Lightwave 2020 on M1 Macs & Monterey

I recently bought a new Mac laptop with the M1 Pro chip to replace one of my mid 2010 Mac Pro towers. It has 16 GB of memory and a 1 TB drive. I paid about $2,700 for it. With some adaptors I was able to connect two monitors. Also I found I can use my iPad as a monitor. So including the laptop itself I have 4 monitors connected now!

So far I haven't found any problems with Lightwave 2020 that are related to the M1 processor. The rendering performance is about 50% better than the tower.
 

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lertola2 said:
I recently bought a new Mac laptop with the M1 Pro chip to replace one of my mid 2010 Mac Pro towers. It has 16 GB of memory and a 1 TB drive. I paid about $2,700 for it. With some adaptors I was able to connect two monitors. Also I found I can use my iPad as a monitor. So including the laptop itself I have 4 monitors connected now!

So far I haven't found any problems with Lightwave 2020 that are related to the M1 processor. The rendering performance is about 50% better than the tower.
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Hello ertola2,

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking that moving from a 27" iMac monitor down to a laptop might be more strain on my eyes than I would care for. Is that an iMac you're hooked up to there? That's kind of what I had in minds myself. I've got a 2013 iMac that I wanted to keep running for other software, but them also use it as a large monitor. Besides the connectors did you have to do anything special with the system OS? I'm holding my iMac at El Capitian for the other software and wondering if that would be a problem hooking up the Macbook and the iMac?
 
I think it is an Apple display in the picture on the right.
AFAIK you cannot use an iMac as a display with M1 macs.
 
Markc said:
I think it is an Apple display in the picture on the right.
AFAIK you cannot use an iMac as a display with M1 macs.
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I thought that you can share screens between Macs? Mirror a computer screen? I was just trying to be sure that I understood that correctly.

EDIT: Looking at the Apple Support forum I found this answer . . . "Target Display Mode is not supported on any 2020 or later Mac." . . . So I guess I'll investigate an external monitor option.
 
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Yes, I think you are out of luck using the iMac as a display. My display on the left is a Dell that was fairly cheap as I recall. Its plugged directly into the Mac Book's HDMI port. The middle one is an old Apple Led display. I had to get an adaptor to connect it to one of the thunderbolt ports. I also have this docking device to connect my keyboard, two external drives and ethernet. (https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08R1YCT2Z?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details) I am not sure I would recommend it though. Ethernet stops working if I leave the computer unattended for an extended length of time and I need to restart to get it working again. I am not sure why that happens. Also it gets very hot.
 
It's nice to see that LW3D 2020 runs fine on Apple Silicon (M1 processor). Anyone got a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro or Max to see what type of rendering speeds are achievable? I guess wanting a native version for Apple Silicon is out of the question for now?
 
DiscreetFX said:
.. I guess wanting a native version for Apple Silicon is out of the question for now?
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Even though I am no fan of Apple in any way shape or form, I have to say, even I would be seriously interested in these results if there was a version of LW written for RISC architecture.
 
I would be happy to run a test render. I am having trouble finding the benchmark marble scene for LW 2020 though.
 
I looked in that thread but there is not a version of the BenchmarkMarbles scene for Lightwave 2020. I had a go at fixing it so that it renders properly in Lightwave 2020 but I did not manage to get it very close to the Lightwave 2015 render. You can download my version of the Lightwave 2020 BemchmarkMarbles scene from this link if you want compare your machine or if you want to fix it so it renders closer to the 2015 version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2e8gatq52vie139/lw_2020_benchmarkmarbles_package.zip?dl=0.

Apple M1 Pro: 27m 12s
Mac Pro tower (Mid 2010): 16m 1s

When I first got the MacBook Pro I did some tests with a scene I was working on and the MacBook Pro rendered it about 50% faster that the Mac Pro. I am not sure what circumstances made the difference in speed results from this test.
 

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Thanks for the 2020 update. On a laptop that's burning my hand with exhaust, the render is 26m 27s.

Windows 10
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz
16 GB RAM

I've heard rumors about running Windows on M1 (bootcamp or VM). Does that improve the situation? (previous chatter)
 
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Curious to find out what might be the issue for me. System: M1 Max MacBook Pro 16" 2021 64GB running Monterey 12.5. Layout and Modeler open and work (no issues with Modeler) however, in Layout anything with being able to add bones, setup rig or anything else to do with bones or rigging cause immediate crash.

I've recently re-installed LW, seemed to go smooth. Modeler works, Layout still having issue with bones. I have opened older .lws scenes and some crash immediately when trying to move, edit, etc any bones. However, in some scenes with Genoma rigs, the rigs move but the mesh does not.

I have tried to create skeletons in Modeler and bring over to Layout, but same crash.

My initial suspect is maybe dealing with Python issues?? but I don't know enough about the integration to figure out what to check. I can bring up the Python console in Layout, and it opens with Python 2.7.16 (default). I can run some of the Python additional scripts (ie, Python create null) and that works.

Everything else in Layout appears to work (VDBs, particles, loading scenes, loading objects, rendering, lighting, etc.) but as soon as I try to touch a bone, zap, crash.

Any insight would be appreciated. Maybe kill config file? Never done that before. I killed the Hub but that seems to come back when I load a scene.

Any other suggestions from long term Mac guys or anyone using new M1. Thanks
 
ernesttx said:
Curious to find out what might be the issue for me. System: M1 Max MacBook Pro 16" 2021 64GB running Monterey 12.5. Layout and Modeler open and work (no issues with Modeler) however, in Layout anything with being able to add bones, setup rig or anything else to do with bones or rigging cause immediate crash.

I've recently re-installed LW, seemed to go smooth. Modeler works, Layout still having issue with bones. I have opened older .lws scenes and some crash immediately when trying to move, edit, etc any bones. However, in some scenes with Genoma rigs, the rigs move but the mesh does not.

I have tried to create skeletons in Modeler and bring over to Layout, but same crash.

My initial suspect is maybe dealing with Python issues?? but I don't know enough about the integration to figure out what to check. I can bring up the Python console in Layout, and it opens with Python 2.7.16 (default). I can run some of the Python additional scripts (ie, Python create null) and that works.

Everything else in Layout appears to work (VDBs, particles, loading scenes, loading objects, rendering, lighting, etc.) but as soon as I try to touch a bone, zap, crash.

Any insight would be appreciated. Maybe kill config file? Never done that before. I killed the Hub but that seems to come back when I load a scene.

Any other suggestions from long term Mac guys or anyone using new M1. Thanks
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This is disturbing. Lightwave is also crashing for me when I try to add bones in Layout. I can create skelegons in Modeler and they convert to bones successfully. That is how I usually create bones which is why I had not noticed this before. I tried deleting my config files but that does not help. The crashing is also happening with Lightwave 2019.
 
Been digging in a bit further:

1. Can create skelegons in Modeler, save object. Load into Layout and Convert Skelegons works and bones deform mesh. However, there are some commands that crash Layout and some that don't:
-
Unparent - crash
Split bone - works
Merge bone - works
Enable Deformations On/Off - works
Enter Bone Edit Mode - crash

I'll work through some others and see what's what.

2. I setup a Genoma rig (G2 Human Rig) onto model and saved. Loaded into Layout and created rig - works. Bones deform mesh. I'll need to see what works on this further. This is at least further than I have gotten. I will try the other Genoma rigs and see if there are issues.

3. Using the Scene Editor New - when clicking on "eye" icon to show or hide a bone - crash
4. Using the Scene Editor - click on "eye" icon to show or hide a bone - worked on first bone I hid, but second one caused crash.

All the crash reports I get are being sent to Apple. Not sure it will do any good, but at least a report is generated to send. Not sure if there are logs in LW that can be sent to ??

I'll continue on as I like using LW, but my days might be numbered if not able to animate characters. G2 Human Rig is at least something that can be worked with, maybe full skelegon rig can work, but no editing it in Layout.
 
Correction since yesterday: The Scene Editor New does work with the show/hide bone toggle. I think I was hitting the wrong column (the first one with "A" label). I'll have to check what that one is. So far, the G2 Human Rig is holding up. On my tests with the FKIK or IKFK Rig, it will crash Layout when trying to create rig or if a scene has a character in it with the rig setup from older or previously setup during my PC days.
 
You probably clicked on the "Bone Active" option. This means that it crashes when disabling the active bones.
In addition, new bones added to a scene are always disabled.
According to the crash report, LW Layout always crashes after "AppleMetalOpenGLRenderer gldEndPrimitiveBuffer(...)" is called.

What can be inferred from the above is that...

It is possible that there is a failure when translating the OpenGL code for drawing disabled bones with dotted lines.

Several future scenarios are as follows:

Best: Apple fixes this bug in Rosetta 2 and OpenGL.
2: NT fixes the GL code to prevent LW Layout from crashing.
3: A new owner does it.
...
Worst: Say goodbye to disabling bones on Apple Silicon Mac!
 
Thanks Vagrants and wow, you can make sense of that crash report? haha. Your analysis seems solid. That's why I'm sending reports to Apple, hopefully they might be able to do something. Otherwise, I don't disable bones, or I don't know enough to know why one would do that. I just animate my characters. Seems G2 Human Rig is holding up and allows me to pose them. I never animated that much in LW to begin with, as I did most everything in Messiah (ugh) and so I've switched completely over to M1 and trying to piece the pipeline together. I mostly do VFX type stuff, but every once in awhile I need someone animated.
 
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