This is unexpected news! Very glad to hear a group of LightWave veterans have succeeded in convincing Vizrt to let LightWave go and be managed by people who actually appreciate its qualities. A world without LightWave is a darker place indeed.
[
devil's advocate mode on]
That said --playing the devil's advocate-- after reading through the Andrew's Discord messages, it seems that the unification of Modeler<->Layout is a long long way out (years), and the new team decided to continue to develop Layout the way Newtek did after Core's demise by adding modeling tools in Layout bit by bit.
It's great to read about bug fixing (including ancient bugs still around from the 5x release), a focus on GPU rendering, removing the existing redundancy in Modeler tools, improving interoperability (import/export) with other apps,
Yet without that much-needed unification LightWave will remain hampered by its legacy split code base - and not only for its users. Even the new team probably realizes that having to maintain two separate apps with all the Hub issues and limitations will gobble up more development time to keep both apps updated.
For example: I assume they will (need to!) update and replace the OpenGL viewport API to Vulcan/Metal to remain future-proof. But that now needs to be implemented in both Modeler AND Layout with two different code bases. It's a waste of time to have to update both. (ps I do hope the new team will support Linux as well!)
Same for raw performance: Layout beats the pants out of Modeler. Modeler's performance is (let's just call it as it is) dreadful compared to any other DCC. Does that mean having to optimize Modeler separately from Layout as well? More lost development time?
But on the other hand unifying LightWave is going to take at a minimum 5 to 7 years to complete. This was Newteks conundrum: LightWave's user base and place in the market is diminished to a trickle of where it was all those years ago, and initial revenue is minimal. Refactoring and rebuilding LightWave into a unified app will take time and a good team of expensive developers (GPU rendering developers are in extreme demand!), and the immediate solution to generate income is to continue to develop the separate Modeler and Layout. But that takes away development time from the unified rebuild, which then would take much longer - time that no-one can afford, neither user nor developer.
So I am very very curious how the new team plans on tackling these challenges in the years to come. The decision to stick with the current split app structure is going to slow down development, no matter how you look at it. And unified apps will offer all the functional advantages on top of that, which makes it harder to compete on features alone.
And then there is the issue of existing DCCs that have continued to grow their feature list, while LightWave stood still for the past three years or so. Modeler far longer than that. LightWave cannot compete with any of the major DCCs on a feature-by-feature basis. Yes, I know; LightWave has its own unique advantages. But LightWave is, for the most of it, a forgotten software. Absolutely no-one under 30 that I speak to knows about LightWave. How would any newcomer in this industry be attracted to LightWave as a non-unified app? Perhaps the odd duckling who wants something different... Everyone else? No.
And while the new team challenges itself to update LightWave to become feature-par with other DCCs, those other DCCs are already 5 years or more ahead of LW in terms of features, and the new team will have to catch up as well. But where is the new influx of users going to come from?
Worse, the open source competitor is very much ahead of the current LightWave as well and continues to develop at a momentous speed. Sure, in certain aspects LightWave can compete and even still better the competition, yet in quite a few crucial areas it cannot. Why would a newcomer --or for that matter user who left LightWave-- choose LightWave when it cannot compete on either pricing (free!) nor feature set?
Let alone on community? The vast ecosystem of free support that it has?
I haven't got a clue. I am really really trying to understand how this reboot of LightWave is going to work. I truly hope this isn't to become a second TrueSpace or an "Amiga reboot" that sounds wonderful right now that everyone is stoked that LightWave is "saved", but ultimately proves entirely impractical and insolvent as a business proposition in the end in a few years down the line.
[
devil's advocate mode off]
Then again, I might be blind to the business opportunities presented by LightWave, and the new team knows exactly how to circumvent the aforementioned dire straits.
I wish you
@akbishop and your team all the best. You convinced Vizrt/Newtek of the validity of your business plan, which means you may have discovered a route to navigate and overcome all the above icebergs on your route to a successful reboot of LightWave. If that turns out to be the case, I wish you all the luck in the world. The underdog deserves a place in the sun!
More information is forthcoming, I read on Discord. My interest is piqued no matter how this plays out. At least NewTek/Vizrt is out of the picture, and THAT can only be a good thing.
@BernieBn I believe the new team intends to take over the LightWave site and create a new forum. The current Discord is only used for the upcoming few weeks while they make the transition.
