Newtek LightWave 3D v9.6 PortableLightWave 3D® is a complete modeling, animation and rendering solution. Its native renderer is unparalleled and serves as the centerpiece in the production pipeline of many facilities both large and small. Render nodes are free and set up is quite straightforward. LightWave Modeler excels both as a subdivision surface and a polygonal modeler, fast, efficient and again, straightforward in functionality. In addition, an industry leading node-based texturing and shading system allows you to create any look you desire - quickly and easily.
At NewTek, our mission is to develop cutting-edge and feature-rich products which allow ordinary people to do extraordinary things. We have a history of revolutionizing the industry with powerful, easy to use tools that work like you do - and don't break the bank in the process. It is our mission to make it realistic for you to realize your dreams, no matter where they take you, from architectural visualization, to independent production and major studio visual effects.
You'll find LightWave is the most complete and robust 3D system right out of the box anywhere at any price. It is a thriving, dynamic system, ever evolving to meet the needs of our users. We work closely on a day-to-day basis with LightWave artists so that we know exactly what you are trying to accomplish. The LightWave renderer is first class and infinitely easier to set up and use than any other, not to mention the fact that unlimited render nodes are free.
We take great pride in the fact that LightWave artists have won more Emmy Awards than those using any other package. We are proud of the fact that our user community is the most passionate, most active and most helpful in the industry. LightWave is more than a 3D program, it is a business, it is an art form, it is a film, it is a game, it is realistic, it is cartoonish, it is moving, it is still... it is whatever you make of it.
LightWave is in the midst of a major renaissance driven by the needs of 3D artists worldwide. Vast improvements have been made to the system in the LightWave v9 development cycle. A large troupe of LightWave artists contribute to the development efforts through the Open Beta program, where registered owners of LightWave v9 gain early access to the software for testing and feedback. As a result, the LightWave v9 series, including the recent LightWave v9.5, has seen the addition of the following benefits:
Character Animation Enhancements:
* FiberFX: Complete hair and fur solution for all platforms.
* Collada, FBX and OBJ I/O support: Improved compatibility with other applications.
* Enhanced IK and Animation Systems: Provides improved character animation controls.
Rendering:
* IES Lighting: Accurately duplicate physical lights from manufacturers’ datasheets.
* Radiosity Cache: Unique animated and static caching with size multipliers.
* Photoreal Motion Blur: Artifact-free live action blur as if photographed with film
* New anti-aliasing methods: Greater control for balancing quality with render speed.
* New global illumination and radiosity: Easily create photorealistic scenes, sharacters and products while simulating the effect of real-world lighting in photography.
* Progressive previews for global illumination: Provide immediate feedback
* Implementation of state-of-the-art BSP/KD Tree Algorithm: Provides much faster and more efficient raytracing; bigger scenes render a lot faster.
* Improved multi-threading with dynamic segmentation: Insures maximum use of available CPUs, optimizing render times.
Adaptive Pixel Subdivision:
* Speed increases many times over previous versions of LightWave: More efficient render times for today's increasingly ambitious high polygon-count scenes for production.
* Adaptive subdivision of a mesh based upon distance from the camera and visibility: Allows for effective use of system resources for workflow viewing versus rendering.
* APS Choice: Per Object, Per Polygon and Per Pixel: Provides the widest range of flexibility.
Advanced Camera Tools:
* RealLens Camera: Physically correct cameras allow recreation of any real-world camera lens for matching footage rendered in LightWave to real-world photography. (a must for compositing CGI and real footage together)
* New rendering technology produces scenes using arbitrary camera lenses and warps: Create fantastic effects such as: camera plane deformations, arbitrary projections, UV map generation, true orthographic rendering, space warp simulations, lens distortion duplicating real-world lenses or "imaginary" lenses and one-camera 360° panorama rendering.
Node Editor:
* New subsurface scattering materials and shaders: Accurately simulates lighting and shading for materials such as marble, milk, etc., as well as a specific and easy to use material for skin shading.
* Material Nodes: Conductor, Dielectric, Delta and more: Allow for the creation of physically accurate surfaces such as glass, liquid and metals quicker and easier than ever before.
* New Make Material and Standard Nodes: Allow for conbination of shading models and other node maps to create your own distinct material.
* Blinn, Oren-Nayar, Ambient Occlusion and other shading models: Provide unlimited shading possibilites.
* Shaders for sub-surface scattering & anisotropic specular & reflection shaders: Allow for easy-to-use chromatic dispersion in surfaces, and offer spectacular visual impact.
* Support for normal maps from ZBrush® 2 and Mudbox™: Adds incredible detail to low-poly models via displacement.
* Workflow flexibility: Nodes can be used freely with layers and even shader plug-ins.
* Full support of native controls and envelopes: Best of both worlds when texturing materials - quick and easy traditional layers and powerful and flexible nodes.
* Full SDK support: Allows third-parties to create nodes (including shading models) and for third-party renderers to interface with and query nodal shaders. A vast selection of third-party nodes and cameras is already available.
Modeling:
* Improved editing performance: Create and edit your models and meshes faster than ever before.
* New screen drawing system in OpenGL: See the results of your changes faster than ever before.
* Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces: Expand and simplify the modling workflow by widening subdivision capabilities to include edges, edge weighting and n-gons.
Other LightWave Benefits:
* Native 64-bit support: Ability to access more RAM allows for creation of more complex and realistic scenes, as well as production at higher resolutions for film, high-definition television and print.
* Multiplatform: Provides complete operating system flexibility from work to home: Windows 32-bit, 64-bit, Mac Universal Binary.
* Dual & Multicore support: Allow you to tap into the full power of the latest advancements in hardware technology.
* Unlimited Free Render Nodes: Make photorealistic rendering affordable across a large network.
* Free technical support: Saves time and money.
Lightwave 3D v9.6 benefits
LightWave Platforms
A new platform has been added, Windows 32-bit with SSE2 enhancements.
Modeler
Modeler in the Windows version now does drag and drop for files.
Layout
* Added drag-and-drop to the UI or the program icon for Layout Windows version, supports audio, lwo, lws, obj, images.
* Added drag-and-drop of image files to the Image Editor.
* Drag-and-drop extended to support .srf and image files dropped into the surface and texture image panes.
* Dynamic Range Limit enhanced to provide a range, with Minimum and Maximum values in the Image Processing window. Negative values also supported.
* Implemented "Exclude From Volume Stack" for surfaces.
* Added the new raytrace functions (see SDK section) into volumetrics and pixel filters.
* Added control script for setting the Radiosity Sample Diagnostics Flags.
* The Radiosity Flags (Render tab/Utilities/Radiosity Flags) are now stored in the scene file.
* Added ability to lock down Z buffer minimum and maximum range for export, for improved compositing compatibility:
o Minimum sets the 0 point in the buffer.
o Maximum sets the 1 point in the buffer.
* Added snapping to item position (specifically to pivot point) when dragging items in Layout.
* During Layout's bone re-parenting process, it now notifies plugins of the new bone item being added as well as the old bone item being removed.
* Package Scene has undergone a significant rewrite:
o New option "Preserve Existing Structure," will attempt to preserve all directories and subdirectories that are under the current Content directory when copying assets to the new content directory.
o New option "Reload Old Scene," reloads the original scene after exporting.
o Changed handling of Radiosity cache files,to work with the new Radiosity path behavior. Will also respect file structure if Preserve File Structure option is selected.
o Added an option for Radiosity cache files to be included in the package or not.
* Added an option to draw wireframe handles and gizmos using antialiased lines. This improves the look of bones quite a bit. The "Handle Wire Smoothing" setting is in the Handles&Icons tab of the Display preferences panel. 0 (default) is off, larger values make the lines thicker (7 seems to work well). If set, this value also controls the line thickness of the grid, if grid antialiasing is enabled.
* Made Parent In Place more aware of scaling sign.
* Two new Lscripts for working creating or assigning handles have been added: Create Handle, Assign Handle.
* Enhanced Viper performance for all modes and all platforms.
* Added new Mirror Hierarchy generic LScript.
* Added Foot Printer LScript for automatically adding footprints to a character scene.
FiberFX Highlights:
Polygonal fiber modeler suitable for creating hair, fur and feathers, and consists of five plugins:
* Fiber Modeler - Creates Polygonal Fiber models, fat hair, feathers, triangle strips
* Strand Tool - Modeler tool to adjust guide chains using Inverse Kinematics
* Strand Maker - Modeler plug-in to create fiber strands with standard tools.
* Fiber Filter - Pixel filter renders two point polygon strands.
* Fiber Node Handler - Nodal interface for control.
* Added occlusion culling of fibers. Speedup depends on how many fibers are behind in the z buffer.
* Added support for multiple FiberFX instances on a single mesh. Cloned FiberFX instances have a "(#)" appended to the object name in list. Deactivating a cloned instance removes the entry from the list.
* Added right mouse button menu popup with clone command.
* Implemented Feature Request Case 15884: Added stereo rendering ability to FiberFX.
* Reworked mouse deltas for better combing. Comb direction is now independent of starting point.
* Changed clamping of color values to support HDRI. Added dynamic range limits and clamping to LW interface values from the image processing panel.
* Added FFx object list popup menu item (Save To Default) to save the current ffsurface as the default to be used the next time a new instance is created. This will allow the user to customize their default settings. Added support functions to save default to user setting folder.
* Multi-threaded depth buffer raycast is now enabled. This allows the pixel filter to operate with the raytraced cameras, including features such as Depth of Field and Photoreal Motion Blur. Motion Blur must be on for this to engage, though the blur level can be set to 0. The quality is controlled using the Motion Blur passes setting.
* Work has been done in FiberFX on disallowing subd changes after editing guides. This was a major source of guide edit crashes in bug reports. This will enforce the same subd level for preview and rendering. A warning message will be displayed when they are different, informing user that these settings need to be matched when using FiberFX.
* Some optimizations have been made to the FiberFX IK solver.
* Revised the way modeled strand fibers are built. Previously they were clones, now they are shortened on the inside of the curve and lengthened on the outside of the curve, following the modeled strand in a more natural way. See image attached below.
* Guide edit panel now resets its control state when switching between editing objects.
* Added "Random" toggle button for Swirl to make a random starting rotation offset, plus load and save code.
Size: 59 MBDownLoad
