Is VIZRT serious?

[gdkeast]

Don't get me wrong. I'm appreciative of the work that has gone into LW to get it where it is now, but according to VIZRT, their goal for LW is this:

"Q: Will development continue on this product?
A: We have just released LightWave 3D 2020, which has been well received by the market and our immediate focus is on supporting the adoption of this latest version."

However, if this is true, and the goal is supporting the adoption of LW 2020, how much work would it take to update LightWave 3D's Twitter page? And wouldn't updating Twitter be one small way of supporting the adoption of LW 2020?



Just asking.

[TheLexx]

Agreed, but it fits in with the observed flux thus far. It is what it is. A hasty update this moment might mean the one announcement we don't want to see , so I'm happy for Twitter to just sit there unnoticed... It is not inconceivable the new guys don't even know LW has a Twitter page. They are spread over US and Europe and currently advertising for both Logistics and Customer Service for Newtek. Time will tell....

[jwiede]

They are spread over US and Europe and currently advertising for both Logistics and Customer Service for Newtek.

The "Logistics" position is looking for a transport logistics specialist (as in, someone managing supply- and delivery-side transporation systems). The details explicitly state "Responsible for executing the transportation needs of the business (both domestic and international). Includes scheduling all modes of transportation to ensure timely execution, quoting potential opportunities, problem resolution, and meeting all documentation needs directly related to transportation".

The Customer Support Engineer I position is in Germany, and very clearly will be doing engineering support for LW video products, the details even state "The Customer Support Engineer will be exposed to networking and security within various IT environments, building and supporting video production systems, connecting and analyzing video streaming domains, and learning customer issue tracking systems".

Neither of those positions are Lightwave-relevant roles. Even the posted C++ development role is "closer" to being LW-relevant than either of those, though still not actually LW-relevant (the job requirements specifically mention "broadcast industry", specifically refer to maintaining a proprietary digital content asset database system, and LW development is primarily in C not C++).

Had VizRT reassigned existing, internal VizRT devs to LW, they'd be hiring new replacements. That there's no sign of additional hiring of dev_s_ (beyond what appears to be normal maintenance growth), strongly indicating a bunch of existing senior* devs haven't been pulled off other projects and assigned to LW. The absence of ANY sign of such replacement hiring makes that premise highly unlikely.

Time will tell, but the "schemes" by which LW "could still be alive" yet give no sign of that are starting to seriously run afoul of Occam's Razor. Just because something is "possible" doesn't automatically make it "feasible", let alone "likely". Worth hope, but fading.


*: Even if VizRT just happened to have an existing team rolling off a product, there's still the significant issue that most development in VizRT has been clearly C++-centric (makes sense, C4D's SDK is C++-based, Unreal's SDK is C++-based, etc), while working on LW internals is much more C-centric (in archaic legacy manners that would give early- to mid-career C++ devs difficulties). Staffing up a "LW recovery" would necessarily require fairly senior C/C++ devs -- early- and mid-career devs wouldn't have adequate legacy code experience, nor be versant at legacy approaches common in LW.

[erikals]

here we go again...

[Amerelium]

...hey - Norwegians - that's my people.

Well, they paid 100m bucks for it, so I would assume the are SOME plans.

[TheLexx]

Well, they paid 100m bucks for it, so I would assume the are SOME plans.

Sadly, Lightwave was just the little toy rubber bat which came free with the rest of Newtek...so it was more like $0,000,000.01...but I still don't believe the naughty things people say about Dr. Cross - in my book he is the Man of Steel who didn't flinch at Otoy's dollars, so we live in hope....