2024, the db&w Tools are also available on gumroad since Patreon doesn't allow for new patrons to join while we pause.

We hope that you will enjoy using them ;)

Installation

Changes

Toolkits

Toolkits are a collection of plugins to facilitate new features.

Nodes

As a general note, the nodal editors in LightWave 3D treat both vectors and colours the same way. Both are three floating point values and may be used interchangeably.

2D Image

2D Textures

  • Weave - Weave procedural texture, our #ThankYouPatrons present for patrons in 2019
  • Reflection Lines - Reflection Lines procedural texture, our Christmas present for patrons in 2018
  • Scratch - Scratch node to create procedural scratches, our Plugin of the Month for February 2021

Audio

Additional

  • Sequencer - turns sequences of numbers into a pseudo-random distribution
  • Time Info - returns the current time and frame
  • Get Automatic Size - Exposes the automatic size and bounding box as computed by LightWave 3D
  • Elbow Node - Helps clean up node graphs - is not related to rigging. ;)

Colour

Experimental

  • Sticky Front UV - stick a front projection to moving items and, optionally, render the UVs for a compositing tool

Gradient

Instances

Materials

Logic

These nodes create or operate on boolean values. These are integers that are either 0 (False) or 1 (True) and can, for example, be used to switch between two values depending on various conditions.

Maths

Scalar

Shading

Spot

Multi-Mixer

  • Multi-Mixer Mix multiple inputs using individual weights, similar to the native Morph Mixer

Switcher

Tools

Variables

Displacement

  • Vector Motion Blur Applies motion blur as a displacement based on motion vectors store in a vertex map.

Channel Modifiers

Deformer

Pixel Filters

Image Filters

Generic Plugins (Layout)

Master Plugins (Layout)

Image Viewer

Layout Tools

Modeler Tools

  • UV Distort An interactive tool to distort UVs to match an image
  • UV Transform An interactive tool to transform (move, scale, rotate, fit) UVs

Common Concepts

Download

As of November 1st 2018, all future versions will only be available to our patrons on Patreon.

We mail links to personalised builds to all patrons as soon as we release them.

Older db&w Tools are available in our download section for Windows and MacOS.


Licence

These plugins are copyrighted by db&w GbR. Current builds are only provided to patrons as of November 2018.

These programs are provided *as is* without warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

Additional Material

A summary of our first six months on Patreon

Andrew Comb uses many free db&w Tools in his Advanced Shading Tutorial presented at the San Diego LightWave Users Group.

Plugin Ideas and Proposals

tools/start.txt · Last modified: 2024/10/15 11:39 by lightwolf