My LW 2023 Speculation / wishlist Thread....lol

lwanmtr

lwanmtr

Lwanmtr
Ok with them annoucing LW2023 coming out by the end of the year I figured Id put my thoughts out there.....Of course its all speculation, etc since they havent really announced new features and what else we get if we prepay (aside of a share and a shirt)...Hopefully they will give us a real announcement about what will be in 2023, that will actually be worth the upgrade price.

The hurdles I can see will be in getting the code to a modern level, allowing for using better interface tools like QT, etc.
LW currently uses Python 2.7...will they be going to 3.10 and the VFX platform?

Will the render engine be updated to have path tracing / path guiding? GI was good, but not as good.

Will Modeler actually get any real love? Its been like 100 years since that part got any real improvements.

Im hoping they are really paying attention to what the folks at Blender are doing and work to get LW at least to that level or beyond.

Things im hoping for...

Better AA on hair/fur (better render engine would help here)
Better more modern modeling tool...while also preserving current tools
Better rigging..again, keeping the stuff LW was better at.

Oh..and most inportant.... Communication! Dont stay silent the way NewTek did...lol
 
Well, imho I think they have been pretty communicative and accessible so far.

The team have listened very intently and heard and acknowledged what the users have said.

I really believe them when they say that they are intent on making LightWave great again and I feel very confident that they have the means to delivering this.

With regards to what they've got planned, a lot of it depends on what the outcome of their analysis of the code turns out to be. They seem to know what they want to deliver in the first release but how feasible it is depends on what they find.

They have been working behind the scenes well before the announcement that Lightwave was sold, so it would seem that they have a bit of a headstart on things.

I personally don't really believe that it's truly fair for users to pooh pooh their efforts to deliver a first release that may not have the features and technologies that other tools may have. They are going have to initially do as much as they can with the technology they have, but over time the releases will get stronger and stronger. We just have to believe in and support them.

They have backing, so financing doesn't seem to be an issue. So from a user's perspective, I think it's important to recognise that they are a new company with a new direction and a lot of love for LightWave. And for me, that last factor is the most important one.

From what I have seen so far, I would say that Modeler will most likely have been the big focus of their efforts in their first release.
 
Aint poo pooing anything. But I am also realistic in my expectations. I think that they have the passion to do something..am just posting what I'd like to see :p
 
lwanmtr said:
Aint poo pooing anything. But I am also realistic in my expectations. I think that they have the passion to do something..am just posting what I'd like to see :p
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Forgive me, I didn't mean to imply that you were.

My pooh pooh comment was more aimed at the posts from others who have continued to be very negative about LightWave and it's state even after its takeover.

It wasn't really meant for you necessarily.
 
Yeah I get it..hehe. Ive seen alot of the doom n gloom posts..

The new folks have started to get the word out, which is good. LW is apearing in non-lw places.
 
lwanmtr said:
Oh..and most inportant.... Communication! Dont stay silent the way NewTek did...lol
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I have already checked that as them having that realized, and already started with what was the most important aspect to get up and running again.
 
Since LW development ended, C++ has gained native multithreading, so minimum I would like to see a lot more multithreading outside of the renderer.
I'm not expecting to see integration of modeler and layout, really ever.
I'd like to see LW start with basics like selection tools in Layout. Selecting polygons, edges, and faces. Then basic matrix stuff like translate, rotate, and scale. Any other modeling tool can come later. I'd like to see an modeling API so we can get third party modeling tools in layout.
I'd like to see instance painting. IE, painting of instances on top of other geometry using its model space and normals and such.
It's a tiny change, but normalized blinnphong would make the standard material live more in the PBR world of the rest of the program.
 
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It's mainly the little things I would like to see improved for now. I guess fixing some things are seemingly small but in reality may be a huge task. Things that people have complained about for ages need to be fixed first in my opinion. Flaky selection in Layout viewport and ability to mirror edge weighted sub d geometry in modeler without destroying the edge weights. Stuff like that needs to be addressed unless they plan on making huge changes in the next few years that would brake all the stuff again.
 
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Andy Mentioning the importance of sculpting tools, to go beyond the metamorphic animation sculpt towards mesh creation sculpting, so that is sounding nice to hear they definitely have it on the radar, since sculpting tools in blender is the thing I can´t do in Lightwave, while I actually prefer modeling other stuff in Lightwave than in blender, apart from rounding, beveling maybe, and curve shapes.
 
Maybe fix the random crashes in 2020? It really sucks when the software quits when I try to copy/cut/paste or just try to open the scene editor.
 
pdrake said:
Maybe fix the random crashes in 2020? It really sucks when the software quits when I try to copy/cut/paste or just try to open the scene editor.
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I don´t need fixes in 2020, I need fixes in 2019, if neither will do, just release a darn good next Lw version😁
 
Please, if possible, add support for Windows 7. I'm sure there are some folk here who still use this OS. I have windows 10, and only use it when a plugin or a program isn't being supported, but I absolute despise the new operating system from WEFCROSOFT!! They are so clunky, slow and difficult to work with, I work way faster with W7. I just need an OS that gets out of the way. Windows 7 has done that.

If anything, and this isn't possible, adding support for Linux maybe.
 
Planeguy said:
Please, if possible, add support for Windows 7.
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I bet they will not go out of their way to support an OS that has reached EOL years ago and even the extended security updates stopped this year. It's just not worth it to use time on that. I'd guess, at best, they won't actively prevent LW from working on Win7.
 
I said it before on the other thread, keep improving it on the CPU rendering side for product shots/beauty renders. And then implement a layout real time render viewport on the GPU or CPU/GPU hybrid.
 
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