Lightworks for G5 - compat with lightwave?

[Ade]

http://www.lightworkdesign.com/full_pr.php?prid=76

Can this be used with LW?

[eblu]

short answer is no.

lightworks is a self contained rendering engine that is sold to 3d app developers who don't want to make a rendering engine. It has its own proprietary shading language (ala renderman), and many interesting features.

it is possible, and not unlikely, that someone could make a lightworks export for Lightwave, but the Lightworks company doesn't sell individual licenses. they work with developers, and ship out a product that can be used to add functionality to Applications. In other words, they don't sell to users.

now thats the bad news. Here's the good. In my opinion, Lightwave has a superior quality renderer, for the entertainment industry. So why exactly would you want to pay extra money for a lower quality output? I mean if your gonna go, go all the way... get renderman. I can't see any reason why Pixar wouldn't completely support the g5.

[qutaibah]

what exactly is Renderman. can we take our LW models stright into Renderman to have then rendered? when I chose to pick LW I was tempted by its rendering engine, but I have been reading threads about using third party rendering engines. is there something I should learn before getting into LW?

thanks
Qutaibah

[Lynx3d]

There is a Renderman Interface Specification (https://renderman.pixar.com/products/rispec/index.htm) (developed by Pixer i think) and also used by Pixars Renderman (the render engine itself). But there are other Renderman compatible renderer, such as BMRT, Entropy, and even Hardware devices like the ART Pure and Renderdrive.
There is a RIB export called Lightman (http://www.td-grafik.de/softw/lightman.php?lang=en)

But i'm not really into this Renderman stuff, the only good and free renderer i know, which was BMRT, had to be discontinued shortly after i heard of it, because of some copyright issues between exluna and Pixar...don't ask me what it actually was.

[Ge4-ce]

Lightwave's renderengine is good.. But Pixars Renderman is better.

They showed me the differences once on an expo.. It mainly has to do with the quality of the renderings.. When raytracing light trough a tree for example, the shadow on the wall will be to sharp.. it is close to reallife, but not close enough.. Rendermand does these things better and your shadow will be blurred more (or something like that) because of the light that gets broken by the leaves.. Also volumetrics and stuff are better rendered.

The advantages come out on 2k or 3k pictures or more. For video, I don't think it will make that much of a difference.

Further more it is the whole solution that is better with renderman.. It does what is is maid for: Rendering.. Like easy setup rendering, more options, powerfull netwerkrendering better than Lightwave,.. and other stuff..

That's what I learnt from the guy from Pixar..

[mlinde]

Originally posted by Ge4-ce
Lightwave's renderengine is good.. But Pixars Renderman is better.

That's what I learnt from the guy from Pixar..

Edited for brevity. Renderman is better. Renderman also costs as much as the entire lightwave package (and up), and you still need to program shaders. Spent some time in school learning C and 3D?

[Lynx3d]

Yea that's true, but it seems you can write your shaders without getting limited all the time...
it's very frustrating writing shaders for LW :(

[Ge4-ce]

Originally posted by mlinde
Edited for brevity. Renderman is better. Renderman also costs as much as the entire lightwave package (and up), and you still need to program shaders. Spent some time in school learning C and 3D?

Ok.. that's not what the pixar guy told me.. Also I don't write my own shaders.. I also don't use renderman, because I indeed cannot afford it..

Besides.. Lightwaves renderer is more than cool enough for me..

And yes I'm spending some time in school to learn 3D and Animation and film, but only 8 hours a day, 5 days a week...

[qutaibah]

so is Renderman reday to use strightout of the box, or does it need to extra programing. it never acured to me that it takes more than your LW pack to get the blasting 3D renderings.

Q

[mlinde]

Hmm. I've been a bit punchy lately.

Renderman as a tool is useable out of the box, it does render without having to write new shaders. And yes, it does render better than lightwave. What it doesn't do is scene setup, rigging, IK/FK, Dynamics, surfacing, and...modeling. It does rendering. Only rendering. Which I think is what Ge4-ce meant in the first place. It is expensive, and it isn't yet on the mac. And it does rendering (and only rendering) very well.

[renrique]

Renderman was on the mac when his name was macrenderman.

Now it´s in the mac but only as internal version and maybe not complete.

In sigghraph San Diego I saw in the pixar´s boot a G5 with RenderMan installed running renders of Finding nemo.

[js33]

So can one send their LW scenes to Renderman or will they need to be converted to some other format first?

Cheers,
JS

[mlinde]

Originally posted by renrique
Renderman was on the mac when his name was macrenderman.

Yes indeed. I had a copy with my venerable application called "Macromodel" by Macromedia.