A few of my co-workers have been having mechanical issues with their vehicles recently, and it got me thinking about how reliable my truck has been over the years. In 1999, I purchased my very first brand new vehicle, a Chevrolet Silverado Z71 Sportside pickup truck. I've had zero issues, and the truck just keeps on performing. I jokingly tell people that I'll be buried in it. I know... spoken like a true Texan!

The thing is, it's rare these days to be able to rely on anything for any real length of time. The only other purchase I've made that has been equally as reliable has been NewTek's LightWave 3D. Back in 1995, picked up my first copy of LightWave (version 5.0) and have been producing content with LightWave ever since. Throughout the years, NewTek has released updates to the software that has allowed it to remain key player in broadcast television production, film visual effects, video game development, print graphics and visualization. The latest discovery was the character modeling work of Ten 24 "Dead Island."

NewTek's latest update, LightWave 10, was released late last year, and it's been a great production boost to the work I've been doing recently. I'd like to share with you some of the tools and enhancements that are now available.

What's New?
When you launch LightWave 10, you immediately experience the updated user interface, which has undergone subtle changes that deliver more dynamic user experience via features like interactive channel sliders, added control for custom colors, and numerous workflow enhancements. This is the handiwork of Matt Gorner, a familiar name in the LightWave community and a new member of the LightWave development team.

A feature new to LightWave 10 that hasn't really gotten a lot of press, but has made a massive impact on a project I'm currently involved in is the SpriteGen animation saver. For the past several months, I've been working at FunGoPlay in New York with a team of LightWave artists on a new concept in online gaming where kids ages six to 11 get points controlling their artificial characters in computer space, and then use real-life gaming equipment like soccer balls and footballs containing microchips to gain additional points playing outside with members of their own social network.

All of the character assets in the world are modeled, textured, rigged and animated with LightWave 3D, which is a proven tool in our production pipeline. The project faced a massive challenge when we were tasked with generating the hundreds of thousands of sprite sheets needed to bring the characters to life in the world. With LightWave 10's Sprite-Gen feature, our rendering department was able to shave days off each week's rendering workload. For FunGoPlay, SpriteGen alone has saved the project's production schedule and has freed the render wranglers' time allowing them to focus on other areas of production. If you need to generate sprite sheets, LightWave 10 becomes your one stop shop.