How old are you? (Looking for youngest and oldest LW user)

[Shloime]

Hi everybody.
I just saw in another thread (about video codecs) people talking about their age. One said he is 69, another was 54....

Since I am in the same age range, I was wondering how old everybody is here, and how young you still feel.

I turned 54 last week. I am a LW hobbyist and started with V 3.5 when it came out on the Amiga. I had some previous 3D experience with Sculpt 3D and Videoscape. I upgraded LW every second release in average, now stuck with 2018.
This summer I finally bought a VR headset (Reverb G2) and I really enjoy it. People look strange at me when I tell them that I enjoy games like "Elite Dangerous", which I also played back then on my C64. I started with LW when B5 came out and I am looking forward to the new series, hoping that I won't be disappointed (please use other thread to discuss B5).

Anybody else?

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Edit: right now we are aged from 33 to 72, majority being in the 50s. Keep it coming...

 

[prometheus]

I´m turning 56 october the 24th.

Probably looking like 50 ( some say I look much younger) but I start to feel like 56, since I have no reference to something else
I know that each five year, I feel I decline in something, could be strength, energy etc.
Going from 50 to 55, I noticed a significant decrease in testesteron, most probably, starting to loose balance a bit, and my eyesight has become a bit worse
Especially looking at the computer, and it´s hard to fix.

A bit overweight, but I managed to get some of that down, and now weighs in at 95, I need to get down to 83 to be in good shape, or a bit over that if it is turned in to muscles.
Have to go to the toilet like 5-6 times each night, but that has beein going on for many years, could be weight and almost diabetic related.

Also starting to feel a bit stiff in the limbs, but not that much..I need to stretch and move more of course, and I need to change diet to more vegan and berries.

Other than that I think I am pretty healthy, but you never know with cancer, strokes etc..it´s often lurking undetectable until it´s too late.
Need to take prostate check though.

The sci-fi childish mind is still in there though
Games was fun up til when I was 30 years old, then I suddenly lost interest in playin games, maybe I will pick it up in elderly care when they need us be occupied
I am trying to shut down things that holds me to a chair, or bed, so as little TV as possible, introducing games would be too much on top of the time I already spend with graphics.

 

[Shabazzy]

Let's put it this way, I was a teenager back in the 80s (1980s that is).

In my mind I'm still a very fit, strong and athletic dude. My body however is very resistant to my mind's way of thinking.

I've been a Commodore man since I first laid eyes on one back in 1982/ '83. I was exposed to the presence of other computers around that time, but the C64 was light years ahead of any of the 8 bits I knew of and I knew that I had to have one.

Having got one in '84 I fell in love with all things Commodore and eventually upgraded to the Amiga and was at last free to realise my ambitions as an animator.

I started with Deluxe Paint, moved onto Disney's Animation Studio, then Imagine 3D, then the Amiga died and had to move over to the PC. That's when I adopted LightWave and TVPaint as my tools of choice. I used Adobe After Effects for a time but never invested as much in it (or other Adobe products) as I have for LW or TVP. Not because I didn't like it, but because it was too pricey for me at the time and since then Adobe have just taken the p***.

I still use TVPaint and LightWave extensively as my main tools for work and have upgraded to every version of LW starting from LW 9.5. I absolutely owe a great deal of thanks to NewTek for making it possible to have a career in the animation field for the last 25 years (Whoa. Has it really been that long? Where did the time go?) without whom I don't think I'd have been able to make the step from amateur to professional due to the quality of the renders LW is able to produce in such a quick and easy way.

The thing that really influenced my decision to getting into 3D, was the 1982 movie TRON. When I saw those LightCycles, that was it. I was sold.

Like a lot of creatives, my influences for getting into the creative field generally came from consuming comics, cartoons, books and movies as a kid, but without much guidance I didn't really have any knowledge on what it took to become an animator. So, I just found my own path toward it, trained myself and was very fortunate to meet enough people who needed someone with my skillsets and eventually made some very good connections in the industry.

Today the industry is very different to the '90s and is SO much more cut-throat that I'm glad I'm not a part of it any longer and much prefer being an independent animator than a freelancer or permanant staff.

For me, the future is most definitely online for content distribution and monetisation opportunities it affords. It's just great how it's democratised the animation industry and allows virtually anybody to do what the major studios do. Create, distribute, market, monetise. The internet is the shiznit for business.

Any how that's my rambling over with.

Now to our regularly scheduled programming.

 

[kyuzo]

I'm 48, and use lightwave professionally.
I got into computers when the Acorn Electron was released. Unboxed it Christmas morning, and within a couple of hours had used vector coordinates and fill commands to draw a Christmas tree with baubles.
The only game worth playing on it was Elite. I taught my son how to play it using an emulator, and he insisted we get the current iteration of the game within hours of it being released.

I'm quite chuffed that I was doing 3D before computers were even a 'thing'. I learned several methods of projecting a defined object with accurate perspective using pencil and paper. Using a computer just makes things quicker and easier.

 

[Shabazzy]

I'm 48, and use lightwave professionally.
I got into computers when the Acorn Electron was released. Unboxed it Christmas morning, and within a couple of hours had used vector coordinates and fill commands to draw a Christmas tree with baubles.
The only game worth playing on it was Elite. I taught my son how to play it using an emulator, and he insisted we get the current iteration of the game within hours of it being released.

I'm quite chuffed that I was doing 3D before computers were even a 'thing'. I learned several methods of projecting a defined object with accurate perspective using pencil and paper. Using a computer just makes things quicker and easier.

Magical days.

 

[scallahan1]

58. Amateur.

Steve

 

[erikals]

One Hundred and....

44

 

[stevmjon]

53 and a hobbyist LW user.

first had an old Amiga 4000 with LW 3.0 already installed. then bought a PC and purchased LW7.5
i have upgraded LW every update.

 

[COBRASoft]

43, hobby lw, started on my Amiga 1200, long ago , now use it sparely on my PC.

 

[kyuzo]

Magical days.

Indeed. Not to derail the thread, but here's one example of what I used to get up to as a kid. In the mid-90s, me and my friends were into the Star Wars role playing game in a big way. I designed the ship the characters had, drew up scale drawings by hand, then painted it (in acrylics on paper) blasting through hyperspace.
Well over a decade later, I found my old stuff, and decided to do a digital version of it. IIRC, this was done in the software I used before LW, and I managed to animate it too.
It's old, it's not great, but It's happy memories, and how things were done before computers...

 

[roboman]

59. Started playing with animation when some one showed me I could draw pictures in the corners of books and animate then by flipping through the pages, at around 4 or 5 years old. Moved on to film animation with some 8mm and 16mm cameras. Used the 16mm to do 'computer' animation by taking images of a computer screen one at a time., on some early computers. Was helping people out with some low and no budget films. Later some one going out of business offered me an Amiga, cameras, svga recorders, all hooked up with a Toaster and Lightwave. It was/is a hobby thing. I feel old, had to much fun when I was younger, so too many worn and broken body parts

 

[RudySchneider]

72 in November, consider myself strictly a hobbyist, but when I first started using LightWave back in 2002, I created relatively simple stills and animations for products where I worked as visualization aids, like the attached.

 

[Bill Carey]

64, hobbyist. Got into LW at v 7.5 after finally switching from the Amiga to Windows. Entertained myself with little scifi animations (I miss Hyperstars) , did some freebie cg for a couple things. These days I mostly model things to 3d print, so LW and LWCAD will keep me going for a long time to come I hope. Layout I use for meme backplates, etc. Hopefully do more in layout after I retire, work keeps me busy.

 

[David_CGC]

33. Good God, and I already felt like I was the last person in before the door got shut.

 

[JamesCurtis]

66. Sort of a LW veteran, I suppose.

I'm supposed to be retired due to some severe medical issues very occasional Neuropathic pain in hands and feet, and an Ileostomy - no Large Colon. However, I'm still able to do some work when I feel decent enough. Can't work nearly the amount of hours in a row as I used to, but do want to continue doing projects, for my own sanity sake. Also, the money me and my wife are getting for Social Security isn't nearly enough - thus the reason I still try to work.

I still had some work until Covid hit, then work dropped off completely for me. The company I did contract work for stopped having any work. I did animations mainly for trade show displays and product animations for them. Even now today, though the media is saying the economy and job market is getting better, the company has yet to recover at all.

Even a job helping to promote and advertise a new product that had just recieved a patent by a client has been shut down due to the stoppage of sports the last year or so, even though people are now finally able to go again. I've looked a bit for others, but I haven't had any success so far.

Its been tough, and I know this is probably the case more often than not now, for a lot of people. I really hope things get better.

 

[Shabazzy]

66. Sort of a LW veteran, I suppose.

I'm supposed to be retired due to some severe medical issues very occasional Neuropathic pain in hands and feet, and an Ileostomy - no Large Colon. However, I'm still able to do some work when I feel decent enough. Can't work nearly the amount of hours in a row as I used to, but do want to continue doing projects, for my own sanity sake. Also, the money me and my wife are getting for Social Security isn't nearly enough - thus the reason I still try to work.

I still had some work until Covid hit, then work dropped off completely for me. The company I did contract work for stopped having any work. I did animations mainly for trade show displays and product animations for them. Even now today, though the media is saying the economy and job market is getting better, the company has yet to recover at all.

Even a job helping to promote and advertise a new product that had just recieved a patent by a client has been shut down due to the stoppage of sports the last year or so, even though people are now finally able to go again. I've looked a bit for others, but I haven't had any success so far.

Its been tough, and I know this is probably the case more often than not now, for a lot of people. I really hope things get better.

Man, that's so tough. I really feel for you.

I know all too well how it feels when contracts are not renewed due to "the economy". The same thing happened to me in 2k7 after the financial crash. When it did, I decided not to put myself in such a vulnerable position again by following the same path that got me in that situation in the first place. So, I decided to go independent and haven't looked back.

On my travels I've noticed that online freelance sites have had a real uptick in demand for services over the years. I'm not sure why this is the case, but maybe that's one of the areas that the media are looking at to get their information from (because it sure isn't from within the entertainment industry. That's for sure).

I'd suggest giving one of the freelance sites a look and see if there are any categories/sectors/services/niches that you could service and try to market your skills by demonstrating your work there.

You might want to start with Fiverr.com.

Any one else know of any other sites?

 

[erikals]

we;re many starvin' artists

i was lucky and had some Xtra income these later months.

my advice
> buy cheap food. it is really incredible how much $$$ i've wasted on "snacks" etc.
> buy used PC stuff
> buy used
> check cheapest options online (for example PriceGrabber)

 

[erikals]

Any one else know of any other sites?

Freelancer.com ?

The sci-fi childish mind is still in there though.
Games was fun up til when I was 30 years old, then I suddenly lost interest in playin games, maybe I will pick it up in elderly care when they need us be occupied.

I am trying to shut down things that holds me to a chair, or bed, so as little TV as possible, introducing games would be too much on top of the time I already spend with graphics.

i'll just copy these lines.

 

[slacer]

I am software developer by profession and I love all sorts of things created in 3D.
My first 3D program was Giga-CAD on C64 and later I got hooked by the 3D juggler demo on the Amiga computer.
So I went from POV-Ray and lots of free 3d programs on the legendary fish disk collection on the Amiga to Cinema 4D Go and later Cinema 4D XL on PC.
Whenever I switched to a new platform (c64 to Amiga to PC on 286, 386, etc.) I wrote small programs to see how the machine performes in respect to 2D and 3D stuff (and my knowledge at that time).
My first task at my first employment was extend a software running on SGI Workstation in GL which was developed in house by a former employee.
This machine was just a dream to work on and some 3D artists showed my how to use Softimage and what they where creating in the 3D department. So I worked with 3D artists and created inhouse tools for them and toyed around with Softimage after the working hours.
I created a 3D browser plugin for the netscape browser on PC and lots of other 3D related software.
One day I got the opportunity to work for a small studio on some 3D game titles and I could not resist.
I switched from C4D to LightWave 9.6, later 10. and years later right into LW2020.

3D is my hobby now and software development is my profession.
I am 53 years old now and started to create 3D assets for a game engine... I think I will do 3D until my eyes/brain/hands don't let me do it any further.

--
As a software developer I used to do most 3D stuff in OpenGL and it is sad to see how Apple trashes this technology.
This reduces all hopes for transitions of LightWave to newer versions of MacOS.

 

[Ma3rk]

Guess I'll toss in as well.

I hit that magic number of soixante neuf next month. Description with the Avatar sort of gives it away.

There were so many times where I was just thumb-twiddling waiting for technology to catch up with what I knew the capabilities were. That along with my bank account of course.

Anyone ever hear of Spin Physics? Probably not. An R&D division of EKCo in the early '80's. I used to deal with Kodak Park folk on nearly a daily basis. Very, very early digital tech. But as usual, Kodak was way too early for practical & sellable products, but the Genie was out of the bottle of what was coming.

I bought Lightwave back in Ver 4 when it was first released on PC. Before that, I was literally working on the first video games, as in lighting live action sequences that were comped into digital sets. On a project for Activision that we shot for 6 weeks before they axed it, I made the comment that all of this is going to be done digitally soon. And it was just a few months later.

In the 70's, I used to cut PSA's and such on 16mm. I swore after a 16+ hour session that if anyone every made a computer system that could do this stuff, I was getting one. Jump to the late 90's & I get a Matrox DigiSuite. A friend gets me a gig doing an animated Promo piece for a new Fox show that's to be release in the Fall, "Family Guy". I used LW, probably 5.6 for that, and After Effects 7.0 I think.

Anyway, my own work is strictly for me these days; I knew quickly that I couldn't make a living with this, (although I did for awhile), but I also knew that I couldn't NOT continue to create in digital. Made my living for years with conventional photography, but that was no longer viable.

I worked in the film biz for nearly 30 years (finally retiring), on some real pieces of drek of course, but on a number of high end features with cutting edge digital too. Being on a crew and having that background & interest made it much easier to communicate with tech & FX directors, and they always appreciated that. That alone actually turned a two day work call, into 5+ years of employment with a couple of the top rigging gaffers in LA.

As you can see, I could blather on and on. But as a final comment, try to see the last film I worked on if you can, "The Tragedy of MacBeth", and one of my favorite DP's, Bruno Delbonnel.