NewTek is headed Full Throttle into SIGGRAPH

[Paul Lara]

Don’t miss the excitement at the NewTek booth.


Check out the latest innovations in LightWave® v9.5. at Booth #159

See what feature film and Emmy®-nominated LightWave 3D® artists have delivered for The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Jumper, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Battlestar Galactica, Jericho, Life After People and more.

Get a glimpse behind the creation of the Iron Man Mark 1 suit from Michael Blackbourn vfx artist from The Embassy. Plus, you’ll have an opportunity to take home your own Iron Man Mark 1 bobble-head.

You’ll have the opportunity to get a close-up look at Tim Cameron’s V-Rex dream machine. An amazing motorcycle conceived in LightWave and delivered to the open road.

Take a moment to sign up for a personal invitation to a private meet and greet (http://www.newtek.com/shows/siggraph/2008/register.php)with NewTek management and the development team Tuesday, August 12th from 7pm to midnight. Availability is limited… please respond by Monday, August 4th.

Go here (http://www.newtek.com/shows/siggraph/2008/)to learn more and to view the booth presentation schedule.

We look forward to seeing you at SIGGRAPH.

[evenflcw]

Sounds sweet! Nice roundup of high profile artists!

Will there be any live video stream or recorded contents available for streaming/download later?

[Mike_RB]

Sounds like a good showing.

Indeed!

[Titus]

See you all there!

[Andrewstopheles]

Will there be a live webcast from the NewTek booth?
Does anyone know if there will be webcast general coverage of Siggraph?
I want to see, but I can't attend.

[Cageman]

I see you are presenting. :) I'd love to go to Siggraph as I smell a lot of excitemet this year. Alas, I can't travel half way around the world for it.

*synical mode on*

Yeah... I'm not sure about the actual creation of the suit suits NewTek though... only ZBrush and Modo... oh... and not the animation either... XSI... well... lets just show the renderingsetup then.

*synical mode off*

But it's going to be a neat Siggraph for NT by the looks of it... :)

I also wonder if there will be any live streams or recordings?

[beverins]

i triple the question - Live Streams??

Hey guys, even AUTODESK has live streams now.

[jin choung]

if newtek is headed full throttle into siggraph, it raises the question:

do they intend on slowing down once they get there?

or is the point to crater?

i suppose the other option is a highspeed flyby demoing like mad in the split second that the monitors will be visible to the los angeles convention center....

jin

[beverins]

I guess "full throttle" doesn't include "web streaming"

Sad to see the makers of the Tricaster unable to stream from Siggraph... which AUTODESK are able to do.

[robewil]

I just came back from the exhibition. After wading my way through massive crowds huddled around Autodesk, Sony, NVidia, and others, I found Newtek tucked in a far away corner, nowhere near any of the major attractions. They are in a terrible location and I suspect most traffic will never even know they are there.

I saw Paul Lara, who looked bored because no one was there to talk to him about Tricasters. (There weren't even that many people there for Lightwave.) I asked him directly "Why isn't the company that boasts how easy and inexpensive it is to webstream, webstreaming?" I got a long reply about the stage area is oriented for 20 second sound bites to draw attention and that they would need another operator to web stream.

Paul, if you're reading this, I really am not trying to pick on you. I know you are a stand up guy. My comments about my observations are on Newtek, definitely not you, personally.

[Greenglo]

Did you enjoy the show or learn anything?

[Lightwolf]

do they intend on slowing down once they get there?
I suppose a week or so of holidays after the Siggraph crunch is nothing unheard of ;)

but then... :D

Cheers,
Mike

[Celshader]

y'know, i'm feeling pretty bad for all of newtek. there is so much negativity these days.

On the bright side, every LightWaver I know in Los Angeles is employed. Nothin' to be negative about there.

[Dodgy]

Being used in virtually every major fx film this summer is pretty positive. There's life in the old dog yet! Let's just hope it gets a kidney transplant STAT! And lung transplant etc :)

[Greenglo]

On the bright side, every LightWaver I know in Los Angeles is employed. Nothin' to be negative about there.

This begs the question, how many Lightwavers do you know? ;)

[Larry_g1s]

I went to the show yesterday too, very very cool. I was very excited about the official release of 9.5. I kept up with features, but didn't want to keep updating the beta, so was waiting for the official release. In my opinion, LW is by far the biggest bang for your buck, and what they showed yesterday with the new 9.5 release, it still continues in that!

My biggest complaint with NewTek and Siggraph '08 is the same thing robewil mentioned, and that is their booth's location. They were tucked away in one of the corners not near many of the other main attractions. They always had people around the booth, but I don't believe as many as they could have had they not been in tucked in one of the corners. They had plenty of people to help, and some nice one-on-one demonstrations of the new features, but again, they need to market themselves a little bit better in my opinion.

Overall I was still impressed.

[Larry_g1s]

do they mention that in marketing?No, and that's what drives me NUTS about NT marketing. I read about features LW used in by magazine articles, not from NT. This really needs to change.

[jin choung]

well if they're anything like the dark knight plug on cg focus, i can do without it.

http://vfxworld.com/?atype=news&id=24290

this is the kind of lw usage that lwheads complain about - that magazines don't cover or give lw credt for but if you read the press release, it seems that the usage is exactly what i've termed "incidental usage" - literally a single guy (1 guy!) who preferred modeling a couple of buildings in lw - on probably his own copy of lw that he brought into work.

the iron man plug is fine... it was a company decision to render in lw though most of the production seems to have been done in modo and xsi... but to claim credit for the render is great.

but that dark knight thing just felt like reaching. and part of pr is not to seem like you're reaching....

jin

[Cageman]

but that dark knight thing just felt like reaching. and part of pr is not to seem like you're reaching....

jin

Hmm...

Don't know about that. It clearly shows that LW is a usable tool and that Framestore are open enough to allow for artists to work with their tool of choice.

I constantly hear that LWs modeler is totaly useless for pretty much anything, but again, alot of those complaints come from people who never cared to customize their menus (or ask for help to customize) when they used it.

[creativecontrol]

Don't forget guys, the cost of getting a booth in a good location at a show like Siggraph is truly insane. They may want to keep some money for development rather than blowing it on a single show that may not result in sales.

Most people attending Siggraph are well aware of LW so who are they selling to? Perhaps marketing dollars are more wisely spent elsewhere.

Even companies like Avid pulled out of NAB for the same reason. Not enough return on money spent.

Sure Siggraph is exciting but soon forgotten.

[jasonwestmas]

if newtek is headed full throttle into siggraph, it raises the question:

do they intend on slowing down once they get there?

or is the point to crater?

i suppose the other option is a highspeed flyby demoing like mad in the split second that the monitors will be visible to the los angeles convention center....

jin

LOL! GET ER DONE. . .AND FULL THROTTLE!!

[Larry_g1s]

Hmm...

Don't know about that. It clearly shows that LW is a usable tool and that Framestore are open enough to allow for artists to work with their tool of choice.Agreed.

[jin choung]

Hmm...

Don't know about that. It clearly shows that LW is a usable tool and that Framestore are open enough to allow for artists to work with their tool of choice.

sure, it says framestore is "open enough".... what it says about lw is that it's competent enough to model 2 buildings? was that ever in doubt?! is it even a doubt that wings3d could model 2 buildings? no matter how high res?

: )

yeah... in this day and age, not a tremendous claim to fame but... if you want it, you got it.

jin

[hazmat777]

which makes me think, a preset section on preset central for menu cfgs might be nice

:agree:

[jasonwestmas]

On the bright side, every LightWaver I know in Los Angeles is employed. Nothin' to be negative about there.

Sweet, I ran out of gigs over here. . .

[Cageman]

sure, it says framestore is "open enough".... what it says about lw is that it's competent enough to model 2 buildings? was that ever in doubt?! is it even a doubt that wings3d could model 2 buildings? no matter how high res?

: )

yeah... in this day and age, not a tremendous claim to fame but... if you want it, you got it.

jin

Well, if you've heard the complaints I've heard about Modeler, then you'll start to wonder if there is another app called "Modeler" out there... :)

Have you seen Good Luck Chuck? PixelMagic use LW to model, animate and render alot of penguins. They even mixed CG-penguins with real penguins, and it is hard to tell the difference...

Does that qulify to a higher level? Or does it have to be Gollum in every shot?

...just asking. :)

[Sekhar]

but that dark knight thing just felt like reaching. and part of pr is not to seem like you're reaching....

I don't know... IMO any kind of coverage is good for buzz, unless it's ludicrous. There are going to be lots of people (especially business folks who end up making purchase decisions) who're going to be influenced by repeated coverage. I mean, I've seen folks touting "award winning director" credentials all over the place, when all they got is an audience choice award at a no-name festival. But who has the time to read the fine print in each case these days? Over time, the buzz is going to turn into fact.

[Oliver]

Just found that:
Autodesk is headed full throttle into the minds of the masses even earlier (http://www.cgw.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=A49AA2197AAD44F0919A80C3DF0F8052)

Students are really taken care of by Autodesk (who somehow care about following generations), looks like just a massive version of the DAVE School, catching students so early they'll assume that Autodesk is the only company for 3D tools, 4 times 'Autodesk' in one sentence; must burn in if you'd take the course - but they are on their way to the Adobe of 3D scaringly fast anyway. (On a sidenote, apart from DAVE School, less and less students use LW - I know some companies switching frustrated away from LW, because there is no fresh meat, maybe another, more negative reason that all Lightwavers have jobs... :))

Well, at least North America has something to complain about... the marketing is "bad", "unprofessional", "carnival barker-style", "feels ludicrous"...
Nothing against Ben and the support, but Newtek-Europe's marke..... is not worth typing the word. Maybe a different NTE could help? :deal:

Greets.
Oliver.

PS: People are so 'marketing stupid', it's not even funny anymore. I know students - traditional animators - forcing themselves to learn Maya, working in it, hating it ("but we can use the TDs, their rigs will make our dreams come true" - or not), just to know any 3D, and when I tell them they could try a different, maybe more easy/personally fitting approach, they ask "What's the point? If I'll do 3D, it will be Maya anyway..." Or XSI, since their marketing fits perfectly into the "Apple - be different by being the same as all others" style as well - but which seems to fit for CG workers impressively well.

[Mike_RB]

I just wanted to say hi to everyone I met at Siggraph, from the Newtek staff who were great to work with, to the people that came by the booth while I was around and asked questions or listened to me talk Iron Man. I had a great time and hopefully the buzz is good for Newtek. And I even got a bobblehead! It's equally cool to having played with the actual suit pieces! :)

[jin choung]

Have you seen Good Luck Chuck? PixelMagic use LW to model, animate and render alot of penguins. They even mixed CG-penguins with real penguins, and it is hard to tell the difference...

Does that qulify to a higher level? Or does it have to be Gollum in every shot?


haven't seen the movie but that's totally a good plug for lw.

and as i said, so is the iron man one.

and i actually don't like gollum very much. i just use it as an example because it just immediately says "high end". jurassic park actually would be a better example - i actually really like the work in that movie... i'll have to remember. and i've always said that there's very little that can't be done in lw - the only time i question raw capability when it comes to lw is ikboost and now perhaps fiberfx.

jin

[Cageman]

haven't seen the movie but that's totally a good plug for lw.

and as i said, so is the iron man one.

and i actually don't like gollum very much. i just use it as an example because it just immediately says "high end". jurassic park actually would be a better example - i actually really like the work in that movie... i'll have to remember. and i've always said that there's very little that can't be done in lw - the only time i question raw capability when it comes to lw is ikboost and now perhaps fiberfx.

jin

Yeah... Jurassic Park IS the example no one can miss, really. I do agree with you! Gollum had terrible shots regarding shading, rendering and compositing. Though, most shots are very well done, and some were exeptional for a humanoid, fleshy character!

Jurassic Park, on the other hand, have, as far as I can remember, flawless CG-shots. And it was done over 10 years ago!

IKBoost surely has its uses, so I'm not totaly writing it off, but I prefer rigging and animating the traditional way as the techniques used are more "transferable" between apps. It's also alot easier to create controllers that are suited for an animator and save the meat and flesh for the TDs.

On that note, RebelHill has created a very cool cartoony rig in LW which is one of the best I've seen. A 5 star rig in my book; maybe not as good as you can get in Maya, but for a LightWave rig it truly holds up and can probably compete with many similar rigs done in Maya.

http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87469

[Cageman]

I just wanted to say hi to everyone I met at Siggraph, from the Newtek staff who were great to work with, to the people that came by the booth while I was around and asked questions or listened to me talk Iron Man. I had a great time and hopefully the buzz is good for Newtek. And I even got a bobblehead! It's equally cool to having played with the actual suit pieces! :)

Sounds like you had a great time! :)

Hopefully NT recorded the presentation so that we who never made it to Sig can enjoy your work!

Cheers! :)

[jin choung]

On that note, RebelHill has created a very cool cartoony rig in LW which is one of the best I've seen. A 5 star rig in my book; maybe not as good as you can get in Maya, but for a LightWave rig it truly holds up and can probably compete with many similar rigs done in Maya.

http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87469

oh f!

that rig fing rocks! he deserves a medal. i wonder how hard that was to setup and how hard it is relative to doing it in maya or xsi....

so another example (along with that japanese video that shows the maya v lw rig comparisons) that makes you ask - why the f are they adding joints now?!?!

again, not something i would have doubted being possible in lw. but alas, lack of undo and the inability to reference that completed rig into fresh animation scenes make lw currently a deal breaker for CA for me right now. just those two things though are the deal breakers and i've said it before too....

jin

[DiscreetFX]

We wish NewTek the best of luck at SIGGRAPH 2008, may LightWave 9.5 sell a ton.