Screw the Doom & Gloom - LW Still Rulez In My Arsenal, and Will for Years to Come

[TreyX]

i've been using LW since the days when Babylon 5 transformed VFX for broadcast, and i have no intention of succumbing to the doom and gloom about LW's future now. there will always be those who feel otherwise, and that's their choice. i f'ng LOVE this software, and have a pipeline that allows me to do literally anything i need to in my business. in my career, i've used maya, c4d and zbrush, and hands down, the app i always return to with joy is LW. this year i tried blender for several months, and aside from the sculpting and paint tools, i just can't learn to love that app (especially the abominable particle system and clunky workflow -- it's pretty good for freeware, but in no way can replace or even come close to LW's depth and functionality). if LW goes the way of the dinosaur, then i will gladly still keep my pipeline in place for as many years as windows supports it. hell, i actually think it's cool to still use LW. i own it, don't have crappy maintenance fees, and feel a sense of peace and happiness every time i open it up and start working.

the grass will always be greener on the other side of the pond for some who feel the need to use what everyone is else is using. and yes, some pipelines and projects require multiple apps for different purposes. i have the above-mentioned as well. but 99.9% of my work is done with LW, and my clients love it, and i love making it.

so, that said, there are some things in life we cannot control - the future of LW is one of those things. but what i CAN control is what makes me happy and brings me joy. and LW brings me joy, and still blows the minds of my clients. <3

[kyuzo]

Well said.

I think the serenity prayer is very applicable with regards to Lightwave's situation at the moment:
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference."

Which reminds me, Lightwave was used on the VFX of Serenity/Firefly, and those FX were done with LW8 or thereabouts. They're still damn good.

I can still install LW7 and use it. LW will be a major part of my toolkit for many years to come.

[SBowie]

Yep, and our esteemed J-ROD worked on those effects.

[Nicolas Jordan]

I agree, I have also invested plenty of money and time into my Lightwave production pipeline with OD Tools, LWCAD and much customization to have it work exactly the way I need it to. It would be very painful and slow to move my workflow to another software. That day will likely come at some point in the future but that might not happen for 10 years for all I know.

[Markc]

Finally an upbeat thread.....

[TheLexx]

I do very much like the sentiments here, but how will the Windows 10 users stop a future update breaking Lightwave ? If a machine is run offline, can Windows 10 run "forever" without updating ? Or is a better way to take some sort of system image which could maybe restore everything in case of a bad update ? Could be my imagination, but it is extra stressing for software companies to keep abreast of Microsoft [email protected] updates, a sort of artificial survival of the fittest for no good reason. Any suggestions or insights by anyone will help many users to continue using LW in the future. (I hope Mac users are treated better).

[TreyX]

I do very much like the sentiments here, but how will the Windows 10 users stop a future update breaking Lightwave ? If a machine is run offline, can Windows 10 run "forever" without updating ? Or is a better way to take some sort of system image which could maybe restore everything in case of a bad update ? Could be my imagination, but it is extra stressing for software companies to keep abreast of Microsoft [email protected] updates, a sort of artificial survival of the fittest for no good reason. Any suggestions or insights by anyone will help many users to continue using LW in the future. (I hope Mac users are treated better).

well, i still run LW 2015.3 on win 10 with no issues, and that version is 5 years old, and has withstood numerous major windows updates. the beauty of LW is that its core infrastructure is much less dependent on windows features and still supports legacy hardware & OS. i.e., LW 2020 system specs:

Hardware
Intel® Core™ 2 or AMD64 with SSE4 instruction set (Bulldozer onwards)
System RAM: 4 GB minimum
Operating System
Windows 7 64-bit or better

minus a dramatic re-writing of windows code from the bottom up, i think LW will withstand the changes in the OS for many more years. hell, i'm still using some old plugins made for windows 7, and they still run fine....

[TreyX]

Well said.

I think the serenity prayer is very applicable with regards to Lightwave's situation at the moment:
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference."

Which reminds me, Lightwave was used on the VFX of Serenity/Firefly, and those FX were done with LW8 or thereabouts. They're still damn good.

I can still install LW7 and use it. LW will be a major part of my toolkit for many years to come.

oh, yes. i still marvel at the VFX in firefly and serenity. abso brilliant. i'm also binge watching andromeda again, and there are some amazing LW FX in that series, too. these series still hold up after 20 years. goes to show that with the right talent and creative ingenuity, anything is possible with LW.

[TheLexx]

Great to hear TreyX. That reminds me to ask anyone - can LW2020 be independently installed to a usb stick and run from that from machine to machine ?

[Markc]

I do very much like the sentiments here, but how will the Windows 10 users stop a future update breaking Lightwave ? (I hope Mac users are treated better).

Yes and no.
Updates aren’t automatically installed, but older versions of LW don’t work on newer versions of MacOS (due to a visual bug introduced a couple of years ago, which was fixed in LW2018) For example I can only run 2018, 2019, 2020 on my current system.
But then I have no reason to use an older version.

[Continuum]

I do very much like the sentiments here, but how will the Windows 10 users stop a future update breaking Lightwave ? If a machine is run offline, can Windows 10 run "forever" without updating ? Or is a better way to take some sort of system image which could maybe restore everything in case of a bad update ? Could be my imagination, but it is extra stressing for software companies to keep abreast of Microsoft [email protected] updates, a sort of artificial survival of the fittest for no good reason. Any suggestions or insights by anyone will help many users to continue using LW in the future. (I hope Mac users are treated better).

To prevent Win 10 updates go to settings -> Network & Internet -> Change connection properties. Select network and switch on 'set as metered connection'. Haven't updated in a while, hopefully this is still there

[Felipe Soto]

Doom and Gloom indeed; LW is my bread and butter.

[jwiede]

Yes and no.
Updates aren’t automatically installed, but older versions of LW don’t work on newer versions of MacOS (due to a visual bug introduced a couple of years ago, which was fixed in LW2018) For example I can only run 2018, 2019, 2020 on my current system.
But then I have no reason to use an older version.

I wish I felt the same way. I'm using LW2015 on High Sierra right now (still works there), but moving to newer macOS means giving up on access to LW2015, which I find very problematic. _Many_ Modeler plugins' Mac versions did not survive the jump to LW2018 -- f.e. neither Adv. Placement/PlaceIt, nor Remodeler from Hurleyworks work post-LW2015 on Mac, nor do many of TrueArt Modeling Pack plugins work past LW2015 on Mac, nor did many of Pictrix's, and those are just off the top of my head.

Sorry, not trying to be a downer, just pointing out Mac LW customers' attachment to, and upset over LW2015 is greater than Win LW customers for many reasons.

[gerry_g]

Keep old Cheese grater MacPro running SnowLeopard, run it through a KVM switch so I don't have the hassle of an extra monitor to deal with, solves enormous number of problems regarding legacy software, even have a full Adobe CS6 on it, just hope it doesn't spring a leak. Could equal blame Apple for the current mess not to mention the future looming even bigger mess when they revert to RISC, enjoy LW while you can, if Newtek sold the Mac user base short in the past something tells me they gonna outdo themselves next time around

[Cageman]

I'm not going to leave LW anytime soon. Despite the bugs that LW2020 has, it is still a powerhouse for some serious work to output from an artist, and in such higher quality compared to when Firefly and Serenity was done, with minimal effort.

Also, I would urge anyone serious and making money using LW to visit db&w patreon and support them when they develop a new node/tool every month. They are very open for suggestions of tools/nodes as well.

https://www.patreon.com/dbw/posts