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LightWave 3D

LightWave 3D

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  • SKU: LIGHTW3D


LightWave is a software package used for rendering 3D images, both animated and static. It includes a rendering engine that supports advanced features as realistic reflection and refraction.

LightWave is a solid, production proven start-to-finish 3D modeling, rendering and animation software that is built to stand alone or easily integrate into any 3D workflow.

Key Features:

  • Instancing: Mass duplication of objects with little memory overhead.
  • Bullet Dynamics: Production Proven Physics Engine.
  • Fracture: Pre-shatter objects for use with Bullet using a variety of algorithms.
  • Flocking: Create natural swarming, crowd avoidance behaviors with ease.
  • Unified Sampling: New sampling system which features higher-quality sampling at often reduced render times
  • Shadow / Reflection Catcher: Blend believable shadows and reflections into background plates easy and fast
  • Car Paint - Iridescence: Updated Car Paint shader to support iridescent effects, giving you more realistic results
  • Python Scripting: Industry standard, SDK level access Python scripting
  • Virtual Studio Tools: Playstation Move support, SDK and much more
  • ZBrush GoZ Support: GoZ support for Layout and Modeler, with zero-config installation
  • Render Buffer Enhancements: The new Compositing Buffer Export panel makes exporting render buffers easier
  • FiberFX Enhancements: New Stroke volume rendering mode, new instancing support and speed improvements
  • Print Camera Utility: Overhauled utility for setting up renders for print
  • Align to Plan: Easy object alignment for modeling off-axis
  • Scene Loading Optimisations: Significant speed boost with some scenes loading up to 7X faster
  • Optimisations: Speed improvements to IK performance and GLSL shading means smoother working in Layout

LightWave 3D - Features

LightWave 3D is a 3D graphics and animation package that can be used to create graphics for print, Web, industrial design, architecture and medical imaging etc.

New features in version 8 include:

General Controls:

  • Animatable UV coordinates
Motion & Displacement Controllers:
  • New Bone Editing Tools will make character rigging a snap. The Bone Edit tools consist of Joint Move, Tip Move, Bone Twist, Unparent Bone, Bone Split, Bone Connect, Bone Fuse, Scale Hierarchy, Copy Hierarchy, Mirror Hierarchy, Rename Hierarchy, Delete Hierarchy, Delete Bone, Align Pitch, Record Pivot Rotation, Remove RPR, Remove RPP and Bone Edit Mode.
  • Import/Export RIG functions give you the ability to reuse and share rigs from object to object, via the new .rig file format.
  • Bone Edit Mode allows you to edit your character rigs quickly and easily within the scene you are creating.
  • Bones On/Off activates/deactivates all bones in all loaded objects.
  • IK Booster allows for one-click IK setup and has intuitive tools to help with setup of constraints
  • New Morph Mixer offers faster performance and an incredible range of control for object morphing, including character animation, in an intuitive interface. The user now has the ability to organize morphs into groups and display morph information and controls in a variety of ways.
  • JointMorph Plus is a displacement handler for Layout. It uses the angle of a control bone to drive morphs, without using expressions.
Particle FX & Dynamics Systems:
  • Rigid Body Dynamics
  • Improved Soft Body Dynamics
  • Improved Cloth Dynamics
  • Bone Dynamics work similar to the other dynamic tools in LightWave 3D [8], but are applied to bones instead of geometry.
  • Improved Particle System Tools
Rendering:
  • LWSN log file for debugging renders
  • Expanded command list in LWSN for third party render controllers
  • Render speed enhancements
  • Render Arbitrary allows you to enter the specific frames you want to render, in any combination of individual frame numbers and ranges, delimited by commas. For example: 1,10,19-40,60-100,120 would be a valid entry.
  • DirectShow filter allowing .flx images and animations to be displayed in Windows Media Player.
Layout Workflow & UI Enhancements:
  • New Scene Editor with integrated Spreadsheet and Dope Sheet allows for quick and easy viewing and editing of the item and surface properties in your scene, including fast and easy operations on multiple selections.
  • Dope Track is primarily a tool for easy moving of keyframes for the new IK Booster, but with handy access to other keyframeable parameters as well. Baking keys, and Soft Applying are also possible.
  • Node-based Expression Editor
  • Envelope Contextual Menus allow faster access to edit operations.
  • Move TCB allows direct manipulation of Tension, Continuity and Bias in the main Layout viewports.
  • MultiMirror performs a Mirror operation on the selected items in the scene.
  • Multi-selection of Texture Editor Layers
Modeling Tools:
  • Star Sphere creates a cloud of one point polygons, with a variety of control options.
  • Translate Plus allows you to use a point's normal, a segment, or a segment's normal to define how to move, rotate, scale a selection. You can even just use global X, Y, or Z. Each of these operations can also be done with a falloff.
  • Move Plus adds translation along local normal or averaged normal using the right mouse button.
  • Segment Scale allows users to move points along an edge.
  • Point Normal Move allows you to select the points you want to move on their normals, then click and drag on the screen to move them in and out.
  • Cut is a general-purpose, interactive cutting tool which cuts from edge to edge. A variety of special purpose variations with preset parameters have been made available to the user as well: Quick Cut 1,2, and 3, Quick Saw, Quick Saw Double, Quick Saw Term, Quick Saw Double Term.
  • Divide will divide edges into two segments based on point selection. Also has polygon mode for splitting polygons.
  • Make Pole triangulates all selected polygons with a pole at the center. Can be used with the Fix Pole tool to open up geometry for manipulation.
  • Extender Plus allows you to select an unordered group of points, automatically reordering the polys it extends to face the proper normals and detects when it should loop and when it shouldn't (point mode). Performs a quick grouped polygon extrusion without providing an interactive interface (polyogn mode).
  • SuperShift is an interactive tool to smooth shift and bevel polygons. Can work with averaged normals when shifting or scaling.
  • Bridge Tool easily joins selected sets of polygons to reshape a mesh with bridges or tunnels, or join meshes.
  • Edge Tools are used to split and modify polygon edges. When the tools are activated, handles appear on polygon edges that can be drawn between and moved to create a set of polygon splits. Will also remove and reduce edges, healing the polygon splits. All tools have real-time feedback and numeric controls.
  • Fix Poles will take a group of connected triangles which share a point, and create a bevel which will help smoothing.
  • Fix 3-5 will turn each pentagon next to a triangle into two quads.
  • Rotate Skelegons allows you to quickly adjust the bank handles of skelegons as well as preview rotational deformations (this includes the deformation of sub-patches).
  • Create JointMorph works a lot like Rotate Skelegons but is helpful when creating endomorphs for joints.
  • Improved Aligner, Sizer and Dangle tools.
  • Vertex Map panel now has buttons for Color Map and Selection Sets, and a variety of other new controls. The ability to right-click and create a new Vmap has been added.
  • Enhanced "Make Polygon" tool that works in Symmetry mode and will also close holes in geometry.
  • Particle2Partigon turns selected particles into partigons.
Modeler Workflow & UI Enhancements:
  • Select Loop works like point belt selector or other point loop detecting plug-ins or like Bandsaw's selection when used in polygon mode.
  • Select Poly will convert your point selection to polygons by retrieving all the polygons enclosed by the selected points.
  • Select Points will convert your polygon selection to points by retrieving all the points making up the selected polygons.
  • Select Outline gets rid of all the inner points in your selection and selects an outline bordering those inner points (point mode). Selects an outline of all the polygons you have selected, not selecting the inner points (polygon mode).
  • Select Ring will select a pair of loops along two selected edge points.
  • Invert Connected will only invert the geometry that is connected to the selected geometry.
  • Clone2 Layer has the ability to place clones in multiple layers.
  • Insert Layer inserts a layer in between two layers, shifting the layers down the layer list.
  • Delete Layer deletes the selected layer and shifts the layers after it up the layer list.
  • Object Collapser takes all selected layers and condenses it down into one.
  • Min/Max widget for each viewport.
  • Expanded view modes drop down menu.
SDK:
  • Public Hub API so that third party applications can communicate directly with Layout and Modeler
  • New SDK commands and options
  • New LScript Commands and options
  • Expanded command list in LWSN for third party render controllers
  • New communication facilities for sharing data and parameters between Layout/Modeler and plugins, and between plugins.
General Workflow and UI Enhancements:
  • Inline Help System links to the local Help Files that install with LightWave [8] the complete reference manual in an easy to navigate HTML structure or to NewTek's web site, offering tips, downloads, and tutorials, which are updated and extended regularly.
  • Enhanced OpenGL with new modes and options and optimized speed.
  • Speed and Workflow Optimizations including faster rendering, faster IK, faster dynamics calculations, faster OpenGL performance, new workflow oriented menu layout, and inproved viewport manipulation.
  • Incremental Saving and Autosaving for Modeler and Layout. Auto-saving of scene files via the Hub.

Features include:

  • General Controls:
    • Squash and stretch tool
    • Motify: Replacement Delete key option including clearing motions, deleting ranges of keys and deleting keys within a threshold
    • Hybrid Inverse and Forward Kinematics engine
    • Free-form and locked IK goals
    • Separate animated channels.
  • Motion Mixer:
    • Non-linear animation system for blending any curve track inside of LightWave 3D that can be used for blending motions, endomorphs or any animatable parameter
    • Load and save Hierarchical Motion (HMOT) data containing all relevant components, motions and channels for a character group
    • Position and scale motions and groups of channels in track view
    • Bblend multiple motion tracks with a user definable curve
    • Set Pre and Post behaviours for HMOT behaviours
    • Channel editor for enabling and disabling independent items or channels from each HMOT behaviour
    • Absolute and Relative Offset motions settings
    • Animation baking for full scene or defined range
    • Select by Descendants, Hierarchy, Actor or Motion.
  • Spreadsheet Edit and Dope Sheet:
    • Make mass scene changes including a track view time line for dope sheet style timing adjustments
    • Edit sections include:
      • Bone Properties: Influence and Effect
      • Light Properties: Basic, Flags, Type Specific and Shadows
      • Object Properties: Geometry, Morphing, Displacement, Render Options, Render Flags, Edges
      • Motions Options: IK, Controllers and Limits HPB
      • Item Flags
      • Tem Names and Statistics
      • Tags
      • Channel Values.
    • Customisable workspace for selecting editable values and viewable fields
    • Multiple list sorting options
    • Multiple workspace configurations
    • Dope sheet control over time line for multiple track editing
    • Define range of frames for Dope sheet editing
    • Item List filtering.
  • Graph Editor and Funtion Curve Editor:
    • Channel Editing System
    • OpenGL interface allows editing hundreds of curves and thousands of key frames in real time
    • Handle data rich curves such as Match Footprint Time Slice, Key Reduction, Curve Filtering and Key Bins
    • Multiple curve types (Linear, Bézier, Stepped, Hermite Spline and TCB) enabling multi-select and editing of heterogeneous curve types and including a key roll option and interactive key copy
    • Track Layout selection option updates the current selection of editable curves to match the selected item
    • Curve View enables collapsible curve list and options sections to provide optimised space for curve editing
    • Lock Motion Keys in Time provide a method of locking channels for 5.6 style curve editing
    • Customisable key editing behaviours and interface
    • Production designed behaviours and options
    • Interactive spline tangent (t,c,b) adjustment.
  • Motion and Displacement Controllers:
    • Modified bones deformation algorithm reduces cross talk between bones and provides a more natural deformation of skin surfaces without requiring point assignment
    • Spline-based motion and deformation
    • Bones system with support for direct vertex assignment and soft influence as defined by user-created weight maps
    • Facial animation tool with Endomorphs and a Motion Mixer. Embed morph positions into the model file and blend between them in a non-linear fashion
    • Follower channel modifier links any items channel to another
    • Oscillator channel modifier enables sinusoidal motions to be generated with control of phase, time offset and damping
    • Texture motion provides a method for adding a texture to a motion path
    • Displacement of geometry along normals in 3D space or along a specific axis. Multiple layers enable combinations
    • Integrated Sub-division Bump Displacement creates an accurate displacement of vertices on the surface at the time of subdivision creating very natural, high definition geometric bumping
    • Parameterised Animated Values Linking Objects and Variables (PAVLOV)
    • Integrated expressions engine and channel repository enabling all animated items in a scene to be referenced, link or drive one another; also allows surfaces to be modified based on various input parameters or even linked to motions or any other envelope in the scene.
  • Particle FX and Dynamics Systems:
    • Soft body dynamics for cloth, hair and other simulations
    • Preset cloth settings for applying various "materials" such as rubber, silk, cotton etc
    • Integrated particle system for explosions, fire and smoke, using wind, gravity and collision effectors
    • Simple fluid dynamics and crowd simulation with interparticle collision calculations
    • Particle spawning from parent emitters enables a single particle to become a complex emitter
    • Collision spawning enables collision events to create new particles with independent attributes
    • Effects grouping enables users to isolate particular wind, gravity, collisions and emitters to affect or disregard each other
    • Change Group mode for collisions will force particles into a new Effects Group after collision
    • Nozzle types (cone, surface and line)
    • Texturing of wind power, particle velocity and wind direction
    • Particles are generated with such properties as size, weight, resistance, lifetime, vibration and adherence to the motion of the parent item
    • Wind types include:
      • direction
      • explosion
      • rotation
      • cylinder-explosion
      • doughnut
      • turbulence
      • vortex
      • path
      • sticky
      • random
      • hemisphere
      • drag.
    • Collision detection with primitives or polygonal and subdivision surface LightWave objects
    • Object and scene linking to particles. Attach items or complete hierarchies to particles for flocking and swarming actions
    • Textured and enveloped birth rate for particles with emission from pre-defined shapes, object vertices, normals and textures.
  • Rendering:
    • Hair, fur, grass and foliage rendering using the Sasquatch rendering engine
    • SkyTracer 2.0 incorporating VIPER and Preset shelf and including the SunSpot control for entering specific time, date and global positions to achieve universally accurate sun positions
    • Digital Confusion including a Depth of Field filter that adds depth of field effects to rendered imagery. Special features include rendering of hidden geometry for accurate background blurring and optional iris shapes for matching various camera styles
    • GL previews of sprites provide a real time preview of complex sprite based HyperVoxels with procedural textures or image maps that are useful for smoke and fire effects and the creation of forests and other instance style scenarios
    • HyperVoxel texture effects modes for Dissolve and Expand and Velocity Translate effects simplifies the creation of realistic smoke and fire
    • Sprite mode for volumetric lights reduces render times by up to 500%
    • Soft reflection
    • Soft refraction
    • BESM (Big Eyes Small Mouth) shader for cartoon style rendering
    • Gmill ray accumulation shader approximates radiosity effects on a selected surface
    • Voxel Baking for Volume type HyperVoxels enabling volumetric clouds to be baked for fast rendering and real time OpenGL previews
    • Baking of colour, illumination, shaders, radiosity, caustics and diffusion into UV-defined image maps or point maps
    • Over 320 bit IEEE floating point rendering pipeline accommoding optional buffers such as reflection, x and y motion, geometry, shading and depth
    • Radiosity enabling the calculation of bounced lighting for global illumination with production speed
    • Backdrop only method for global illumination style renders
    • Caustics providing accurate light reflection and refraction
    • High Dynamic Range Imagery for producing accurate lighting models using images as light sources
    • Flexible Precision Image format
    • Anti-aliasing
    • Integrated volumetrics using HyperVoxels technology
    • Subdivision surface rendering
    • Virtual Darkroom technology simulating film and print exposures
    • Shading noise reduction improves shadow quality and provides lower render times
    • Rendering up to 16,000 x 16,000 pixels
    • Time stepped, vector based and hybrid motion blur types
    • Image and animation formats
    • QuickTime VR and VRML output
    • True volumetric pixels for creation of fire, smoke, water and other organic effects
    • Direct integration of HyperVoxels with particle systems
    • Render options panel
    • Distant, area, linear, spot and point lights
    • Comprehensive lens flare system
    • 3D textured, animated volumetric lights
    • Ray trace non-refractive transparency
    • Infinite layers of images, sequences, procedurals, gradients and video
    • Infinite layers of UV maps
    • Layers can feed into each other to produce texture blending and manipulation
    • Animatable surface attributes
    • Translucency
    • Glossiness mapping
    • Multiple specular highlights with user definable colours with BRDF
    • Surface and object based light exclusion
    • Gradient textures enable texture values to be based on distance to objects, slope, bump height and camera and light incidence
    • Anisotropic specular reflections
    • Unlimited network rendering licences (per platform).
  • Layout Workflow and UI:
    • Versatile Interactive Preview Renderer (VIPER) for changing textures, lights, backdrops, volumetrics and HyperVoxels without re-rendering the scene. Changes to parameters will update the preview
    • Visual preset manager for storing and retrieving volumetric lights, surfaces and HyperVoxel settings
    • Schematic view providing node-based viewing and editing of hierarchies and dependencies
    • Schematic view tools for organising items and multiple view options
    • Favourite sets for camera settings
    • Item Active flag in the Scene Editor enables items to be de-activated from rendering and other calculations
    • Select hierarchy (Layout)
    • Turn XYZ and HPB on and off (Layout)
    • Non-modal windows
    • Visual presets manager for storing and retrieving volumetric lights, surfaces and HyperVoxels settings graphically
    • Multiple co-ordinate systems with World, Parent and Local axis editing resolving the Gimbal lock and enabling item-relative editing
    • OpenGL transparency, lens flares, reflectivity, safe areas, field charts and camera masking
    • Targeting indicators in Layout views
    • Representation for DOF in Layout views
    • Weight shade mode (bone influence in GL)
    • Disable deformations to improve interactive operation speed
    • Item on and off mode in scene editor
    • Centre selected item as a button on viewport panes
    • Scene and Preview frame ranges
    • Edit frame range
    • Render progress display
    • Detailed memory use statistics
    • Recently opened files command
    • Special top group for menu layouts
    • General OpenGL optimisations
    • Copy and paste in server panes.
  • Modelling Tools:
    • Phantom subpatch point selector enables users to click directly on the subpatch curve intersection for editing
    • Airbrush between morphs
    • Aligner, Sizer and Dangle modelling tools for modelling to scale asnd relational modelling between multiple objects
    • Rail Modelling tools for interactive scaling, rotating and stretching based on the curve tool
    • Simultaneous selection of up to four weight maps in the Vertex map window represented in the weight shade view style
    • Real time subdivision surface modelling
    • Convert between polygons and subdivision surfaces at any time during the modelling and animation process
    • Intelligentities with Endomorphs, Skelegons and MultiMeshes
    • Endomorphs enable morph data to be stored in the object file so that changes can be made to the base model without disturbing targets
    • Skelegons skeletal creation tools enable the creation and editing of bones within geometry
    • MultiMeshes provide a layered object format with unlimited layers
    • Atlas mapping provides automatically generated UV maps that virtually eliminate texture stretching
    • Animatable Metaballs, Metafaces and Metaedges
    • Direct control over polys, vertices and patches
    • Colour data can be painted, assigned or baked into each point of the model file (Vertex Shading)
    • Symmetry tool for creating characters
    • Export wireframes to EPS format
    • Export 3DS, DXF, OBJ and VRML
    • Import EPS, 3DS, OBJ, DXF and FACT
    • Face Collapse command
    • Rounded edge box tool
    • Snap rotations to 15 degrees from the rotate mini-widget
    • Colour wireframes
    • Orthogonal and perspective view modelling ports
    • UV mapping controls with infinite layering
    • VMAP symmetry editing
    • Move and Rotate tool (Rove)
    • Flatten layers
    • Save layers as objects.
  • Modeller Workflow and UI:
    • User customisable interface
    • Contextual pop-ups
    • Beginner, Intermediate and Expert modes for warnings and system messages
    • Non-modal windows
    • Switch view modes only using keys
    • Revert Object command
    • Alpha value for airbrush
    • Intelligent Backdrop Image determination based on surface and textures
    • Recently opened files commands
    • 2D snap
    • A new "-p" command line option for selecting a different plug-in database file. The path string can be a directory or a complete filename
    • Improved information window
    • Point indices in information dialogue
    • Share rotations in focus
    • Apply RGB maps to surfaces during creation.
  • SDK:
    • LScript integrated scripting system
    • Custom object class
    • LScript command window
    • Method for installing scripts as toolbar buttons
    • Complete command set and globals
    • Load and save commands for servers
    • Context menus in panels.

LightWave 3D - System Requirements

Macintosh:

  • Power Macintosh Processor (G3 or higher recommended)
  • Mac OS 9 upwards (Mac OS X recommended)
  • 384 MB of available RAM for Mac OS 9
  • 128 MB of available RAM for Mac OS X
  • 32 MB Available hard drive space
  • CD-ROM for installation
  • Screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels (minimum).

Microsoft Windows:

  • Microsoft Windows 98, Me, 2000, NT 4 with SP 6a or XP Home or Professional
  • TCP/IP Network Protocol
  • 128 MB of available RAM
  • 32 MB Available hard drive space
  • CD-ROM for installation
  • Screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels (minimum).