Lightwave 7.5 or 8

[Jeannie]

I am planning on purchasing Lightwave for my Mac. I would like to get opinions as to whether it's more financially advantageous to buy 7.5 now and then upgrade, or wait and buy 8 when it's released.
Also is there any technical advantage to waiting to buy 8? I understand that if I buy 7 now, I will get a free download of 8 when it's released, but I then do not actually have the program to reinstall, should I need to.
P.S. Sorry to ask, but any word on release date?
Thanks in advance,
Jeannie

[oogafish]

Jeannie,

The financial advantage I see in ordering LightWave 7.5 now, would be to get the bundled DFX compositing software. Unfortunately, DFX is only for PC. But, since your new copy of LightWave would come with a duo dongle and installers for both PC and Mac, it couldn't hurt to have.

I'm primarily a Mac user, but the platform in my workplace was PC. Who knows? If you're freelancing, you may get a client who needs extensive 3D work executed in-house on their PC machines. If they don't have After Effects for compositing, you'll have DFX, which you got for free!

On the flip side, if you wait for a boxed version of LightWave 8, you'll most likely get a hard copy of the updated manuals, which I prefer to the pdf files.

As for the update installer, you could always burn it to CD or download it again from the Newtek site, if you ever need to reinstall. Upgrading from 7.5 to 8 shouldn't cause any problems on your Mac. I started with version 6 and haven't had any problems upgrading from 6 to 6.5, or from 7 to 7.5.

I recently purchased the upgrade to LightWave 8 and have been told that it should be released sometime in March. But, you never know. I would opt to purchase the software now, because if it takes Newtek longer than that, you can use LightWave now, and not hold your breath or get impatient for its final release.

I hope this helps.

-Mark

P.S. If you do buy LightWave 7.5 and are currently running OS 10.3.2 Panther on Mac, be sure to read about the known issues:

http://www.newtek.com/support/tech/faqs/lightwave/mac-current-index.php

There's also the Graph Editor workaround, since it crashes Layout under Panther:

http://vbulletin.newtek.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17911

Hopefully, these problems will soon be fixed in the 10.3.3 software update or in LightWave 8. If you're still using OS 10.2.8 Jaguar, you shouldn't have any problems with LightWave 7.5.

[chrisdude0000]

I got my educational version of lightwave and they are giving me a free upgrade to version 8. I would send an email over to the sales guys and see what they say but I am sure you can buy lightwave 7.5 now and later get it upgraded to version 8. - the box and book of course but you can get a book I am sure later.

[Beamtracer]

Advantages to waiting:

1. You get a printed manual (that would be worth something) rather than a PDF manual.

2. You get to see what LW8 is like before you purchase it.

3. Current promotions have been aimed at Windows users. I hope Newtek can do something nice to attract Mac users in the future.


Quote from Newtek's Chuck Baker, in this forum on Jan 23, 2004:
http://vbulletin.newtek.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16965 (http://vbulletin.newtek.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16965)
Originally posted by Chuck
We're looking for opportunities for products that we can add-in for our Mac users, but nothing so far has worked out. We will keep working on that until we do come up with proper offer.

Hopefully something will eventuate that will make Mac users happy.

[Jirapong]

If I were you I would wait until the 8 verson out. First, I like and I'm more comfortable to read hard copies than reading from PDF. Second, I don't buy anything I have never seen, and had no idea when it will be out. DFX is a great deal, but not for Mac user.
My final reconmend is that you shold download the discovery version and play around and learn it first for now, and wait until the newer version is out there and have no problems for Mac.

Welcome to LW