View Full Version : FPrime - Is it the best plugin ever written?
3DBob
03-20-2004, 01:19 PM
Hey Wavers,
There are many awesome plugins out there both in development and in Lightwaves history - and I thank all of you keen programmers that have made such an important contibution to our professional and personal 3D lives. In addition there are a multitude of quality free plugins written every year - I like others have used and do regularly employ many in my day to day work.
Now as commercial plugins go FPrime is clearly a bit special and I just wondered if there are others out there that may agree with me that Worley Labs have come up with the best plug-in in Lightwaves extensive history.
Vote away.....
T-Light
03-21-2004, 01:30 PM
Agreed,
There have been many excellent plugins in LW's history, but this one is above and beyond.
Simply stunning.
Intuition
03-21-2004, 04:26 PM
My Favorite plug ins before F-Prime were
RealFlow - Fluid simulator from Nextlimit.
G2 - surface/shader with great fesnel and SubSurfaceScattering(with preview like F-Prime but with limitations, still aweseme)
ogo-Hikari - Surface shader with SSS and fresnel effects like g2.
Ogo-Taiki - Best damn cloud/environment plug in ever. YOu will not get better clouds anywhere else.
Sasquatch - Yah, you know why.
Shadow Designer - from Evasion 3d - OMG this shadow plug in should be standard with LW IMO.
And a few more...
but F-Prime is my fav because it does something that I need like 90% of the time.
Lightwolf
03-22-2004, 03:58 AM
Sorry, but with those options I had to vote for lenscap.p, just because it is the easiest to use plugin around, and _always_ produces decent results.
Cheers,
Mike - who's waiting for his FPrime licences :)
3DBob
03-22-2004, 05:55 AM
Hi Lightwolf - I must say it was a close call for me too - it's the simplicity and reliability of lensecap.p coupled with the subtle tonal variations it produces that made the decision so difficult.
3DBob
Lightwolf
03-22-2004, 05:59 AM
Lol, definitely, I love the lenscap output of you really crank up your gain in post.
Anyhow, I'm biased, you missed infiniMap ;)
Cheers,
Mike
Qexit
03-22-2004, 08:45 AM
To Lightwolf and 3DBob:
I take it neither of you have ever used idiot.p then ? Known affectionately by its fans as 'Eagle in a Barrel' Now there is a truly wonderful plugin :D
On a more serious note, I put FPrime on a par with Vertibevel in terms of how much I use it. I rarely use Modeler without bringing Vertibevel into play and I now fire up FPrime all the time in Layout.
Is either of these the greatest LW plugin ever written ? Hm, let me just check which way the wind is blowing right now. Strong South Easterly, so I'd have to say no. Had it been coming from the North...then maybe ;)
The best plugin ever written is going to different for everyone as everyone has different needs. I suspect FPrime will be the most SUCCESSFUL plugin ever for LW in terms of license sold though, which is an entirely different matter.
Noclar7
03-22-2004, 08:59 AM
FPrime is definetly one of the best pieces of technology to be incorporated into LW in a while. I think alot of the hype was also due to the fact that us Lightwavers were starving for our turn in the render engine development feild. With so many 3rd party renderers (both Photoreal and NPR) available to most of the other top 5 3D apps, we havent had anything fully supported for LW, period.
FPrime is fast as hell, but, it must turn into a network renderer in order to release the full potential of its speed to all users. The great thing about this though, is that Worley seems apt on delivering most of the requests and recomendations that are being pumped threw the community.
Looking forward to the future and what LW8 and Fprime 1+ will bring.
prospector
03-22-2004, 09:03 AM
WooHoo!!!
Up to 4 now:D
Lightwolf
03-22-2004, 09:10 AM
:) We just got our licenses for FPrime... Man, this rocks bad! We're already using it in production :)
Cheers,
Mike
Hm.
Am I the only one who's "Overhype" allergy just went bonkers?
Bob. Dude. It's great for what it does, and with some of my work it's made previously unattainable things do-able. "Best Plugin Ever" as far as I'm concerned is like saying "This monkey wrench is the best tool ever!"
Breathe, mate. Breathe.
3DBob
03-22-2004, 02:10 PM
Which monkey wrench - and where do I get one? :D
Just a harmless exercise in opinion gathering - nice to see yours.
3DBob
Macet01
03-22-2004, 02:53 PM
I take it neither of you have ever used idiot.p then ? Known affectionately by its fans as 'Eagle in a Barrel' Now there is a truly wonderful plugin :D
Maybe I am opening myself up here but this is the third time in a week I have heard this phrase 'Eagle in a Barrel' and I still have no clue what in the world it is. Could someone clue me in.
Be gentle....I am fragile :D
Qexit
03-22-2004, 03:15 PM
Well, believe it or not there really is a Lightwave plugin called idiot.p. When installed in Modeler it shows up as 'Eagle in a Barrel'. When you activate it, it creates an object consisting of an 'Eagle in a Barrel' and that really is the truth. It used to ship as a standard item with LW. I think they left it out of LW7.X much to the annoyance of a few old timers like me, so I just relocated it in one of my old backups and reinstalled it :D
prospector
03-22-2004, 03:17 PM
You have no idea how many times that plug-in has pulled my butt out of a fire:)
T-Light
03-22-2004, 03:18 PM
The Eagle in a Barrel plugin is probably the most used plugin in LW history, Used by Disney, Paramount and Lucas Arts, I have no idea what the industry would do without it.
What is it?
1) OK, imagine a barrel, got it, good.
2) Now imagine an Eagle.
3) Now place your eagle in your barrel. Brilliant, now we're singing from the same Hymn sheet.
Seriously, It really is a low poly eagle in a barrel. It's hillarious.
3DBob
03-22-2004, 03:40 PM
Ok - own up, who said they wanted to be stuck with F9?
prospector
03-22-2004, 06:41 PM
Don't ya just hate it when no-one votes for something?
That 0 looked bad:D
3DBob
03-22-2004, 09:09 PM
I might have known.... :D
prospector
03-22-2004, 10:17 PM
L'il ole me???
:rolleyes:
:D that lensecap of yours gave me a good laugh:) I bet it renders even faster than FPrime!
Psyhke
03-23-2004, 02:25 AM
As comic book guy says...
Best. Plugin. Ever.
GruvSyco
03-23-2004, 02:29 AM
Originally posted by 3DBob
Ok - own up, who said they wanted to be stuck with F9?
I voted that this morning... I really don't think fprime is the greatest plugin ever and most of your poll items seem to some how float around the subject of fprime.
I don't have a problem donating to worley, I think they make good plugins (although overpriced in my opinion)... fprime is not my plugin of choice from them.
I don't make my money from LW so speed is not a serious issue for me. for the most part... fprime's only real feature is speed. For final results, I can pretty much do everything that fprime does with my factory LW. If I'm going to throw money at a plugin... give me something I can't do.
The above is just my opinion and not really intended to start a flame fest. You did ask me to own up... so here I did.
prospector
03-23-2004, 07:34 AM
See 3DBob..ya got me all wrong:D
It was that Nemo sushi plate:)
And to think, someone would actually think that of me:(
I'm so
so
so...hurt
;)
3DBob
03-23-2004, 08:20 AM
I only said I might of known.... Humble, groveling, submissive apologies. Oh the humour (humor for the americans amongst you).
Being stuck with F9 is no bad thing and I respect your position GruvSyco - it has in fact been part of my workflow over my entire professional life - and right now it does do more - but there is a wind of change, and when FP can do all F9 can do and then some, I, personally, can't see many other plugins being used more from my perspective. I have exclusively rendered in FP since I got it - but this week I'm doing cell shaded stuff - so it is back to the old trusty F9 / G2 / Viper.
Maybe, on balance there should be two polls here - one each for Modeler and Layout plug-ins. I say this because I use vertibevel/rounder on nearly every job I do now as well.
Right now though, FP has overnight changed the way I worked and improved image output quality and the LW experience. Most importantly it has saved me life - something which is invluable to me. For £150 - it gets my vote.
Most importantly it has saved me life
That's true... if it hadn't pushed you out of the way of that bus.....
:D
T-Light
03-23-2004, 10:25 AM
"Most importantly it has saved me life" :eek:
Sounds to be some pretty harsh clients you have there 3DBob :p
3DBob
03-23-2004, 10:34 AM
You guys....
I said "saved ME life" not "saved my life" or "saved m' life".
ie was a time saver.
3DBob
Lightwolf
03-23-2004, 10:36 AM
Originally posted by T-Light
"Most importantly it has saved me life" :eek:
Sounds to be some pretty harsh clients you have there 3DBob :p
Either that, or a very harsh spouse ;)
I guess most of us tend to have two kinds of deadlines, and the customer is usually easier to handle ;)
Cheers,
Mike
T-Light
03-23-2004, 10:42 AM
Terribly sorry for the missunderstanding, I really aught to spend more time reading these posts, fancy mistaking ME for my, sheesh.
Many apologies.
ps, when you say "something which is invluable to me", in which context should we take 'invluable' :D
Lightwolf
03-23-2004, 10:46 AM
Hey T-Light and 3DBob...
aren't you both from the UK? Shouldn't you comprehend each other? I'm mean, I see the difficulties that arise with the american spelling of things, but guys, come on ;)
Oh, I just noticed, it says North-East on T-Lights Avatar ;)
Cheers,
Mike - the pesky german :p
T-Light
03-23-2004, 10:53 AM
"Oh, I just noticed, it says North-East on T-Lights Avatar"
Why I oughta...:D
My avatar is in fact spoken with a southern accent.
*Resists urge to point out how many people colloquially use "Me" to mean "my" in this part of the world*
But I know what ya mean. Anything which makes the things with the pixels go faster is great - it makes ever beat of one's heart worth a little more.
This is why I've got a pile of speedy computers, as opposed to owning, EG, a house, a car or a pair of shoes that don't leak.
S'lovely having the equivalenty of a 60GHz lappy (3GHz x 20 Big Chunky FPrime Speed Multiplier Factors).
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