Triplanar and Hexaplanar nodes for Lightwave 3D

Triplanar mapping allows to create great variety in materials by applying a different texture to the (-X, +X), (+Y, -Y) and (-Z, +Z) axis. This power is double in the case of hexaplanar mapping which can map a different texture for the six axis: -X, +X, +Y, -Y, -Z, +Z.

For Lightwave 3D, Slick3d.art created a set of four triplanar nodes and four hexaplanar nodes. In each set, there’s a node for albedo, data (roughness, glossiness, masks, etc.), normal mapping and a specific one for displacement. Using triplanar or hexaplanar mapping for blending normal maps or displacement maps gives to the artist great possibilities to achieve outstanding effects.

There are sixteen nodes in total: eight nodes for Lightwave 3D “Classic” (LW11 and LW2015); and more eight to Lightwave 2018 and above.

The albedo node.

The artist can use a color image or an albedo image, which is a color image without any lighting information, in accordance with the PBR workflow.

Here is the triplanar albedo node for Lightwave classic:

Global Tiling controls the tiling of the texture in all axis. The artist can override the tiling in each axis: when the tiling value for an axis is different from zero, the node will use the axis tiling information. The artist can also use different rotations for each axis. The Triplanar Albedo node has also the option to use an Ambient Occlusion map. If the artist put an image in the AO slot, the AO texture will be mixed with the albedo texture using the multiply blend mode.

Below, it is the triplanar albedo node for Lightwave 2020:

The only difference is in the tiling method: in Lightwave classic, the tiling is done by altering the texture scale; while in the Lightwave 2020 the tiling are using the uv coordinates directly. Therefore, in Lightwave classic, increasing the tiling number “expands” the texture or reduce the tiling; while in Lightwave 2020 is the opposite.

Now, I present to you, a truly “beast”: the Hexaplanar Albedo node in Lightwave classic:

As the hexaplanar node allows to put a different texture in each axis, with the option to multiply by an ambient occlusion map, this node became really huge. However, the functionally is the same: only was added different controls to the positive and negative axis.

Here is the same node for Lightwave 2020:

Now, the others.

The triplanar nodes for textures that represent “data”.

Lightwave classic:

Lightwave 2020:

And the hexaplanar versions.

Lightwave classic:

Lightwave 2020:

Following, the triplanar nodes for normal mapping. These nodes have an additional option to control the normal map strength. Maybe, in some cases, the Lightwave artist will need to reverse the texture in the Y axis because Lightwave uses Direct3D normals, not Opengl as in Blender 3D and others. This can be done directly in the image node.

Lightwave classic:

Lightwave 2020:

And the hexaplanar versions.

Lightwave classic:

Lightwave 2020:

The last nodes are very fun to use: the displacement nodes. Below is shown the triplanar versions.

Lightwave classic:

Lightwave 2020:

And the hexaplanar “beasts”.

Lightwave calssic:

Lightwave 2020:

The Lightwave artist can load the nodes by clicking on the Edit option in the top left corner of the Node Editor, and then clicking on Import Nodes option.

To use the nodes, unzip and load them using the node editor.

Below: a render result from Slick3d.art triplanar nodes in Lightwave 11.