10-10-10

[philnolan3d]

In case anyone missed it there was a very interesting new LightWave 10 video posted yesterday (on 10/10/10).

http://www.newtek.com/ (you literally can't miss it)

Also an article on CG Society mentioned that many more videos are coming in the next few weeks, including one about the interaction between LW and 3DC/zb.

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5911

[Greg]

I wish I had the extra cash for the upgrade after watching that. I really like the looks of the vpr, especially since I don't have FPrime.

Greg

[AbnRanger]

I wish I had the extra cash for the upgrade after watching that. I really like the looks of the vpr, especially since I don't have FPrime.

Greg

Personally, I'm glad to see Rob get things back on track. I've said before that the best thing Newtek could've done was to split the development team up...2/3's working on CORE and 1/3 updating/upgrading the the current architecture as much as possible. That way they can still keep a bit current until CORE is more fully developed. I think CORE is still about 3-5 yrs away from being a full-fledged, full-featured application. I also think it looks more like a professional application without all those default hokie colors in the UI (yes I know you can change the scheme yourself, but the default is the face of the application, and it looked like poo until now (in my opinion), and has a more standard medium-dark grey scheme.

I'm sticking with 3ds Max though, even though LW 10 is headed in the right direction and the VPR looks pretty sweet. iRay and integrated PhysX is already out for subscription customers, and it's GPU/CUDA acclerated (w/ Multi-Card support). I think each userbase has enough goodies to keep them happy.

[geo_n]

Rob indeed makes a big difference to the dev of newtek. He got vpr working in layout in a few months. But he's no miracle man and people have to be realistic about what the core will be capable of when its released. I would say its on the same path as modo which means more than 7 years just a modeller. Lol.

But layout with vpr is good and for people who dont own fprime it is a significant upgrade. For those that have fprime, the upgrade is pretty slim.

3dmax or maya is still a better bet imho if your projects require it. From a freelance standpoint, lightwave can do 90% of projects a one man army can produce.

[philnolan3d]

From a freelance standpoint, lightwave can do 90% of projects a one man army can produce.

Sure there's freelance stuff, but also all the movies and high end TV shows that weren't exactly done by freelancers.

[geo_n]

Sure there's freelance stuff, but also all the movies and high end TV shows that weren't exactly done by freelancers.

If what people in the LA, UK area say about scarcity of lw jobs is any indication, which is true for japan too, majority of tv and film work is not done in lightwave. For the past year we have not worked with any lightwave based studio, tokyo is very small area filled with cg studios and most use 3dmax, maya. But we have worked with some lightwave based freelancers. Real generalist that can do everything.

FWIW our studio was lw based for 10 years but slowly swithced 2-3 years ago. I even saw the old parallel dongles laying around the office. Lol.

Dont get married to software.

[philnolan3d]

I never said the majority, but it is an awful lot, Just look at all the work being done at Zoic Studios and Digital Domain. Granted LW isn't their only tool, but they do use it heavily. Nick Digital uses only LightWave on all of their shows for another example. I'll use whatever works best, it just turns out that happens to be 3DC and LW most of the time.

[AbnRanger]

If what people in the LA, UK area say about scarcity of lw jobs is any indication, which is true for japan too, majority of tv and film work is not done in lightwave. For the past year we have not worked with any lightwave based studio, tokyo is very small area filled with cg studios and most use 3dmax, maya. But we have worked with some lightwave based freelancers. Real generalist that can do everything.

FWIW our studio was lw based for 10 years but slowly swithced 2-3 years ago. I even saw the old parallel dongles laying around the office. Lol.

Dont get married to software.

Personally, I don't buy all this "get things done in LW faster" business. I never ever hear specifics as to "How" it's faster...just vague generalities = fanboy speak. If there were any real substance to that, then there would be a larger number of studios using it. I'd rather model in Max than any application out there. I think FPrime was LW's saving grace for the past several years, and maybe that's one of the reasons people would claim the speed advantage, but there are now interactive renderers all over the place.

Fact is, talented and productive artists will crank out work fast no matter what they are using. I think LW 10 might encourage some former LW users (who have since switched elsewhere) to comeback, or many current users to stay onboard...but there is nothing there to entice users of other applications, in my opinion. I think LW's biggest competition is actually Blender, which has been dipping it's finger in LW's pudding for a few years now.

[philnolan3d]

What I see a lot of is autodesks marketing dollars and non-disclosure contracts that won't let studios say what tools they actually use (aside from AD tools of course). I know at least 2 big studios that can't say they are using 3DC because of AD contracts, 3 or 4 more who can't say they're using LW.

[AbnRanger]

What I see a lot of is autodesks marketing dollars and non-disclosure contracts that won't let studios say what tools they actually use (aside from AD tools of course). I know at least 2 big studios that can't say they are using 3DC because of AD contracts, 3 or 4 more who can't say they're using LW.

Well...I don't know about that. There are a few places that use LW somewhere in the pipeline...even ILM, I think. But having a few seats among dozens or a few hundred doesn't give Newtek a lot to hang their hat on. They started the whole rebuild process back in 2005 and the model was to replace entire sections at a time. When they announced CORE, I thought it was something they had been working on the whole time. It turns out, that was not the case. They essentially scrapped the previous plans and started from scratch. Not that I disagree with that direction, just that it was very late to be doing so. That hurt them. CORE needed to be more of a real replacement...not a concept/alpha stage product.

Again, I think bringing in Rob and putting some of the development into the legacy version of LW is the right way forward. I think Rob's interest in 3D Coat or perhaps more so in Andrew...was encouraging, but I wouldn't want to see 3DC bought out by anyone. Maybe offer 3DC in a bundle deal when LW 10 is offically released? It already looks like a module from LW, so it would be a natural fit.

I also think it would help Andrew get 3D Coat's name further into the marketplace if he met Newtek halfway on a bundle deal (maybe Newtek could license it per seat at roughly the same cost as the current EDU version?).

So, is there any difference in Modeler since 9.6, or is CORE what most LW users doing their modeling in?

[philnolan3d]

Not being a HardCORE member I can't say what's happening in Modeler, aside from what's public. It does look like there are some improvements coming. There must be if they're doing an entire video on Bandsaw Pro.

[Javis]

Not being a HardCORE member I can't say what's happening in Modeler, aside from what's public. It does look like there are some improvements coming. There must be if they're doing an entire video on Bandsaw Pro.

Yeah I saw that they were touting a whole video on just bandsaw pro, lol. It's pretty hilarious really. I didn't realize one could make a whole video on an outdated modeling tool.

[Greg]

Hey, I love bandsaw pro! But, yeah, a video on it? Maybe they've changed some things about it, and it's a really short video. Where's the link about it?

Now, back to watching the train wreck between l3d and sq...

Greg

[philnolan3d]

Bandsaw Pro may be an old tool, but it's still better than any similar tool I could find when I was learning max. I'm assuming they must have improved it in some way, why else would they make a video about it for the LW10 release? Also the mention of it is a little vague, it says "Bandsaw / Bandsaw Pro, interface workflow". That might be one thing or 2, could be that the majority of that video is about workflow.

Greg: It's the CGSociety link in the first post:

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5911

BTW that link also mentions 10 videos over the next 10 weeks, presumably before LW10 ships. They've said it's shipping by the end of the year so it looks like LW10 should be out right at about Christmas time.

[Greg]

Bandsaw Pro may be an old tool, but it's still better than any similar tool I could find when I was learning max. I'm assuming they must have improved it in some way, why else would they make a video about it for the LW10 release? Also the mention of it is a little vague, it says "Bandsaw / Bandsaw Pro, interface workflow". That might be one thing or 2, could be that the majority of that video is about workflow.

Greg: It's the CGSociety link in the first post:

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5911

BTW that link also mentions 10 videos over the next 10 weeks, presumably before LW10 ships. They've said it's shipping by the end of the year so it looks like LW10 should be out right at about Christmas time.

Thanks Phil. Hard to think how they could improve it much.. it works really well as is. Guess we'll see.

Greg