What does Lightwave need to bring us up to par with the big guns

[prometheus]

What old version are you still using that makes you think all those features are missing natively or unavailable through 3rd party plugins?

old versions or not, none of them has any GPU support for rendering other than octane third party, I believe he ment it has to be natively, not third party..if not, why on earth even bother with that slow cpu renderer natively.

As for denoisers ..that I think is adressed to some degree.
I say it´s the holy three, which is..

Number one, at vizrt..we talk about development, it´s about customer trust you know.
Number two..in lightwave we can model in layout like any other software.
Number three in lightwave, we can choose cpu or gpu natively to compete with free software.

and a lot lot more in a distant time coming within the LW development cycle..but we are only hinting, not declaring anything..it´s the only way to be sure.

 

[RemovedByRequest]

One thing that has got me thinking, the number on this Lightwave forum if we whittle it down to the regulars is a bout 15 people. If you think about it from a maths and statistics part of view as to how much we are relative to all Lightwave product users being for the sake of the argument 10,000, we are only an insane fraction of the actual user base.

When we say oh we know what it needs x, y, z and what it can or cannot and we say this in this forum from 15 people, given the the full population of Lightwave users might be 10,000 it got me thinking. Maybe Lightwave is good enough for 98% of the Lightwave users being hobbyist, semi pros, full pros, small studios, medium studios and large and maybe we some or most of us are 2% where Lightwave is not good enough.

Another thing I was thinking with regards to small stuidos, medium studios and large studios with regards to Lightwave Vs the other packages......... How many of the other packages offer free 999 network nodes in a render network for free. 100% FREE. Think about them, they render over a network whether it is CPU or GPU, even GPU you have to pay for licenses (Octane et al). From a studio they are commercial and as a business you have to do COB cost of doing business. The render engine might not be the absolute best in the world, but it is good and when you can have 999 free network nodes and you have COB to factor in maybe Lightwave isn't such a bad thing for studios of ALL sizes.

The point is the Studios of all sizes are not on this forum and neither is the majority of the user base (massive understatement). Even if a lot of us (being 15 people in this forum) has issues maybe the studios and 98% of lightwave users don't and are quite happy. Not only that but maybe Newtek and Vizrt ARE very busy communicating with the studios and the majority of the userbase, its just that it isn't us which is really 15 grumpy old fart geeks.

I bet there are a lot professionals and stuidos that purely use Lightwave just because of the 999 free unlicensed network nodes and don't have to pay the insane license fees of using the other 3D packages, whether it be a cpu netowrk or gpu network or hybrid.

One last rant about GPU rendering the addressable space of a single GPU is 48GB and the addressable range of system memory is 6,0000 GB on an Intel server. I don't want other people say oh you can put 2 48gb cards together, or I can fix it with composting and do it on a GPU. I am just saying that MAYBE you need a lot of than 48GB for some jobs and for SOME people 48GB doesn't cut it.

 

[Shabazzy]

When we say oh we know what it needs x, y, z and what it can or cannot and we say this in this forum from 15 people, given the the full population of Lightwave users might be 10,000 it got me thinking. Maybe Lightwave is good enough for 98% of the Lightwave users being hobbyist, semi pros, full pros, small studios, medium studios and large and maybe we some or most of us are 2% where Lightwave is not good enough.

With this in mind, it may explain why NT haven't really made efforts to communicate with the doom and gloomer LWers because behind the scenes they have been listening to industry professionals who use LW and have worked with them to fix issues that they may have had as a priority, thus keeping them happy. These solutions may subsequently have trickled down to future releases for the rest of us.

I don't know if that's something they continue to do now, but I know it happened in the past and that it helped to establish the software in the entertainment industry during the early days at least.

That being said, I would say I am definitely part of that 98% of satisfied users.

LW does what I need and I make money with it. I can't complain. NT have been very good to me.

 

[prometheus]

That must be it, finally the truth may have revealed itself and it now makes sense, Vizrt only communicates with studios that doesn´t speak in these forums..even though they say they don´t talk about development, that is why the lw team now is increasing in size and that is why the latest release was so full of new features.

As I recall, there was even someone from a big studio here in Sweden who was a bit frustrated about the current situation, not knowing what was going on, so most likely they must play some cards on which studios they should talk too of those that are not doom and gloomers.

 

[sadkkf]

What about LightWave going the way of Keyshot? Render only.

I know Keyshot can do some animation, but if LW focused on rendering only I might actually use it again.

 

[pmwhite]

What old version are you still using that makes you think all those features are missing natively or unavailable through 3rd party plugins?

Hello Raymondtrace, Im currently using Lightwave 2020.0.3
Please dont be offended, Im just answering the question asked, by this thread, its just my point of view.
If i am mistaken, thank you, please tell me where i can activate the GPU Option for rendering and VPR.
Regarding Denoising, again if i am mistaken, thank you, please tell me where i can activate Intel Open denoiser within Lightwave 2020.0.3.
A lot of tools do not appear to be supported by snapping, can you tell me why you believe my previous comments are inaccurate.
I would love to be able to say Lightwave performs better than say Blender on my PC, but for me, unfortunately, it doesnt. Im sorry, but there is no reason why it cannot be improved to help it compete.
I love lightwave and want it to be inovative again, and be on par, or outperform its compediters.
Newtek dev's thank you for keeping the lightwave project alive by releasing 2020.0.3.
Sincerely Pat

 

[prometheus]

If i am mistaken, thank you, please tell me where i can activate the GPU Option for rendering and VPR.

You can´t with native Lightwave, you have to purchase yet another software, which is Octane for GPU rendering.
Octane can´t access all lightwave fractals either to be aware of when you make your stuff.

 

[prometheus]

What about LightWave going the way of Keyshot? Render only.

I know Keyshot can do some animation, but if LW focused on rendering only I might actually use it again.

Doesn´t make much of a sense, would only mean lesser customer base, and secondly the competition against Keyshot is too tough.
A tiny hope that if vizrt was moving the Lw platform to be as they say"in sync" with their other productline, they should extract realtime technology and implement in lightwave and provide yet another tool that can do realtime rendering when needed for some stuff, unreal and eevee is what they would be up against, but then again..they already are up against it in the ring.

 

[pmwhite]

You can´t with native Lightwave, you have to purchase yet another software, which is Octane for GPU rendering.
Octane can´t access all lightwave fractals either to be aware of when you make your stuff.

Thanks for Confirming Prometheus, thats what i thought, i had hoped (following raymondtrace's comments) that i was missing something in my workflow to activate this functionality with lightwave.
Cheers.

 

[raymondtrace]

Hello Raymondtrace, Im currently using Lightwave 2020.0.3
Please dont be offended, Im just answering the question asked, by this thread, its just my point of view.
If i am mistaken, thank you, please tell me where i can activate the GPU Option for rendering and VPR.
Regarding Denoising, again if i am mistaken, thank you, please tell me where i can activate Intel Open denoiser within Lightwave 2020.0.3.
A lot of tools do not appear to be supported by snapping, can you tell me why you believe my previous comments are inaccurate.
I would love to be able to say Lightwave performs better than say Blender on my PC, but for me, unfortunately, it doesnt. Im sorry, but there is no reason why it cannot be improved to help it compete.
I love lightwave and want it to be inovative again, and be on par, or outperform its compediters.
Newtek dev's thank you for keeping the lightwave project alive by releasing 2020.0.3.
Sincerely Pat

No worries. There's no offense.

GPU rendering is available for free in LightWave with the Unreal Bridge. There's also the paid option of Octane. Blender can also interact with Unreal/Octane/ProRender/etc. All 3D apps have rendering options. Even Maya utilizes an external renderer like V-Ray.

Both native CPU and GPU (Nvidia only) denoising options are available in LightWave's render options panel. For optional OIDN, you can get the free plugin from Denis @ https://dpont.pagesperso-orange.fr/plugins/nodes/DP_Filter.html#OIDN

The great thing about Denis' plugin is that OIDN works on LW2015 - LW2020 (more versions than the native denoiser).

If you're familiar with Blender and you get better results, keep at it. There's no crime in using the tool you know and the tool that accomplishes a task.

What about LightWave going the way of Keyshot? Render only.

I know Keyshot can do some animation, but if LW focused on rendering only I might actually use it again.

Keyshot is kind of a dumb renderer with a narrow audience. It is not a useful market to compete within. There are increasingly more photoreal rendering options being offered to CAD designers within their native workspaces. Anyway, Adobe/Substance will likely kill off KeyShot (and the market of any other render-only tool).

 

[pmwhite]

No worries. There's no offense.

GPU rendering is available for free in LightWave with the Unreal Bridge. There's also the paid option of Octane. Blender can also interact with Unreal/Octane/ProRender/etc. All 3D apps have rendering options. Even Maya utilizes an external renderer like V-Ray.

Both native CPU and GPU (Nvidia only) denoising options are available in LightWave's render options panel. For optional OIDN, you can get the free plugin from Denis @ https://dpont.pagesperso-orange.fr/plugins/nodes/DP_Filter.html#OIDN

The great thing about Denis' plugin is that OIDN works on LW2015 - LW2020 (more versions than the native denoiser).

If you're familiar with Blender and you get better results, keep at it. There's no crime in using the tool you know and the tool that accomplishes a task.



Keyshot is kind of a dumb renderer with a narrow audience. It is not a useful market to compete within. There are increasingly more photoreal rendering options being offered to CAD designers within their native workspaces. Anyway, Adobe/Substance will likely kill off KeyShot (and the market of any other render-only tool).

Thank you for your insights

 

[prometheus]

No worries. There's no offense.

GPU rendering is available for free in LightWave with the Unreal Bridge. There's also the paid option of Octane. Blender can also interact with Unreal/Octane/ProRender/etc. All 3D apps have rendering options. Even Maya utilizes an external renderer like V-Ray.

Both native CPU and GPU (Nvidia only) denoising options are available in LightWave's render options panel. For optional OIDN, you can get the free plugin from Denis @ https://dpont.pagesperso-orange.fr/plugins/nodes/DP_Filter.html#OIDN

The great thing about Denis' plugin is that OIDN works on LW2015 - LW2020 (more versions than the native denoiser).

If you're familiar with Blender and you get better results, keep at it. There's no crime in using the tool you know and the tool that accomplishes a task.



Keyshot is kind of a dumb renderer with a narrow audience. It is not a useful market to compete within. There are increasingly more photoreal rendering options being offered to CAD designers within their native workspaces. Anyway, Adobe/Substance will likely kill off KeyShot (and the market of any other render-only tool).

Keyshot is often sought after as a skillset within many job ads over here, Lightwave pretty much none ..not officially anyway.
Though I agree that it´s not a useful market for lightwave to compete with it on those term.

GPU rendering for free in Lightwave with Unreal Bridge? are we talking about rendering inside of Lightwave or allowing for any free GPU rendering options Outside of lightwave now?

 

[raymondtrace]

Keyshot is often sought after as a skillset within many job ads over here...

So is Microsoft Word. That does not mean there is an extraordinary skillset required to use the tool. KeyShot remains marketed to a more casual 3D user. Any LightWave artist could figure out the basics of KeyShot in an hour or two. Then they can spend 10 hours looking for non-existent functions they know are present in LightWave. Even with CPU/GPU render options, KeyShot can still be slower.

I'm not sure why there's an issue with a distinction of "rendering inside Lightwave" versus outside. The gains of LOD and realtime rendering in a game engine cancel out any hassle you might perceive.

 

[lwanmtr]

GPU rendering for free in Lightwave with Unreal Bridge? are we talking about rendering inside of Lightwave or allowing for any free GPU rendering options Outside of lightwave now?

I think the topic is about what LW needs natively, without the need for a 3rd party app. However free gpu/cpu rendering can be done in blender for free as well.

 

[raymondtrace]

I think the topic is about what LW needs natively, without the need for a 3rd party app. However free gpu/cpu rendering can be done in blender for free as well.

There are no confines. This topic is about nonsense. Which was recognized in posts #2 and 3.

 

[prometheus]

There are no confines. This topic is about nonsense. Which was recognized in posts #2 and 3.

Can´t see how post 2 and 3 validates this topic as being of nonsense.
What I can see is that asking about what Lightwave needs are definitely a point of view of confining it to what Lightwave can improve, and as such aiming for sending a lightwave scene to blender with perfect match to utilize it´s GPU or sending to Unreal to utilizing it´s GPU is all fine to some degree, but not when you need other items or setups You can´t send to those third party, it kind of becomes a bit ludicrus to Not confining the topic to what lightwave needs, when the topic is about what Lightwave needs.

 

[RemovedByRequest]

That being said, I would say I am definitely part of that 98% of satisfied users.

I am also part of the 98% of satisfied users. Granted I am a better hobbyist photographer than a hobbyist 3D modeler, but for my own personal needs I am 100% happy with Lightwave 3D 2020 and that makes 2 of us Shabazzy that are satisfied on this forum. Any more satisfied people on this forum? Please say if you are, it is nice to hear from you.

 

[sadkkf]

So is Microsoft Word. That does not mean there is an extraordinary skillset required to use the tool. KeyShot remains marketed to a more casual 3D user. Any LightWave artist could figure out the basics of KeyShot in an hour or two. Then they can spend 10 hours looking for non-existent functions they know are present in LightWave. Even with CPU/GPU render options, KeyShot can still be slower.

I'm not sure why there's an issue with a distinction of "rendering inside Lightwave" versus outside. The gains of LOD and realtime rendering in a game engine cancel out any hassle you might perceive.

I'm not sure Keyshot is marketed that way. It's very expensive. It's also very popular in the ZBrush community.

 

[prometheus]

I'm not sure Keyshot is marketed that way. It's very expensive. It's also very popular in the ZBrush community.

It´s focus is on product design rendering, not general vfx or similar.
I did try early keyshot many years ago, quite fast for cpu rendering with physicle lights and surface realism and reflection look that I had a hard time replicating at that time
with Lightwave 10, keyshot was easier to get nice results, but was quite expensive though at that time I think compared to LW.

There´sa large 3D printer retailer over here that constantly sends newsmail about 3D max, zbrush, cinema4D and Keyshot updates, so it get´s attention that way by those involved in concept design.

I think a fellow Lightwave user known for his great movie props (Jet Cooper) uses lightwave And Keyshot from time to time as well.

Within the major unemployment agency, I currently found 10 ads of Keyshot skillset required, some concept design, automotiv etc.
Currently found 0 ads published for Lightwave, and generally that is a constant for years and years as opposed to the above when searching for various other software skillsets.
This is however probably very dependent on country and region.
(edit..I found one ad I have saved from 2021 februari where Lightwave was mentioned as one of the skillsets)

Lightwave search string..zero ads...

Keyshot searchstring..10 ads..

There are of course most likely hidden ads/jobs ..where studios may use Lightwave but perhaps not actively publish the position, but that is as different matter.
With some exception for a few larger game companies that seem to utilize people with the skills in Lightwave, I think there are a few smaller freelancers mostly though.

 

[raymondtrace]

I'm not sure Keyshot is marketed that way...

I'm sure there's a website or something to find out how it is marketed.

Their main audience is product rendering...an audience that already has a CAD model. You can tell the focus of an app from the interchange file formats. Proprietary CAD compatibility is not cheap to license.

Prometheus, check out the marketing for KeyShot. It is marketed to amateurs with the same skillset to use Microsoft Word. The job postings with KeyShot in the description are meaningless. You can learn the software in an afternoon. https://www.keyshot.com/features/how-it-works/