LW11 - Turbulence 2

[erikals]

next version of Turbulence will import VDB

i'd love to import VDBs into LW11/LW2015, however this hasn't been decided yet. so, how many of you would like to see this ?

[prometheus]

next version of Turbulence will import VDB

i'd love to import VDBs into LW11/LW2015, however this hasn't been decided yet. so, how many of you would like to see this ?

Well, it´s not doing anything for me really, since 2019 has vdb import already, I can understand for those on 11,3 and 2015 it could be nice to have.
For me it´s more about Turbulence FD getting PBR volumetrics directly rather than having to convert to VDB, and like 20 times faster multiple scattering( it´s extremely slow)
and fixing the extreme slow curve tweaking as well.
And fixing opengl Fire and smoke display at the same time..and much more, including the main program that hosts it ..waking up from it´s coma.

[erikals]

LW11 has great NPR quality, very little noise, and renders fast.

thus VBR import should be of use to many.

Bryphi is not on these boards, but got a definite "Yes" vote from him via Youtube comments.


as for other requests, agree, but those are other requests.

[prometheus]

LW11 has great NPR quality, very little noise, and renders fast.

thus VBR import should be of use to many.

Bryphi is not on these boards, but got a definite "Yes" vote from him via Youtube comments.


as for other requests, agree, but those are other requests.

I understand, and I can agree on that it may provide less noise, so perhaps...I guess if it was done I could use whatever version I would like to, the question is how much you loose out on in regards to the
old legacy volumetrics and the newer pbr volumetrics.

And how fast the multiple scattering would be, you say fast..yes, but not with multiple scattering, it´s horribly slow and has to recalculate for every tweak you do, unlike how it works in you know what.

Regarding legacy and pbr and new volumetrics and getting it in to lw 11, for me it´s pretty much a no no anyway, when I desire to have volumetric items from 2019, such as clouds and then a fluid system(tfd for example..though unlikely for the moment) and they should work together, they don´t unless converting to vdb, and render passes is not something I want to mess with if I need intersecting clouds obscuring the smoke.

But the main problem the latest years with TFD for my taste that is, is no information given..despite many threads and questions I had about TFD, to me I got a bit put of when that support wasn´t there to answer it all, and also the long development phase, I can understand he´s a single developer, but it doesn´t help in my case anyway by not getting any answers at all, it´s a shame, but it is what it is, if he don´t have the time then nothing I can do.

For your sake, and for Bryphi who I do not think wants to upgrade either, having this feature of vdb import would be great for you I guess, what else it would bring for anyone else already having VDB natively ? that I don´t know...what could it bring to the table extra?

I mean, for me it´s not gonna make it more attractive to purchase TFD with that feature, and not for many others that upgraded I guess, on the other hand, perhaps for those who didn´t.
A question to think of for Jascha I guess, if it would gain a substantional interest from LW users again, or if he should focus on improving other features that are missing today and features lw 2019 users and up is missing.

And you know what, the dayrythm is screwed up again, I´ll give it max one hour then bedtime.

[erikals]

yep,
VDB import in Turbulence 2 isn't for everyone.

unfortunately the LightWave roadmap is torn in half, so no LW future in 2021 as far as i can see,.. would love to be wrong.
all future LightWave3D plans are out the window as of now.
would be great to see GPU support in LightWave 2021, that was the plan, but "our" engineer now works at another company since VizRT pulled the plug.

what else it would bring for anyone else already having VDB natively ? that I don´t know... what could it bring to the table extra?

no idea Jascha is holding those Turb2 cards close to his chest it seems.

And you know what, the day-rhythm is screwed up again, I´ll give it max one hour then bedtime.

join the club  !

[erikals]

based in this, i'd expect more Turbulence 2015 votes.

anyway.

[Marander]

Well the question is if the LW 11 / 2015 Legacy Volumetrics would even be supported with TFD2. It would make more sense to support the 2018+ Volumetrics in my opinion. Or both of course but that would be a bigger development effort.

Looking at TFD, the LightWave version doesn't get the same attention and features already now, compared to the Cinema version of it. With a most likely discontinued software, I don't think that gets any better.

Would you even want to spend around $400 for TFD2? Just to be able to render VDBs in LW11 which doesn't even have modern shading capabilities?

I definitely won't (using other solutions that have VDB support, in addition to TFD for LW and C4D, which I use seldom due to more versatile integrations like X-Particles with XplosiaFX).

Also, TFD will be a standalone app, possibly with bridge plugins which is less convenient to use. Embergen can do all this stuff already.

And with Embergen I can directly render those VDBs in Redshift and other engines. Or LW 2020 if I have enough patience. All up-to-date 3D applications support VDB natively nowadays.

I really don't see the point for TFD2, specially if they keep that pricing. And most interested users already have Embergen, Maya or Houdini and got used to it.

Not worth the price for me except there would be a massive discount for existing TFD users and incredible features none of the other solutions have (hard to imagine).

[prometheus]

Well the question is if the LW 11 / 2015 Legacy Volumetrics would even be supported with TFD2. It would make more sense to support the 2018+ Volumetrics in my opinion. Or both of course but that would be a bigger development effort.

Looking at TFD, the LightWave version doesn't get the same attention and features already now, compared to the Cinema version of it. With a most likely discontinued software, I don't think that gets any better.

.

Also one part of why I didn´t want to invest till it improved on that and catched up to what it could do for cinema4D

[Wickedpup]

I am in the "don´t care" category, for the same reason I never bothered to invest in several other LW plugins (like Kray). The development/developer never came of as "stable" for a lack of better words. Or to rephrase, I was never confident enough that the development would continue, so I chose not to buy. Simple as that.

[jwiede]

Well the question is if the LW 11 / 2015 Legacy Volumetrics would even be supported with TFD2. It would make more sense to support the 2018+ Volumetrics in my opinion. Or both of course but that would be a bigger development effort.

Alas, Newtek never released LWSDK APIs for accessing LW2018+ volumetrics, and even pulled the existing (legacy) lwvolume.h in LW2020. Without access to APIs, Jascha is limited to what could be implemented in "legacy volumetrics" (which is quite limited). Those limitations are also a big part of the reason why LW TFD lags so far behind C4D TFD -- the existing LWSDK APIs didn't practically allow for features like advection, etc. unlike C4D SDK, so C4D TFD received features that LW TFD couldn't implement.

Ultimately, I think Newtek's failure to update LWSDK to address some of Jasha's long-standing requests has a lot to do with Jascha focusing most energy on C4D TFD, and then TFD v2 Standalone -- esp. after Newtek failed to even "expose" the LW2018+ volumetrics in the LWSDK. I'd be shocked if Jascha put significant effort into adding more features into LW TFD at this point, even for LW2018+ versions, let alone LW2015 or LW11.

[Marander]

Very interesting info John! Fully agree.

[erikals]

Would you even want to spend around $400 for TFD2?

no.

would I spend around $250 for a TFD2 upgrade?
possibly.

with the state of LightWave I doubt there will be many people buying the full version of TFD2.

TFD cost now is $500, doubt many will jump on it, but a future upgrade,... perhaps.

unless TFD2 is Awesome... who knows.

[Marander]

no.

would I spend around $250 for a TFD2 upgrade?
possibly.

with the state of LightWave I doubt there will be many people buying the full version of TFD2.

TFD cost now is $500, doubt many will jump on it, but a future upgrade,... perhaps.

unless TFD2 is Awesome... who knows.

Ah sorry, didn't know you have TFD already. Yes I agree, TFD pricing is too high compared to competing solutions.

Embergen is still beta but already works great and seems to sell well. It is already well known in the industry. A new, less known application will not have it easy.

Well, that can happen when software is developed 'secretly' with no information about its progress or roadmap for years vs. offering open beta access and transparency about the development progress.

A positive example is Quadspinner Gaia. They let customers know about the future / sunset of Geoglyph early enough (and offered sidegrades for existing customers). They realized the dead end and dependency on WorldMachine. Then they allowed users to jump on the Gaia beta at an early phase. Provided a detailed roadmap. Yes there were bugs and the UI changed a lot but it turned out really well. They listened to the users, embraced testing, feedback and bug reports. Very frequent version updates and blog posts. Offering complete offline licensing. It's a well known application now, very intuitive to use and delivers great results. It even got to the point that SideFX did an integration into Houdini because it's ahead of Houdini's own landscape tools.

WorldMachine started a dev blog after over a year silence, rumors and more interesting tools like Gaia coming up. But even after the blog was started, months go by without updates. Development is incredibly slow and the redesign it looks outdated. Very seldom updates with almost no visible changes. On top they introduced online activation / node locking. Therefore I don't see a reason to update my WorldMachine Pro license anymore. And now without Geoglyph it's even less attractive. Too late, too slow, too little.

Heck, even SideFX leaks features and communicates release plans.

[erikals]

Embergen is still beta but already works great and seems to sell well.

EmberGen is incredibly cool, however it might go the Subscription route.
So, I bought it this month to avoid that hassle.

A positive example is Quadspinner Gaea

yes, I too bought WorldMachine years back, but development has been slow, and cost perhaps a bit steep.
Advanced, so nice like that. But a new customer would perhaps go for Gaea instead.


recent Gaea improvements >

[prometheus]

I need to upgrade the demo of Gaea, currently 1.0.23.900
Unfortunately I haven´t been able to try it that much, it´s slick and nicer in many ways than worldmachine, but there was also some stuff in the UI I didn´t like..but perhaps using it a bit more would make more sense of it.

Thank you erikals and Marander for the feedback on Worldmachine, if the development is that slow as you say, and the rest of the info about Gaea, I think I may keep my eyes fixed on that rather than worldmachine upgrades.