10-10-10

[philnolan3d]

Lightwave is quite good especially for one man generalist work where there is limited resources which is oneself. It fails in bigger projects due to its limited expandability and even third party support is so few... the good stuff..vray, krakatoa, fumefx, thinking particles, rayfire, zbrush applink and countless other third party stuff.

Anyway there's a rare lw job opportunity I read

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=319&t=928182

I don't know if I would say "so few" about third party. Have you seen Flay.com? That aside, this is probably the greatest thing about CORE, that it's completely open using well known coding languages (C++, Lua, Python), since coders have the same SDK that was used to make CORE every plugin will feel 100% integrated as well, not tacked on. For example if someone wanted they could create an entire editing or compositing package that goes right inside a CORE viewport and it would have full access to everything in CORE.

As for that job I actually sent them a reel last night because they are only an hour away from me. There's another big one I noticed last night, The Asylum is currently looking for a full time LightWave generalist. If you don't know them they create a motion picture a month using only LightWave for the 3D stuff.

[geo_n]

I don't know if I would say "so few" about third party. Have you seen Flay.com? That aside, this is probably the greatest thing about CORE, that it's completely open using well known coding languages (C++, Lua, Python), since coders have the same SDK that was used to make CORE every plugin will feel 100% integrated as well, not tacked on. For example if someone wanted they could create an entire editing or compositing package that goes right inside a CORE viewport and it would have full access to everything in CORE.

As for that job I actually sent them a reel last night because they are only an hour away from me. There's another big one I noticed last night, The Asylum is currently looking for a full time LightWave generalist. If you don't know them they create a motion picture a month using only LightWave for the 3D stuff.

Yes there's few. Flay hasn't been updated in months. The only plugin that is still supported well is dbw plugins, dponts, janus, wtools, kray, trueart. Thank God they're still around. A lot of plugins for lw are dead, and some don't even have a lightwave version for integrating to compositing appz nuke,fusion,ae, no good integration with game engines like unity which is a pity, no applink for zbrush. Do we have a 3dc lw applink yet?

The Asylum makes B movies on a fast pace environment where one person handles multiple cut. Lightwave can do that. Other appz can do that as well if that's the situation but it will not be as affordable as lightwave licenses. But if you were making an A class feature film to make a gollum,kingkong character, that would be impossible to do in lw because its not expandable. Pooby already mentioned he can't do what he did in xsi with Greg mutt in lightwave. You will hit a wall somewhere in lw. But he does say that fprime is still easy to use as a render engine and I agree its still the most stable,flickerfree gi renderer for lw.

[philnolan3d]

Well FPrime is not perfect, that's why VPR will be such a huge hit. I have very little trouble with plugins not working. Mainly my only trouble is that I use the 64 bit version and some don't work with that so I have to switch to the 32 bit one. D-Creation's Unreal Extreme plugin is another one that's very popular. That one, like many others works so well they just don't need to be updated so much. As for games LW works fantastically with Unity 3D and CORE of course uses Collada as it's main file format, so of course it will work perfectly with just about all game engines. As for the 3DC applink for LW It's my understanding that that will be ready in time for the LW 10 launch. Well, whatever. This is a dumb argument, all I know is that there are many people happily using it and looking forward to the next version, especially in this forum, so I decided to share the info.

[wave of light]

I'm with Phil on this one. I only had probs with plugins that didn't have 64bit support, so back to 32bit.

I was part of hardcore and I have to say the VPR is excellent, even on slower machines. Going to have to look deeper into Liner workflow.

I've been back through the Newtek TV site to look at some of the vids I've missed. I'm really looking forward to knuckling down and getting back to character creation in LW10, 3DC and being able to rig and see it live in the VPR.

Ricky.

[geo_n]

Well FPrime is not perfect, that's why VPR will be such a huge hit. I have very little trouble with plugins not working. Mainly my only trouble is that I use the 64 bit version and some don't work with that so I have to switch to the 32 bit one. D-Creation's Unreal Extreme plugin is another one that's very popular. That one, like many others works so well they just don't need to be updated so much. As for games LW works fantastically with Unity 3D and CORE of course uses Collada as it's main file format, so of course it will work perfectly with just about all game engines. As for the 3DC applink for LW It's my understanding that that will be ready in time for the LW 10 launch. Well, whatever. This is a dumb argument, all I know is that there are many people happily using it and looking forward to the next version, especially in this forum, so I decided to share the info.

Fprime is not perfect but vpr has a looooong way to go before beating fprime in function and support for lw itself. And fprime is more than an IPR, it is a final renderer that does flickerfree gi animation. Not to mention it can preview volumetrics so useful for using hypervoxels. Worley was way ahead of his time.

Sorry but your tutorial for unity and lw was too simplistic. You will not encounter any problems with unity with that simple test. Look around newtek how much trouble people are having with unity,lw workflow. Lw itself doesn't even support 2uvmaps on export to support lightmaps,etc and there's tons of probs regarding vertex data. Watch and learn from bugzillas youtube channel regarding unity and lw and how he used blender to fix it. And core with unity?? What gave you that impression that it will work with unity? In core 3.0 maybe.

[philnolan3d]

I'm not sure about UV problems but I had no trouble sending a LW model to Unity with 2 UV maps. You can see it in my

, (and actually the texturing page of the 3DC website), my starfighter had separate UV maps for the interior and exterior. I'm not sure what my tutorial has to do with anything, that was just for getting started and was actually targeted at people doing archviz walkthroughs, my other tests involved rigging and animation in LightWave also with no trouble.

I never specifically said CORE with Unity. All I know is what i've been told that CORE's main file type is Collada so it's a good assumption that it will work with game engines. LW10 (Modeler and Layout) is also supposed to have greatly increased I/O with Collada, FBX, etc.

Why not take off the hater pants and chill for a while.

[geo_n]

I'm not sure about UV problems but I had no trouble sending a LW model to Unity with 2 UV maps. You can see it in my

, (and actually the texturing page of the 3DC website), my starfighter had separate UV maps for the interior and exterior. I'm not sure what my tutorial has to do with anything, that was just for getting started and was actually targeted at people doing archviz walkthroughs, my other tests involved rigging and animation in LightWave also with no trouble.

I never specifically said CORE with Unity. All I know is what i've been told that CORE's main file type is Collada so it's a good assumption that it will work with game engines. LW10 (Modeler and Layout) is also supposed to have greatly increased I/O with Collada, FBX, etc.

Why not take off the hater pants and chill for a while.

I dont think you're getting the issue with the fbx exporter in lw :p Two uvs in one material, not multiple uvs in one lwo object. Otherwise this guy wouldn't have made a plugin if the issue was not there http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111624

It fixes the issue with static models and lightmaps but there are other issues with an animated model and other maps and lw fbx exporter.

I dont hate lw and I'm grateful to lw for getting me a studio job but I'm just stating what the industry is right now and newtek needs to do better than what they are doing in hc. Expectations are way too high for people outside hc such as yourself and its just scary when people tell everyone that vpr will be a huge hit and lw 10 is equal to maya, xsi, etc and used in a lot of studios when its not. Arnold will probably be a huge hit than vpr.

As someone at newtek said, managing expection is what newtek needs to do with core 1.0 release asap before non lw users look at it and expect a full app by q4.

[AbnRanger]

I dont think you're getting the issue with the fbx exporter in lw :p Two uvs in one material, not multiple uvs in one lwo object. Otherwise this guy wouldn't have made a plugin if the issue was not there http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111624

It fixes the issue with static models and lightmaps but there are other issues with an animated model and other maps and lw fbx exporter.

I dont hate lw and I'm grateful to lw for getting me a studio job but I'm just stating what the industry is right now and newtek needs to do better than what they are doing in hc. Expectations are way too high for people outside hc such as yourself and its just scary when people tell everyone that vpr will be a huge hit and lw 10 is equal to maya, xsi, etc and used in a lot of studios when its not. Arnold will probably be a huge hit than vpr.

As someone at newtek said, managing expection is what newtek needs to do with core 1.0 release asap before non lw users look at it and expect a full app by q4.

I personally think, and maybe it's already been tried, but Newtek should try to merge PMG into their fold and have them work on integrating the CA tools for LW 11 (and into CORE). Autodesk didn't go out and try to re-invent the wheel regarding CA in Max...they added CAT (Character Animation Toolkit...former $1k plugin) in Max 2011, and that works for me.

If Messiah's CA tools were integrated in LW/CORE, I really think that would shore up a perceived weakness...and maybe the tipping point for many folks. The developer(s) at PMG would certainly be a major asset to Newtek on a number of fronts (rendering, particles, dynamics, etc.), so I've been surprised that this hasn't occurred years ago.

[geo_n]

I personally think, and maybe it's already been tried, but Newtek should try to merge PMG into their fold and have them work on integrating the CA tools for LW 11 (and into CORE). Autodesk didn't go out and try to re-invent the wheel regarding CA in Max...they added CAT (Character Animation Toolkit...former $1k plugin) in Max 2011, and that works for me.

If Messiah's CA tools were integrated in LW/CORE, I really think that would shore up a perceived weakness...and maybe the tipping point for many folks. The developer(s) at PMG would certainly be a major asset to Newtek on a number of fronts (rendering, particles, dynamics, etc.), so I've been surprised that this hasn't occurred years ago.

PMG like Lux have no desire to go back to Newtek from the talks at newtek. But I heard messiah is well integrated into lightwave already and people are doing well with that workflow.

I'm using maestro plugin and its by far one of the best plugins for lw. Also looking forward to Rhiggit pro.

What newtek needs to do is to make lightwave hook into more appz instead of competing with them. They could also improve the links between 2d compositing programs and game engines and better workflow with mocap. Things which are hopefully planned for lw 10.... hopefully.

As of now, crappy workflow with AE,unity,mocap.

[philnolan3d]

I think the extreme open-ness of CORE is meant partly for that, connecting with more apps. Plus how they were talking about how much work they're putting into things like Collada, FBX, etc.

[AbnRanger]

Not trying to rain of LW's parade, but I just wanted to mention....for what it's worth...that 3ds Max and Maya both are actually in the same price range as LW...for students. There is an EDU to Commercial license upgrade for roughly $1200. Not a lot of people actually know about it and I'm sure AD wants to keep it fairly hush, but it's there. Go to any major CG software reseller, and you can find the upgrade there. It has been available for Max for years now, but Maya has since been added. Softimage too.

http://www.motionmedia.com/Autodesk-Academic-to-Commercial-Upgrades-s/82.htm

The reason I bring this up is that it's not actually as wide of a price gap as it's often made out to be. And for Freelancers or very small studios...it's a business expense that is completely tax deductible, so the net expenditure isn't a wide gap either.

The same goes for the pricey plugins for Max. You can often times buy the edu license, while a student, and thereafter when you are ready to go commercial, the developers will usually allow you to simply pay the regular upgrade price, instead of having to buy the commercial license. That's what I did, and most of them are very generous in that respect.

On a similar note, I wonder how Andrew will handle EDU > Commercial upgrades going forward. I bought the commercial when v3 was first released, but when addressing students on 3DC's pricing policy, I don't know what to say in that regard.

[philnolan3d]

The tax thing doesn't mean anything, you can do that with LightWave too. You say there's an Edu upgrade for a few hundred more than LW, but how much to you pay for the Edu version?

This is basically what I did when I bought LightWave. I got 7.5 for $300 Edu with a free upgrade to 8.0 Pro, then paid a small upgrade fee when 9.0 came out. So I've paid well under $1000 total and got LW 7.5, 8.x, and 9.x. Of course I also got a bunch of freebies along the way like Vue 5.0 and LWCad 1.5.

Of course for any of this you have to be a student.

Edit: Just out of curiosity I looked for the same deal with LW. JourneyEd sells the Edu version of LightWave 9.x for $195 with a free upgrade to the Pro LW 10 (I'm assuming the upgrade is the Pro version because that's how it worked when I upgraded my Edu version).

http://www.journeyed.com/item/NewTek/LightWave+3D/46801776F

[AbnRanger]

The tax thing doesn't mean anything, you can do that with LightWave too. You say there's an Edu upgrade for a few hundred more than LW, but how much to you pay for the Edu version?

This is basically what I did when I bought LightWave. I got 7.5 for $300 Edu with a free upgrade to 8.0 Pro, then paid a small upgrade fee when 9.0 came out. So I've paid well under $1000 total and got LW 7.5, 8.x, and 9.x. Of course I also got a bunch of freebies along the way like Vue 5.0 and LWCad 1.5.

Of course for any of this you have to be a student.

Edit: Just out of curiosity I looked for the same deal with LW. JourneyEd sells the Edu version of LightWave 9.x for $195 with a free upgrade to the Pro LW 10 (I'm assuming the upgrade is the Pro version because that's how it worked when I upgraded my Edu version).

http://www.journeyed.com/item/NewTek/LightWave+3D/46801776F

The point being, Phil...is that LW is no longer the budget option in my opinion, when you take these facts into account. Most of the users, where price is an issue, would be students, recent students or freelance artists. In each case, there isn't a huge price gap. Whether you deduct $895 from your taxes or $3k, the difference is...Uncle Sam gets to keep the...difference.

As for the cost of the EDU licenses, well...I paid about $600 for Max 7 back then, but now it's gotten to where students can get 3yr licenses from Autodesk free. If you want a perpetual license, that is about $340 for the whole Creation Suite (includes Max, Maya, Softimage, Mudbox, MotionBuilder, MatchMover...and the Maya and Max versions have the new Composite...formerly the $3500 Toxik).

http://www.studica.com/us/en/Autodesk/autodesk_education_suite_for_entertainment_creation_2011.html

So, it's a good deal anyway you look at it.

[philnolan3d]

Again, if you're a student. They did have to increase the prices a bit with LW 10 but for professionals it's still the cheapest option out there by far. Especially when it can do renders like this out of the box. Not to mention the upgrade prices that factor in. $500 upgrades with no obligation to upgrade every year. Buy LW 10 now but don't want to upgrade to 11? That's fine you can skip it and upgrade to 12 when that comes out. No penalties.

[AbnRanger]

Again, if you're a student. They did have to increase the prices a bit with LW 10 but for professionals it's still the cheapest option out there by far. Especially when it can do renders like this out of the box.

Phil...that's where the bulk of piracy comes from. Students. The point stands intact. Software is a business expense for business persons. If you have $3k in taxes, you can deduct all of it with a software purchase like Max. With Lightwave, you can deduct $895...and then hand the rest of it to Uncle Sam. What's the difference, Phil? Please, spell it out for us.

For artists/studio heads WHO ARE MAKING MONEY FROM THE SOFTWARE, the net expenditure is the same. Uncle Sam is essentially picking up the tab for the difference. What's more is that in order to have the same level of tools, you have to blow a wad of cash on plugins to make up the difference. Plugins for Character Animation. Plugins for modeling tools. Plugins for Instances. Plugins for Hair, etc.

And just what are you implying with "Renders like this OUT OF THE BOX..."...? You're saying that Mental Ray can't render that?

[philnolan3d]

You're saying that Mental Ray can't render that?

I don't know, is that what comes with it, out of it's box, not as a separate product?

Someone just said to me on Twitter after seeing that render "LightWave's build in render! impressive. never saw such cool build in render result! I use Maxwell, Vray, FR-ST1 depending".

[AbnRanger]

I don't know, is that what comes with it, out of it's box, not as a separate product?

Someone just said to me on Twitter after seeing that render "LightWave's build in render! impressive. never saw such cool build in render result! I use Maxwell, Vray, FR-ST1 depending".

Yeah....Mental Ray has been a built-in production render for Max, Maya, and Softimage for a long time now, and if that individual hasn't seen anything like that, then he's obviously not looking or doesn't know how to properly use those renderers he claims he does. Mental Ray and VRay have seen a hell of a lot more film production than LW.

That's not to say that LW's rendering is poor...just that it's hard to question Mental Ray and VRay's credentials. What's more is that iRay is now a built-in interactive renderer, that is a subset of Mental Ray, and can use multiple CUDA cards

[geo_n]

I don't know, is that what comes with it, out of it's box, not as a separate product?

Someone just said to me on Twitter after seeing that render "LightWave's build in render! impressive. never saw such cool build in render result! I use Maxwell, Vray, FR-ST1 depending".

You guys should really be more openminded to software even if we can't afford it ourselves. Hehe.

Mental ray since max 9 has been very good. I wouldn't trade vray for anything though.