This tutorial will cover a often overlooked area of SubPatch modeling: SubPatch weights.

Similar to adding weights to bones and skelegons you can control the effects of subpatching.  By now most of you have learned the trick to SubPatch: hit tab.  That is only the gateway to SubPatching.   Often just applying base SubPatching (tab) results in rounded edges, and some distortion.  SubPatch weights can sharpen up edges that you don't want to be round and also eliminate some of the nasty distortion and pulling.

• Model an object of any level of detail you wish (keep in mind you want the model eventually have both hard and round edges)
   
• Make sure it is SubPatched
   
• Look over your model and find some distortion, pulling, and rounded edges you'd like sharpen and clean up.

In this tutorial I will be using a model inspired by an illustration. Having the illustration to compare with will better show what we are trying to achieve with SubPatch weights, while also showing the limitation of just SubPatching by itself.

• Cape points, and other cloth folds/creases are not sharp. (this detracts from the angular style)
   
• Wrists, elbows, and hair all seem to be too rounded.

Also some problems that SubPatching alone has created:

• Bad pulling where the cape meets the neck.

We are now going to fix Pulling problems, but first to alter SubPatch weights we need to make some viewport changes in Lightwave Modeler

• Change you viewport display mode to "Weight Shade"
  
   
• Change your editing mode to Weights, and select "SubPatch Weight"
  

 Now that the viewport and mode are correct we'll apply the weight tool to the problem area:

• Go to the "Map" tab and select "Weights" under the "Weight" section
   

• Click and hold down on the left mouse button on the point you wish to fix
  
  **adjusting weights does not require you to be in Points mode (CTRL+G) or Polygons mode (CTRL+H) specifically, either will allow editing of point weights**
   

• Drag the mouse to the right (while holding down left-click) to sharpen the SubPatch weight of that point (this will turn the point and surrounding area to an orange-red) 
  
  (you can pick any percentage of weight adjustment I will use 85%)
  
  ---------------just so you know what's happening here---------------
  
  This is causing the point to have a greater percentage of hold to its original location, meaning it is not affected as much when SubPatching is rounding out shapes.
  
  **additionally, dragging the mouse to the left while holding down the left mouse button on a point will loosen/decrease the weight of the point turning the surrounding area blue**
  
  This would cause the point to have a lesser percentage of hold to its original location, meaning it is more greatly affected when SubPatching is rounding out shapes.
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   

• Now you may have to move (t) your point until it looks right

• Go to the "Map" tab and select "Airbrush" under the "General" section
   

• Click and hold down on the RIGHT mouse button while dragging left or right to select your desired brush diameter (shown accordingly by a light blue ring)
  
  **at this point you can hit (N) to check the Numeric settings for the Airbrush tool.  The tool's default Strength is set to 10% which I find to be a good low number so that when layering strokes the weight does not build up too quickly.   Additionally the default Weight Value is set to 100% which represents the highest the weight will go (even if brushed over several times)**
   

• Click and hold down on the left mouse button while dragging across your model (this will turn the points and surrounding areas to an orange-red) as you sharpen the weights of the points
  
  **additionally, holding SHIFT while holding down the left mouse button and airbrushing your model will loosen/decrease the weight of the points turning the surrounding areas blue**

After making some changes to give the cape a sharp fast feel to it, I'll continue using these techniques to enhance the rest of the model (I encourage you also to get familiar with these tools and continue cleaning up your model)

Often you'll end up using a combination of sharpening and loosening.

• Oversharpening can cause you to see the definition of the polygons in your object, which defeats the purpose of SubPatching (for the most part that is)
   
• When using Airbrush, sometimes geometry on the other side of the object will be affected, make sure to rotate your model around when brushing to check that only what you want is being brushed.