LIGHTWAVE 3D Crossgrade $695 Full version 11.6 until 30 Sept 2014
Consumer573
Posts: 282
Open Question
Do any of the artists at Here at Daz, or at Rendo, Smith Micro or RDNA use Lightwave as their primary construction software?
Normally it is about $1400 or $1500 and is out of reach for me. They say they'll accept any 2D or 3D program for the Crossgrade to full version 11.6 and the Crossgrade price is $695 until the 30 of September, 2014.
That apparently means full Lightwave3D software V11.6 for $695.
Here's a link:
http://www.tenlinks.com/news/lightwave-3d-offers-695-crossgrade-pricing-for-lightwave-v11-6/
(1) Where are the best Lightwave Forums?
(2) Any comments or opinions on the strengths or weaknesses of Lightwave?
(3) Is this a good deal?
Technical:
(4) Does it handle Nurbs at all. I'm looking to model some specific Sailboats, Airplanes, and Architecture (as opposed to characters). These often have some rather precise complex curves rather than flowing freehand drawing. On a boat or an airplane if I can take bulkheads and put stringers across to create the skin shapes, as I have seen done in Cinema4D, that is one of the things I would like.
(5) Does it do real through holes? I have Mirye Shade, and I cannot, say, put a hole in a steel block and then export it to lwo or obj (so I can import it to Poser or Daz) and have the hole be real; there is no subtractive process that I have found (too bad; really good software, but documentation is hard to come by). In Mirye the hole or window looks real, to other programs not so much.
Please answer any of the questions you feel comfortable with. I just threw them all out there at once.
Thank you all.
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Comments
I haven't used LW for a while, and don't have a version beyond 9.6. DAZ made most of the older figures (up to the third generation I think) in LW, and in fact they made some of the morph tools that are (or were) included in LW for their own use before selling them to NewTek. modo does seem to have been adopted by most of the people who were using LW, but there's nothing wrong with LW as a polygon/SubD modeller- and as a suite it's probably still more complete than modo, though not by much.
1) I always found the NewTek forums to be good, I'm not sure how they are these days
2) LW is a good SubD modeller, though the tools were in the past not that well organised. The rigging and animation stuff, which is a separate application, was more than a bit clunky compared to more modern application (though I've no idea how it compares to Shade), but the latest version does have a new rigging system I believe so that probably doesn't apply.
3) Probably, yes, though other applications also run periodic cross-grade deals - I've seen them for C4D on a regular basis, for example, and the Foundry runs promotions for modo from time to time (I would expect one in December if not before). LW is one of the standard suites, though not as popular as it once was.
4) LW does have tools for that, but I've never used them. It certainly wasn't one of its primary strengths.
5) that sounds like a render-time boolean operation. I'm not sure if LW has them, a lot of applications (from Bryce to modo) do but I wouldn't expect them to export.
The forums are very decent. When my sons have a question they usually get an answer within half an hour to an hour on average. Sometimes it can take longer, but the answers are thorough. They've modeled some nice stuff with LW but I don't know how it compares to the other programs. That is an excellent price!
It does true booleans, so popping holes in geometry in the Modeler is pretty easy.
You can download a full-working demo at:
https://www.lightwave3d.com/try_lightwave/
and test it yourself. Like any software package (and especially 3D software) the interface and tools are a matter of personal choice. I almost never have enough time to model these days, but when I do it takes a couple of hours to get back up to speed and when I do, I prefer its polygon modelling to almost anything else... but that's me. You have almost two weeks to test it and the Lightwave forums at no cost, so get going! ;-)
Good luck.
-- Walt Sterdan
I build all my stuff in LightWave, though it's an older version (8.5) since I haven't any compelling reason to upgrade further. I like the interface a lot but not everyone does so your mileage may vary on that. LW has a SubPatch mode which works like Nurbs, I use it for the more organic-type stuff. As Richard said there are probably more specialized programs for that but it gets the job done. It handles Boolean operations easily, including subtractions. Though I usually prefer to make holes using Drill/Stencil and then beveling.
Your best bet is to follow the link Walt posted and try out the free version and make sure you're happy with it before shelling out the money.
One big advantage that LW has (along with modo) is that you can edit geometry without trashing your UVs (or morphs, I think - that's certainly true in modo but I think it was in LW too). They may need a bit of touch up, especially if an edit affects a seam or if you add new geometry, but the bulk should be recoverable. Similarly, you can edit groups and material zones without breaking things. That's a tremendous boon for clothes and organic figures, probably less important for hard-surface modelling.
LIghtwave, even at $695 would be quite an investment for me as this is more of a hobby, and I just had a big bill for a professional course I have to take. But I can think of some professional things, particularly related to marine craft, and hull lines, that would very much help me in my ancillary work. The history and background of the Victoria characters was very helpful, and comforting, Richard.
I had heard that Jack Tomalin currently models (?) in Lightwave and I like his work, and I also note that the two main imports Poser has are LWO and OBJ, so those were two immediate attractions. I was wondering who of the other popular power related artists here at Daz and elsewhere still used Lightwave as their primary modeling software.
I am concerned on investing in a program that is on its way down.
Nightshift, I like your work. So thank you. Big boost with that response.
I ggogled drill stencil:
http://books.google.com/books?id=o0o7GNsrmy0C&pg=PA391&lpg=PA391&dq=drill+stencil+3d&source=bl&ots=VKtiNZeAt6&sig=iIcbC-5_k4-RYYpHFxEp0bTsdgw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7bodVJ_CEMWmyATB0oDIDQ&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=drill stencil 3d&f=false
Is that a boolean command, like a form of internal macro that simplifies things, or a gaming simulation that fakes a boolean?
I did write Jack on his site because he is currently prolific at Daz. Maybe it didn't go through. I was hoping maybe he would see this here, that is if Lightwave is his primary modeler, and he might have some comments. I know he does moderate some threads and is helpful. Is there a way to get in touch with him? Should I find a forum with a recent post of his an put a link to this one, perhaps?
I also appreciate the comment on the true booleans. I do need that. As well as the forum response. That is the problem currently with Mirye Shade: The they are on 14 and the good tutorial is in 8 and the interface has changed radically. The nurb plugin for LW sounds like it might be a kludge or a a 3rd party add-on?
Modo is currently 999 pounds Sterling.
I'm not sure how far recent versions of LW have moved towards a procedural, stack based system - in 9.6 if you bevel, or boolean, or whatever then that changes the base mesh - you can undo, of course, but you can't pick an operation from a history stack and tweak its settings without having to undo the succeeding operations. A history stack was, however, one of the planned additions for LW Core/LW 10 so it may be wise to see if that has changed.
You can also check out some of 3D Universe's Lightwave tutorials:
http://www.3duniverse.co.za/articles/tags/?LightWave
You may be able to get some feedback from him as well.
-- Walt Sterdan
The Drill commands are similar to Booleans. Stencil traces a shape onto an existing polygon as a separate polygon. LightWave does Booleans as well - Add, Subtract, Union or Intersect. The SubPatch function converts polygons to patches for better shaping of organic shapes. The Freeze tool converts back to polygons again, with a higher polycount of course. I'll also mention that the UVmapping tools are very comprehensive, it's a huge advantage to be able to map in the same program while building. Still, you should check out the free demo and make sure the interface works for you.
Have you tried to PM Jack through these forums?
I have not tried to PM Jack through the forums. I never learned how to do that. How do you PM someone?
Thanks for the tutorials link. It seems like I have a few days that I need to make the most of.
Just find a post of his and click the PM bottom at the bottom of it.
I went to the Newtek forums and registered. Ugh! Their site is all black with light gray writing. I don't mind the style, I just couldn't physically read it! I had to go and boost the brightness of my monitor to see the text. It was hard to register as there were no visible places to type an entry and I had to hover over an area by guess until I got an entry icon. This is not an issue for here other than to take note that if your users cannot see your site maybe that is one reason you're losing customers. I've sent them a direct email to see if they have a way for users to change their backgrounds.
The Newtek forums are barely navigable in their darkness.
I hate to say it, but Forums have become important to self-learners and If that is going to be one of my primary ways to teach myself it may be a dealbreaker. I'll see what they say in the morning.
I'm still excited about the possibilty of using Lightwave, though.
Ah, so that's what that little gray box at the bottom does. I learn something new every day! Simple things are great. I presume that the reply shows up in my email.
Hey thanks, Nighshift! I note by the time stamp you really must live up to your name!!
Ah, so that's what that little gray box at the bottom does. I learn something new every day! Simple things are great. I presume that the reply shows up in my email.
Hey thanks, Nighshift! I note by the time stamp you really must live up to your name!!
No any reply will show up in your PM box. Look to top left of the forum panel and you will see a box that says PM If "Unread Messages" next to it lights up you have new PMs
No any reply will show up in your PM box. Look to top left of the forum panel and you will see a box that says PM If "Unread Messages" next to it lights up you have new PMs
You can elect to receive email notifications of replies in your account settings, I'm not sure if it's on or off by default.
After years of working nights I can't re-adapt to a daytime schedule.:coolsmile:
I think email notifications are on by default, I get them and I don't remember ever changing it.
Thanks Ms C, Mr. H. I was able to retrieve a message from Jack.
Specific Question for Lightwave. I'm interested in building boats and airplanes right now. I saw it done in a very logical way in Cinema 4D several years ago, and the enabling protocol was nurbs. It was like building an old-style balsa wood model.
I found a tutorial of a P47 by Anders Lejczak on Coacola (there was also a Warhawk someplace, I think). Here's the link:
http://www.colacola.se/wip_p47.htm
Can Light wave do something similar to this?; I assume it needs the nurbs.
I have lines from boats and airplanes, and actual plans from old balsa models. The airplanes might be fun, but I have a real need to do a couple of boats fairly accurate to their lines. I would like to know if the basic logic and workflow of LW is similar to C4D in this instance.
In his tutorial explanation he also mentions an open source program called wings 3D. I don't want to encumber this thread with a digression, but I'll put the link here in case its turns out worth following:
http://www.wings3d.com/
I messed with the trial for a bit and the forums were VERY helpful. Well beyond the what I want to do, though. It'd be like bringing a tank to a knife fight.
Thank you Paradigm67 for the feedback. Yes, it took a lag to set up my forum account, and they do have work-arounds for the dark colors that make them hard otherwise to read - other forum members felt similarly. I like the idea that Poser is designed for LWO transfer as is Daz. OBJ I've tried some cad prgrams for modeling and saving to obj (most recently Turbocad), and poser speaks them with an accent. Normals are often disrupted.
Don´t let rumour tell you that lightwave is about to go down, I think it is contrary, but it will still need catching up in some areas, and in other areas it
is well in the top edge of what you can do.
Modeling wise, Lightwave do not have nurbs, you are modeling with subpatches, and you can draw spline curves and patch them with polys. or loft curves or polys
Lw cad is a great plugin...might be costly though, but it handles a lot of cad a like modeling operations, and the guy who is developing it is working on nurbs surfaces to include in future lw cad versions, it already has nurbs curves, but you have to patch it with lightwaves patches/autopatcher to create a good polyflow..it might take a little training to get it right.
Downside from cinema..you don´t have scultping brush in either modeler or layout, and you don´t have a nurbs switch, and you do not have parametric modeling..so
you have to plan your modeling or go back and edit points or polys and tweak it, It could be that the upcoming lightwave version might have started to include
history stack as was promised a long time ago with the work name "core" but it was abondon..at least how it was developed, but much of that technology from that platform
is under continous work to be included in future lightwave versions.
exporting daz figures with bones and animations works with fbx format and textures,uv works to...the latest daz version seem to have some issues with morphs thoug, but I haven´t installed the latest daz version.
you can for instance edit bones of daz figures in lightwave, or you can export out the daz animation if you bake animate to studio keyframes, and load it as fbx in lightwave..further on you can mdd scan the figures in lightwave and delete the bones, and instance several thousands characters..but they will have that same motion..
there´s another option to use another free instance tool that can vary the mdd start to get variations.
Lightwave´s strength is that it is production proven in many many tv shows, it´s cheap, and it is fast to work with in most cases, especially with the VPR viewport renderer which shows you almost as good images as the final renders, in a few seconds.
here´s a few help videos for lwcad...nurbs surfaces are supposed to arrive..but not sure when, you can however use nurbs curves, but it need´s to be patched
with polygons.
lwcad teaser...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc-MYQyNgO8
more info here...
http://wtools3d.com/online-help.php
3rd powers tools are cool, specially metamesh which blend fuses object parts together, check the video here.
http://www.3rdpowers.com/index.html
this is a good site to understand subpatch modeling in lightwave..free videos..
http://www.pixelandpoly.com/video.html
here´s some showcase of subdiv modeling...commercial tutorials though going through an overview..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFEiwHH9JO4
modo is a good option, but some experience that it can´t handle huge amount of data as well as lightwave..though it may be polygons or particles and it may not
be as fast as vpr, though modo has a better implemented hypervoxel system (volumetrics) and it´s subdivision modeler is more advanced, it also features
painting in the program and sculpting..which lightwave do not have.
Lightwave does however have more tools for visual effects and for the layout part and final renderings me thinks.
the best forums are simply to go to the newtek forums.
I am prometheus over there...
Cheers.
And as I mentioned in my previous post about daz exports, export out to fbx, your normals should be ok and uv and texture maps too, and you can also export animations out, you need to correct specularity levels in lightwave, maybe reflection..and you need to load transparency maps for eyelashes etc..and correct the eye surface I think to get proper renders.
I forgot to mention true art tools..he has some good tools to edit patches and splines...
http://www2.trueart.pl/?URIType=Directory&URI=Products/Plug-Ins/EasySpline
This might give you some spline patching insight too...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYugnb-9-Y
And yes...here is a preview of nurbs surfaces..you have to check at almost the end of the clips though at 5:00 I think...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmtpd4boCvc
That is supposed to arrive for the lightwave lw cad plugin at lw cad version 5, when that will be I don´t know..and it will cost you extra to get the plugin of course.
Super, phamarus! Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.
I'm in the process of setting up a 30 day trial and will spend the next few days seeing what I can do. These links are a great help and I will be spending time reviewing them as well as on the Newtek site.
Yes, in the CAD plugin, I immediately like the preset doors and windows with booleans. Paste the finished item on and it already cuts the hole through the walls. That's pretty neat. Maybe common in other programs, but I haven't used that. That's something that should be in all gaming software!
If I can find a way to build a rudimentary boat from hull bulkhead scanned hand work and then export it into poser as lwo or obj then my interest in finding a way to finance and wrangle a copy of LIghtwave increases dramatically. The fact that there is a potential CAD program plugin is a plus. Trying to keep the goal simple for the limited time I have.
And unfortunatly you wont´t be able to download and watch all this before your trial period i over...all free videos from william vaughan..mostly from 9 and 10 versions..but almost all stuff is valid still.
you got 24 hours of training there ..all are links to videos, so right click on the blue links to save the videos
http://forums.newtek.com/showthread.php?77002-Hours-of-Free-LightWave-Training-(24-Hours-)
if you use filezilla for example..you can download all stuff by selecting it in the list in the ftp program,it would be easier perhaps to just selecting them all and download them all at once.
you can reach the ftp here..just add that in to filezilla and connect
ftp.newtek.com
once you connected to th ftp newtek adress the folder where a lot of videos are located are at..
/products/LightWave/Videos/Archive
Could someone please tell me what a "crossgrade" is?
Thanks.
R
[quote
Could someone please tell me what a "crossgrade" is?
Thanks.
R
Note..I am not from newtek or the lightwave group, currently more a hobby artist...but I have worked with lightwave as a tool
for rendering gym equipment in the past.
It means you are dumping the software you have and go to lightwave instead:)
not really, you could of course simply add lightwave to your arsenal as I understand it, and continue to use the other if you want.
I think it was initiated as a market approach meanwhile softimage was about to go down, and thus the lightwave group initiated this as
a very attractive option.
what you have to do is to send a printscreen of your software ..and I guess with information on what version etc.
695$ to get Lightwave...that is a great price, it ends at september 30, and you can download a trial demo and test it
a few days now before that ends.
More full information is here from the lightwave page..
https://www.lightwave3d.com/crossgrade_promo/
or the full description...
"The LightWave 3D Group proudly stands in support of independent artists and rogue studios that like to flex their creative spirit. As a special offer, we have put together a groundbreaking crossgrade promotion that offers a full version of LightWave 11.6 for only $695 to artists using other 2D and 3D software programs. Simply submit your information below and a customer service representative will contact you.
Learn more about LightWave here:
LightWave Overview
Major studios and post-production houses can spend years creating and assembling custom pipelines, often with large numbers of technical staff and at great expense. Those complex pipelines are perfect for companies with hundreds of employees, but can be overkill for the majority of studios around the world that operate with less than 40 employees.
With its powerful interchange tools, including FBX, ZBrush GoZ, Collada, Unity Game Engine support, and Autodesk Geometry Cache, LightWave fits seamlessly into large and small multi-software pipelines. And, unlike other software packages, LightWave offers artists and studios a complete end-to-end solution from start to finish.
LightWave also offers robust polygonal and subdivision surface modeling, interchangeable layered and nodal texturing, and powerful dedicated node material shaders. Add in powerful animation and rigging tools, eye-popping volumetric and dynamic effects systems and an award-winning Global Illumination render engine and you have a production-proven pipeline that includes all the tools you need to deliver stunning results.
LightWave has been the choice of countless studios and artists for more than 20 years. Chances are LightWave was used in the creation of your favorite films, television programs, and games. Download the LightWave 3D trial today and see why so many artists depend on LightWave to get their work done on time, on budget, and with amazing render quality. It’s the only production pipeline you’ll ever need. "
I'm sorry, I still do not understand.
Do you mean that you simply buy Lightwave for that price indicated?
Or do you tell them you have, eg. DS4.6 or Poser 2014, and that you now want to use Lightwave, and then you can buy it for that low price...... ?
Thanks..... sorry I am so dense.
R
Your last statement is correct. Not the dense part. The other last statement.
CROSSGRADE DEFINITION:
A crossgrade in this case means simply that if you have a competitor's software in 2D or 3D then you're eligible to apply for theirs.
Here they apparently accept Photoshop, Daz, Poser, Shade, Hexagon, Maya, Rhino, Modo... pretty much anything you have running on your machine. Send them a screen capture (they're closed on the weekends I hear) and they'll tell you if you're eligible.
I believe they are trying to increase their marketshare with those who might be already using a competitor's product. There's a certain amount of stickiness once you've learned a particular software package so they know that if you own a version of their software and are serious about using it, you are a likely candidate to continue on their Up-grade path.
They also know that if you have something like Maya or Shade, or Daz or Poser, etc. you have already spent money with that company and it takes some intertia for you to spend then learn something different.
They were once a premier package for professional productions on TV etc. and they are still really, really, good. But they have been undermined by cheaper packages that can also do a lot and do not have the professional price tag. They need to keep people using them or they won't have the funds to keep doing new things. They also won't attract the innovateive people that code them. I think they need to provide a path for students and amateurs and then keep them once they start creating things professionally.
LIGHTWAVE Modeler, Layout
Lightwave comes in two components: The modeler, and the Layout. The layout part is much like what Daz and poser do (but on steroids) and has been described as "Imagine it as the interior decorating package; you have the objects (couch, sofa, person) and are moving them to different locations." With the modeler package you are creating the objects: Couch, sofa, person, etc. Daz and Poser are weak at modeling but fairly strong at Layout and they have character specific creation abilities. Carrara was even better at Layout than either Daz or Poser, but has not really found a niche lately as Daz has been beefing up its layout capabilities.
I'm interested in Lightwave because of its reported strengths in modeling.
It also has animation and other strengths that are suited for Television that I might use in the future.
Thanks, I appreciate your help.
R