whats next for lw?

[vonpietro]

So i'd like to know, whats next for lightwave?

I'd like to see
more advancements with instancing.
a realistic ocean maker where you can add objects moving and it creates reaslistic wake.
much better bullet physics
a better way to apply textures
substance support
those are just the ones i can think of on the top of my head.

[erikals]

more advancements with instancing
this is actually one of the things i like a lot about the current LightWave
there are plenty of cool instance methods
-LightWave native   -Advanced Placement   -OD tools

ocean, realistic wake
yep, more work on this. there are some alright tricks that can be mixed with the LW HOT plugin
https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...LightWave+wake

better bullet physics
indeed always welcome

a better way to apply textures
yes, in what way though were you thinking of ?

substance support
did OD Tools have this? i think it might..

[vonpietro]

For all these things i'd just like to see more built in tools doing a better job.

for textures, i know we can move a texture around with a null and get real time placement of things like that.
but i dont want a null to do it. you can nudge a texture with the controls but it's antiquated, i saw a website that let me drag a texture around an object and place it exactly where i wanted it in seconds.
lightwave makes you dial it in through a crappy interface broken into x y z. thats the old way of moving a graphic around.
so what i'd like is the same thing that website had - it was some paint stickers on an airplane design thing - and moving around textures was right on the object, you could rotate it, scale it and move it all just by dragging it around.
thats what lw needs, not this old texturing through a dialogue method.

the website was an old hainan airlines promotion and loaded an aircraft in for you to stick logos and clip art all over. it was all inside the gui, no panels to move anything. perfect for lw too.
substance painter - i'd like newtek to talk to them - i talked to the president of substance during his substance days thing at gnomon - i asked him directly for lw support he said its not in the works at all and had no dialogue with newtek at all. Substance has quickly become an industry standard, and integration with it should be something newtek should seriously consider.

[hrgiger]

I doubt you'll see a native Substance integration. Pretty sure that would involve some money and developer investment that NT isn't likely to invest in LW. Substance has since dropped native loading of .lwo files.

[Gungho3D]

VonPietro my friend ...

"A realistic ocean maker where you can add objects moving and it creates realistic wake"
So I note two things about this hoped for capability: ocean & object interaction with the same.

I think even Houdini breaks this into two, meaning direct interaction is managed locally around the object and the results are blended back seamlessly into a greater "ocean".

And from what I recall about Realflow, I thing the break down is about the same

The H.O.T Ocean plugin we have available for LW ... is good for local patches of water, but struggles for creating huge bodies of water. Also HOT is not (last time I tried) compatible with LW2018 ...

Blender has "Fluid Dynamics" but is seriously limited regarding where that as a tool can be stretched to

Lately we've had darkChief's "Deep Rising" plugin, but it is not "ocean creation" ready

There have been other plugins, some still around, some now "decesaed"

And yes, there are work-arounds achieveabe in LW

At the heart of your list of topics (including ocean and water interaction) is the seeking of solutions which are built in and good to go, straight out of the LW box, with nothing more to pay. Probably a fully swept version of LW with everything our hearts have ever desired ... yes, there would be "no more to pay", but we definitely would be paying substantially more to cover the R&D leading to that point of product capability.

But coming back to the ocean/water example: the "good news" is there are solutions for getting an ocean + object-to-water-interaction into LW and even rendered therein. The "bad news" is that all of these come at a co$t, both monetary (neither Houdini nor Realflow can be had for a song) as well as figuring out how to get it done.

This is the case even with excellent products like LWCAD, TFD, AR/VR export, and lately the amazing set of OD Tools and other etc etc ... a list which stretches all the way to external products such as Substance, as you have mentioned.

The key thing in my mind is that a lot of capability for getting stuff done (e.g. Substance integration) already exists - and yes, this is external to LW and not "LW native". But it exists and is available. And yes we pay, although I recognize some of these extras may be beyond the budgetary reach of some, and I mean no disrespect.

For other levels of capability, at the level of "I want to achieve Hollywood style 'can't tell if it's real or not' results", yes it occasionally means severe CO$$$T to get the specific tools which allow for that. Or, as some amazingly talented people on this forum have amply demonstrated many times, there are work-arounds.


Just my thoughts if you've read this far

[Gungho3D]

substance support
did OD Tools have this? i think it might..

Yep - it's in OD Tools

[Marander]

Yep - it's in OD Tools

Actually not completely correct. OD Tools can read images prepared by Substance only afaik.

Substance (sbar) support is possible with the OD Substance Reader which is a separate product (not part of OD Tools) and requires the Substance Automation kit to work. Once configured, it works very well..

I agree that there is a lot of base functionality missing in LW that requires 3rd party plugins. Considering the additional money needed for this and the fact that most features are way better designed and integrated in other packages, it demishes its initial price advantage quite a lot. I certainly have spent more $ for LW plugins than for LW itself.

3rd party plugins for other applications (and even their base functionality) allow many things that are simply not possibly in any way in LW.

if I would be a professional, I would want to use an efficient and modern solution. Well in my case even as hobbyist, LW is only a secondary app.

One has to know that LW is a cheap solution with lots of limitations and outdated parts, but not everybody is planning to create the next LOTR. On the other hand there is potential in LW for creating simple effects for me.

[Gungho3D]

Actually not completely correct. OD Tools can read images prepared by Substance only afaik.

Substance (sbar) support is possible with the OD Substance Reader which is a separate product (not part of OD Tools) and requires the Substance Automation kit to work. Once configured, it works very well..

Actually Marander you are right, I stand corrected.

OD Tools simplifies the use of SP generated imagery, and ".sbar" file reading and integration is a separate OD app. But even in this, very helpful.

[tcoursey]

I'd like modeler updates, LWCAD is the only reason I've stayed with LW modeler in the past years. Viktor is amazing! If he doesn't have a team, he is proof lot's can be done with small team of 1

I'd like improvements on UI. I really like workspaces, snapping panels and customization. I fiddle with Modeler every time I open it up to get my panels to fit just right on my 30" 4K monitor. Oh yea there's that, 4k support, I hate fuzzy text when I have to have windows scale to 150%.

I absolutely love instances in LW. I love Octane integration, enjoy Layout/Modeler as seperate apps, but know I'm missing alot for animation. Lot's to love, but more hopefully is coming.

[echadez]

VonPietro my friend ...


The H.O.T Ocean plugin [...] Also HOT is not (last time I tried) compatible with LW2018 ...

The 2D/3D nodes crash Lightwave 2018. However, the geometry displacement alone (Geometry tab -> Add Modifier -> HOT Ocean Toolkit) works great in 2018. I just rendered a scene with rolling waves and it looks great (LW 2018.0.4 + HOT Ocean Toolkit + a Mac).

Thanks to Maxim Capra for recompiling this back in 2015:

http://forums.newtek.com/showthread....27#post1420627

Download from here (the link should be at the top of the page. If not then search on page for Houdini):

http://www.maximcapra.com/?page_id=81

[Gungho3D]

The 2D/3D nodes crash Lightwave 2018. However, the geometry displacement alone (Geometry tab -> Add Modifier -> HOT Ocean Toolkit) works great in 2018. I just rendered a scene with rolling waves and it looks great (LW 2018.0.4 + HOT Ocean Toolkit + a Mac) ...

Hey Echadez, thanks for the heads up!

[EL Hombre]

What's preventing newtek from combining layout and modeler?

What if they just rewrite lightwave from the ground up?

[3D Kiwi]

They have already tried to unify lightwave and failed. Really cant see Lightwave being unified ever.

[paulhart]

Okay folks, real life problem and apparent fumble by Lightwave 2018. I have used Lightwave for a 'very long time' and come back to it for animating and rendering, in company with modo (UV work and some modeling) and Blender, further procedural and node based modeling and reliable FX. Here is the challenge, with Lightwave 2018, in it's current irritation (iteration??). I have a backplate of a Gothic church and out buildings with a courtyard coming towards the camera, which is not to be altered. I created some 'shadow catching' geometry in Modeler, then moved it into Layout. Now, they need to align exactly, as viewed by the camera, which is fixed also, with the backplate filling the photo frame. I have UV'd the 'catcher' geometry so the moving cloud sky can leave a moving pattern across the courtyard and walls, along with animated objects casting their shadows, and then be comp'd back onto the backplate, in Post, along with the dramatic moving clouds footage, behind the church. All good, so far. Unfortunately there is no particularly good strategy to do this in Modeler, even with the Layout View active to show the Camera View from Layout. The Current Camera View, in Layout, is set to VPR display, and I have made the 'helper geo' semi-transparent to see the alignment with the static backplate. The Render shows the 'helper geo' in mis-aligned, even tho it looks fairly close in the VPR view. I move points in Modeler, watching the Layout View Window in Modeler, Save, Update, watch the Layout View of Current Camera, then Render again, and compare Rendered results to the VPR window (dissimiliar!) and move the points somewhat "blindly" in Modeler, using the Final Render in a separate program Photo Viewer display as a reference, Save, Update, Render, rinse and repeat. Annoying and frustrating process. I would hope that someone else in the "industry" has worked out this already, and I am just not informed. If I do it in Blender, the Camera, Modeling, and Render alignment are all right there, same in modo. The only thing that gets 'squirrely' is moving it back and forth between programs, since I really want to render and animate in Lightwave. This is a 'real life' example of trying to make the Modeler/Layout paradigm work cooperatively. I like a lot about Lightwave 2018, but am stunned by the current Open development cycle going on in the Blender 2.8 Code Quest and it keeps solving things I find difficult in Lightwave. So it goes....

[Matt]

They have already tried to unify lightwave and failed.

Misleadingly incorrect.