LightWave 10 Review: A New Beginning
One of the most groundbreaking and user favorite features introduced in LightWave 10 is the Viewport Preview Renderer (VPR). This feature allows you to turn any of your Layout viewports into a real-time interactive renderer. VPR gives you real-time feedback as you adjust items in your scene and is a massive time saver. One of the biggest "Holy Cow" moments I've experienced using LightWave 10 was when I loaded a scene that had several particle emitters with HyperVoxels applied to them, and they were displayed real-time within the VPR viewport. I immediately gave Volumetric Lights and FiberFX a go and was equally as impressed when they were displayed. These were features I thought would be a couple of years away from being displayed in real-time.
I experienced some additional surprises with VPR as well. For instance, it allows me to generate accurate animation previews extremely fast, and the OpenGL Overlay viewport option lets me display OpenGL controls, bones and more right on top of the real-time render. This has proven invaluable for posing characters for the high resolution images I've been creating recently.
After about a week of using LightWave 10, I found myself always having at least one viewport set to VPR with no real performance hit. It completely changes Lighting and Surfacing in LightWave, and I can only imagine the impact it will have on newer users who are experiencing lighting and surfacing attributes for the first time.
With 3D Stereoscopic being the hot item these days, LightWave 10's new Anaglyph Stereoscopic Preview option is sure to be a production pleaser. LightWave has had the ability to produce stereoscopic rendering for years, but with this real-time interocular, red-blue anaglyphic separation, it now delivers the ability to view changes as they happen in the Camera viewport. The days of test renders have become a distant memory.
Industry veteran Rob Powers (Tintin, Avatar), recently joined NewTek as VP of 3D Development, and I'm sure his experience working in the Virtual Art Department (VAD) for Avatar played a major role in the development of LightWave 10's Virtual Studio Tools. This toolset allows you to gain a true "on location" experience through interaction with massive 3D scenes in real time with control of light placement and camera directly in your 3D application. LightWave now supports InterSense Virtual Camera Tracking System and 3Dconnexion 3D mouse, allowing interaction with models and scenes in real time.
LightWave has been used in mixed pipelines at studios around the globe for years, and that's never been easier than now with LightWave 10's data interchange enhancements. LightWave's MDD file format has been a favorite for transferring animation data across multiple software pipelines, and in LightWave 10 the format has been enhanced to include support for Autodesk Geometry Cache, FBX, COLLADA, ZBrush interchange and improved OBJ UV support allowing LightWave to fit easily into any mixed pipeline.
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I've used LW since 5.0 and to call it competitive with other apps is ludicrous. LW has never had decent cloth, fiber or particle effects. There was even a time when third-party support for LW was helpful, but now try to find a decent fire or water plugin. Forget it. Unless you have multi-thousand dollar budgets for things like Real Flow, you're not getting any.
What blows me away is the tutorials made by NT employees often don't work since patches or updates break the features needed by these.
I still like LW, but it's usefulness is growing dimmer by the day. Autodesk may wear the devil's horns, but its software just bloody works.
Very interesting to read you, as always...
Extremely helpful article, pelsae write more.
Here's the problem Eric: this article claims to be a "review".
Someone might actually use this "review" to base their software purchase on. That would be unfair to the potential buyer, as this "review" is not balanced, fair and objective. It is a form of press release pointing out new features. Nothing more.
Hmm...
LWs charactertools are pretty OK for a lot of situations, but lacks the deeper things when you need extreme control. Search for rebelhillfilms on Youtube to get the idea.
UVMapping in LW is old and outdated, but thankfully, there are some third party free tools that helps getting things done. Use Google and search for PLG UV Lightwave and you should get some download links.
LWs particle system is old and has a bunch of limitations. It needs updates regarding fields and the 1 million particle limit / emitter. The most notable thing though is that Hypervoxels is even more in a need for an update regarding the usage of particle information. That said, some good artists are making it work for them, rather than against them. Search for Xurgonic on Youtube and take a look at the examples he has posted.
To add to this, Turbulence 4D (fluids) by Jawset is being developed for LW. Search for Jawset Visual Computing on Google.
Dynamics (cloth/soft/hardbody) are long overdue and is in a desperate need for updating. But since the release of LW10.0, there has been a movement in this area. NT themselves have hinted that Bullet most likely will be implemented in LW in a future release, but allready now, there is a third party developer who is working on integrating Bullet, PhysX and Newton into LW. Search for IBounce on Newteks user forums and you should find the thread. It is a long thread, but the interresting thing is that the author of the plugin, hurley, is showing a lot of progress (the first videos shows the Bounce! as an external app, and later on it becomes iBonce! becuase it got integrated). He is currently implementing shattering.
I just rendered a pretty simple scene in 10000x10000 with photoreal mblur. It finished without problems. Not sure what you are getting at here. More complex scenes will take a lot of time, but any renderengine will do that in such resolutions.
Keep frame 0 your bindpose, and you will be able to go back and adjust things.
Undo in Layout is sadly very lacking, but I've also discovered that a lot of what I do in Layout doesn't need undos per see, unlike a tool like Maya where I tend to work very differently and the workflows in Maya do require Undos on a much greater level compared to LW Layout.
Cheers!
Forgot the missing retarget tool!
2004 maya and xsi versions were more modern than the present lightwave.
just check out:
character tools
uv maps
particle system
dynamic system
nowdays lightwave "revolutionary amazing render system" isnt capable even to finish a big render, just try to make a 10000 x 10000 render of anything....
if you notice that your rig is working in a wrong way because of a not well done bone you cannot return to the modeling stage to fix it... If you do, you will mess everything.
undo feature in layout? Joke!
What's with all the anonymous weasels?
The article points out new features of 10. Deal.
The "no app is perfect" canard. Spare me, and spare me the claim that any mention of less than perfection is a "negative" review. That's called an OBJECTIVE review. Also, saying it's better than 9.x is pretty meaningless.
For the record, the author of this "review" was a long time employee of Newtek, as their evangelist. Just sayin'. Nice way to plug his work, too. ;)
Well, I didn't suggest it needs to be a *negative review*, simply that it should, to be considered a balanced and fair review, point out its shortcomings as well as its highlights. Otherwise it is not really a review is it?
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