LW 8 etcetera

[pixeltek]

Just some observations:

1. Lee, in his recent post http://vbulletin.newtek.com/showthread.php?threadid=8752 gave us some valuable insight into what has transpired inside of Newtek and some of the difficulties under which they might be currently, and sure temporarily, laboring. It is my opinion, from years of observation on different software forums (and I had been a beta tester myself for TS5), that those who scream loudest to get a new version sw released will be the same ones who scream loudest when they complain that the new release is too buggy and lacking. Give it time, a month or two more or less won't matter. Awesome things are being done with 7.5, as we speak, and too many of those who complain have not fully utilized all they've got. Just think, Babylon 5 was done with LW 5.x and Children of Dune and Firefly with 7.x. In the end what really makes the difference are the artists' skills. A new version, as much as some might want to believe, is no substitute for talent. If all else fails, go to the fabulous LW resource Flay.com where you will find a ton of plugins that will bridge the gap to the next release. Many of them free. And yes, all of the available plugins do tend to steal the thunder from any new release, which seems to be, in the end, just managing to incorporate much of what all of that wonderfully creative talent out there is producing for our favorite 3D package. Just look at the automotive market for a parallel. Any model worth designing aftermarket products for, will be a boon to the third party market, allowing the customer to drive around with a superior and customized product.

2. On Siggraph, some complained that the demos were too uninspiring. Demos are often somewhat esoteric and get into the fine details of certain sw aspects. That was no different at the competitors' demos. Enen Max 6 or Maya 5. I guess that's the nature of the beast, which is exactly why we need guest speakers to spice things up.

3. Aside from the absence of chairs, a bulletin board that displayed the LW booth schedule was not available this year. Even we LW loyalists do want to visit other parts of the Expo and knowing which guest speakers would be presenting at which times makes our own time management a lot simpler.

4. Lastly, was there a Wavy Award event in S. D.? If so, I was not aware of it.

[Karmacop]

The first few sig graph videos I downloaded didn't seem like anything great but by the second dy the demos were much better I felt. The demos weren't some great scene you'd see in a movie, just showing of uses for the tools. I'm pretty excited about LW8 and I think it'll be great. What I would have liked to have seen in the demos is playing with the scenes. They tended to just load the scenes, play them, then load another. I would have liked to have seen them change the spring of the zombies arm for example, or change the settings for the girl's dress (Proton, get someone to explain the whole dress/skirt thing to you ;) ). This would allow viewers to again see how fast the simulation was done and shown different effects.

I also liked the guest speakers ... well Don anyway, the translation stuff wasn't the best but I think he was a great example of doing good things fast in lightwave. I liked Don's storys and after hearing him you believe in Lightwave more. Speaking of Don, was that water simulated in real flow or something else?

Anyway, I think they were good demos of the software. Deuce and Proton seemed to be having alot of fun and did a great job especially considering the crowd was really dead at times. Now I just can't wait to see the new Modeler stuff :D

[pixeltek]

Good points, all. It was clear that the demo presentations were tightly scripted. Maybe a special half hour of answering audience questions, from the floor and from email, might have been an interesting addition, maybe at the end of one of the Expo days.

[CoryC]

Originally posted by Karmacop
Speaking of Don, was that water simulated in real flow or something else?

Are you referring to the Children of Dune worm sequence? If so, it was stated by one of the guys working on it that everything in the movie was done with Lightwave out of the box except for one scene where Sasquatch was used. They specifically mentioned that shot of the water running through the channel and stated that was Lightwave's internal particle system.

[CTRL+X]

Bab 5 was done with lw 4


I have always said to anyone bitching about Modeler,, try using my 5.6 for a week,, hell for a day... you will then really appreciate what is currently available in 7.5.

people have it made in the shade today compared to what was just a few short years ago.

[pixeltek]

Thanks for clarifying. That makes B5 an even more amazing accomplishment.

Yes, I too remember them saying something about the water in COD. All I recall was that it was done with LW, as you said, straight out of the box. There was some mention of plugins though, Sas for one, but possibly a bevel plugin as well. Not really important, because we have access to the same plugins as well.

The LW modeler, having tried and or observed others, indeed kicks butt, and when I once vacillated, mainly because of Character Studio between LW and Max, I am still happy to have chosen LW.

[simonbrewer]

I think the pilot of Babylon 5 was done with LightWave 2. I remember reading somewhere that Ron Thornton asked for features such as motion-blur, anti-aliasing and lens flares to be added in while they were making the pilot episode and the first season of the show.

It would be cool if anyone really knows what version of LightWave Foundation Imaging used for each season of B5, and Star Trek for that matter....

Simon

[Elmar Moelzer]

I really was amazed by the part where Don explained that the whole city was done by one single Artist, within 6 months. Modeling and surfacing that is.
Considering that this city was huge and had amazing detail modeled into it, I really have to wonder how long it took them to render that. I think I remember Don saying that they only were 16 people using a renderfarm of not more than 80 computers.
I am amazed that his whole thing did not take more than a year to render (to HDTV- format that is!!).
CU
Elmar

[Stewpot]

According to a recent article in 3D World, B5 was produced originally on the first version of LW which shipped with Video Toaster.

It goes on to say they aimed for 30 effects shots per episode and used 8 networked Amiga 2000s for rendering.

[Karmacop]

I know they said it was all done with lightwave, but the water coming down the mountain making a river looked like nothing I've seen com out of lightwave's internal particles. Deuce asked if it was done with hypervoxels and Don said yes, there was no mention of if they used lightwave's particle engine or not, that's why I was asking.

But it was amazing work no matter what. I haven't seen either shows so the clips on the stream is all that I've seen of it, so maybe the low res and compression had something to do with it, but none of the effects shots looked fake. The city was amazing. The worm was amazing. Even the digital actors in the close up behind the lady looked real. Great stuff.

[CoryC]

They stated in one of the other COD segments (1st day I think) that it was LW's particle systems. I remember that catching my attention because I thought for sure they used Real Flow or a custom plugin for it. With everything they showed of COD, it proves it is the artist more than the tools, doesn't it?

[hrgiger]

Originally posted by Karmacop
I know they said it was all done with lightwave, but the water coming down the mountain making a river looked like nothing I've seen com out of lightwave's internal particles.

Yeah, I would find that hard ot believe. Hypervoxels are great but I've yet to see any really impressive water simulations done with them (other then the waterbox that demoed with 7). I hope to see some improvement in liquid simulations in a version of 8 or one of the point releases.

[Psyhke]

I can also confirm that on the segment I saw, he specifically said it was LW's internal particle system, and not a plug-in.

[js33]

Ditto. The water in COD was done with Lightwave not Realflow.
I would like to see a tut of that. :D

Cheers,
JS

[Karmacop]

Ah ok, thanks alot for that info. I'm feeling very proud of LW rigth now :)

[Original1]

Theres a link for the interviews and siggraph movies

http://www.tv3d.com/Sig03/LW8.htm

http://www.3dgarage.com/Sig03/Sig03_DM1.wmv

http://www.3dgarage.com/Sig03/Sig03_DM2_Dune.wmv

I looked at this again and Don specifically say in DM2 that the water is Hypervoxels

[Emmanuel]

I gotta add that a friend of mine who has been using Max for years was pretty impressed about the demos at Siggraph.
Maybe its just some wavers who feel disappointed.
CoD indeed is one tremendous achievement, and it pretty much shows that if You lock the door and sit down and really get into it, You can do high level stuff out of the box.
Unfortunately, the "Idea.p" and the "creativity.p" seem to be broken even in 8.x :rolleyes:

[colkai]

Now all we need is the scene file for the water and we're laughing ;)

Seriously, If Deuce or Proton could nudge the guy into a rough explanation of how the hell HV did this I'm sure many would like to hear it.
Like others have said, all the water effects I've seen HV do so far have been very "blobby" in nature.

If folks could start chucking out water of this quality using just "out of the box" plugins, I'm sure it would be a real seller for LW.

[pixeltek]

My thoughts exactly. I too feel that Deuce or Proton would be the people to bend Don's ear and get at least more information, if not detailed instructions from him.

[polarman3d]

I'm wondering if they did it with Sprites and image clips like how Weta did the Balrog sequence in LOTR. It looks like they probably mixed in a bit of normal "blobby" HVs too...

[sire]

No, this won't work with clips. The balrog stuff was completely different in this concern (only fire emitters at various points of a character model, not a flow to conform to a riverbed).

I remember trying to emulate a lava lamp in LW 5.6, where I experimented with Particle Storm SE for a while. The problem was that the particles in PS had no way to communicate with each other. They were only driven by forces like wind, gravity and so on, but not by each other. This would be necessary for fluids, alone to keep the volume of it correct.

When ParticleFX was announced first, I also remember thinking "hey, with this stuff it could work" when I read the feature list. I haven't tried it out since then however. The key has to be in the Interaction tab of the Emitter window.

Another key to a result like in COD would be a massive number of particles... Quite something to render as hypervoxels.

[polarman3d]

I know what you're saying, sire...but what I meant was that they could set the riverbed as a collision object and cause the particles to "flow" down it, but then make them HV Sprites and attach clips to them -- not have the riverbed emit the particles (like the Balrog).

I don't know...maybe I'm missing something, but I think this would work. Let me know if I'm mistaken! ;)