LightWave 3D [7]

[Earl]

Well, it was just announced at SIGGRAPH 2001, and it's looking better than ever. Amazing how quickly they can add features to their application that would normally cost thousands more...

Check it out. Anyone who purchases LightWave now will get a free upgrade to [7] as soon as it's released.

LightWave 3D

[Earl]

Well, it was just announced at SIGGRAPH 2001, and it's looking better than ever. Amazing how quickly they can add features to their application that would normally cost thousands more...

Check it out. Anyone who purchases LightWave now will get a free upgrade to [7] as soon as it's released.

LightWave 3D

[Earl]

I'm shocked. Not only is LightWave [7] available NOW, but after looking into just what they enhanced and added with this version, I can't get it off my mind. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Here's a short list of a few of the new features:
- spreadsheet editor: a robust layout for editing all scene objects, lights, cameras, bones, motions, channels, and well everything else. Awesome control over parameters, making changes across volumes of objects as simple as one can imagine it.
- non-linear animation: the most powerful character and cimema animation system there is, allowing you to create hierarchial motions, expressions, motion curves; then letting you blend them together in a non-linear fashion for unsurpassed control. Oh this is too good to be true. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
- Sasquatch Hair/Fur built in: the worlds fastest and most beautiful hair rendering engine is now built right into LightWave's own - giving you power to create surface hair, fur, long strands, etc - right out of the box (no need for those $500 plugins anymore).
- OpenGL graph editor: now the already invaluable graph editor utilizes OpenGL, allowing you to edit hundreds of curves while seeing the results in realtime (on your objects)
- interparticle collision and massive amounts of options and control added to the particle system (particle groups, event-driven group changes)
- Digital Confusionâ„¢: an advanced depth of field filter, which adds more realism to the standard depth of field by calculating hidden geometry for more accurate blurring.
- Voxel Baking: allowing you to bake your volumetrics for incredibly fast volumetric rendering
- Phantom subpatch selector: allows you to directly select the underlaying NURBS curve to edit when working on subpatch objects.

Phew! Well, those are a few of the added features and improvements. Aside from all of those, there have been the standard improvements made to the UI, improvements to the speed of the (alrady lightning fast) rendering engine, as well as improvements to caustics, radiosity, HDRI, surface editors, realtime OpenGL previews, and I even heard they added an updated Lens Flare system (and here I thought they couldn't make it any better...).

I still can't get over the shock of waking up this morning to find out version [7] was released. Last version, [6], it was hyped for nearly a year before they released it (and even then it was released too soon and had many bugs - due to the completely ground-up written code). This time though, they've perfected the horizontal programming model and kept true to their promise - now able to pump out new features and updates with a small team of programmers faster than Alias|WaveFront and Softimage can with their fleet of coders. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Needless to say, I ordered my copy this morning. Unfortunately, so many people are ordering copies that their server is having trouble keeping the website up and running. But, during SIGGRAPH, they are having nice specials on this new version. You could easily save yourself some decent cash if you were to purchase now (ends this Friday I believe).

Gotta love NewTek. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[ivan louette]

These days I was in big hesitation between buying Sasquatch or Shave. Now the problem is solved!
The only problem with the quick evolution of Lightwave is that the learning time don't reduce.
I am waiting to see the new phantom selection in metanurbs!!! Perhaps is that the way to a true nurbs surface support which lacks in Lightwave.

Regards,

ivan

[Earl]

Agreed Ivan...I've yet to learn the new features of 6.5 to the fullest - but I certainly won't complain. =) The more power the better.

I'm really looking forward to the phantom subpatch selector as well. I guess another big feature they've added is bump displacements - which is like a bump map, but it adds geometry to the object. I guess it's useful for ultra-realistic texturing, since it will actually ray-trace the shadows of the bumps.

[Erik Heyninck]

this great plug-in for Lightwave and Photoshop (although it seems to work better on PC than on Mac):


www.futurefantastic.com

it's British, and called Genesis V2. Pro.

[randyrives]

Has anyone else noticed that New-Tek offical lists Win 98 & ME as operation system that will run V7? V6.5 only listed NT and Win2000, but some people ran it on 98.

I wonder if NewTek made any changes in V7 to make it usable in ME and 98. Anyone know?


--Randy

[Earl]

When LightWave 6.0 first came out, Windows 9x had issues with the OpenGL interface, and thus NewTek did not include Windows 9x as an officially supported OS. However, the first patch (6.0b) released in April of last year, fixed the issues and NewTek officialy announced that Windows 98 was a supported OS. All versions since then are supported under Windows 98 (and thus Windows ME). I was running 6.0 with 98 even before the 'b' patch. It had some issues, but after the 'b' patch, and especially with the 6.5b patch, it ran great. No problems at all (unless they were issues with my Matrox anti-OpenGL video card).

LightWave 7.0 will run on Windows NT, 2000, 98, and ME.

I'm running ME now, and if there are any issues with version 7.0, I'll post them (my shipment should arrive within 2 weeks they said).