Introduction
Usage
Videos
History
Requirements
Installation
Ordering

EasySplit is no doubt our's the most useful modeling tool made for LightWave so far. It allows you to cut objects by free hand draw lasso in just any view port including the most interesting, perspective one. Only polygons visible in view port are altered, therefore you will save a lot of time normally wasted to hide polygons which should not be changed and fixing artifacts and trashes while using Knife tool.

EasySplit key features:

  • Super fast work even with very large objects with thousands of polygons.
    Since v1.5 we introduced optimizations which speed up tool work a few thousands percent, therefore it became very attractive even while editing very complex objects like scene in single layer object.

  • The easiest imagineable usage.
    You just need to press left mouse button and holding it down move mouse to the end drawing lasso on screen and release the button. Object will be cut in the real-time, without delays.

  • Working on the only visible in view port polygons.
    No more need to hide polygons when you want to cut polygons like it happens while using Knife tool!

  • Direct working with sub-patches!
    Since v2.0 we introduced innovative way to cuting and tring do the best to avoid making N-gons.

  • Working on the polygons with unlimited number of vertices (if LightWave v8.0 or later is present), otherwise with maximum 128 vertices per polygon.
  • Supporting any kind of vertex maps, including Weight Maps and UV Maps.
  • Replacing functionality of Add Point tool.
  • Replacing functionality of Knife tool.
    The childish easy things for EasySplit are becoming a big problems if you would like to reproduce them in Knife.
  • Replacing functionality of Split tool.
    EasySplit does in just one mouse click and move, what normally requires selecting desired polygon, two points which define splitting edge, and pressing Split.

This plugin behaves similarly to built-in LightWave ® modification tools like Move, Rotate or Size and is immediately active.

EasySplit does not care in which mode LightWave currently is. It could be in Points or Polygons, with selected or not selected elements, in all of them plugin will work.

Click left mouse button a view port where interested you polygons are visible. Then without releasing button move the mouse.

On the left image you can see the plugin control panel.

Delay Update parameter delays cutting operation to the moment when you release left mouse button. Turn it on when working with object that have a lot of polygons. This could be also useful for people with slower computers. Introduced in version 1.1.

Mode parameter informs whether user is drawing freehand Lasso or just Line. Introduced in version 3.2.

Merge Points parameter tries to eliminate as much as possible newly created points which are in distance defined by the next parameter from the already existing. Introduced in version 1.1.

Merge Tolerance is distance in which points with similar coordinates are merged. You could move mouse near existing point and then adjust this parameter later after releasing left mouse button, to merge or split them. This fixes problems with splitting too much of polygons which share one point. Introduced in version 1.1.

Fix 3-5 turns on/off fixing of 5 vertices polygons and their opposite 3 vertices polygons. When this option is active affected polygons are replaced by 3 quads, making object more sub-patches friendly. When using this Merge Points should be also turned on. Introduced in version 2.0.
It's recommended to switch this option off if you're running LightWave v9.0+ and Catmull-Clark Sub-Patches.

Fix N-gons turns on/off fixing of N-gons found in newly generated geometry, leaving existing one untouched. At the moment it works with N-gons that have just one newly created point, and splits such polygons to triangles, using new point as root. When using this Merge Points should be also turned on. Introduced in version 2.0.
It's recommended to switch this option off if you're running LightWave v9.0+ and Catmull-Clark Sub-Patches.

Currently you can use EasySplit only on polygons with at least 3 and no more than 128 vertices (for speed reason) with type 'face'. In the near future we will make it working with also 2 vertices polygons and bones. But they need to be treated differently than normal polygons (plugin to work faster tries to eliminate as much as possible polygons at the beginning of operation).

It's advised to download videos to disk using Save File As... and watch in off-line movie player.

Download 1st animation (0.000 KB) illustrating EasySplit plugin in Line Mode working like Knife but in perspective viewport!

Download 2nd animation (0.000 KB) illustrating EasySplit plugin in Line Mode working like Knife but in perspective viewport!

Download animation (0.000 KB) illustrating EasySplit plugin preserving Catmull-Clark Sub-Patch Edge Weight!

Download animation (0.000 KB) illustrating EasySplit plugin at real work. Animation made by EasySplit client Philippe Michou from France. Thanks!

Download animation (0.000 KB) illustrating EasySplit plugin at real work. It's showing how to fix giraffe polygon flow.

Download animation (0.000 KB) illustrating EasySplit plugin at real work. Complete tutorial how to make woman front face!

Download video (0.000 KB) illustrating EasySplit plugin at work. Older EasySplit v1.0 demo video with voice made by William Vaughan from NewTek. Thanks!

Changes made in the 3.3 (19-Jan-2008)

  • The first official Macintosh Universal Binary release!

Changes made in the 3.2 (14-Oct-2007)

  • The first official Windows 64 bit release!
  • Added Mode parameter.

Changes made in the 3.0 (23-Jul-2007)

  • Added support to LightWave v9.0 Catmull-Clark Sub-Patches Edge Weighting.

Changes made in the 2.7 (30-Jul-2006)

  • Added support to LightWave v9.0 Catmull-Clark Sub-Patches.

Changes made in the 2.5 (7-Dec-2005)

  • If LightWave v8.0 or later is present check point per polygon limit. Otherwise like older versions working with maximum 128 vertices per single polygon.
  • Added Merge Preview control to interface, which enables displaying instantly Merge Tolerance while drawing lasso, and adjusting Merge Tolerance with right mouse button.
  • Added support for Symmetry.
  • Changed interface pop-up controls to boolean controls to work faster.
  • Added dividers between control groups.

Changes made in the 2.0 (19-Oct-2005)

  • Added direct support to sub-patches.
  • Added two new interface controls needed by sub-patch support routines Fix 3-5 and Fix N-gons.

Changes made in the 1.6 (30-May-2005)

  • Changes to make it working on Macintosh.

Changes made in the 1.5 (23-May-2005)

  • Completely rewritten procedure of accepting and rejecting polygons to process. The result is a few thousands percent speed up.
  • Improved processing polygon procedure. Now it supports multiple splitting of single polygon by the same lasso.
  • A lot of improvements in the whole plugin.

Changes made in the 1.1 (28-Mar-2005)

  • Added point merging with user customizable tolerance.
  • Added delayed update.
  • Improved performance by eliminating more polygons at the beginning (calculate area where is lasso and ignoring the all polygons which are definitely outside of this area).
  • Fixed memory leak each time plugin was launched.
  • Eliminated chance to create improper polygons by not allowing to exists more than one same point in newly created polygon.

Changes made in the 1.0 (27-Mar-2005)

  • The first official Windows release.

Minimum Windows Requirements

  • LightWave v6+
  • Pentium or better
  • Windows 32 bit

Recommended Windows Requirements

  • LightWave v9.3+
  • 64 bit compatible CPU 3.0 GHz or better

Minimum Macintosh Requirements

  • LightWave v6+
  • PowerPC or better
  • MacOS X

Recommended Macintosh Requirements

  • LightWave v9.3+
  • PowerPC G5 or Intel 2.0 GHz

Installing the product

In order to install the program, please extract the archive to some location on your hard disk.

On Windows ®, the archive is in the ZIP format. You will need 3rd party software such as WinZIP, which you can download from http://www.winzip.com (it's not included in the package), or other compatible software to decompress the archive.

Windows XP ® has built-in ZIP support (simply right click on the archive�s icon, and choose �Extract all files...�).

On Macintosh ®, the archive is in the SIT format. You will need 3rd party software such as StuffIt, which you can download from http://www.stuffit.com (it's not included in the package), or compatible software to decompress the archive.

The LightWave ® plugin does not require files to be in specific locations, which is a very nice feature. But for easier file management it is recommended that the plugin files (i.e. those with .p extension) be copied to your LightWave ® plugins folder (f.e. LightWave\Plugins\).

Installing LightWave ® Modeler Plugins

Run the LightWave ® Modeler executable. Select pop-down menu Modeler > Utilities > Add Plugins..., then choose the folder containing the new plugins and select them. You should see a message from LightWave that the plugins have been added successfully. The changes will be saved to your configuration file when you quit the program.

Click on the image to see it at full resolution.

Uninstalling the product

Uninstalling LightWave ® Modeler Plugins

Run the LightWave ® Modeler executable. Select pop-down menu Modeler > Utilities > Edit Plugins..., then select the plugin files and press the Delete button. The changes will be saved to your configuration file when you quit the program. Now you can safely remove the files from your hard disk.

Click on the image to see it at full resolution.

Price

The price for a single license (product installed on the one machine) is 50 USD (United States Dollars).

On-line ordering

This is the preferred ordering method. It has several advantages:

  • Easy. You just need to type your personal and credit card details into the order form, and you will receive your goods within max. 48 hours.
  • Fast. Usually, you will receive the purchased products within an hour (depending on the time difference between where you live, and the hours we are working)!
  • Safe. You are sure your order won�t be stolen in transit, or held up by postal strikes etc.