head worm
05-01-2003, 06:48 AM
At my company, we're trying to do some innovative stuff with Lightwave surfacing. However, we keep coming across niggling bugs that frighten the hell out of us!
Just one of a hundred examples:
In trying to use Envelopes to control some of the Image Editor tools, it's hard to get Layout to update any altered information that may have been achieved through expressions or a channel modifier. We basically have to open the Graph Editor or click somewhere in the graph area to get Layout to 'wake up'. It's true of all settings such as 'Brightness', 'Hue', 'Gamma' etc... This is very confusing to the user, who doesn't know whether they're looking at image maps as they really are.
A simple 'workaround' would be to provide a button on the main interface that updates all channels throughout Layout. A Layout 'zapper'. This may be available third party, but I'm not aware of it.
In trying to create tools for the increasing number of users who simply don't have time to figure out 'cool' workarounds for Lightwave's failings, I think newtek desperately need to address the small bugs that have been present right through V6.0 - 7.5b. If v8 comes out with things like this unaddressed, then how can they say that 'useability enhancements' have been a priority. Things working is the basis of all useability!
Although there's no glamour in bug-fixing and the temptation is always to pour all your resources into show-stopping new features that look good on a flyer, in the end, it's Lightwave flakiness that is going to kill it as a commercial production tool, because 'normal' people won't buy a product that requires two years of work to understand which of its 'features' work and which, in practice, don't.
If you halve the price of Lightwave, you need to sell twice as many in order to make the same money. And there simply aren't twice the number of obsessives and geniuses left in the marketplace to figure out the myriad of bizarre happenings while using Lightwave.
Sorry to rant, but too few people are raising the big issue of little issues around here.
DavidT
www.the-worms-of-art.com
Just one of a hundred examples:
In trying to use Envelopes to control some of the Image Editor tools, it's hard to get Layout to update any altered information that may have been achieved through expressions or a channel modifier. We basically have to open the Graph Editor or click somewhere in the graph area to get Layout to 'wake up'. It's true of all settings such as 'Brightness', 'Hue', 'Gamma' etc... This is very confusing to the user, who doesn't know whether they're looking at image maps as they really are.
A simple 'workaround' would be to provide a button on the main interface that updates all channels throughout Layout. A Layout 'zapper'. This may be available third party, but I'm not aware of it.
In trying to create tools for the increasing number of users who simply don't have time to figure out 'cool' workarounds for Lightwave's failings, I think newtek desperately need to address the small bugs that have been present right through V6.0 - 7.5b. If v8 comes out with things like this unaddressed, then how can they say that 'useability enhancements' have been a priority. Things working is the basis of all useability!
Although there's no glamour in bug-fixing and the temptation is always to pour all your resources into show-stopping new features that look good on a flyer, in the end, it's Lightwave flakiness that is going to kill it as a commercial production tool, because 'normal' people won't buy a product that requires two years of work to understand which of its 'features' work and which, in practice, don't.
If you halve the price of Lightwave, you need to sell twice as many in order to make the same money. And there simply aren't twice the number of obsessives and geniuses left in the marketplace to figure out the myriad of bizarre happenings while using Lightwave.
Sorry to rant, but too few people are raising the big issue of little issues around here.
DavidT
www.the-worms-of-art.com